Nick Flying & Flares

Last Thursday, Nick flew just off Pyramid Rock Beach on base to do some testing with their flares. A special team flew into the base to do this, and I actually sat next to a wife of one of the guys who flew in for it. She saw me snapping pics of the helicopters and approached me asking if my husband was flying one of the helicopters.

I also tried to snap a few pics of the kiddos on the beach. The sun was really beating down so it was hard to take a picture without squinting, or burning your eyes!!


The special team that came in to do this testing, sat at the end of the runway and directed a high powered LED light at the helicopters, which the helicopters would recognize. In turn, they would get to shoot out their flares. There were lots of surfers in the water, so I wonder what they were thinking as the helicopters shot off their flares just past them.

Nick was Dash Two, (second helicopter) in #20.

So, once the 2 helicopters did a close fly by, the fun started....

Here are some flares...

Thank goodness for the zoom lense.

Talk about depth perception difficulty from the beach! Julie and I held our breath as we watched this maneuver. It looked like Nick, coming from behind, was about to crash into Zach in the front helicopter!

But he passed him without incident! *sigh*

It was fun to watch them fly so close to the beach!

After that was done, it was back home to finish decorating cakes for the Squadron Christmas Party... it was worth it to get out of the house and watch Nick fly though! It's not too often we get to see him fly this much or this close. Usually, we get to watch him take off and fly over us....then fly off.