St. Maarten

I fly a Gulfstream IV for a company in Texas. We flew to New York last Thursday to get into position for a charter to St. Maarten. This is the island famous for it's airport that is right next to the beach. There are plenty of you-tube videos of airplanes, B-747's and other large passenger jets landing right over the beach. Less than 50 feet.

You will then see videos of the same aircraft taking off, holding their brakes and running their engines up to full power before releasing them. It seems to be a great sport for the tourist to stand on the beach and get knocked over by the jet blast. It is unreal. I did not believe it until I saw it for myself. I got a little sandblasted taking some pictures.

Anyway, we got down here this past Friday, and are leaving tomorrow back to New York. I will then catch an airline flight home, and another crew member will replace me. This same crew will then turn around and come back to St. Maarten, fly back to New York next Sunday and then leave for a ten day trip to Europe.

I will be attending recurrent training while they are gone.

It has been a lot of fun down here, however, it is not the same without my lovely wife being here. A lot of my non-flying friends kid me about going to all of these exotic places, and yes it is fun. But being away from my family is not enjoyable. I missed Father's Day, yesterday. I missed sending my daughter off for a summer missions trip to Africa yesterday. Next week I will miss sending my son off on the same trip My daughter left early for leadership training.

So it has it's benefits, but it is not as glamorous as it may seem. This is an unusual trip that we get to stay in one place for five days. Sometimes we are in a different city everyday for a week.

I had better stop for now. I have to finish packing to leave tomorrow. I will write more about trips as I get time.