Captain Scott Matthews is California Wing's answer to Kevin Smith. His seminal works, the 1999 California Wing Encampment video and his more recent encampment commercials (click here and here) have been featured here on CadetStuff previously. This year, Scott has been tapped by National Headquarters to travel to each National Cadet Special Activity this summer and document the events for future advertising and promotional use. CadetStuff equipped Scott with a CadetStuff t-shirt (literally the 2nd t-shirt off the presses!) and asked him to send us updates as he journeys across the country. Each week, his travelogue will be serialized here in as many parts as is required.

07/09/01 - Air Education and Training Command Familiarization Course

Well, the saga continues. Delta overbooked my flight and I had to be sent over to Northwest Airlines. So they pulled out my luggage (and I have a lot of it) and I did my best get it over all by myself.

I had no way to contact the guys at AETCFC to let them know, and I arrived an hour late. For 3 hours I tried all my contacts trying to find a way to get in touch, and eventually got the number of where the activity is being held. Soon my pickup arrived, and I was off.

The first night they just got situated, and the next day the festivities began with a video of last years class, and an intro to the course.

Again, another amazing activity. The class goes through a condensed version of the courses that the real Air Force aviation candidates go through, taught directly by previous Instructor Pilots of the T-37 and T-38 training aircraft.

At some point they will attend a class with the aviation candidates and answer questions along side of them, as well as experience the training simulators and an air show to boot. In the end they will know minute technical details of the planes and their characteristics, as well as participate in team building and leadership challenges. It seems to be a great head start on the way to flying with the Air Force.

It’s still too hot for my liking, my lenses fog up every time I step out side.

Scott