Space Shuttle Atlantis Landing

Michelle and I took Katie down to Edwards AFB hoping the shuttle would land there since the weather looked bad in FL for today and tomorrow. We found a place not too far from the flight line on a little hill that gave us a great view. We got there about 25 minutes early and the orbiter had already completed it's de-orbit burn so it was officially coming to Edwards. We saw it fly over head, heard the double sonic boom, then saw it come in for landing. After the landing, we stopped by a nearby outdoor AFB museum that had an SR-71, which is Michelle's favorite airplane.

Katie goes flying for Mother's Day

Michelle and I had been planning on taking Katie flying around 6 weeks old, but didn't get up until she was 8 weeks due to family visiting. The first opportunity ended up being Mother's Day so I told Michelle we could do it another weekend, but she still wanted to go. Katie did great.

I pinched one of the silicon ear plugs into two so they would be smaller, making 3 might have been a better size. She doesn't like me putting them in her ears, but is fine with them once they are in. They stuck there really well with no problems of them coming out. She also wore the headset in case they would have fallen out. She is just learning to suck on a pacifier so we weren't sure how it would work for flying. At first she would just have it in her mouth, but not suck and eventually it would fall out. Michelle ended up holding it there, but she started sucking on it and fell asleep about 5 or so minutes into flight. On the way back, she was sleeping before we took off. She never cried or had any problems in the airplane and the pacifier seemed to be sufficient for sucking for the pressure changes

I flew at 4,500 feet on the way down to Cal City and 5,500 feet on the way back and the round trip time was only 0.7 hours.

Mark visits Katie for the weekend

So Mark flew to Vegas for a business conference but had some extra time during the weekend before. I flew out to Vegas and picked him up so he could come and meet Katie. I filed my VFR (Visual Flight Rules for Mark) flight plan to McCarren LAS since I had talked to the FBO (Fixed Base Operator) there and they said I shouldn't have a problem flying in on a Thursday morning. I was questioned twice by controllers to verify my destination as McCarren and when I finally got handed over to Las Vegas Approach, they told me I would have to hold for an hour to an hour and a half so I diverted to North Las Vegas and Mark took a cab to meet me there. I have a feeling that if I would have started to hold, they might have let me in within 20 minutes. I think they say over an hour as a scare tactic, but if you call their bluff, they'll let you land. I bet most people divert so they probably issue the hold to all small airplanes.

The flight there and back was pretty bumpy, but not the end of the world. I was worried about Mark since I didn't know if he would get sick or not and we were pretty much committed to this flight. He did fine and was taking pictures and whipping his head around looking at everything. Most people would have had their head in their hands trying to sleep (or to just not get sick). The visit was great and the weather held up well for his flight back on Sunday. I didn't even bother trying McCarren on a Sunday so Mark and to fetch a cab back to the strip. Regardless, the cab ride was about the same price as the ramp fee at McCarren so it wouldn't have been cheaper to fly into McCarren and I could have gotten stuck in a long line of airplanes waiting to take off, not to mention the gas I would have burnt holding waiting to land.

Here are some clips of the flights. I didn't have the camera on the whole time and I ran out of batteries so I don't have any film of Vegas. I tried to clean up Mark's sweaty potty mouth, but didn't do that good of a job. It's not my fault his *$$ was sweaty, he's the one who forgot his rocks then had his shoulder strap hanging out of the door resulting in an aborted takeoff!