Monday

Not much to report on really but i felt bad not writing for so long. Finished last week with an "ok" ride on Thursday, not really the kind of ride that makes me feel like I'm going to solo in 3 flights but hopefully there will be some improvement. Friday I had an instruments Sim and today I went in with nothing scheduled and ended up doing 2 more Instrument Sim's partly because I guy hooked his ride (we had 3 today I think) and you can't do any more events after you unsat a ride. So I ended up having a sort of busy day - but it was funny because I had the same Sim instructor which is very ironic and he's a real laid back guy and we talked about the steelers game half the time and he seems to think I've got the basics of instrument flying down pretty well. I can't wait until my flying consists more of this as honestly this is the first thing that I'll actually use a great deal when I'm eventually flying C-5's

So tomorrow I get up in the morning for a flight and then have my 4th Instrument Sim. If things go well I will be soloing this week and if they don't... well I'll have a little extra time to be ready for that solo ride.  Not much more to discuss, weekend was pretty boring - relaxed and caught up on some tv shows I missed during the week - DVR is very nice for this. Goodbye for now.

The days are long

But the weeks go by so fast. Flew the last 3 days, had a rough ride on Monday but things went a great deal better yesterday and today. Today we did some spins and I think it kind of frazzled me a bit and wasn't feeling too hot but I got through it and didn't have to say anything about it so yeah we'll see - it sucks a lot feeling sick in that plane when your all strapped in with an oxygen mask and g-suit on.

 I also flew the last emergency procedure sim prior to soloing today and it went A-ok. My buddy aaron was the first from our class to solo today; his wife and daughter came out and a group of us ganged up on him and tossed him in the "solo tank". A pilot training tradition where you get tossed in this dinky pool full of nasty water after you solo  - It's a lot of fun and he was a good sport. I can't believe that I'll be doing that early next week (if everything goes well!) 

We're left with very little time, it's 8 right now and I can't believe I have to sleep and be back there at 730 tomorrow. Hopefully I can get a decent hour of studying in before my brain shuts off and get some sleep. We had another "welcome to pilot training, etc." brief today. Oh yeah, everything here is a brief somehow - there's no presentations or meetings it's briefing after briefing. But anyway, yeah it was the same old stuff but he went around the room asking who was academy, ots, rotc, etc. and finished asking who was from the Academy of Minimum Standards heh and of course this is the commissioning program for the Air Nat'l Guard... kinda amusing (kinda not). What was funnier was that one of the AF Academy guys thought he meant "who graduated from the academy by meeting the minimum standards" and raised his hand. It was cool though This Lt. Colonel is from Cherry Hill and is a big Eagles fan and told me I'm not allowed to bring up that I'm an Eagles fan if he does an 89 ride with me. (this is where the commander takes you for your "last chance" ride to determine whether you get the boot or stay in training if your messing up - hopefully that won't be required). 

Little Speed-bump

Ah Sorry about the long delay in updating this thing, it's been a busy week. I flew Mon, Tues, Wed and there was a lot of learning going on in those flights. I finished the first "block" of flights, they group the flights into blocks and there's certain requirements you need to meet by the last flight of the block in order to progress. After this next block, 6 more flights or so I would be scheduled to solo, pretty crazy! 

As far as the speed-bump is concerned I missed the required score on the instruments test Thursday morning by 1 question - bummer. So I had use my mulligan on that one leaving me with 4 tests remaining and if I was to fail 2 more I'd get the boot. But that's not going to happen so we don't need to worry about that. It's a lot more difficult to try and get ready for those tests when your concentrating so much on trying to fly better. 

Next weeks going to be a lot of work and I'll be expected to bring every aspect of my flying up to a level where they trust me to go fly a $4 Million airplane around by myself, so I'll be trying to make the most of tomorrow and make Monday a good ride. I'll be with a new instructor tomorrow but I think he'll be good, I've sat in on a few of his debriefs and he seems very thorough and my buddy has said he's learned more flying one flight with him than 3 rides with his previous instructor. Today we might go see that movie 'burn after reading' and relax a bit. Thanks for checking up~

back to work

Had my 4th Contact flight today and it was a good one. It was a little different since the wind was favoring 31 today, which isn't used very often - almost never in the summer. I went up with a different IP and he was another very helpful, easy to talk to instructor and it went well. I have to say I'v been pretty fortunate thus far with my IP's. They've got me going up again tomorrow and then again on Wednesday. I think I was one of the last to still feel sick in the plane so they've got me going up a lot to help get over it and I think it's working, it's also got me ahead of the class which isn't a bad thing at all. 

We also had our first Standup EP today and Emergency Procedure Quiz. The former is where they stand up one of the students and have them "fly" the plane orally and they introduce some kind of emergency indications and you have to fly the plane through the situation to a safe conclusion. It can be a bit nerve-racking. The latter is a quiz on different aircraft systems stuff. It was a lot harder than I expected so I wasn't too happy about that. There's some kind of maximum number you can fail, and if you fail one you have retake it and pass it before you fly again. Hopefully I passed but not a huge deal if I didn't, it's nice to not be "competing".

For now... try and study with the eagles/cowboys in the background :) Go Birds

Quite a week!

Not an all bad week but definitely a long and tiring one. So I flew again on Wednesday and Thursday and while Wednesday I still wasn't feeling too hot, Thursday was a lot better, sickness-feeling-wise and flying-the-jet-wise. Each flight is definitely a blast and the plane definitely has a fighter-pilot type feel to it. I don't know what's with all the dashes tonight but they seem necessary heh. There is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of stuff to know to fly this plane and to make matters worse they're throwing the first part of Instruments at us and we test on Thursday so that won't make the week any easier. 

The IP I'v been flying with has been great, He's a first assignment instructor pilot and graduated the USAFA in 2005, with Steve. I'v been having some difficulty controlling the plane on final approaches in particular and he's convinced it's because I'm left-handed and has been making me do things right-handed in the flight room so that's been pretty funny. I definitely think he's right though, I don't have quite the dexterity with my right hand that you need to finesse the plane in for landing. I seem to get by during most other stages of flight but the landing is really sensitive. He's been pretty encouraging and I think I'll get it down better, I fly again with him Monday so hopefully there will be some improvement. 

On a sort of funny note... When the hurricane was predicted to come right at us on Wednesday, they implemented this plan to move all our planes (like 60 T-6's) to Arizona, and they actually told us Wednesday evening that we had Thurs and Fri off. Then, of course, we get called in at 9am on Thursday morning after they decided the massive plane movement wasn't necessary because the storm was being tracked to head north before it got to us. So that was a pretty big bubble burster, but it got me in the jet again which was good for me getting over feeling sick every time I fly. 

But now it IS the weekend and time to chill, though I'm sure at least Sunday will be a full day of studying. Enjoy the weekend!

wow

So I had my dollar ride yesterday! recap: this is where the IP takes you up and basically intro's a lot of stuff - basically a freebie. It was pretty awesome but I felt like crap for the majority of the ride. Not a big deal since most people don't feel too good and a lot of guys have thrown up. I fly again tomorrow and I'm hoping I'll be feeling a bit better then. The fact that I've been a little sick the last few days with some congestion isn't helping matters. The next ride they expect a lot more out of you it has the title of being sort of the worst sortie in flight training because it's your first ride and they expect you to kind of take control and you're going to mess up a lot of stuff. So the IP's make jokes about not wanting to instruct those rides but it's all good.

Since I didn't fly today I spent the majority of the day doing random tasks and listening in on the debriefs for the guys that did fly - basically the critique of their flight and with some general knowledge type stuff that the IP's will lay out during the debrief. Tonight I'll look over some more pattern stuff, etc. 

On a kind of cool note every time I tell an IP that I'm flying C-5's they go into these diatribes about "their buddy" that flies C-5's and how they go to all these awesome places and other guys will be staying in tents and the C-5 crews are in the Hilton and this and that so it makes it only that much sweeter - the light at the end of the tunnel here :) I'll let you know how the next flight(s) go. Objective: not feel like crap. Adios.

flyin time

Dollar ride tomorrow! 

Weather test went well, only missed two. Half our class flew on Friday and the day as a whole went relatively well. I've been a little congested the last few days but I'm hoping the worst of it is behind me and at this point I feel well enough to fly so as long as things go as planned I'll be taking off around 1pm tomorrow. That will be followed by a sim ride in the evening and I probably won't be out of there until around 9 for a nice 12 hour day. 

Spent the weekend in San Antonio with Megan and we had a good time shopping and relaxing before I dropped her off at the airport this morning and came back to Del Rio by myself. I've been going over checklist items trying to have the 'flow' memorized a little better and it's coming pretty easily (at least while I'm in the comfort of my room, we'll see what happens in the jet!).

The Eagles won their first game 38-3 which is pretty awesome even though I didn't get to watch it. The phillies just won their first game of the doubleheader and have a chance to sweep the met's series tonight and even the NL East race - and this game WILL be on ESPN tonight so I'll have to give up a little study time for that it's looking like. 

4 day weeks are nice too

I think every weekend should be a 3-day weekend. Although it makes getting up Tuesday that much more difficult. Had a 'fire-hose' sim today but it actually went pretty well. The instructor was speaking a mile a minute and it gave me a pretty good idea of what I can look at to look slightly less stupid on my first flights. This involved departing from Laughlin, flying the departure to Wizard, which is a Laughlin Auxiliary field, doing a touch n go there, then climbing to the ELP High key which is the special pattern used for emergency procedures, doing another landing then going into the MOA for a few stalls, a spin and some uncontrolled flight recoveries. Followed by departing the MOA for Laughlin performing a straight-in landing followed by a couple in the pattern. Apparently this is more than we normally ever do in one 'real' flight but it's supposed to kinda scare you at all the stuff you COULD have to do. 

Besides that, we met our flight commanders and some of the IP's for our flight today, which was cool. They seem alright but they're ALL "FAIP's". This is First Assignment Instructor Pilot. Basically, they graduated pilot training and went straight to flight instructor school and are here now before any, well, Non-training assignment. This basically means we'll have guys who are 100 up-to-date with the training requirements but will expect a lot out of us. AKA it's not gonna be easy street for the next 5 months. 

Finally, we had a couple more weather classes. We'll have 2 more tomorrow and then the Test on Thursday, which is our last day of academics. We report to the flightline on Friday and some of us may get our "dollar rides". This being your initial ride where the IP kinda intro's certain aspects of the pattern and such - though supposedly they still expect you to have certain things down at that point and will call you out on it.

So that's the deal; Test Thursday, Flightline Friday. Wish me luck... :)