The scorpion flight

Today I learned that the different flights within each squadron correspond with different animal patches.  Matt's S flight is "The Scorpions".  The other half of his 12-15 class is the R ("Rhinoceros") flight--which I was slightly wishing Matt had been assigned to, given our youngest daughter's intense love of rhinos, but that desire quickly abated when we saw that flight's charging rhino door logo, promoting Little Sis to scream and bolt away from "the angry rhino".  The scorpion logo looks more like a big--but calm and nonaggressive--bug...or lobster, as the kids see it.

The girls and I were gifted this insider perspective this afternoon, as all the UPT T6 flights hosted trick or treating for pilot students' and IPs' kids.  Each class decorated their part of the hall, some more spookily than others, and everyone's kids dressed up to trick or treat and spend some coveted time with their busy moms/dads.  I thought this was such a nice thing for the flights to do, as the UPT schedule is very grueling on families, and can be confusing to kids, due to its lack of regularity.  While a good number of the students are fresh-out-of-college newlyweds, there seem to be only 1-3 students per class with kids, so I was very touched and appreciative that the squadrons reached out to include the families in this way.

The girls, as Princess Jasmine and "Princess Jasmine's friend the Purple Butterfly Princess", posing with their dad, who is sporting an elephant cap (for a very economical version of Abu the monkey in elephant form).  I sported a similar cap--a tiger for an economical Raja.  :o)

The girls posing by a cute penguin pilot at the squadron entrance:

Next month, we are also looking forward to a "day in the life"-style open house/tour to get a better picture idea of what our Matt is going through.  Speaking of Matt, the poor guy threw up more times than he could count during his flight today and is officially on "air sickness cap", which means he is progressing toward the 3- and 5-day spin programs, but first gets to enjoy 3 days of flying while using anti-motionsickness pills--a treat that will hopefully breathe enough passion and enthusiasm for flying into him to last until he overcomes the airsickness obstacle!