Center of the Universe

I showed up in Las Vegas saturday night for a three week TDY at Nellis. At first, it was easy to be focus on the Vegas stuff, you know all the pretty colors and stuff. But once you've been there, done that, they become just another garish assualt on the senses in the middle of a beautiful desert. Here at Nellis though I am in the center of the Fighter Pilot universe.
Here is the home of Fighter Weapons School, the Aggressors, Dreamland, Red Flag, etc. It is a gathering of the no-kidding best of the best. Not just from my community either, but all the different fighters, the bombers, the controllers, CSAR, everybody. I have a feeling I'm going to be very busy on this TDY as I pick the brains of all the people I can trying to get a better feel for what they do, how they do, and how we fit together to become the world's most effective air force.
There is also a Red Flag going on, so there are tons of different people and airframes in town which has been very cool. It's amazing how small this world is. It not like I've been around all that long, but I went to a Strike Eagle naming Saturday and knew five dudes, hung out with Kadena Eagle drivers I knew. Ran into some F-16 guys I knew; all in 24 hours. I look forward to seeing what else is in store out here...

New York, New York

First off, I apologize for not writing for so long. It has from lack of anything interesting going on, in fact probably because of too much.
I will not attempt to catch up, perhaps we could do that in person, but will pick up with one of the more recent events. We were continuing our Noble Eagle mission a couple weeks ago when the U.N. met for their annual General Assembly in New York City. So for several days my squadron was manning the Combat Air Patrols (CAP) overhead. On one particular flight, we took off at 5 AM (yes it was a very early brief) and screamed up the coast arriving over NYC in just under 30 minutes (not bad huh). After hitting the tanker in the dark (never fun), we took over the CAP and started flying in our circles.
NYC from the air at night is a very cool sight. Both islands are completely covered with a squirming grid of yellow lights punctuated by red and white as lonely vehicles crawl across unseen roads. Manhattan is more like a garish mix of color and moving shadows as you continually change your perspective at a few hundred miles an hour. Times Square in particular stands out with the large jumbotrons that seem almost readable from several miles up. After a bit the scene began to change as the sun peeked over the horizon. A sunrise from a single seat fighter is an unparalleled thing. There is absolutely nothing to block your view and you are actually part of the atmosphere that is creating the scene. On this flight there was (thankfully) nothing to do but enjoy the moment, and I did.
The rest of the 5 hour flight I got to spend sightseeing over the city with my binoculars (and reading a magazine). Not a bad morning; and easy to forget that I was flying the world's most capable fighter loaded up with live missiles…