Air Show

Today, we went into town and attended the MCAS (Marine Corps Air Station) Air Show. Yuma has both a Marine and Army base, located about 45 min apart from each other. The Marine base is in the heart of Yuma, adjacent to the airport (makes sense), while we're located 45 min away, north of Yuma in the desert (makes sense for the jump school and the weapons testing....i.e., blowing up things in the mountains). The Marine base has a MUCH better commissary (grocery store) than we do, and luckily, a military base is a military base, meaning we have access to any of them and any of their services like a commissary.

We had a great time at the air show and determined that it's definitely worth going early in the morning because by 1:00, it was REALLY hot. We had two different VIP areas where we could hang out. The hospital gave us admission due to Edward working in the ER, and his regular job with the Freefall School had a spot too. It was nice because both locations were front and center for the air show.

We all enjoyed watching the planes do their crazy stunts.

The kids loved how the airplanes would fly straight up in the sky, stall out, and do a death spiral back toward the ground.

Racing back toward the ground

Luke loves airplanes and was totally engrossed in the day. He even attempted to cover his ears, at times, from the loud noise of their engines.

There were a lot of cool aircraft to watch.

This truck, parked right in front of the hosptial's tent area, was setup to have an airplane land on it.

Making a pass-by

Approaching its landing

Almost there (those are palm trees in the distance)

Perfect landing...the druck drove down the runway as the plane landed. Those are our Chocolate Mountains in the distance.

The pilot was pretty proud of himself, and he should have been!

Luke enjoyed it and participated in clapping.

Another drive-by

More cool aircraft

Then, the Freefall School put on its presentation. This is Edward's group. They freefall jumped at around 14,000 feet and opened their parachutes at around 4,000 feet. Then, they land, standing upright, on a X on the runway, which is different than static line jumps most other soldiers do (82nd Airborne, 101st Airborne, etc). With the static line jumps, they have a much shorter jump (around 1500 feet) with a very different parachute, and they land in a PLF, basically a tuck and roll type of move. Edward did that at Airbone School during college and has started doing this again some as he's preparing to go to Jumpmaster School...necessary for his job-no, necessary for a doctor-definitely no, fun and his guys are wanting to send him-YES. Will he love it-EVERY MINUTE. Already, once he's finished that, the company is going to send him to HALO Jumpmaster School...yes, he's a true soldier and will be one decked-out, tough doc...which, I'm not sure is great because it means he's more combat trained than most others...hmmm.

This HALO badge from the freefall jumping is the newest badge Edward received when he completed the training with his guys back in December, so he jumps with them once or twice a week (rough job!) when he gets bored of just sitting on the drop zones in the morning. Obviously, he loves his job because he gets to jump whenever he wants. Not many soliders, and really NO doctors, get to do this. Perfect jumps today from the guys.

Close-up of the Freefall guys coming in

The end of our long, hot, but really fun day...