Strangers in the night [vision goggles]

Every so often, you have to fly an hour of night vision goggles not because the mission dictates it, but for the sole reason of re-setting your currency in that particular mode of flight. Last night was such a night. I was flying with an experienced warrant officer who had spent most of his time in the venerable UH-1 Huey helicopter, and whose last assignment was in the mountains of Washington State.

As it was getting darker, I watched the sun descend in the sky, turning the desert sky a slightly reddish hue, and making the flight behind our wingleader that much more interesting. This reminded the senior warrant officer about a night-vision goggle re-currency flight during which he flew with an aviator who was just a few days away from becoming uncurrent. After days of bad weather at night, they finally decided to fly in the very early morning, logging the full hour of night-vision time necessary to re-set the currency clock.

He recalled the story. "We flew to the top of Mount Yakima, and set the skids [the Huey's landing gear] on top of the mountain, making sure we landed with the nose pointing to the east. We then watched the sun rise over Mount Yakima"

As the image of a sunrise over a crisp, cool mountain, covered in downy snow ran through my mind, he then began to describe the scene further.

"And as the sun rose, we held hands across the cockpit..."

I turned away from looking at flight lead and over to the warrant officer.

"Dude, don't worry, man, I'm just kidding"

"Don't ever do that again, man"