Maj Dave "Pops" Shipley and IC1 Jessie Booth sponsored our family to visit the NAS Kingsville pilot training facility. Wow, what an experience. Big thank you to "Pops" for taking time out of his day to spend with us in learning all that is entailed in training our fine Naval Pilots. Truly an awesome experience.
Above Patti and her two sons; John and Eric and I are standing in front of a T-45 trainer used to train our pilots at this facility. What an amazing aircraft.
Patti, Eric and John in front of the T-45 Simulator dome.
Instructor control panel for the simulator.
Maj Shipley giving John some pre-flight instruction while on the runway.
John sitting in the cockpit of the T-45 flying over Corpus Christi, Texas. John, a pilot himself, tried some touch and goes at the Corpus Christi airport.
Maneuvering some rollovers Maj Shipley gave him a storm to navigate through. John asked for an instrument landing and easily reduced his elevation to a soft landing while gliding through a thunder storm.
Eric trying out his pilot skills over Corpus Christi making barrel roll maneuvers.
Patti easily drops the throttle down and blasts her way up into the sky over Corpus from the NAS Kingville airfield.
My first time as a pilot was a great experience. Maj Shipley coaching me on the controls of the cockpit, I was able to easily take-off into the sky without any problems. Once in the air I headed up over Nueces Bay then down to Padre Island to fly over our home. Then for me the obvious choice was to fly over the
Land Cut and
Baffin Bay which are favorite fishing spots in our area. Maj Shipley gave me some ordinances to fire at my leisure. I fired them off in Baffin Bay as a new fishing technique.
