Skip to main content

P-3 Orion Field Trip

One of the great things about being a homeschooler:

We get some incredible field trip opportunities.

One of the wives in our homeschooling group is married to a navy pilot who is fairly high up in the chain of command and he arranged an amazing field trip for us!

Here is our group of unsocialized homeschoolers in front of the P-3 Orion.

A lot more people wanted to go, but space was limited; we were very fortunate to be among the first families who responded to the invitation and made it into the group.

The absolute coolest thing about the trip was the P-3 simulator. It is just like being in the cockpit of the plane. When we looked through the windshield, we could see the Hawaiian islands down below us. I literally could not have told the difference between the real thing and the simulator if you put them side by side. I really felt like we were flying around, looking out the windows of the cockpit. We could see the military base below us and the waves in the ocean. When we turned the plane in a different direction the horizon would tilt and i would have to hold onto a handle on the wall to stay upright. In Ben's group one of the boys was trying to land and accidentally crashed into the ground.

They even showed us how they could change the weather we were "flying" through. They had rain, lightening, fog, snow, and could even make a (digital) bird hit the windshield although they opted not to show us that one.

The one downside: They wouldn't let me take pictures in the simulator.

We did get to go inside a real P-3 and sit in the cockpit.

For some reason you can take pictures of that.

We also got to try on all the gear the pilots wear.



Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt!

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 17, 2009 at 9:13 AM

    What a great experience! My kids would love to see something like that. Glad you got to do it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMarch 18, 2009 at 10:00 AM

    Glad to see the pics of this trip. How interesting! GG

    ReplyDelete
  3. ShaneMarch 31, 2009 at 7:22 PM

    That is the type of plane my dad flew when we lived in Hawaii. I always thought it was cool to get to go on that plane too!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...
2 comments
Read more

Sumida Watercress Farm

This week, we went on a field trip to Sumida Watercress Farm in Aiea. Ben was not happy about going with us. He grumbled the entire way there about me waking him up early to "watch things grow". Sumida Watercress Farm grows 75% of all the watercress produced in Hawaii. It has been run by the Sumida Family for three generations. One of the most interesting things about this farm is that the Pearlridge Mall was built around it because the Sumidas did not want to sell the land. It's very cool to look at this little farm and then see the city buildings all around it. One wall has the tails of marlins they have caught, each of which weighed over 600 pounds! One was even from an 800 pound fish! Mr. Sumida brought out a giant bowl of crawfish which live in the water. He showed the kids how to pick one up and where to hold it so it couldn't pinch them. Katie picked one up and it promptly twisted itself into a backflip and pinched her finger. We got to walk out through ...
1 comment
Read more

Luau, Luau

This week we attended our first luau! We went to the luau at the Hale Koa hotel. The grounds were just incredible. There were men playing soft Hawaiian music, the plants and flowers were glorious. There were people in native costumes making headbands out of palm fronds, chopping up fresh coconut for us to taste, handing out flowers for us to put behind our ears and handing out seashell leis to each guest. It was very relaxed and peaceful. This was a Samoan man who kept us entertained during the cocktail hour. He was very funny! Check out those tattoos. He said the tattoos were part of a rite of passage that he had to go through. He said it took fourteen days to complete the tattoo and, yes, it hurt. And yes, everything was tattooed. He demonstrated how to climb a coconut tree using only a bandanna around his feet. They picked people out of the audience and gave them a quick hula lesson. Katie was thrilled to be one of the people chosen and of course it irritated Ben because he thi...
7 comments
Read more