Parked In The Revetment

Sorry for the inside reference; I’ll explain.

The flight line parking area for our Hueys had individual parking spaces for each aircraft. It had 50 gallon drums filled with dirt and sand bags on top to protect the aircraft from shrapnel from incoming mortars and/or rockets. To be effective they had to be as narrow and high as possible, making it a tight fit to hover into. One of the milestones of your progression from FNG peter pilot to aircraft commander was when the old guy AC told you to “go ahead and pick it up and taxi out for departure”.

Expensive aircraft got some elaborate and effective revetments.

A quick search on Google found an example of something similar to what we had.

Taxiing in or out was tricky and although I never saw it happen, there were plenty of very believable stories of catastrophic attempts to pick it up or park it on the slippery steel plating (portable temporary runway or PSP).

So why the reference? Well, like the end of every day flying in Vietnam, I have finally parked and shut down. The journey was a bit like some missions in Vietnam. The final maneuver was a bit like putting it in the revetment. A little slippery but secure for now.

Homer is my home for at least the next year, here at the Baywatch Condos. Baywatch Condos, 12 units from the beach side.

Located right next to one of our best restaurants (AJ’s steakhouse) , 100 yds from another great restaurant (Fat Olive’s) and one block from a great bakery (Two Sisters), it will present challenges.  AJ’s and a nice crepe restaurant (green building) next door. Below is the Driftwood Inn across the street.

This is Two Sisters Bakery, a very dangerous place to visit.

Bishop’s Beach is right down the road, so if you read about a tsunami hitting Homer, don’t expect any posts for a while.

Believe it or not, it is a pretty quiet part of town. AJ’s has live music but I’ve yet to hear anything but delivery trucks once in a while. Most of their music is dinner music with accompanying scenic videos. I’ve met a couple of my neighbors in the condos and they have said it is a nice quiet place.

So.

I believe my search has ended. There may be other moves but not very far. I’ve yet to finish discovering who the new pig is and just how I’ll fit in with the rest of the world but I think that will be an ongoing and endless process. For now the engine is shut down and ready for 100 hour maintenance.

Moving on to nesting.

Found a entertainment center on Craigslist in Soldotna, so I borrowed Tony’s trailer and hauled it down to Homer.

So far so good! It is a start.