Life of a Marine Wife: Jordan, the "Baller"

We have settled in to our new, normal routine here in Milton, Florida, and besides making trips to New Orleans, enjoying the lively town and community of Pensacola, and becoming beach bums on the beautiful white sand beaches, Jordan is actually not on an extended paid vacation, contrary to what it may seem. I can assure you, he is in fact working and studying extremely hard in advanced flight school, and is nose deep in his books right now as I type. Jordan is in the first phase of advanced helicopter training now, and has classed up with HT-8, the Eightballers. The motto of HT-8 is "the finest helicopters in the world train here," so is it any wonder these students go by the slang term "baller" over their radio communications? And despite this slang nickname, which implies all kinds of swaggering egotism, this squadron does have quite a bit to brag about. HT-8 is the oldest naval helicopter training squadron established. Furthermore, not only can they claim that the best helicopter pilots in the world are trained here, but some of the most famous astronauts in the world have also studied basic introductory helicopter courses here as well, in order to better understand the principles of vertical flight and hovering for their Lunar Modular training.

After the initial few weeks of ground school and testing, Jordan and his fellow students progressed next to simulator training, aka the sims, where they were tested on EPs (emergency procedures), as well as start up and shut down procedures. Similarly to his time in Primary flight school when he had to memorize hundreds of pages of EPs, Jordan began carrying his trusty little yellow notebook of EPs with him everywhere he went, and the incoherent mumbling began once again. Whether he is cooking, showering, eating, or driving, Jordan is constantly reciting EPs to himself in attempt to commit them perfectly verbatim to memory. It may sound like a coherent list to him, but to me it sounds like pure mumbling gibberish. And as much as I like to tease him for this incoherent student-pilot language and the OCD-like behavioral tendencies that he has adopted, I have become accustomed to this training lifestyle and it hardly phases me anymore. All joking aside, his studying consumes every moment of his life most days. However, I know that this effort and work ethic is not only important to him for reasons to do well and achieve top grades, but more so, these EPs are just that, Emergency Procedures. If anything happens to go wrong in the ancient training helicopter that they fly, this mumbling gibberish will save his life when he knows how to handle any emergency situation under pressure so that he comes out unharmed, or in Jordan's words, so that he doesn't become a Jordan Kabob or smoking hole in the earth! Thanks for those images Jordan! Yes, there is an instructor pilot in the helicopter alongside the student; however, what happens when there is birdstrike, and the bird crashes through the windshield right into the instructors helmet, tar and feathering him in its blood and knocking him out cold, and the student is then solely in charge of piloting the helicopter back to base-regardless of how far along he is in his training syllabus. Yes, this really did happen. Luckily, it did not happen to Jordan, but to another helicopter student at NAS Whiting Field. Oh and in case you were worried, the instructor was fine when he came to...the bird was not so lucky.

The infamous yellow notebook-this one is actually smaller than the one he had to memorize for Primary, so it should be cake! ;)

Jordan passed these two initial introductory phases of advanced (ground school and the first phase of sims), and all that hard work, studying, and mumbling has paid off, because Jordan finally started flying a week ago, Friday. Jordan is "partnenered up" with another Marine (who ironically enough went to Officer Candidate School with him in both 2006 and 2008, what are the odds!), and the two of them have the same instructor. I have used quotation marks for partnered up, because the two don't fly together, but more so progress at the same rate, doing the same flights back to back each day and briefing together, with the same pilot instructor throughout their time in advanced. (Sidenote for those flying folks out there who are interested in more detail: the briefs consist of an hour and half of presenting flight plans to the instructor and being quizzed on flight safety procedures and aircraft systems. You can imagine these excruciating long briefs are extremely in-depth and intense). However, upon Jordan's first day flying, I wasn't aware of this two-student situation, and that sometimes Jordan would brief in the morning and then have to sit around and wait for the second flight with the instructor, while his partner took the first flight after their brief. So having left the house at 5:45am, and it now being nearly 2pm, I was starting to get worried. Luckily one of my friends was over at the house, and our conversation helped to pass the time. (Another interesting fact/ side note: this friend is actually Jordan's college roommate's, and also the other swordsman for our wedding/Steven Holter, wife, that I have known since 2009! Did you get all that? Anyway, so fun to have another old familiar face here so far away from home!) Well Jordan finally arrived home, and I was anxiously waiting Jordan's initial response to his first day flying in a helicopter, which I knew would be so different from any of his experiences flying a fixed wing.

His reaction? Hmmmm, well to be honest, I had a hard time reading what he was exactly feeling. And reading facial expressions and words-or rather the lack there of,was all I could do, as he was pretty quiet and tight lipped. Getting a complete, strung together sentence out of him, let alone two words, was like pulling teeth, (painfully so, apparently without anesthesia.) In other words, it was darn near impossible. So the dramatic and over-analytical female mind in me took over: was he slightly disappointed after his time in primary, flying fixed wing and doing aerobatics, to now transitioning to an aircraft that didn't compare in speed? or maybe, on the other end, he wasn't quite ready to be totally be gung-ho about helicopters just yet, and possibly admit that he did in fact have a somewhat decent time? Or perhaps he was just completely exhausted and thinking absolutely nothing at all...men can somehow do that I have heard. It completely boggles my ever-anxious, restless mind. However, as I incessantly poked and prodded (it's for the blog after all, for our family, FOR POSTERITY!), I did eventually extract a few pieces of information from his first experience in the helicopter. I also may or may not have overheard his conversation with his dad on the phone later that night, where it was as if miraculously Moses had parted the Red Sea, and all of this information fled forth freely through the walls of water. I discreetly turned down the volume to NCIS and scribbled down notes as fast as I could, so as not to miss this plethora of information being released from captivity! Well wouldn't you know it, but after all my relentless nagging and stealth undercover, note-taking work, I lost my notepad of notes...I know, I know! However, I don't need my notes to remember the best part of his first flight: Jordan was able to hover, and "keep it in the box," on his very first flight. Initially, I wasn't quite sure what this specifically meant or what benchmark to compare this achievement too, especially considering Jordan is extremely superstitious, and getting him to acknowledge any sort of positive feedback from his instructors or above average achievements, would be like jinxing himself by "bragging," in his opinion. Although, I would hardly call it bragging. It is just a fact, right? He hovered in a controlled manner on his very first flight. That is not the norm for most students. Many students cannot do this for the first 2 to 4 of their flights. Those are just cold, hard, serious, non-negotiable facts. But facts are so boring, and I am just bubbling over with exuberance and would rather shout from the rooftops: HE IS A NATURAL, A CERTIFIABLE BAD-ASS, AND I AM A PROUD WIFEY! Now that would be bragging, but it's allowed from me, right? I mean it's in my job description as his wife and his head cheerleader. He may officially be embarrassed and annoyed by this blog post at this point, especially as he is only in the very beginning of his advanced training. But whatever, it's just my opinion afterall! And anyway, who's to say you can not be over-excited and proud of every single milestone and achievement along the way, no matter how small? Well anyway, he is officially a "baller" in my opinion, and out of the three possible helicopter squadrons here at NAS Whiting Field, I think it was meant to be that he was placed in HT-8 Eightballers.

The TH-57B SeaRanger is what Jordan is training on now. The B model does not have auto-stabilization. All other helicopters in the fleet, including the TH-57C that Jordan will move on to flying next in a few more weeks, have computerized stabilization-which will make flying so much easier!

NAS Whiting Field- Fly Marines!

HT-8 squadron building, where "The Best Helicopter Pilots in the World are Trained"

HT-8 Eightballers

Guess I better change the subject before my excitement gets me in to too much more trouble, so on another note, I thought I would share some pictures of our new house here in Florida...


Here we are!

One of our favorite parts of the house is the two porch swings on either side of the front door.

Dining room, to the right when you walk in the front door

Living room, to the left when you walk in the front door. This is my favorite place to read. Although I do have to fight Gunnar for my spot, he seems to think this is HIS couch!


Family Room: Double doors behind the sofa lead out into the sunroom. We have actually hung the giant clock on the brick wall, this is an old picture of the sunroom.