All,

A very merry Christmas!

Well it’s time to update you all on activities in the Estrada household.  I have been away from home over the last month or so for my initial qual training for the RQ-4 Global Hawk.  I was up at Beale AFB for the training and staying south of base in a suburb of Sacramento called Roseville.  The training at Beale AFB and the accommodations in Roseville were all beyond excellent.  The GH squadron is in the same building as the 9^th Recon U-2 squadron.  The attached 1^st SQ is the FTU for GH so I reported every day to work at the 1^st.  I had to walk through the 9^th SQ spaces everyday so I saw a few folks I recognized from prior days.  I ran into Luke Lockawich the first week.  That was uncomfortable as he and I were crewed together at the 20^th BS after I got back into the Buff in 2000.  He is typical of allot of the younger kids that were in the Buff community about this time and was pretty impressed with himself and completely unimpressed with the old man (me) who was assigned as his AC.  We clashed on quite a few ideas on how to do all things in the Buff.  However instead of talking them out and sharing some ideas, and maybe learning something from someone who had done way more in the Buff then he would every dream about, he chose to beat a path to the squadron commander’s office on the sly and stab me as many ways possible.  Of course it didn’t help to have “woodcock” as the SQ CC.  Either way “Loco” succeeded in getting me booted from the crew over on Diego.  So we ran into each other in the Sq halls and he was at least civil.   I suppose living well is the best revenge cause I’m loving life in my current job and making twice what “Locoweed” is making and hang’in around with a bunch of superior aviators who value my experience and flying style.  As for the other folks in my group (superior aviators),  most of them are fighter pilot types with a variety of military experience.  Two are former F-117 pilots two navy pilots, one F-18 an A-6 time the other P-3 time. One AF F-4 pilot and one marine Harrier pilot.  The program manager is a former F-4 nav and our pilot manager is a former Navy F-4 driver.  Of course our big boss (Northrop Test Pilot Manager ) is Troy Johnson, a former B-52 and B-2 pilot.  How’s that for cool!  We are still hiring folks (4 more slots).  Everyone is motivated and we are gelling pretty well as a team.  Northrop is a great working environment and everyone enjoys the work.  Even though we are attached to the 452^nd flight test squadron and work with AF rules and regs (sorry AFI’s) and are under supervision of the AF squadron commander,  The Northrop side is way layed  back and a big boy attitude.  We are pretty much left alone to make our own decisions and work at our own pace.  The attitude is “find a way to make it work”.  The program is pretty new so allot of the stuff is being developed as we do it.   So far I’m through with the academics and have accomplished 5 sims.  It’s kinda strange that the sims are just about as real as it will get.  My recent B-52 experience flying with laptops with falcon view has helped immensely.  The flight displays use Falcon View as the backbone and many of the commands and functions are the same.  

Now for the other part of my life.  As you all remember my son and I got interested in astronomy back at Castle AFB.  We purchased a ten inch telescope in Merced and have traveled all over the country with it.  Just about everywhere we have lived we made it a point to get involved with the local astronomy community.  California is no different , we joined a local group called the Central Coast Astronomical Society.  The group has many professional and armature astronomers.  Because it’s California, and folks do everything here is a big way, we soon found our ten inch scope was not big enough to meet our needs or desires.  So we spent some time and allot of money and recently built a large alt azimuth telescope.  We must have done something right with the design and construction because when we debuted the scope at one of our monthly meetings we generated allot o buzz in the local astronomy community.  So much so that a PHD type from CAL POLY in San Lous Obispo came by one evening and looked over the telescope very carefully and asked a lot of questions.  Well one thing led to another and now we are “head over heels” involved with helping to build a very large research telescope for a group called the “Alt Azimuth Initiative.”  Turns out that the PHD type, a Dr. Russell Genet, is the brain child behind the group with the intent of revolutionizing the astronomy world by building inexpensive portable research grade telescopes for universities and colleges around the world.  It appears that time is right for the fusion of new computer based technology and CCD cameras with the low cost of home built telescopes like we made.  We are about a third of the way towards completion of this telescope.  It has a one meter diameter mirror and will eventually be used for binary star and proto planet data collection.  My son and I are providing the majority of the labor involved.  We are supported by a worldwide group of armature telescope builders and professional engineers and astronomers.  We are working with the engineering department at CAL POLY and with several corporations who would like to produce the later versions after we work out the design details.   My son Chris has already gone a step further and is working with Dr. Genet on some binary star data and research and hopes to publish a scientific paper on their results this year.  This is great news as he is applying to universities this year to finish his degree in bio chemistry.  All the PHD types we have met so far, say that having a published paper is “HUGE” for college boards!  Just last week we received an invitation from the director of the Mount Wilson observatory to bring both telescopes to the observatory north of Los Angeles for a week of observing and data collection.  He also offered us some time on the historic 1.5 meter Hale telescope.  Knock on wood, life is good!!    

Well I’ve used too much space boring you with my life.  I hope all of you are well and have a Very Merry Christmas!!

Cheers

Ponch