Fights on!

I'm back from Alaska and I am NOT liking all this heat and humidity. It was a nice 40 to 50 degrees every day in Alaska. Just when it was starting to get warm enough for their giant mosquitos to come out, our time was up at Red Flag Alaska. I did some hiking and explored Denali National Park (where Mt McKinley is) a bit, but I guess the bears were still in hibernation. I had two main objectives for my trip: see a moose, and see the northern lights (aurora borealis). I ended up only achieving half of those. Because of the time of year, it just never really got dark enough for a good night sky. Even from the time we showed up to the day we left, the amount of daylight had increased by an hour. It really didn't get dark until 11pm or so and even at 2am, you could still see a bit of light from the "sunset". It took a little getting used to since your body definitely wants to keep going when it's light outside, even though it's late at night.
But the other objective was a big success. The very first weekend we were there, I went with some other people to Denali in hopes of seeing all kinds of wilderness. And after a whole day of nothing, coming through the gate back on base, we see a moose just standing outside the fence line at the end of the runway! And then, as we continued towards the lodging, we saw another one at the visitor center! It turned out that base was the place to go for moose spotting. They seemed to get more bold as the weather got warmer too. By the end, I saw one standing outside our lodging building one morning around 5am. There were lots of reports of lynx around Denali and the range near base but no luck on that.
As for the flying, the sky was full of vipers, eagles, and raptors (planes that is). It was pretty funny (and awesome) getting to go to Red Flag because back in pilot training, I always pictured it as a fighter-only sort of deal. And although the fighter mentality still runs the show, the bombers end up being the key part of the mission (because we're the ones who take out the important targets after all fighter jocks finish their air-to-air party). As a new pilot, it was really helpful to see how the whole mission goes from start to finish and how all the players fit in. The whole concept of Red Flag is to provide pilots with their first handful of sorties that are as close to a real war scenario as possible to increase our odds when the time comes. And they like to say that the Red Flag scenarios are often more difficult and intricate even than most real missions are.
I actually got picked up to go to the exercise because the other squadron here on base didn't have enough copilots to make up the number of crews that they were trying to send. So although it was a shame I didn't get to go with my own squadron, it was really lucky that out of all the pilots around, I got to go. Because the squadron sent so many crews, I only got to fly a couple sorties in the exercise, which was less than I was hoping. But it was definitely worth it.
It was also nice flying on a hard crew (so to speak). Even though I've been out of the FTU for a few months now, this was my first time getting to fly on a jet with only 5 crewmembers (no instructors or extra guys trying to rehack their currencies). Some other firsts/landmarks for the trip: New personal highest altitude (42,000'), first time flying with a survival vest on (along with long johns and a winter jacket - I got pretty sweaty as usual), first time shooting skeet (I've learned that any place that has lots of wildlife, also has lots of people with guns), first time flying with and against fighters on a sortie. It was also the first time I fly the B-52 anywhere besides Barksdale. That's pretty unremarkable for most planes, but in the BUFF, we really don't touch the ground at many other places besides the home station.

I didn't get to fly a B-52 there or back (we had a chartered 737) which was sort of a bummer. I was looking forward to my first time flying in international airspace (through Canada). But I heard that when they flew as a three-ship home, they fly by Mt McKinley and got some good photos with the jets. As for my photography, yes, I have been going fisheye crazy. With the new lens Ellen got me for our anniversary present, I've been taking super wide shots everywhere (mostly in the plane). I'll do my best to keep it under control for the photos we take in Japan.

Next up on the flying agenda: the vault. Can't say much about it, but I'll be done with it after this week and then I'll be in the next category of qualifications which means I can take part in lots of exercises and inspections (not necessarily a positive thing...).