So 10 years ago today, I was throwing up. Yeah, I thought that might get ya. With 54 days to go till I retire from the Coast Guard, todays 20 Years a Coastie highlights on of those awesome things I got the opportunity to do, solely because I am in the Military. Things like Polar Bear Watch in the Arctic Circle, or being able to deploy to the Gulf Coast to help with the Hurricane Katrina mission. But this one is much cooler, because it is all about the fun. Air Station Houston is located on Ellington Field, which is a Joint Installation, shared by both Active and Reserve Military components, as well as a few Civilian units. It is host to one other group of people. NASA. And, as the NASA hanger was right next door to us, we had a pretty good working neighbor policy with them. If they needed to borrow a Special Tool or use part of our ramp, we were happy to oblige. And if they had an extra spot or two on the Vomit Comet, they would call a few of us over for a ride. Whats the Vomit Comet? you may be asking yourself. Oh, no big deal. Just a KC-135A plane that NASA uses to simulate ZERO GRAVITY!!! Uh, yeah, just like being an astronaut. And yes. It is as truly awesome as it sounds. The attached pictures and follow up videos are from a flight that I had with a few of my fellow Coasties. No surprise, but as soon as we got into our first (of about 40 or so) parabolic dives and we went weightless, I immediately began flying around and bouncing off the walls. It was one of the coolest things I have ever done. Up until the third dive, when my stomach said Hey! MoFo! What the %u(# do you think youre doing to us?, only instead of words, it just decided to push everything back out. It was at this point I saw the wisdom of my buddy Jason, who decided to take a dive or two to get used to it. *Quick side note here. As someone who is part of an Aircrew, I can appreciate when a crew must act as a team and perform a specific task. The crew of the Vomit Comet, when faced with a potential blowout from a passenger, moved with fluid like grace and practiced precision to deal with it. Without needing any prompting from me, beyond a slightly greenish complexion, they sprung to action, two of them flipping me in mid-air back to my seat as two others buckled me in. Then, as one, they each thrust a bag in my face, giving me a veritable plethora of ralph receptacles to choose from. But, once I was all emptied out, so to speak, it was game on, and for the next hour or so we flew, spun, and bounced our way to awesomeness.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 11:23:58 +0000
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