Because we only have three Deacons this year, we often meet with the Teachers for various activities. One of the Teacher advisors is Richard Olds. Richard is a fighter pilot who flies F-18’s. He is also an instructor. Richard arranged an activity for us to fly F-18’s in their flight simulators on the Miramar Marine Corp Air Station. We were also able to tour the air traffic control tower on the base. It was amazing.
We weren’t allowed to take any pictures in the simulators but let me tell you what I was able to do in the ten minutes allotted to me in the simulator.
On the runway I gave it full throttle and headed out to sea, quickly breaking the sound barrier. I then came around and headed for downtown where I fired a missile at the tallest skyscraper I could see. I then headed out to the bay and fired a missile at a cruise ship headed out to sea. I then came around and flew underneath the Coronado bridge. After pulling up to about 20,000 feet I spotted another ship and dive bombed down towards it, fired a missile and realized I had underestimated how quickly I could pull up the plane and drove my plane into the bay.
The simulator was setup for rookies like me so after bouncing around on the surface of the bay, I again took to the skies, circled around downtown and headed north to Penasquitos. I saw Black Mountain, estimated where our house was, went supersonic and headed towards what I thought was our canyon.
The plan was to fire a missile at our house, but I was going so fast the I couldn’t get a shot off in time. I ended up flying about 500 feet over our house at 600 mph. I then went out to sea, swung around towards Miramar, and landed my jet on the right-hand runway. Now I want to go fly the real thing.
After our time on the simulators was up, we headed to the control tower and checked out the control center and the surrounding air base. It was an amazing experience.
--------------------trivia--------------------
The farthest eastern point in the US is Point Udall (in the Caribbean)
and the farthest western point in the US is also Point Udall but in Guam.
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