Happy Thanksgiving from San Diego! We had the day off today and had a crew cookout for Thanksgiving with all of the trimmings. I must say it was nice to be able to be outside in the nice weather rather then in the cold for the holiday. There was plenty of food so I still ended up stuffing myself which is really what Thanksgiving is all about.
Back to work tomorrow though doing aerial display over the busy malls and interstates in the area on Black Friday. Hopefully I'll manage to get in a couple more hours of training while we do it. Over the past week we've been focusing on the traffic pattern and approaches to landings. Its a lot different then landing an airplane especially since there are quite a few variables involved including your static weight (how light or heavy you are), the wind, the area available to maneuver and the position of the crew to name a few. We don't usually land on runways so you have to choose a suitable landing area in the field adjacent to where the mast is set up. Luckily there is a lot of room available at Brown Field where we are at. Needless to say the more experience I get doing approaches and landings, the more confidence I will develop, making me a better airship pilot. Every flight gets me a little closer to achieving my goal.
