Rio Linda Picture of the Day: Veteran’s Day edition

A common sight over Rio Linda, as the mighty USCG HC-130 make’s it’s downwind leg toward landing at McClellan Field. McClellan is the home of USGC Air Station Sacramento, where they fly the HC-130 aircraft on Search and Rescue(SAR), Law Enforcement, and Logistics missions, from south to the equator, west to Hawaii, and north to Alaska.

Just over a year ago, USCG Air Station Sacramento lost an HC-130 in a midair collision with a U.S. Marine Corps Bell AH-1W Super Cobra helicopter near San Clemente island. There were two crewmen aboard the Marine training flight. The helicopter crew was looking for a missing boater 50 miles off the Southern California coast. All nine members of the military perished.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft thro’ footless halls of air….

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark nor even eagle flew—

And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Photo by Tom McGarry

Poem by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.