May 7th - Matt's Last Flight as a Student

We have been so busy, we have had very little time to post our blog, but will try to catch up before we finally make it home. Friday was our nephew Matt's graduation day and also included his final flight as a student. We managed to find the Air Base after a few wrong turns and finally arrived at the main gate. We had to wait a few minutes until someone could come to meet us and drive our car in to the squadron. It was worth the wait.

Flight instructors and NCOs were so nice and they informed us that Matt was currently flying, but would let us know when he was landing so we could watch the landing. Two of Matt's friends from college arrived about the time we did and then Matt's father and his wife arrived. My sister Vicki, Matt's mother, was with us.

When Matt entered the landing pattern, they called us all out to the tarmac, put us in a van, and drove us out to the runway. We were only a couple hundred feet from the runway when Matt and his instructor made a high speed pass down the runway in their F-16's. Talk about goosebumps when they made that pass. Everyone had their cameras clicking and we were all smiling ear to ear.

Matt and his instructor finally landed and headed past us toward the maintenance area. The van driver, a cute little NCO, drove us right to the maintenance area and we saw him climb out of his F-16 for the last time as a student. Every one was so proud and so happy for him, but Matt had the biggest grin of all.

After his flight debriefing, the squadron had a BBQ for all the students, staff, and guests. Matt's two friends from college were joined by six more friends who had all flown into San Antonio just for his graduation. All in all, I think the total guest count for friends and relatives that came to see him graduate totaled about 23 people, by far more than any of the other student pilots. Quite a tribute to a great kid.

They made some presentations, speeches, etc., by both the instructors and students, and than they handed out some special awards to the students. They had three different categories for bombing proficiencies and the instructor passing out the awards said this was the first time a single student had won all three awards. Yup, it was our Matt. K

Ken has said it so well, I agree. It was very exciting seeing Matt fly and land this plane! We'll do another update on the graduation so we can include more photos, so more to follow. S