on the 28th of February I think
and we then went into a period of transition.
The war was over, we had to get home
but then there was a massive force of aircraft
in the Gulf which had to be brought home.
And the planning organization continued obviously
to sequence all the aircraft home
and we were just a small part of that.
We carried on.
We did little bit more flying.
Only what was necessary
but mostly we were packing up to come home.
Big planning goes into bringing 24 aircraft home.
First of all, deciding which pilots
were going to fly the aircraft back
and which were going to come back
in the transport aircraft.
I was lucky to get one of those spots
on the F-16
and I was deputy leader for a flight of six aircraft back
to the States.
We left Minhad,
it was on about the, Minhad in the Emirates,
on about the 19th, I think, of March.
And we flew across Saudi Arabia,
the Mediterranean, landed in Spain
and spent a night there
and we had air refueling support
all the way along that route
and then the next day we flew
from Spain to Moody in Georgia.
And that was about 10 and a half hours.
Again, in flights of six aircraft
with air refueling tankers.
We stayed in company with tankers all the way across
but the tankers changed places.
They couldn't accompany us all the way,
so they were constantly changing over.
But we flew non-stop into Georgia
and stayed another night there.
And we're still not home.
It was about a five-hour transit home back to Utah.
Again, with air refueling support.
And by this time, the families
all knew when we were coming home.
The organization back at Hill
had been one of the squadron's stayed in place
and some of the wing organizations remained
in place as well.
So they were able to prepare for our arrival back.
And we arrived back on 21st I guess it was
to a great reception.
They'd opened up a hangar,
invited all the families up
and as the aircraft, as we taxied in
on arrival, we were met by families
and they were given freedom
to move around the airplanes as they wanted
as we came onto stand,
as we came up onto our parking spot.
They all knew which airplane we were in, each pilot.
So Viv and Stuart and Charlotte were there
at the bottom of the steps.
