Wahoo! I forgot how much I love to fly! Even if it is just a Katana!
Anyway, had a blast, did well, and my IP was suggesting a proficiency advance (get me through the syllabus a lot faster). I guess that in some cases they don't let guys who finish early leave right then, they have to stick around. So, I figure if I have to be here, I might as well get the free flight time! So that's what I said.
For the first ride, the IP does EVERYTHING unless you ask to do some stuff. I asked for
WAHOO!!!
I'm DUN!!! Did my checkride first go this morning. I had some mistakes, like everyone does, but overall did great. They have checkride gouge books here with info on every instructor. It tells you what knowledge questions they like to ask, what kind of stuff they have you do during flight, what emergency procedures they run you through, etc... You just study those and glance through all the stuff you've been studying for the last 5-6 weeks and your good!! They tell you over and over a
So I gave the first formal brief this morning:
Note to self: make SURE your alarm clock will work before having to give the FIRST formal brief
Luckily, my 'wingman' came and knocked on my door before it was too late!!
More academics today. Went through navigation, using the IFG (In Flight Guide), and the procedures around here, etc... They give you a full checklist-sized IFG here, with almost everything you need for any flight planning, already bound with the little plastic rings and in sh
Sorry about not posting yesterday, I was beat and went to sleep early! The long weekend was nice, slept in a bunch and did some studying. People were allowed to leave the area as long as they were within 3 hours of Pueblo.
Had my second flight yesterday, went great again. The sight picture of where to put the horizon when you're doing steep turns, slow flight, stalls, etc... is very different from the Cessna 172. Those with a PPL already will know what I'm talking about, for those with no fli
No flying again today. They're not sure when the engines will be fixed, seems to be a fuel control problem. So, we're all hanging out until then. We had some random briefs, then were done by 1400. They mentioned something to the effect of possibly extending our time here so we can finish, if and when they get the stuff fixed. It might be a few days, it might be a few weeks, until it's all taken care of.
Oh well! Livin' the dream in the Dirty P!!
Yup, first flight I hook, and it's a check ride! I did fine in the air, screwed up some aerobatics, but no big deal. Had some crazy dealings with ATC, but handled them very well and my IP said he was very impressed. The problem came after the flight during the table-top Emergency Procedure. They give you a situation after every flight you do, and you have to talk through how you would get through it. It's the same with check rides. Anyway, if there's a boldface involved, you have to say it
Got my #1 choice... T-1's!
We had two get T-38's, two got UH-1's (they both wanted them... including one of the Top Sticks!), two got T-44's (they put T-38's first but are happy with T-44's), and the rest of us got T-1's (including the other Top Stick).
We start T-1 academicsat 0830 tomorrow... I'll let you know!
Half-way done with UPT!
Made it to IFS today. Got here about 1300. The website says be here between 1200 and 1800 in one spot, and between 1200 and 1500 in another. There's nothing bad or good about showing up early or late. I guess I wold reccomend early. Showed up in blues after my short trip from C-Springs (I DEFINITELY reccomend staying the night somewhere close by before driving in in your blues).
The people were very nice, and the one officer I've met, our MTO (Military Training Officer), was very cool and hel
Didn't fly on Friday, but I'm on the schedule Tuesday. Studied a bunch during the day, sat in on some briefs and debriefs, watched others pre-flight the aircraft, and helped some people learn their radio calls.
The senior class had their solo party in the afternoon. They basically sat in their flight room drinking beer with their IPs and having funny stories told about them. Some of our class sat in on it (we were all invited, but most were busy, and we couldn't have any of their beer).
The more academics I do it seems this is a pretty cool plane! A lot more power than the T-6, we're supposed to pull up to 15 degrees nose-up on take-off, and climb at 220 knots! The T-6 was 10 degrees nose-up and 160 kts to compare.
There's a ton more to learn about this plane than there was with the T-6 though, which I guess is to be expected. There's a crap-load of stuff in the checklists you have to memorize too. The T-6 checklist said "Trim - CHECKED" and you just ran the elevator,
The drop list the IP's gave us was a fraud! C-17's to CHS wasn't listed, but they knew that was my first choice, and me and another guy who wanted it got it!!!
Woohoo! Going to Charleston baby!!!
Hey all, sorry I didn't post more details before this, they've had me flying my butt off since assignment night. The way it works after after your Nav check is this:
4 Formation flights
2 <Simulated> Air Drop flights
2 <Simulated> Air Refueling flights
1 Co-pilot flight
Then you have assignment night. If you assign to a plane which does air drop, then you have 3 more air drop flights, another co-pilot ride, and an air drop checkride. If you track to a tanker, it's t
Crap!! I didn't get to fly today. The weather was fine for the morning, but by the time the afternoon flights were supposed to take off, the storms had rolled in. Oh well, I was rescheduled for tomorrow at 0930. Cross your fingers!!
We had CRM and ORM classes when we weren't flying (an hour and a half total), the rest of the time was spent studying in the flight room or listening to other people's briefs or debriefs (they encourage that). There's also a radio in the room that you can use to l
No flying again. They say the soonest we'll start again is Friday, but it might not be until next week. So, I guess I'll wait to make another post until then. If it's past Wednesday and this is still the latest post, then that's why.
We did lose another student today. Same as before, flying just didn't do it for him, so he said "No thanks". He's a great guy too, and everyone in the class wishes him the best of luck.
Down to 26 now...
And counting...
The next class shows up on Sund
Still no flying, but here's an update:
There's 14 students left in the senior class. 10 of them are having their last flights waived and will be leaving tomorrow. The other 4 will roll back to my class to do their last few flights.
They (DOSS) have 7 aircraft that have never had any problems. They're going to take those 7 aircraft and give them each 8-10 FCFs (Functional Checkflights). Assuming they all run good, they'll use them to start flying us again on Monday. This is still too f
Not much to report.
Two more flights today and I did well enough.
My final checkride is tomorrow. If you're the praying type, a little something sent up to your particular omniscient being would be most appreciated!!
I also posted some more pics in the gallery if anyone is interested.
Later!!
Wow, we've been busy the last few days. A sim on Monday (more checklists) plus a test (almost everyone did fine, one fail again but passed the 2nd time). We then started a new section, Flying Fundamentals. It's all about how to fly a pattern, approaches, landings, etc... There's actually a ton of different stuff involved so it's supposed to be one of the harder tests. The test is actually tomorrow afternoon, after another sim mission.
And on top of all this, my head has felt like it was
We're pretty much done with Phase I but it's not "official" until Monday. We all showed up at our Phase II flight room on the flightline today at 0800 and studied for our sims and did publications updates to all our pubs. My sim didn't brief until 1100, so I got all my pubs up to date and studied a bit.
The sim was another Emergency Procedure (EP) ride, so it was pretty much one malfunction after another. I did have a good time flying around when I wasn't taking care of EP's though. The
More of the same. Showed at 0645, 0700 brief, lot's of shotgun questions were missed and like 4 people got sat down during the stand-up. I didn't take off until 1240, so I spent the morning taking care of queep (paperwork crap), doing another CAI, and studying for my flights.
Flight went very well according to my grades but I felt like I wasn't sure what was going on a bunch of the time. It was fun though, so that's all that matters. After that, more studying until we were released at 1
Oh man I'm tired. The last bunch of days has been non-stop! We're on the flightline at least 10 hours a day and it's still not enough! At least a couple hours a night is the minimum for studying right now, and we still don't know enough! We had our first weekly stan test on Friday (Standards test) and only one guy in the whole flight passed! Most missed 5 to 8 questions out of 20, and we studied!! So we had to take another test today but the IPs basically went over it first so everyone pas
My Formation checkride and last Low-Level were yesterday. My complete dork of a Form partner and I did really well, we both received "excellent's". I had about 5 minutes to prepare for my Low-Level after the checkride, but luckily one of my flightmates was cool enough to do pretty much all my flight planning for me. He was already done with T-6's and knew I'd have min-time between my checkride and LL, so he hooked me up!
The LL was fun and quick, no biggie.
So now I get to sit around un
So I guess I had to have one more post.
It's tougher than I thought leaving my flight. Every single one of them are great guys and I see them doing fantastic things for the Air Force. As of the time I'm writing this, (Friday night at 2300 hours) we have one guy who washed out, and another guy who decided it wasn't for him. I wish them both the best of luck. That brings the grand total (so far) to 3 guys saying it's just not for them, and one not making it through, for a 15% "not graduatin
Yeah!
Solo today! Weather was great! I hadn't flown in ten days, so my pre-solo check was a bit rough the first 10 to 15 minutes, but then I figured it out and did fine. There was a bunch of people in the pattern so I had to do a bunch of go-arounds and low approaches, but whatever.
For those of you not in the know, after your initial solo, your classmates grab you and throw you into the "solo tank" which is just a big tank of water. IF you can make it back to your flight room before they
To the Maj at the SUP desk today who reads my blog: here's my next entry, thanks for reading!
I've done one of my two low-levels now and have started the last block of formation flying (4 flights) of my training in T-6's. The low-levels are fairly low threat. You only do two of them, the low-level charts are already made up for you, and an Excel sheet calculates all your airspeeds for you. You fly it at a constant 210 knots ground speed, so just adjust your airspeed to maintain your timing
