long weeks

Well this week was a long one - I ended up flying tues, wed, thurs to take me right into my navigation 2-check. The 2-check is where we fly our final flight before our checkride where one of our IP's essentially allows us to go to our check ride. Tuesday in particular was a long one, I had to show up early for a formal brief, then we had a class on low level stuff which would have been more helpful before we started flying them, then we took an emergency procedures quiz and did a stand up EP before I flew around 2pm aye.

The flights all went well enough, I did a bunch of approaches on my flights tuesday and wednesday, then did a low level on thursday. Right now I'm scheduled to do my 2-check on Tuesday then have a day to plan on Wednesday and do my Navigation checkride on Thursday. Hopefully everything goes well and I'll be into the downhill portion of flying the T-1 as things tend to get easier the last month and a half. 

Last weekend I stuck around Del Rio and played some golf Fri and Sat and cooked some food for dinner with my buddy blake on sat night. 

I had one of my greatest golf shots this weekend. On the 2nd hole, a 450 yard par 4 on Saturday I had a crappy tee shot leaving me with 231 yards to get to the hole (there happened to be a marker right near my ball). I hit a 3-wood and the ball landed just short of the green and rolled right up and into the hole. A nice eagle! and my first on a par-4. 

I'll be studying a lot this weekend and probably playing a little golf or watching some of the US Open, then next weekend I'll be heading out to College Station to pick up Megan and possibly floating the guadalupe river in New Bruanfels where my buddy Austin who has been down in Corpus Christi flying c-12's with the navy will be heading up there on Saturday. That should be fun and we'll probably stay in San Antonio that night and come back Sunday, then the next weekend is a 4-day weekend for July 4th which will be very nice!  

3 day fly week

So that part was nice except that like I previously said we ended up with enough lines for our entire class to fly those 3 days so it was a long 3 days. 

On Monday we flew down to Corpus Christi which was cool. I got the PAR in then dinner at Texas Roadhouse. Since it's night week we got back at like 1130 and didn't get to my apt until like 1 (aye). Tuesday kinda sucked since we did an out an back down south again and then headed over to Kelly in San Antonio. Here our IP had his fiance pick us up and we got some crappy seafood. It was pretty terrible but oh well. Anyway then we got back to the airport and I got in the left seat to do my portion of the flight and as we were taxiing to the runway to takeoff we got a call that we had to return directly to base because of bad weather near laughlin. So that meant I put in a 12 hour day and it didn't even count as a flight for me... bummer.

Because of issues with most our class not having the nigh time requirement done for us to graduate they ended up splitting our pairs all up and had one person in our class fly with one person in the class behind us so we could all get night hours. So I flew with a good dude and he was pretty proactive in all the planning and we flew with one of the reserve pilots. I hadn't met him but he was really cool. He's an Academy guy and flies for Southwest. He comes down for like a week every month and flies with students for some extra cash on the side. We did a short local flight out to Abilene and I did a couple approaches and then he flew us back and did the landing at laughlin. Very chill and a pleasant way to end the 'week'. Thursday we had an epq and hung out at the flightroom for a couple hours, then Friday there was a picnic out at the lake and I went out there for an hour before heading to Austin. 

Wills dad is a golf ref and was in Austin for the weekend, reffing the champions tour event held there. So we headed out Friday afternoon and met up with his dad, then got some dinner and waited while 3 of the other dudes in our class came out and picked us up to go downtown. We had a lot of fun in Austin and it was definitely a wild scene there. ( a little too crazy maybe but cool nonetheless) Saturday we woke up later than as planned (big surprise) but we got up around 830 and headed to The Hills CC where the golf tourny was at. We met up with Wills dad who gave us our badges and parking pass and got to hang out there half the day and watch a lot of golf. It was the first real tournament I've been to and it was definitely cool seeing guys I've watched play on TV drive right by in their carts and get angry when they missed 5-footers.

The other guys ended  up heading out to float the river on tubes for a couple hours kinda late so we got back from the golf tournament and got dinner and went and saw Hangover while we waited for them to get back. We went back into town and hung out for a couple hours with the guys then headed back to get up and watch an hour of golf and get lunch with Wills dad in the clubhouse before heading back to Laughlin.

It was a nice weekend and I'm glad I decided to head out there. I might actually stay in Del Rio this weekend and try and start preparing for my checkride I expect to have in a couple weeks and maybe get some golfing in. Flying Tuesday and Wednesday and hopefully that will be it, but we'll see. 

Finally, if you got an email from me about some pictures thing don't bother clicking it. I think it's some kind of spam thing as it somehow sent emails to all my contacts. I'm sure I stupidly gave it my password or something - anyway yeah don't click it.

Here's a few pictures from the last couple weeks. Adios!

The 9th Green, with the tee box out in the distance
Me hanging out at the 18th, par 3 (tee box is off to the left)
Entrance to the George H.W. Bush Lib in College Station
Flying Low level in the T-1
Andrew, Me, Megan, Nick and Chris on the Riverwalk

the last couple weeks

Hmm it's hard to think back to far as I've been neglecting my posting duties here but I'll try and recap slightly what I've been up to.

It's been a busy last few weeks. 3 weekends ago was the corpus christi trip and besides one of my tires blowing out on me it was a great time. we got there late friday night and came back sunday. We got some great seafood in port aransas and hung out at the port A beach most of saturday and then some of the local bars that evening.

That week I flew a couple times and they flights went okay then the next weekend I met up with Nick, Andrew and Chris in San Antonio. It was awesome seeing them for the weekend and we saw a lot of the city and had a good time on the River Walk. On Friday we saw terminator at the rivercenter mall then relaxed on the riverwalk. We attempted to do Six Flags on Saturday but 5 minutes after we got into the park it started pooring - so that was a bust but we hung out for a couple hours and then came back had dinner at the tower restaurant which is always very cool, then enjoyed the riverwalk nightlife.

Sunday we headed out to the La Cantera shops for a couple hours then got some lunch. Megan wasn't feeling well that day so we went and get her checked out while the others chilled at the hotel. She was fine, just some kind of virus. 

Monday I dropped Nick and Chris at the airport as Andrew took an earlier flight and came back to laughlin and ran some errands. That week I flew 2x and had a sim and also got some new tires put on my car. 

This past weekend I had to drive Megan out to College Station where she's coaching a swim camp for kids at Texas A&M for a month. It was a looong drive there and back but I got to see some of the campus which is very nice and saw the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library / Museum. It was a very nice experience there and was happy we stopped by. I enjoyed the array of food and shopping there on Saurday while Megan did some coaching stuff then I said goodbye Sunday morning for the 360 mile trek back to Laughlin. 

This week is only a 3-day Flying week as Thurs,Fri are no fly days for T-1's for some reason but somehow we got a ridiculous amount of jets and our whole class is flying out-and-backs mon,tues,wed which is pretty intense and basically means 12-hour days for those days so I'm still putting in a good 40 hour week! Yesterday we flew down to Corpus and I did a PAR approach at Navy Kingsville. This is where the ATC guy is watching you on radar and can guide you down laterally and vertically to the point that there could be overcast clouds 150' above the ground and he could get you to the runway with aural instructions - it's pretty neat. That went well and I flew a couple approaches into Corpus Int'l and we stopped in and had dinner at the texas roudhouse in corpus which is a treat. (being that there's nothing in Del Rio) Then Barry and I switched seats and he did  the night flight back. I'll fly the night portion tonight and we'll be deciding where to go in about an hour. 

That about covers the important parts. This weekend my buddy Will invited me out to Austin as his dads going to be out there reffing a golf match so I may do that although I've been doing a lot of weekend traveling so I'll mull it over a bit more.

I also talked to my units training office today to see when they'd have dates for my follow-on training and they said it would probably be another month argh. I really want to start planning some fun stuff to do when I'm done here but they're holding me back since I don't know when I'll be doing c-5 school and survival. Anyway - I'll be counting the days - adios.

Copilot Rides are Niiiice.

Had a Copilot Out and Back ride yesterday and it was a lot of fun. Like I said, the copilot rides are where we sit in the right seat and do all the checklist stuff. The weather was ugly up North so we ended up planning to go East out to Lake Charles, LA. 

It ended up being very cool. We got there and did a couple approaches to cover some of the copilot requirements and then landed and spent a couple hours there. We took the Jaguar crew car they have there and drove to a seafood place for lunch. Then came back and picked up our 1$ lunches the FBO makes to bring back for dinner and watched half of Taledaga Nights in the movie theater room they have there at the FBO. We flew back and got in around 230 for a nice easy day. 

Middle of May already?

The early wake-ups are getting old but haven't been as bad as the first month. I only flew once last week but knocked out a couple sims too so it wasn't all bad. I fly tomorrow and it's an out-and-back copilot ride. We fly out somewhere and get some food then my partner and I switch places and we fly back home. It's also a copilot ride which means we sit in the right seat and perform copilot duties (aka not actually flying but doing radios and checklists and things like that). It's a little different and should be more "chill". 

I'm starting to get Del Rio fever (cabin fever but enlarged to the size of Del Rio) and I think I may try and head back to Corpus this weekend, then the following weekend Nick, Andrew and Chris are coming out to San Antonio for Memorial Day weekend and that should be a lot of fun. 

Probably a good 6 weeks before another checkride so it feels good to have a little time to relax a bit and hopefully be prepared for that one down the road. Sorry for the lack of updates I'll try to do better !

Well the first checkride is over with and I have about 22 flights before the next one so that feels pretty good. 

To celebrate Megan, Blake and I went out to Corpus Christi for the weekend which was a lot of fun. We left Friday and stayed in San Antonio for the night and left for Corpus Sat morning. We hit the beach for a bit and I realized I hadn't been to the beach in like a year and a half which is nuts. Then we went to the local bar there for "Belt Sander Races". These guys take belt sanders and mod them up to race them down a 40 foot or so track. It's pretty hilarious and my buddy Aaron who we stayed with has some big plans for his $20 black and decker belt sander he recently picked up at a pawn shop. 

Aaron lives in Port Aransas which is a neat little beach town. It reminds me of like Wildwood, and there's lots of little seafood restaurants, quiet beaches and a nice variety of dive bars and more lively club style bars. Aaron did a fish fry Sat night, cooking up a bunch of halibut that he had brought down from Alaska (fish he had caught and had packaged himself). Then we hit up a few of the bars that are within walking distance, I definitely miss not having to drive everywhere. We left this morning and did the 4.5 hour trip back to Del Rio and it went pretty quick overall but it's an exhausting drive. 

The trip was a lot of fun and I left feeling very jealous that guys going to C-130's get to enjoy 6 months out there on the beach training with the Navy while I'm stuck in the desert on Laughlin. CJ got hosed but oh well. 

This week I'll have a night flight on Tuesday where we'll fly to a couple outbases and shoot some approaches. Then Wednesday we leave for our X-Country flight. We'll end up in Shreveport, LA that night and then come back late Thursday night. It's definitely nice we don't have to do the XC over the weekend like in T-6's - that really made for a long couple weeks!

1st T-1 Checkride Tomorrow

That about covers it, I flew Monday and Tuesday and both flights went pretty well. Patternwork and MOA work was all really nice and the in-between stuff was decent. So hopefully things go well tomorrow.  I'll fly first tomorrow which means I do all the ground ops stuff and the departure out of laughlin which is kind of a pain - but I also get to get all my stuff over with pretty quick which is nice so I guess it's good and bad. I'll spend tonight go over stuff he might ask in the brief and be sure I have everything down for tomorrows flight. 815 Takeoff so at least I'll know how I did by lunchtime. 

Ah another week full of 5AM showtimes.... greeeeaat.

Last week was a bit unproductive as I got sick last sunday and only ended up flying on Friday and that was a bit rusty. But At least I'll have a couple extra days before my checkride to get prepared for that, it should be next Tuesday. I'll fly tomorrow and then Thurs, Fri, Mon leading up to it so it will be busy for sure. This weekend was nice, lots of good sports action this week with march madness coming to an end and the baseball season starting and flyers regular season coming to an end, then the Masters over the weekend so that was pretty nice. I spent most of today watching Tiger and Phil try and make a comeback (which they almost did) and trying to do a little studying during it. I never seem to be able to be very productive on Sundays but oh well I don't think it's a must. 

It's ben starting to get pretty hot here now, mid-80's to 90 during the day now, but unusually windy a lot of days which makes flying a bit more difficult - or at least mission planning and trying to find somewhere to go that doesn't have super high winds. 

The early morning schedule is starting to take it's toll and I'm very much looking forward to not waking up at 4AM. Hopefully 2-3 more weeks and this craziness will come to an end. 

Megan got a job of sorts this past week, she'll be coaching swimming at Texas A&M for a month in June for a camp they do for kids there. She's pretty excited about it and will be good for her to do something fun out there, not to mention the college station area is pretty neat. 

Other than that just same old business of sleeping and studying and flying - good stuff.

The fun(work) continues

Flew 3 more times this week and my partner and I were the first ones to finish up the first block of transition flights with 6 more to go before our first T-1 Checkride. The flying is going well, honestly so far the General Knowledge stuff seems to be the biggest hurdle. They want us to know everything about the plane and be able to spout of numbers and draw diagrams of the systems right away which is a big pain for someone that takes pride in doing the minimum to get by - really raising the bar for me!

So far I've been up to San Angelo, Abilene and Dyess AFB which is just across town and also Laredo down south of Laughlin. We haven't gone anywhere extremely far since you don't get quite as much time to work on patterns and stuff so it's all good. It's definitely fun to actually fly places to do this stuff as opposed to the T-6 where we were either at Laughlin or Wizard, the Laughlin auxiliary field used for T-6 pattern work; so that aspect is pretty cool. I think by the time T-1's is done with I'll have been to every 6000' towered runway in the state of texas. 

I went out to San Antonio with Megan and my buddy Blake and played some golf Sat morning at a really nice course near La Cantera. I've been trying to resurrect my golf game but I forgot there was never much of a game to begin with. Blake and I both played pretty badly but it was still a good time and we had a chance to see a couple movies that didn't make it to the Del Rio theater, one very bad one (Duplicity) and one very funny one (I Love You Man). We stayed at Randolph AFB to save a few bucks and it wasn't too bad of an option. I think the food in San Antonio always makes the trip worth it for me in the long run and it didn't fail to do so this trip. 

The next couple weeks will be more of the same until that first checkride and then we'll get into learning the more exciting part of flying a jet and getting to know the FMS and Autopilot systems and how to plan and execute the flying more easily. 

It looks like a few of my friends from home are going to make the trip out to San Antonio for Memorial Day Weekend so that should be a lot of fun in 8 or so weeks. And by that point I'll have less than 3 months left in this place! 

week 1 done

It was a busy week, like all military training programs phase III is very front-loaded and they expect us to learn everything about the jet, everything about how to fly the jet any other useful information in the first week and then be able to apply it for the rest of the course heh. Of course that's not possible so everyone does their best and prepares as much as they can. I ended up flying 3 times last week and the flying is feeling pretty good. We went to Abilene and then Dyess AFB on the 3rd flight which was pretty neat. Did a bunch of different patterns at different flap settings followed by a couple single engine patterns and landings. Besides that we had an EPQ/Boldface on Thursday and then a test on T-1 Aerodynamics on Friday (since we weren't quite busy enough). We'll have at least a couple more weeks of early shows which is a bummer but oh well, just have to get through it for now. 

Dollar ride

Had my dollar ride in the T-1 today and it went very nicely. We flew to the MOA and did a bunch of are work which was mostly pretty easy then to San Angelo, TX where we did a bunch of patterns and got in about 5 landings each. It was very cool to finally get in the plane and be at the controls of a JET. The plane can be be pretty sluggish and difficult to control mainly because it uses spoilers instead of ailerons to give it the "feel" of a larger aircraft. This makes the approaches a bit difficult but I think I'll get used to it.

Our IP was very cool, a reserve IP and yet again another airline pilot who got furloughed in 2001 after 9/11. He was out of work there for about 5 years before they invited him back for a year just to send him packing again. He said he saw an interview with Sully, the captain of the US Air flight that went in the Hudson and said no airline pilot in their right mind would recommend the job to their son. Ha oh well hopefully things get better in the next 5 years or I'll make some different plans. 

Anyway, I fly again tomorrow and this time I'll be the first one to fly which means doing all the ground ops stuff which is a pain but it should go OK. I should fly again Friday and by then I'll be ready to sleep for the entire weekend I think after a week of Pre-5AM wakeups AGH. 

Flightline is Coming

Well another week and a few more tests done. I have a pretty long(ish) day tomorrow with a test in the morning on instruments, which is kind of weird since we've already had 2 instrument tests during T-6's and there's no real new information but oh well. Then after that I have my first EP sim where we'll go over different emergency procedures and applying boldface procedures that we have to learn and how they're used. 

We went to San Antonio on Saturday morning and had a good time. Blake, a buddy of mine from AMS just got here last week and joined us for the trip and we did some shopping, hit up PF Chengs, saw Watchmen in IMAX then hit the riverwalk for dinner and hung out there the rest of the night. It was a good time and well worth the trip to get out of Del Rio again - if only for a night. 

In other news, 2 of my good friends interviewed in AC for the F-16 Pilot positions they were having boards for. Unfortunately Nick didn't get picked but Dan did along with another guy from the 177th and a guy "off the street". Dan's pretty stoked about it and has 2 years of training to look forward to before he gets to start shooting down bad guys. I'm really excited he got it but slightly bummed I didn't have the opportunity to try and apply there as it was my "home unit" for 6 years and would have been cool to stay in the hometown area and fly fast planes - but everything works out for the best and I'm excited about the C-5 mission and I think the lifestyle will suit me better... so no regrets. I think Nicks a bit bummed but I think he'll feel the same way eventually when he gets picked up somewhere else and has some pretty cool flying to look forward to. I'm still so thankful to be in the Air Nat'l Guard and avoiding the possibility of flying UAV's and some other not-so-cool mission aircraft. 

Academics and stuff

A couple weeks into the T-1 academics period and things are going pretty well. I've had 2 systems tests and some classes on crew resource management. The tests went fine, missed one on the 2nd test because I clicked the wrong one somehow... I've had 3 sims and their pretty cool. The T-1 sim guys are even more chill than the T-6 guys (and they were pretty laid back) so that's nice and feel like I've learned a lot so far. The sims are like 4-5 hours long all together which isn't too cool. We do them with partners (we fly with the same partner for the entire T-1 period I think). I got partnered up with Will, a dude who was in aces and went to the academy. He's a cool guy and I'm happy with the pairing. During the sims they have one of us sit as copilot and the other as pilot even though in the plane we only fly as copilot maybe 5 flights. Then we take a break after a 1.3 and we switch spots. This being the case, the sims aren't graded per se since the 2nd pilot would have the advantage - not that it matters for me, the scoring that is but it's fine and it makes the sims pretty low threat and you can just concentrate of learning as much as possible. 

I should have 1 or 2 tests this week and probably 2 more sims. I think I'm going to try and get back to San Antonio this weekend for another sanity check and see Watchmen at the IMAX there. We hit the flightline on the 12th I believe so that's when we start the 5AM shows and 10-12 hour days which kinda blows but oh well. Been here now almost 8 months and 5 to go - Time keeps moving ! 

back to the abc's

Well the track business is all done with and it turned out very well - We have a great t-1 class from the looks of things and there weren't any BIG surprises on track day except that a couple of my buds are off to corpus christie to enjoy the "easy" program with the Navy there flying T-44's. Pretty cool except that you kinda limit yourself to flying airplanes with propellers on them for the remainder of your career.

I had a great time showing my dad around Laughlin and the beautiful city of Del Rio while he was here and I think he actually enjoyed it a little bit. The biggest hit was probably the simulator - I got to take him in for a Red Carpet sim where you can take family in and let them take the controls and he was able to take the T-6 down for an ILS, do some aerobatics, some formation (with a loose meaning of the word :)  and then take it around San Antonio and fly around the skyscrapers at 200'. We hit up 2 of the uh 4? decent places to eat and 1 of them was still a letdown, saw a 5-minute crazy duststorm with winds probably hitting 50mph and all in all it was a lot of fun.  Megan was shooting some pictures and I'll try and get them up on here soon.

We had our track party Friday night and it turned out great, we had a lot of other people show up at the Ramada Lounge where it was held and everyone had a great time from the looks of things.

Now it's back to academics. Everyone else gets a few weeks to savor completing T-6's but not for us T-1 guys. We get thrown right into the new jet and it's back to learning systems and checklists and taking tests every couple days for the next month or so. We'll start having sims later this week in addition to the academic stuff so that's cool. Right now though there's a lot of free time and I've been able to do some golfing and hit the gym so that's good for the body and mind. 

T-6 Complete!

I had my formation Checkride on Monday and while it wasn't the best flight and the EP was a little ugly I passed and that's all that matters. 

We have our track tomorrow, which is when I'll find out who will stay with me in T-1's and who will be off to the 3 other possible directions. It should be a lot of fun .

My dad got in an hour ago and we're about to go get some dinner if megan ever finishes getting ready :)

Tres Mas

I've flown every day this week and the last 3 with the same IP and things have been coming together pretty well. I fly twice tomorrow to set me up for a checkride on Monday for my last flight in the T-6 (fingers crossed).

Tomorrow I'm supposed to fly with a new IP both flights. He just came over to our flight and seems pretty cool to fly with. He's an older lt col who flew all kinds of fighters and such and decided he wanted to finish his career teaching, as he began it. I think tomorrow should go well and I'll be all set up for the check on Monday with the weekend to go over everything and hopefully my hands don't get too "cold".

My dads planning on coming out on Tuesday which will be cool and there's some events on Wednesday as our class tracks. This is when all the active duty guys will find out what direction they'll be heading - (T-1's for the heavy route, T-38's for the fighter/bomber track, T-44 in Corpus Christi for the C-130 and some other oddball turboprop planes, or H-1's to fly helicopters). So even though I know where I'm heading, it will be exciting to see who goes where with additional interest in that probably 4 or 5 of the guys in our class of 23 will end up leaving Laughlin, so it's a bit bittersweet maybe for that fact. 

Still 7 more...

Last week was kind of a bummer. It was overcast and foggy Monday and Tuesday and I ended up not flying either day mostly because of the weather and bad luck. I flew on Wednesday and had a good flight but then started feeling sick and I was too congested Thurs, Fri to fly so I'm still at 7 more flights in the T-6. 

I'm feeling a bit better today and while I'm not 100% I can clear my ears and that should be enough to be able to fly. I expect I'll fly at least one every day this week and should have my checkride monday or tuesday of next week if things work out. 

As I wasn't feeling too great, this weekend was all about relaxing. I went and saw that movie Taken which was really good and watched a lot of TV and movies. The Superbowl tonight should be entertaining. 

This week is a night flying week which means we don't have early wake-ups (6AM showtimes the last few weeks). Hopefully it will be a busy and productive week and I'll be just about through with the T-6. See ya

8 more to go

So I'm down to 8 more flights in the T-6; of course this is only half of UPT but it's a pretty nice milestone. I'll have 7 more daily formation rides then my formation checkride and I'm done.

Last week I ended up flying 5 times including my formation solo which was pretty cool. I think it's a bad idea that the Air Force let's me go fly 10 feet from another airplane at 200 knots after 8 formation flights but oh well whatever they think...

I was supposed to knock out 2 flights today but we had some fog and low clouds that kept us from flying all morning and both my flights got cancelled. We'll see how the rest of the week goes and hopefully I'll be finished sometime in the middle of next week - can't come quick enough!

long weekend over, short week begins

Every weekend should be a 3-day weekend. If I ever have a job with a "normal" schedule I plan on making a big protest for the the 3-day'er. Anyway, I stuck around Del Rio and had a good time. On Friday I was able to spend a couple hours installing the new regulator I purchased online into my car and fixed my drivers window. The biggest up-side is I can go through drive-thru's again! Also being able to put the window down and give my id card to the gate keepers on base is a plus. 

We went with a small group to Mexico on Saturday that was fun, we got back around 830 and I was too exhausted for anything else and sat in bed and finished getting caught up with the new season of 24. On Sunday we watched Crash over my buddies house on blue-ray and Monday hit the gym and studied some for formation.

I should be flying 3 or 4 times this week with a good possibility of doing my formation solo near the end of the week which would be cool. 16 work days in the T-6 left and 12 flight left on the syllabus! The T-1 is getting closer and closer... pretty isn't it?

Formation continues

I ended up having 2 formation flights last week on Wednesday and then Friday, and my 5th yesterday. Flying hsa been pretty good, I'm trying to avoid going into "auto-pilot" mode with only a few weeks left in the T-6 but it's tough sometimes. We're off the formal release program right now so that means that when we're not flying we don't need to be in the flight room and it's made things much nicer, with more time to get other things done and even get to the gym now and then. 

The form flights are going well, it's tough learning this new way of flying and trying to stay with your lead but it's pretty cool and I've been flying a few of them with this reserve delta pilot who I enjoy going up with. 

The weekend was nice, Megan and I went to San Antonio and did the riverwalk and some shopping as she had a bunch of gift cards to use. Oh, and my phone got ran over by a car and somehow survived thanks to a really good case I had on it. The screens a little weird now but I think it should be usable. Somehow Megan had it on her lap and let it fall on the ground and we didn't realize it and had to drive back to the BMW dealership I was at an hour later and someone had found it but after someone drove over it. 

3-day weekend coming up and I'm definitely looking forward to that. I'll probably fly twice more this week then have that nice weekend to enjoy. 

long time no post

Not a whole lot of new info but let me think back to what's happened......

Before break I was able to get in my 2 low-level flights and 2 formation flights.

The low-levels were great - the first one I flew with one of the reserve guys and it was super chill and a lot of fun. We went south of Laughlin and cruised around the route that lies below our MOA's. On the way back I asked if I could do an ILS for the heck of it so we did that and it was very sweet. 

The second one I was paired up with one of the IP's I haven't always been quite as fond of but he showed a different side of sorts this side and it was a blast. He took the plane off the course to the North of Laughlin and into this canyon running the plane 500' above a river with rocks to either side (very Independence day - ish) and it was the coolest things I've gotten to do in a T-6. He did the recovery for his own proficiency for a nice easy end to the flight.

I had my first 2 formation flights and while they were "neat" and seeing another airplane 10 feet from your wing is pretty wild, it's like relearning how to fly again and I'm not terribly excited about that aspect. But after those flights I got sick (stomach stuff) and started feeling really awful, I went to the clinic since this is what we're forced to do if we feel bad enough that we can't fly and they said I was super dehydrated and got put on an IV for a couple hours. This put me out of commission for a couple days and then we had some weather come in that week which meant very few of us got to fly going into XMAS. Then Tuesday the 23rd I left for BREAK!

I was home for 12 days and had a lot of fun. The highlights were Christmas in Linwood and EHT, Megans moms xmas dinner in vineland (filet and double baked mashed potatoes), Eagles/Cowboys game in Philly (with a visit to chickies and petes beforehand to see everything set up for the Eagles to make the playoffs!), Lunch at the White House Sub Shop in AC along with visits to the Trop and Borgata, Flying a 172 up to NY through the Hudson River Corridor with Nick, New Years in New Brunswick with the Steedles, and visits to Galloway AC and the old alert site with chris - WHOA

But all good things must come to an end (even pilot training eventually) and I'm back in Del Rio. We had an easy day today and I should be back in the plane either tomorrow or Wednesday to get the dust off. 

I hope everyone had a great holiday and new years.