Flying Photos

The only photos of the F-16 that I posted last month showed Vipers on the ground. Here's proof that they fly. All these photos were taken by someone in the back seat of a 2-seat model, but all the photos are of us (students) flying alone and (usually) unafraid.

Pilots, their egos, and their self-portraits...it makes me sick to my stomach. Really.

Red River Gorge 4th of July

We had 4 days off for July 4th so we drove to Kentucky where we had amazing temps, low humidity, and no crowds. It was a great weekend of camping, climbing, and eating Miguel's Pizza.

Jessica's first-ever outdoor rock climb

I love the features at the Red

Cassy on the sharp end

Chance found a rotted-out log that reminded me of a jet engine afterburner.

Canine campfire educator

Jess, Luc, and Cassy...happy to be outside.

Jessica, Huck, and Cassy

Chance wants to ring someone's neck.

On the last day of our trip, the rain hit us hard. It poured all night and through the morning, making packing the trucks a messy venture. With our light, packable, and highly expensive rain gear (as well as a ginormous leaky tent) we still had fun.

Chris pretends to hate car camping, but he absolutely loves it.

Jess

Cassy and Jess enjoy our makeshift shelter.

My first experiment with photo over-processing. Click to enlarge and get the full effect.

Dayton Airshow

The Dayton Airshow is the #1 airshow on many "Best Airshows in the World" lists. Our class stood by the F-16 static display, sold T-shirts, and enjoyed feeling important with our VIP parking and food passes.

The F-16 in a sea of people.

Coma and Humid. Real American heroes.

The Thunderbirds

A sweet Tora, Tora, Tora demo recreated the Pearl Harbor bombing. The smoke, air raid sirens, screaming engines of airplanes, and explosions were pretty awesome.

Dianna, Cassy, and Jessica

Chance

Wicked

Alex and Britton organized a trip to take Mom to Indianapolis to see a Broadway Across America production of Wicked. I was impressed with the show and Indianapolis seems like a cool city. We'll have to go back to explore.

Britton, Alex, and Mom

Chance's Birthday

Post-skydive, Chance enjoys some of Cassy's triple chocolate cake (Mom's recipe).

For photo geeks only: I got to try my new flash cord, which gets the flash off the camera and makes the flash look much more natural. Essential equipment!

Chance Goes Skydiving

For Chance's 20th birthday, the fam got him a skydive. Chance decided to do Accelerated Free Fall (AFF) instead of a tandem, meaning he would pull his own ripcord and steer his own canopy after opening.

Cassy shot all ground photos. Thanks to Ryan for the good aerial photos and video.

After 8 hours of ground school, Chance rehearses his skydive with his AFF instructors. Ray, the dude on the left, shot video for some Wings of Blue 4-way jumps back when Luc was on the team.

Not scared (yet).

Chance boards the Caravan that would take him to 12,000 ft above ground level.

"Prop, up, down, arch!" He prepares to leave the plane.

Nice body position! He rocked this skydive.

Chance checks his altitude and prepares to deploy his main parachute.

Shwack!

"Dude, I couldn't breathe up there!"

Luc: "That was the most fun I've had in a long time."

Fireworks

The weekend before 4th of July, we went to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to watch airplanes fly over and to see an awesome fireworks show.