IFF COMPLETE!!

Grant graduated from IFF on Friday, May 1st. He is so happy to be finished and can now call himself a "Fighter Pilot!"

The day was pretty low key, much different from UPT (undergraduate pilot training) graduation. Grant's parents came into town for the weekend, so it was nice to celebrate the day with them. We started off by having a sim at 9:00 am so we could try to shoot missles and guns, and try to take off and land the jet. It's a lot harder than Grant makes it look! Graduation started at 11:14:49 (his squadron is the 49th...) with his flight commander saying a few words, giving out the certificates to the 2 pilots and 2 WSOs (weapon systems officer--guy who sits in the back and controls some missles, etc.) for completing the program, and then the squadron commander handed out the awards. They had a top WSO award, and 2 Top Gun pilot awards--Air to Air and Air to Ground. The other guy in Grant's class is an A-10 pilot and doesn't do Air to Air fighting, so Grant won that award. They said the Air to Ground award was really close, but Grant ended up getting it! Maybe I'll try to scan his awards/certifiates in so you can see them...they look pretty cool. Anyway, so they said a few more things, the students gave out their favorite IP and toughest IP awards, and then we had lunch.

I made a cookie cake (following Heather's idea over at Heather Drive) to take and everyone loved it! It was very yummy and looked pretty neat too! I decorated it to be similar to their squadron patch (they are 49th Fighter Training Squadron--the Black Knights). The IPs commented on how cool it was that I made it, so that was nice of them. I just used the same cookie recipe that Heather did and then made Wilton buttercream frosting to decorate.

After lunch, we took a few pictures and then just hung out for the rest of the day! Now it's onto Seymour-Johnson AFB for F-15E training! :)