Well, Angela is always the one writing blogs, so I thought I would do one. I think I have done one before, but I cannot remember. Everything is going well here. It is still cloudy and rainy. The drive to Thumrait is in the fog and rain with about 50-150' of visibility. Once you get to the desert, it is clear again. So I get to see the sun every day, but Angela and the kids aren't so lucky. It doesn't rain at the villa everyday, but only now and then. It actually is really nice temperature right now, about 85 degrees. The mountains are green and beautiful. It actually looks more like Hawaii than the Middle East. There is so much rain that there are actually waterfalls. We will try to get some good pictures once the weather clears up and post them on the blog.

The squadron is doing well. I am flying quite a bit. More that I have ever flown in the States. Right now we have 6 jets and only 7 pilots (with about half of the Omanis gone home [they all live up North and get 1 week every 3 weeks off] or to TDY to the States for training). So the squadron on a day to day basis is me and about 3 Omanis. Therefore, I am flying about 6-8 times a week. Not too bad! Also the work day is pretty nice. I work from 7 am to 1:30 pm. The bad thing is it is about an hour drive to work, so I have to get up at 4:45 am every day. The good thing is that I am home about 3 pm every day. So I cannot complain.

Most of their training is air-to-air. They purchased the F-16 as their first real air defense fighter. They have never before been able to do such a thing with their previous aircraft, so this is a leap forward for them...dramatically. It has been very interesting being able to build a squadron/air force. I have some help now with a British pilot who is there who flew F-16 with the US Air Force for a couple of years.

I have included some pictures of jets (of course). Two are of me coming up initial. They like to fly low here (I am trying to get them to a higher altitude since they have expensive and better aircraft than before). The pictures are of me coming up initial (over the runway to turn and land) at 150 feet and about 500 miles an hour. If you look close you should see me smiling. The other ones are of some of the pilots I fly with and of Thumrait AB, where I fly out of.

We are looking forward to the move to San Antonio. We are still trying to nail down the date we are leaving. It all depends on whether we will go to Georgia first and then San Antonio or whether we go to San Antonio, get settled, and then go to Georgia for a couple of months. Either way we are looking forward to being back in the good ole US of A. We have enjoyed our time here...the people...the culture...the experience, but there is no place like home.