Christmas in March

The other day Sweety and I were driving past our local airport and saw this:
A Boeing V-22 Osprey. The only plane I know of that can lift off and land like a helicopter. And we had one sitting at our very own little airport! Apparently they had a generator fail, en-route, and landed here to repair it. They were stuck here waiting for parts when we spotted them.

After Smarty got out of class, we grabbed my father and went out to see what we could see. The airport people and Osprey crew were so nice! They let us walk right out to the plane and crawl around inside! It was awesome!
Notice above, the rotor blades just fold right up, because they are too long to have out while the engine is in this position. The pilot told us that the whole wing section can pivot until it's parallel with the vehicle body for easy storage.

Here's Smarty dreaming of what may be some day:

Here's Sweety, wishing he could push all the buttons.
Yesterday, we came back to watch them take off. It was amazing to watch the engines rotate and the rotor blades unfold:





I was hoping they would take off vertically, which they didn't, but watch this accent:



They didn't need any runway at all to get into the sky! It was awesome!

Smarty was enthralled. He is LOVING planes these days and wants to be a pilot. This whole experience was gold for him. And Smarty--who loves all things vehicles and grown-up tools--was totally in his element too. This was perfect. Christmas in March. Thank you, powers that be.