Kennedy exceeds 5,000 hours in air

Lt. Col. Jim Kennedy lifted off for a simple four-hour training flight with 1st Lt. Steven Ritter student pilot Monday, March 24.  However, the trip was much more significant for him than the routine nature of the mission would indicate.

In the very same helicopter where he performed his first flight hour in 1991, Kennedy surpassed the 5,000 flight hour milestone.  It is a benchmark that few pilots achieve, and it is symbolic of how much he enjoys his work.

"I really love flying helicopters.  This career has been 17 years of loving to fly, and 5,000 hours coming here has been significant," he said.  "Outside of Al Anbar province, this has been some of the most rewarding flying I have done.  It's great to be training warriors to do that exact same thing [I do]."

Kennedy, the commanding officer of Helicopter Training Squadron-18, has been flying helicopters his whole career, mostly the CH-46 Sea Knight and the H-57.  He served two tours in Iraq, one in Al Anbar province where he performed troop transport and casualty evacuations.  That was where he passed 4,000 flight hours.  Someone took a photograph for him when he surpassed that milestone, so he decided to take a picture for this one as well.

A chance comment to his executive officer about the photograph, Cmdr. Mark Murray led to much more.  Most of the squadron; Training Wing-5 commander, Capt. Dave Maloney; and Kennedy's wife Heidi met him upon his return to the command's lounge with a cake and a standing ovation.

Kennedy has served two tours at Naval Air Station Whiting Field in addition to his initial flight training: one as an instructor pilot and now as the commanding officer.  Without those tours 5,000 hours probably wasn't possible.  The up-tempo nature of the training here enabled him to accumulate more than 2,200 hours from 1995-1998 as an instructor and he has flown another 700 since coming to the base again in 2006.

"This is the greatest job in the world," said Kennedy.  "Having flown for 17 years and passing on that passion to the next generation of warfighters has been terrific."