You will be visiting some historic landmarks at a location that is special to me, having spent more than four years on military duty (USAF) here, both as a student, and later as an instructor and curriculum developer. When the opportunity and honor came up to create a "revived" Virtual cache, how could I resist placing one here?
To log your Find, you must visit all of the locations so that you can correctly answer at least nine of the twelve questions listed below. To validate your Find, you need to provide correct answers for at least 75% of the questions (nine correct out of twelve). After you complete your visit, simply use my Profile to e-mail your answers to me. Please provide: (1) The name or GC ID for the cache. (2) The date of your visit and caching names for all cachers who completed the visit. And (3) Your answers. One set of answers is all that is needed for one or more cachers who completed the visit together on the same day.
To log your Find, you DO NOT have to wait for me to confirm your answers. I will do so by return e-mail. If you do not provide the required 9 correct answers, I will contact you before log deletion. I will make my best effort to reply to all submissions.
Please resist the urge to include spoilers in your log. This means you should not provide answers to the questions in your log, either encrypted or not. Only e-mailed answers will be accepted. And, while photos in your log are okay, they should not include any of the information needed to answer the questions. If any spoilers in this form are seen by me, I may either ask you to edit/remove them, or I may delete your log entirely. Keep the game fun for other cachers -- that's just good caching etiquette.
The Questions:
Location 1: N 38° 33.550' W 121° 15.712' This is the Published Coordinate location, your starting point for your exploration. It features a monument known as the Navigator Memorial.
1. What direction is the instructor in the statue pointing? Cardinal direction will suffice.
2. What navigation tool is being held by the student in the statue?
3. On one of the two Memorial plaques, tribute is paid to a specific navigation skill. What is that skill?
4. The same plaque also pays tribute to the Navigator's dedication to do what?
Location 2: N 38° 34.167' W 121° 17.867' These coordinates place you just outside of what was known as the Command Post when Mather Air Force Base was still active. It is where a U.S. Air Force officer, typically a full colonel, spent most of his/her working days & hours. This was the top-ranking officer on base, who served as the Wing Commander of the U.S. Air Force Navigation Training Wing, a part of the USAF Air Training Command. This was the only base at which such training existed for future USAF navigators.
5. **Sorry, The Command Post Building has been demolished!** Read the number (address) on the building. Add all digits together. What is the numeric sum?
6. Walk 135 feet north (it should be easy to determine your direction). What is featured at that location, in the center of the enclosure?
7. Walk 10 more feet to the north. Immediately to your right, there are famous words inscribed in the pavement in the first of many such inscriptions in the memorial area. What do these words memorialize?
8. Return back south, nearly to the exit from the memorial. There, immediately to your right, is one more inscription that recites a very famous poem dedicated to mankind's experience with flight. Who is the author?
Location 3: N 38° 34.344' W 121° 17.772' The coordinates place you at the Veterans Memorial Plaza. It is on the property and near what is now the Veterans Administration (VA) Hospital, but was once the working location (Air Base Hospital) for a staff of flight surgeons when Mather Air Force Base was still active. You should actually be standing at the base of the Coming Home statue, prominently featured in the Plaza.
9. On the Mather Field plaque located at the base of the statue (make sure you read the correct plaque), what year does it say the base was closed?
10. On that same plaque, when does it say the Nav School was established (not the joint pilot and nav school, just the "Nav School")?
11. The veteran returning home, to which this memorial statue was dedicated, served in what military occupation (his job)?
12. On the Coming Home plaque, when was the Plaza dedicated?
And finally, I know that FTF (First To Find) claims are important to many geocachers. While physical caches that contain paper logs make this easy to validate, it isn't so easy to correctly verify a claim for Virtuals. As CO (Cache Owner) for this cache, I will act as referee for this accomplishment. Please do not claim an FTF in any log initially. I will review all incoming answer submissions with date-and-time stamped e-mails, and the first geocacher who provides the required number of correct answers will be formally announced in this cache listing. Then, and only then, the legitimate FTF cacher can edit his/her log to claim the achievement. We all know that this isn't formally supported by Groundspeak, so this is just to clarify informal support to those for whom FTFs are important.
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.
* * * Congratulations to PhMJ & SassySaki on being FTF * * *