The Tie Cutting Ceremony

A few days after selection, Jordan and I attended his tie-cutting ceremony. The tie-cutting ceremony is an event that commemorates the pilot's first successful solo flight in the primary portion of flight school. Although Jordan completed his solo months ago in August, the event is only held once a month, and for the past two ceremonies, either Jordan or his instructor were not able to attend. So finally, on the heals of completing primary and selecting his platform, Jordan finally attended his tie-cutting ceremony.

The history behind the ceremony goes back to when aviators wore scarfs,and the instructor in the backseat of the plane would reach forward and yank on the scarf in order to get the student's attention. So by "cutting the tie" the instructor pilot no longer has anything to grab on to in order to get the student's attention to yell at...well at least he has to try a lot harder now. Theoretically the closer to the knot that the tie is cut, the better the pilot in the eyes of his instructor.

Well since this tradition originated, each training squadron has grown and personalized the ceremony of the tie-cutting. For Jordan's squadron, the VT-27 Boomers, the event is held each month for the students who successfully completed their solo flights that month. Each student is brought up in front of the group, and is then put in the hot steat. The student's main, on-wing instructor then tells an embarassing story of  his student, usually involving one of the early mishaps that may have occurred while learning to fly the new aircraft. In return, the student then roasts his instructor and embarasses him for something silly he similarly may have done during the course of his instruction. Additionally throughout the night, there are a number of running games that are played, many of which result in dollar fines, or having your guest/date auctioned off!!! It is really quite a fun night, and although it is not intended to be, it was a fun culminating event of Jordan's primary flight school experience.

Jordan's tie cutting was held about an hour away, in the little beach town of Port Aransas. The squadron rented out a building at the Beach Lodge, which is nestled amonst the sand dunes of this gulf coast beach. You literally have to drive on the sand and down the beach itself to reach the location. Needless to say, we got lost, and also probably should not have driven my very low-to-the-ground sports car that day! We finally arrived at the Beach Lodge an hour late, and found ourselves walking in to a very dilapidated, once blue-but now very weathered and gray, beach shack! Perhaps, if we were straight out of California, it's appearance may have shocked us, but we have lost our standards become accostumed to this funky, laid-back Texas-style of coastal living ;) . I was so nervous about arriving so late because I had heard rumors from previous tie-cuttings, that if you arrive late, your date (which would have been me!) gets auctioned off! Anybody who knows me, knows I am not one who enjoys being the center of attention, so the thought of being auctioned off was absolutely terrifying! Luckily, everyone was still socializing during cocktail hour, although referring to it as cocktail hour makes it sound a bit more formal than it really was. I guess I should just say everyone was still standing around drinking beer! Anyway, I sighed a huge sigh of relief, and  was so grateful this auctioning off thing only turned out to be rumors!

Once the actual festivities formally began, we were informed of our first running game of the evening. Every student and instructor was to introduce his date, and no two people could use the same descriptive words in their introduction. Repeating a word would result in your date being auctioned off to the highest bidder for the rest of the night. Ahhh, I let my guard down too soon!  And well, wouldn't you know it, Jordan and I were standing on the complete opposite end of where they started with the introductions, so Jordan would be the very last one, and therefore have to be the most creative, with his introduction! The terror that I thought I had escaped earlier in the evening surfaced again, and panic mode set in. I couldn't even listen to the introductions, as I kept trying to come up with words other than wife for Jordan to use: partner-in-crime, dang-just used! sweetheart? nope-used again! and so on, and so on.

The introductions and the auctioning game actually turned out to be pretty entertaining.  Especially so when one student introduced his guest as his "fabulous grandmother." Well he may have been the only one to use "grandmother" but someone had just used "fabulous"! So poor grandma was up for auction to the highest bidder! Well she was such a good sport, and the whole idea is to keep increasing the bid, so that the student buys back his original date at a high price, raising money for the squadron. Grandma was eventually bought back by her grandson, and luckily for me, Jordan was creative enough to protect me from such embarassment. Although one other student did get his guest auctioned off, who happened to just be a fellow student who came along to enjoy the festivities, when he introduced him as his "awesome" peer.  Well with the word "awesome" came the bidding...and wouldn't you know it, Grandma bought herself a brand new date! As payback for her previous experience, she was insistent on being the highest bidder, and all in good fun, the original student chose not to buy back his date, and let Grandma keep his friend for the night! The whole thing was quite entertaining!

Throughout the night there were additional dollar fines, which were created by the instructors to specifically target their students. They went a little something like this....

      "If you have a high-and-tight haircut...pay a dollar!"

      "If you have ever been to TBS...pay a dollar."

These fines were interjected throughout the entertaining presentation of instructor/student speeches and tie-cuttings that would last the rest of the night. Many students spoke about  their instructors quirky and entertaining teaching techniques during their roasts. There were many who told about how their instructors would not stop yelling in the plane, so much so the students could not hear the radio communications from the towers, and then the students were graded down by their instructors for missing radio communications!  The instructors stories consisted of funny mishaps that the students encountered when first learning to fly the planes. Well wouldn't you know it, but Jordan's instructor, who happened to be in charge of the event, purposely once again set Jordan up to go very last...

Well, in my opinion he saved the best for last on purpose (although I don't think the instructor knew what was about to hit him) as Jordan had the crowd rolling with laughter as he told the story of his promotion to 1st Lieutenant, when his instructor, who was the one promoting him, wore 2 right footed boots to the ceremoney! He also mentioned, that never having met the Captain previously, I thought his instructor had a war injury or a disability (see-No More Butter Bars for the whole story), and was looking on during the entire ceremoney with pity for the poor guy. Jordan had the picture from his promotion zoomed in on these ill-fitting boots and framed, and presented it to his instructor as a joke commemorating the promotion, which the Captain said he'd proudly hang in his office! Instead of having to pay a dollar fine at the end of his speech, for a bad or unfunny story as some had to, they actually paid Jordan back the dollars he had to put in previously for other fines, because his story was so entertaining.

Jordan's instructor's speech talked about how his previous student had been a ditzy blonde girl, and then after discovering his next student was from Southern California, he thought he'd be in for some hippie surfer dude equally as ditzy as his previous blonde student. Furthermore, Jordan's on-wing instructor was actually switched on him before starting primary late Sunday night, so instead of calling him at 10:00 at night on Sunday to ask and confirm that he was in-fact his on-wing, Jordan decided to text his instructor instead, in what he thought would be a more respectful means of communication because of the late hour. Well at the time he received the text, his instructor was reading his daughter a bed-time story "Are You My Mommy?" when Jordan texted him "Are you my On-Wing?" And while the irony of it was amusing at first, he didn't see it as a necessarily respectful  move, as Jordan had intended it to be, and instead thought, who is this punk Cali kid who thinks he can text his superior officer?!  This initial communication only furthered his instructor's initial image of this stereotypical casual surfer kid from California!

The whole night was entertaining, and full of old Naval Flight tradition as well as fun new traditions created by and unique to the VT-27 Boomer Squadron. Here are a few pictures from the tie-cutting ceremoney, as well as more pictures that we just received from Jordan's formation flight:

Jordan and other students who completed their solo flights

Jordan and a fellow Marine who also completed his solo-notice Jordan's CLIP ON tie :)

Jordan roasting his instructor

The tie cutting

Jordan and I at the Beach lodge at the tie cutting, it was WINDY!!!

More pictures from the chaser plane during Jordan's formation solo flight

Look at the precision!!!!!! That is what perfection looks like ;)

Jordan and his forms partner, post solo flight

Primary, Complete!

Jordan completed Primary this week, and in only 4.5 months, to the normal 6-8! No wonder it feels like time has flown by, it has! His last tasks in Primary were completing his remaining forms flights with his partner, which culminated in a forms solo. After hours spent chair-flying in our living room, the boys completed their last flights and solo on Tuesday. And we have the pictures to prove that it was much cooler than the chair-flying practice photos:

These pictures were taken by the chaser plane with the instructors grading them. Jordan's partner has a few more photos, that I will update this with when we get them.

Jordan greatly enjoyed flying forms, well actually that is probably an understatement, as his exact words when he walked in the front door after each flight were more along the lines of Forms are  %$^&*^& Awesome! So it was a bittersweet moment to come in for their final landing. Flying the T-34, despite the never-ending studying, the sweat drenched flight suits, and toll his body took pulling G's, was one of the best experiences of Jordan's life. He LOVED every moment of pulling G's, flying in formation, and performing aerobatic procedures in the air. And so on his final flight, he took a few moments to look around and take everything in, trying to capture and internalize his whole experience; however, he was also more than motivated to come over the radio communications on final descent, " BOOMER Base, BOOMER 756 and wingman BOOMER 733, formation 4005 complete, Primary complete...CAN I GET A YUTTTTTT!" To which the guys over the radio in the tower, responded with YUT YUT! If you haven't already figured out, "yut" is another one of the Marine Corps intelliglble grunts, much like 'rah, that is motivating amongst themselves.

Another bittersweet moment was when Jordan turned in his helmet. Some of the guys had their helmets customized by a local guy on base, who applies the designs with subtle reflective tape. Some chose Alma Mater logos, but Jordan chose a motivational message, knowing his instructors would be staring at the back of his helmet every flight: Keep Calm & Yut On!

Well the moment you have all been waiting for, selection time! Jordan graduated with not only Jet grades, but also the top score in his graduating class!!! It is such an amazing accomplishment, and I could not be more proud of him! However, by the luck of the draw, there were no jet slots available the week he graduated. So he received his second choice of helicopters. And while it was a bit of a disappointment for a guy who worked so hard and earned superb grades in Primary, and has dreamed of flying jets since he was a little kid, he will always have the knowledge that he had the talent to fly any of the Marine Corps platforms, the Marine Corps needed his talents in helicopters. And at the end of the day, no matter what platform a Marine Corps Aviator flies, their job is to support those men and women who are fighting on the ground. And as a helicopter pilot, the Marine Corps will use his talents to save and support these lives.

The helicopter community is a very die-hard community, and we will be moving back to Milton, FL for his advanced training with a few other guys here from Texas that are extremely motivated helicopter pilots. One of which also graduated top of his class a few weeks back, and chose to put helicopters as his first choice.While out to dinner with this guy celebrating his selection on Thursday, we ran in to two other guys, one of which grabbed Jordan's head between his hands and planted a giant kiss on his cheek after telling him, he was going "helos." It was almost as if he was so grateful and motivated to be building up a strong and talented team to storm the helicopter training with. It was such a fun moment to see these big tough marines, so passionate and emotional about something. Jordan's friends that are ground Marines, also could not be more ecstatic for him. According to them, there is no sound like the sound of rotors when they are in the middle of a fire fight and they hear it. All the Marines love it because they can rest assured that they are going to win this battle, and it gives them that extra rush of adrenaline and motivation knowing they are having these Cobras and Hueys come in  at low level to support them in the fight. One friend told Jordan, you can't really describe the fear it instills in our enemies, or the rush it gives us on the ground.

Jordan, who has wanted to fly jets for so many years, can not stop getting excited about all the positive aspects that flying helicopters entails.  Not only do they have "cooler" mission, they fly on day to day basis, versus Marine Corps jets, which only average about 1-2 flights per month for training. Also since Vietnam, the jet air-strikes are conducted differently than the air-to-ground attacks that his dad flew in. With today's technology, jets fire precision guided missiles 20,000 feet off the ground and GPS takes it in. So while the adrenaline of going fast in a jet is probably unmatched, the missions of the helicopters in today's wars, and their down-low, with-the-Marines fights, may in fact be the best match for his personality. His Primary instructor told him before the selection news, that from the beginning he thought Jordan would make an awesome Cobra pilot. So I guess it is all meant to be!

Marine Corps Super Cobra: One of the two Marine Corps attack helicopters, which no other service has.

Well after taking some time to take in this big life moment, one which will direct the rest of his career as well as our life as a family, we are happy to share with all of you this accomplishment and milestone in Jordan's career. So we are back off to Milton, FL and get to be reunited with some of my family, and some of our best friends. After 6 months here in advanced, Jordan will earn his wings, and be selected for his specific type of helicopter. Once advanced is complete, we will move to the RAG,where Jordan will train on his specific helo, and where we will have our duty station for 3 years. And we are hoping that will either be Camp Pendleton, CA or Hawaii!