Hello, and welcome back to today's Air Force and our special look at Air Force Week Cocoa
Beach.
The Air Force has a rich history here on the Space Coast, as they call it, so what better
place to set up an Air Force Week display than right here at the John F. Kennedy Space
Center in Orlando.
The Air Force has brought out some pretty neat stuff to showcase to the public, so let's
go check it out.
Behind us you see the A-10 monster truck.
It's been designed to look like the A-10 jet.
It's built in North Carolina, weighs about 10,000 pounds.
The tire's weighed about 800 pounds a piece.
It's got about an 850 horsepower engine in it, and it's got about a 1200 watt stereo system
in it.
It's a great recruiting tool, and it's also does a lot for awareness.
You see a lot of people that are just really happy to see the Air Force actually out here,
to where they can come up and express their appreciation, so it's a great benefit to be
right up in front of everybody and be able to talk to them right out here on a personal
level.
The number one question, believe it or not, is if I join the Air Force, can I drive the
truck?
I'm thinking that's a no, but Airmen do get to fly around in beads, which aren't half
bad either.
Some prefer to zip around to it from landing zones in one of these.
While others just spend their days playing a real life version of rock bands.
The point is, at Air Force Week, a lot of amazing Air Force experiences are on display.
Amazing trucks and rocking bands aren't the only ways the Air Force promotes itself to
the public during Air Force Week.
As Tech Sergeant Steve German shows us, Air Force Academy cadets are using a living symbol
of our service to connect with kids.
Cadet third class Daniel Cortez works in the Air Force Academy's Falconry program.
Her mission this week is to visit schools near Cocoa Beach, Florida as part of Air Force
Week Cocoa Beach.
I've been involved with the Falconry program since my second semester freshman year, so
I joined the team around March, so I've only been on the team for less than a year.
The Academy's Falconry program is a completely cadet run program, and the cadets are responsible
for the care, feeding and training of the Academy's mascots.
We have 12 birds, and we have three different programs inside of our run program, educational,
demonstration and breeding.
Today she's at Johnson Middle School in Melbourne, Florida to educate kids as part of Air Force
Week.
I like talking about the Falcons, but I also like talking about the Academy.
It's been a dream of mine since the third grade to go, so I like to inform people about
it.
It's a great opportunity, and it's fun to just teach people new things.
One day, maybe some of these kids will follow in Daniel's footsteps and become cadets at
the Air Force Academy.
Back on the beach, it's the last day of Air Force Week, and the event is going out in
grand fashion.
How's this for an air show?
Let's go, let's go, let's go.
The Air Force Academy's Wings of Blue parachute team decided to drop in and join the party
too.
As Wings of Blue, we are the instructors for our Airmanship 490 program, which is the
basic parachuting course.
We teach the cadets everything they need to know to jump them out.
Jumping out of a plane is definitely kind of on everyone's bucket list, so being on
the demonstration team, we get to go to air shows all across the United States, and so
I wanted to come out here to Air Force Week just to be able to jump in front of the crowd
and just show people what it's all about and have fun.
But the wild blue yonder over Cocoa Beach would ultimately belong to America's ambassadors
in blue, the Air Force Thunderbirds.
The pilots of these F-16s perform hair-raising maneuvers unmatched by just about anything
in the sky.
But long before they take to the air, these airmen put their complete trust in their
wingmen on the ground.
Here's Senior Airman Brad Sisson with their story.
The Air Force Thunderbirds fly in air shows around the globe, dazzling thousands of spectators
each year.
And while the aircraft and the pilots may get most of the glory, it's a team effort, and
the crew on the ground plays a big part in making these shows successful.
You know, we go as far as every single switch in that cockpit is set up to the way that
individual pilot wants it.
I actually walk up to my crew chiefs, we salute each other, slap hands, and I climb right
into that jet.
I don't look at forms, I don't look at the jet at all or anything around the jet.
Basically a pilot's life in our hands is stressful, I won't lie, but it's something that we've
all trained for.
On top of making sure the aircraft are safe, each F-16 must be in pristine condition before
each and every show.
That means cleaning, a lot of cleaning.
Jets are cleaned head to toe, pretty much every day.
We go as far as to wipe in every little bug smear or anything that's on there and depending
on where we're flying, you get times where there's just, seems like bugs on every square
inch of this thing.
And that's just what's inspected before they're ready to take the sky, every square inch.
Our production superintendent, when he comes around and does the exceptional release on
this jet, if he finds anything, if he finds a loose screw, finds a switch in the wrong
position, we'll do push-ups for it.
And while these airmen take what they do very seriously, they still have a sense of
humor.
Several of us noticed back in the beginning of 2009 that the red paint on this aircraft
here was a little bit darker than all the other reds on all the other airplanes.
So somebody coined off and said that it looked more burgundy than it did red.
So we nicknamed this aircraft Ron Burgundy because of its color.
After their time with the Thunderbirds is over, they take their skills back to the operational
air force, where their attention to detail is spread to their new units.
Everything we do out here is very much precise.
From the way that we set the jets up to the way our flags are presented everything, red
to the right, it's very precise and if someone's not with that, we correct them.
We get everybody on the same page and going back to the gray world, people aren't used
to that.
So it's a bit of a transition, you've got to kind of find a good balance of getting
back to the gray world from the Thunderbirds.
But for now, Sergeant Kearns is still a member of the team and is taking full advantage of
the unique opportunities it presents him.
Being a Thunderbird maintainer, obviously there's a lot of pride involved in it.
Seeing the people out at air shows and we get to do Make-A-Wish visits with special needs
children and that stuff that we don't get to do in the normal world, it's pretty rewarding.
We hope you've enjoyed our inside look at Air Force Week at Cocoa Beach.
You can check out many more stories and pictures of Air Force Week on the Air Force's official
website AF.net.
That does it for this special edition of today's Air Force, I'm Staff Sergeant Nicholas Kearns.
And I'm Amon 1st Class Alina Richards, thanks for watching.
See you next time.
