Pretty Little Bug

I say “bug” lightly. This gorgeous F-18 Super Hornet was parked on the ramp at Swift last week while I was watching maintenance being done on my airplane.

Nothing major. We are just replacing some springs, cables, and hydralocks in the passenger seats to make their butts lives more comfortable. I found two mechanics who work as a mobile team, which meant I didn’t have to fly the airplane anywhere. It took an hour to tear everything up to find which parts needed replacing. On Friday, they came back and spent four hours putting everything back together.

I watched most of this process and was as happy as a lark. You see, sitting at an airport and watching airplanes take off is one of the coolest things I get to do. And sitting at Sky Harbor Airport inside an open-door hangar provides lots of airplane-watching!

Don’t worry…I also paid attention to what these mechanics were doing. They are really good, and I am going to call them for work in the future. On an airplane this old, things are constantly in need of repair.

After we were done (them working, me watching), I walked to the ramp and passed by this little beauty. I say “little” because I am always surprised at how small some of these fighters are in person. Other aviation bodies have shocked me in size…remember when I told you about the Space Shuttle? I still can’t believe how HUGE it is! But this little F-18 took up one little spot on the ramp.

In fact, here is a picture from the Shuttle trip that I wanted to show again. It’s massive!

Just because the F-18 is a little smaller than one would think doesn’t mean I didn’t want to take pictures. I always have to be careful and smile a lot when I take pictures of airplanes on the ramp. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was up to something fishy!

The smile throws a lot of people off…