Day 5...FRIDAY!!!

Today we didn't actually do any burns. Instead we took some field trips. The first one took us to the Utah Air National Guard base on the airport grounds. We got to check out a KC-135 (mid-air refueling jet) up close. Two of the of the Ut ANG showed us around, and we got got to sit in the flight deck, including the pilot's chair. We also got to wander around the cargo deck, and we checked out where the refueler actually sits (or rather, lies down). It's such a small space! The thought of having to crawl down there in full turnout gear plus SCBA and then pull that guy out gives me the willies.

Anyway, here's some pictures from the KC-135.

Here's the plane, or at least the front of it. We weren't allowed to back up far enough to get a shot of the full plane.



This is the design someone painted on the side. Each plane had some sort of 'nose art' of sorts (though it isn't really on the nose, persay). This was the best of the lot though. The next shot is of the UT ANG shield.



Here's a shot of the bed the guy controlling the refueling wand lays in. There's a small chin rest, and a joystick on one side (near the bottom), and a set of buttons above. And a tiny little window to look out of while he controls the wand.


When we were done with the KC-135, we headed to the Delta flight training center. This is where Delta airlines trains their pilots and flight crew. There were a lot of interesting things to see. We learned how the flight crew gets training in fighting fires aboard planes, and how they learn to open and close those huge doors in an emergency and when to open a door and when opening a door will get you an emergency slide in the face (they are stored in the doors and on some older models will jump out and hit you if you don't disarm them first). They had a mock-up of first class, so the flight crew could practice. They also had a mock up of the escape hatch in the tail of some smaller planes. And we got to see how those huge emergency slides can transform into rafts for water landings.

Here's some shots of the class trying to open and disarm the doors and windows in the mock-up room.



Anyway, that was Friday morning. In the afternoon, we had some question and answer time about Antarctica and what to expect, bring, etc.