5 minutes ago, Vonrd said:

"In aircraft maintenance, the "hell hole" refers to a small, usually cramped and difficult to access compartment, often located in the tail section or under the aircraft, where critical components are housed. This name is used because the space is generally hot, awkward, and unpleasant to work in."

 

I can always put in a special request 😅

I'm pretty much kidding but still wouldn't mind taking a peek.

I got my tickets!  Looking forward to seeing you all there

 

The guy giving us the sim tour is planning to come try my home sim tomorrow afternoon around 11 if anyone might be around and able to do a little formation flying? I’ll need to get him warmed up and comfortable first so maybe after 30 min or more can jump online if anyone is available. 

Here is my tentative itinerary/plan:

Wed Jun 18
- 0800-0815, Leave Wilmington
- 0900 Wright Brothers Cycle Shop and National Museum
- 1200 Carillon Park museum, starting with lunch at Culps Cafe (excellent food in historic train car at museum). This is such a great museum and has the original 1905 Wright Flyer, considered the first real flyable airplane.
- 1700 Carillon Museum closes

Thu Jun 19
- 1200 Meet at Skyline Chili in Wilmington for lunch
- 1330 Sim and hangar tour at Wilmington Air Park
- After tour - Come see our horses and dinner at my place just outside Wilmington (we can grill burgers or something).

Friday Jun 20
0800-0815 Leave Wilmington
0900-1700 National Museum of the US Air Force

Saturday Jun 21
- Dayton Air Show (leaving and meet time TBD)

Lee got into town Tue night so came over to have grilled chicken wings at my house with Patriot, myself and my wife. 
 

Today we went to the Wright Bicycle shop (shop number 4) and museum and then over to Carillon Park which also houses the original 1905 Wright Flyer along with a replica of their final bicycle shop (number 5) and place where they did a lot of their airplane experiments. 
 

Tomorrow we go with Wilmington Airpark for a control tower, hangar/aircraft and full motion simulator (B-767) tour. 
 

Pictured is Vonrd (Rick), Flyboy (Mike), Lee, Paul (ABX pilot) and Patriot (Rick)

Bicycle shop 4

 

@Vonrd, @Flyboy, @Lee, @Patriot - Have fun guys!  Make sure to get into some trouble for the rest of us.

 

 

Today we got a tour of the Wilmington control tower. Pictured is (Dino) Dan (our ABX instructor and tour guide today), (JG1_Patriot) Rick, (Hawg) Manny, JG1_Lee, (JG1_Flyboy) Mike, Fox3_Luck) Joe and (JG1_Vonrd) Rick. Jennifer (Joe's wife) is pictured in the second pic.

We then went to get some authentic Cincinnati chili at Skyline followed by a sim tour. Got to see the old DC-8 sim and a lot of flight time in the B-767 (hopefully some of the others here can post more pics). Got a brief maintenance hangar walkthrough then went to my house for hamburgers, talk and of course some more flight sim on my rig.

JG1_Vonrd doing an approach and landing in the B-767 sim. 
 

 

 

Everyone got to see my old and ancient DC-8 (sim). 

More B-767 sim pics 

Everyone got to taxi the B-767, takeoff, fly around downtown New York City then make an approach and landing back at JFK. Joe (Luck) actually flew under the bridge connecting NY and NJ. This is Lee flying. 

Some pics from the air museum today

Airshow today was awesome. The first aircraft is from my old WC-135 unit. Driver (Nathan) came with his nephew and Coma (Chris also from ABX) came. 

 

 

B-29

Mig-17’s

What a great time!  Thanks again for the invite, I had a really awesome time.

 

I can tell you guys had a great time!  Love the shot of the MiGs and the Bf 109.

This is so fricken cool! The Daytona Airshow is defiantly on my bucket list! Great job landing in the sim @Vonrd! I’m very jealous. Looks like it was a blast! 

Thx 4 the impressions