I was struck first by the professional demeanor and high level of achievement by every military man we encountered. Some were officers, some enlisted men, but they were all highly trained, articulate, and made me feel our country is being protected by an awesome force. We began with Major Brittain, who showed us the F18 Hornet planes, first built in 1982. Many of them are on duty in Iraq right now. The plane is made as both a single and a double. They are small, but mighty. They weigh 25,000 pounds empty, and 52,000 pounds fully loaded. They have a six barrel gattalin gun on board that fires 6,000 rounds per minute. Yes, that's not a typo. There is an extra tank that holds 700 additional gallons of fuel, but at speeds of 650 mph, the plane can only be airborne for two hours. There is an ejection seat for the pilot in case of emergency. Once the lever is pulled to eject, it takes less than one second for the pilot to be catapulted out of the plane and have canopy over him. The parachute has an emergency kit for land or sea, including food, flotation devices, and much more.
I was unaware of the path a military man or woman takes to become a pilot. Before even entering aviator school, the person must work for a period of time on land. Then they attend flight school in either Mississippi or Texas, before coming to San Diego's Miramar Air Base for final training. It's a long, intensive process, but the outcome is probably the best trained pilots in the world.
The life of an F18 is around 10,000 flying hours, which is probably a long time, considering that they're only in the air for a maximum of two hours per mission. Right now we are also using the F22 Stealth in Syria, for the very first time. The reason for using this plane is that the Syrians have sophisticated equipment made by the Russians, which can detect our radar, so we needed the Stealth to avoid radar.
We also saw dozens of helicopters, the KC 130, a transport vehicle helicopter, and another helicopter which carries men and women on missions, called the Stallion. Both these helicopters are huge, and real workhorses.
There are many men and women (mostly men) everywhere you look. Lots of men are working on maintenance. There are dozens of planes and helicopters (wish I could tell you how many), but they require a lot of maintenance. These highly trained men and women do the job. There are 10,000 men and women, both civilian and enlisted, working on the base, and the base itself is like a little city. There is housing for both single and married families, schools, stores, restaurants, and much more. They're just in the process of building a brand new Chipotle.
Most interesting to me was the radar room. It's a dimly lit room with maybe 15 men in it, all doing different tasks. They have scopes that give them a view of every plane in the sky in a 60 mile radius. Their course of training is intensive, and about 60% of each new class ends up dropping out. The radar tower, another room about two floors above the radar room, keeps constant verbal communication with all the planes in the air. They're the air traffic controllers of Miramar!
An outstanding day was capped off with a tour by van around the entire base, allowing us to see some planes participating in the air show coming up, including The Blue Angel. Then it was off to the Officer's Club for a really nice lunch, served in a nice setting, by friendly wait staff. I learned a great deal, and feel confident that our Marines are second to none. Seeing something like this gave me a new appreciation for our military, as we met men, and learned about their lives, When I hear about a military casualty in the future I will focus more on the fact that the man or woman probably had a spouse and children and how their lives are changed forever.
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