5 June

It's June  - just two months and a week or so to go.  Six months is so much better than twelve.  Our replacements have been the primary topic of conversation the last couple of weeks because command is still working out all the details of who is coming and when. Everything was set until they decided to ask for volunteers and now the six pilots are coming at three different times from late July to mid September.  In the original time slot of late July when they were all supposed to be here only three pilots are showing up and none of them are PICs.  So we have to come up with a plan or some of us PICs are going to end up staying longer.  Our two IPs already know they are staying longer because their replacements aren't arriving until mid August.  My new roommate has won what we like to call the sixth man award so he gets to stay until the last replacement gets here in mid September.  In the big scheme of things it's not that big of a deal but it is a little frustrating when they certainly weren't looking for volunteers when it came to us and now we are the ones affected.   Besides that things are going well.  Keith is fitting in well and we have lots of good conversations when we are hanging out in the room.  It is more entertaining with him up on track but I don't get as much work done :). The EWOs are getting really good at their job and things are working smoothly on the missions with them being ale to teach the guys on the ground the best way to use us.  It's been getting hotter with temps above 100 the last week or so.  A couple of days ago with the wind blowing we got that good blow dryer effect that brought back memories of Iraq. Today was the first day that it really affected our mission.  A large dust cloud moved in from Iran and dropped the visibility down to less than a mile. We could still take off and land, but with poor visibility we have to make certain climb gradients which we couldn't do because of the heat. So it's the combination of heat and low vis that does us in. The dust cleared by early evening so now I am up here listening to static on the radio and watching the moon rise.  Dust H 101 L 78