Flight Tower Tour

Jan 10, 2014

Being moved into the Lemoore Ward, we have lots and lots of Navy in our ward.  You get an almost constant cycle of new people coming in and people going out.  I've made friends with a very nice couple - nice enough to let me and my two rowdy kids share their bench!  And, nice enough to arrange a special little tour of the flight tower at the Lemoore Naval Air Base for Colby (and bonus - me and Maci got to go too)!

In all the years I've lived this close, this was my first ever visit to the base.  It was a neat experience!  I didn't get a whole lot of pictures, but what I didn't (or was too nervous to) take pictures of, the internet gladly provided :)

This is what the flight tower looked like...

First we headed into the radar room.  It was dark and had lots of men sitting at stations like this (internet photo):

There was lots of air traffic chatter and the petty officer giving us the tour told us all about call signals, helping the aircraft depart and land and fly safely in the airspace.

Next, the top of the tower!

One of the guys working up there (surprisingly not dressed in uniform - casual Friday, perhaps?) showed us around and explained what they do.  He let Colby "shoot" the "radar gun" aka a big flashlight at one of the planes.  Made Colby's day!

 Maci loved seeing the big jets!

 They let the kids stand right up to the glass to check everything out.  Airplanes (jets? not sure what the proper term is...) were constantly landing and taking off doing exercises all around us.  Pretty awesome.

He wasn't too crazy about me taking pictures of the actual airplanes or equipment, so here's an internet photo of the kind of jets we got to see at about the same vantage point.

Then, he led us to the outside of the tower to really get the full effect.  It was so loud! 

Here was our view of the airfield (also an internet photo):

 According to Colby: "best day EVER!"  We all thought it was pretty neat!

 Many thanks to Dave and Amy for hosting us.  It was an awesome experience!