Taxi Fam Day at Whiting Field!!!

A couple of weekends ago I had the opportunity of a lifetime to taxi the plane my husband is training on! 

Since November, Beau has been learning how to fly on the Navy’s T-34 training aircraft.  (For those of you who don’t know, Beau is in the Coast Guard so don’t be confused- he’s not a Navy guy!)  Hopefully in a week he will be completely done with his airplane training and then he can start learning how to fly helicopters!! 

All geared up for my big T-34 debut with Beau!  Note the different
patches we're both wearing... Beau couldn't find his extra set of
patches the morning of... I'm wearing a funky combo of patches we found at home!

By this time next year, the T-34 will be phased out and the newer and faster T-6 will take its spot.  Because of safety reasons (aka the ejection seat) no one other than military personnel will be able to taxi the T-6… so I am one of the lucky last spouses who was able to taxi the T-34!

It was pretty fun!  I wore Beau’s flight suit (which was ridiculously HUGE on me!), his helmet, and gloves.  When it was my turn, I hopped into the back of the cockpit, an aviator student helped buckle me in, hooked up my helmet microphone, and then my flight instructor drove us out to the tarmac!

Posing for the camera while climbing in the cockpit!

It was super hot inside the plane… Beau said that it’s gotten as hot as 140F when he’s been inside!  Yuck!  But it was so cool to taxi it… you actual use your feet to steer the plane and brake and it’s super hard!  I did some beautiful circles while I tried to park the plane in the tarmac haha.

Me and my instructor heading out!

And it was REALLY cool to have control of the PCL (Power Control Level) which makes the plane go fast or slow.  At one point the instructor let me go quite fast! 

The flight suit was ridiculously huge...!  By the way, the planes
in the background (with all orange bellies) are the T-6 planes.

It was pretty awesome speaking to my instructor (who, no worries, had complete control over my actions…the instruments are exactly the same in the front and back cockpits!).  It felt so official to speak through the helmet mike!

I just HAD to add this picture... look closely at Beau's VT-2 Squadron's slogan --
errr, well the new slogan haha!  Bad body positioning...!  

This was a once in a lifetime experience and I wish I could do it again!  I swear I’d be better at it this time around…  :-)