Well thank ya Mike. Good to be here.

Little about myself, okie dokie. I'm a man on a mission here. I haven't quite hit middle age yet, but I'm about to ring the doorbell so it's now or never! Originally from Iowa and I'm down here in AZ basking in the sun and taking out a new lease on life. I have one year left to go here at ERAU in their business and helicopter flight program. I've always had an itch for helicopter flight, but got that scratched when I was just a wee lil one 20 years ago in our local CAP unit in Davenport. We have an army guard base there and we would frequently take hops with the boys in the UH-1's...nothing like skimming the corn at 100+kts with your feet dangling!

I started out as a stuck wing driver for some unknown reason(cheaper???) and came to the realization that I needed to scratch that itch I had again(gold bond wasn't cutting it)! SO here I am...playing Robbie Ranger for another year and looking forward to glad-handing at heli-expo this February in Houston so that I can take that next step towards taking some pictures and naming the "gal" that I'll be dropping 100+ gal. loads with like you guys!
So I'm in here reading and learning about what I'll be doing in the coming years. Enjoying everything y'all are talking about and loving the pics! Thought maybe the birds that we have here may have danced around some of the same sky as some of y'all and maybe perhaps there might be some more stories out there that I could coax. Good lil forum you have here Mike...looking forward to becoming a regular around these parts...so please don't chastise me on questions, because I'll warn you now that I'll be asking a lot of them.

EDIT: I train down in PHX and there was a fire there about a month ago. The HTS ship, 719, was there and spent the night on our pad. The next day I was able to get some pix and I'll post them when I get them developed and scanned. I'll also work on downsizing the ones that are posted above...lil large!