Reminiscing

Nearly 11 years ago, this happened...



I was one of the many people that made it happen.

This video makes my heart race, gives me chills and puts tears in my eyes.  The amount of work it took to get to this day... well, I don't think I can quantify it.

Even though we did everything, checked everything and knew the baby was ready to fly, there was still just that tiny bit of unknown.  It was literally THE First Flight.

While reflecting on this day, the amount of trust we had in each other was awe inspiring... the amount of trust that we had in Bill Bubb to let him take the controls and the amount of trust he had in the rest of us to agree to take the controls... really, just awe inspiring.

This day was my first First Flight experience.  I was one of the many people on the ground... cheering, hoping, praying, waiting and cheering again.  We experienced a couple-hundred First Flights after that, but this was a brand-new aircraft, partially made with brand-new manufacturing technology and lots of other brand-new things.

Not much work happened after those speeches that day.  Hubba had to fetch me from the office and, as I recall, I was home "sleeping it off" by about 2pm.

May you be as blessed as I was to work with such an amazing team on such an amazing project.  These, most definitely, were the "the good ol' days."