A Warrent Officer working at HQ in London leveraged his connections in the Sr. NCM Mafia to bring a C17 Globemaster transport jet from 428 Squadron to London last Saturday for familiarization flights with the Air Cadets. It was a long weekend and only a month's notice, plus seats were limited, so I had a few stressful weeks getting names confirmed, and then removing names from the list up to the last day as cadets dropped out.
But we arrived in London to be told the aircraft was 7 hours late (mechanical issues, aircraft had to be rerouted) and a very harried Sergeant was working frantically to reconfigure the chalks.
However the giant aircraft arrived shortly after we did and our bus driver was OK with staying late. So we hung around and waited....
But at last we were organized into our chalk, put in our ear plugs and got loaded!
For a good part of our half hour flight the aircraft flew with the ramp down, which provided quite the view.
My friend Maj Steve Wilson (he's behind me in the above pic with white hair) has a very nice camera and took most of these pictures. My cell phone mostly got glare trying to shoot the open hatch.
It was quite the view as the large, but nimble, jet swooped along the shore of L. Erie.
A much later day than planned, but enjoyed by all.
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