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spectre56

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Blog Entries posted by spectre56

  1. spectre56

    Day 29

    By spectre56,

    Started off with a weather class this morning and then some of us had sims throughout the day. I had one and it went well and got a good (chairfly, chairfly, chairfly).

    Just a little bit ago we had another weather class and our SRO got some pizza for us...sweet deal! Pretty uneventful day overall, but one day closer to actually flying!
  2. spectre56

    Day 28

    By spectre56,

    We had a very slow day today. There was a briefing by the T-38 squadron commander early this morning, but I couldn't go because I got out of my sim late last night. Even though i'm not interested in T-38s/fighters, I would have liked to go to see what he talked about; oh well. Had a long class on weather this morning after that, then I was done until our contact test this evening. Some people had sims today, but there were several of us that were "ahead" so our sims are tomorrow.

    09-11s track select was at 1400 (that's 2PM for you military types) so I went to that. Can't wait to be there for my track select! They had about 2-3 guard/reserve and 2-3 international students; but out of the active duty guys/gals, there were 2 T-44s, 2 helos, 3 T-38s and the rest were T-1s. Not bad if you ask me. A buddy of mine got T-1s which is what he wanted, so that's cool.

    I had a bit of time to study for our contact test and I passed! Only the weather test is left before we hit the flightline on tuesday.
  3. spectre56

    Day 27

    By spectre56,

    Started off the day with a weather class then went into a CAI and a review of the contact lessons. That was it for the morning...I had about 4 hours off before my sim, so I came home and had lunch then went to the gym for a little bit before my sim started. I got out right at 12 hours so me and another guy don't have to go in until a little bit later than the rest of the class: nice.
  4. spectre56

    Day26

    By spectre56,

    Started off with a visit to what is going to be our flight room for several months. Got an intro by the flight commander and then, when the students from the class we're replacing showed up, they showed us what a standup and formal brief was all about. Pretty exciting...we start flying next tuesday!

    Had yet another sim and some CAIs and that was the day.
  5. spectre56

    Day 25

    By spectre56,

    I really had an awesome day today! Started off with a couple of CAIs which I found out I had already done! So I had some time to study some boldface and things like that. Went up to the classroom for our operating procedures test...simply a boldface/ops limits test. After that, I had a couple of hours to study for my first EP sim. It was with the instructor that teaches the operating procedures classes. He's a funny guy, but more importantly, it's easy to learn from him. Anyway, I thought I was fairly well prepared for it and I got a "good", so he must have thought I wasn't a total screw up. For those of you reading this who haven't been to IFS or UPT yet, after you learn the boldface, you will need to learn how to apply them. It's one thing to learn the boldface, but when it comes time to apply them in a certain situation, it becomes a bit tougher. I got done with the sim fairly early compared to everyone else in my class and headed home.

    There was a barbeque at one of the guys' house tonight, but since me and the wife and kid are sick, I thought it was better if we all stayed home this time. Oh well, maybe next time. Have a great weekend!
  6. spectre56

    Day 24

    By spectre56,

    I had a pretty good day today. We started out with a briefing from the wing commander and the command chief, then I went straight into my sim. It went well and the instructor gave me an excellent! Came home afterwords and had about 4 hours to study for flying fundamentals test. Took it and passed on the first shot!

    Also, heard we passed our boldface/ops limits (finally!) so it's flight suits to work now.
  7. spectre56

    Day 23

    By spectre56,

    Pretty good day overall. Finished a couple of CAIs this morning covering flying fundamentals, then had our review class. Went straight into doing our boldface/ops limits and a class on basics of the checklists (challenge/response items, etc.). Afterwords, we had our PFT...passed, but I need to work on it a bit.

    Came home and have been studying for a couple hours now and i'm all studied out.

    Oh, I didn't mention...my son's cousin was sick over thanksgiving, which got our son sick, who in turn got me and the wife sick. Not that bad, though: just a sore throat and runny nose.
  8. spectre56

    Day 22

    By spectre56,

    Took the aero test - again - this morning. Passed! I have to keep those to a minimum...

    Had another sim today...went much better for me than the one yesterday, but still need to study like it's going out of style!

    I'm home for lunch right now and have to do about 5 CAIs before a class at noon tomorrow. I'm relishing these "easy" days before the poop hits the oscillating device.
  9. spectre56

    Day 21

    By spectre56,

    Ok, thanksgiving is done...let's go christmas!

    Had our aerodynamics test this afternoon after some CAIs and a sim. This sim was the start of the "real life" sims doing checklists and flying around and stuff; pretty neat. I was way behind the power curve and it showed in the sim. But, now I know exactly what I need to study for the next time.

    Aerodynamics test....yeah, not so much. Didn't pass. I got some stuff confused in my head and only missed 2 more than what is allowed, but a fail is a fail. Not much to do about it but study.

    Retest is at 0800 so i'm going to bed after I study.
  10. spectre56

    Day 20

    By spectre56,

    So there I was...stitting in our first class today and I was having the hardest time staying awake. I didn't have to be there until 9:15, but I couldn't get to sleep until 2am! I hate that!

    All we had today was 3 classes: two on operating procedures and one on aerodynamics. This aerodynamics is killing me! It's a good thing I sit next to smart people or this stuff would be much tougher than it is.

    Finished up around 1 and the holiday has started! Happy thanksgiving everyone...stay safe and be careful! (a little redundant maybe...)

    P.S. the opening statement is credited to Fuse. It makes it a whole lot better, I think!
  11. spectre56

    Day 19

    By spectre56,

    Once again, lots of CAIs and lots of classes. Took our boldface/ops limits today...did we pass? Guess we probably won't find out until after thanksgiving.

    Again, not much to write about today. Sorry.
  12. spectre56

    Day 18

    By spectre56,

    Mundane day...lots of CAIs and some classes on aerodynamics and checklists. That is literally all that happened during the day.

    After we were done with all our CAIs, our class all went out to Rudys and had some barbeque. Good times. One of the flights is doing a toy drive so we thought we would all go to walmart and pick up some toys to donate for their drive. After that, headed home!

    It occurred to me as I was writing this, that this is probably very boring to read: "...had CAIs and class and went home". Well, I know it is and I hate that, but it should pick up and get more interesting once we start flying. I'm still going to do this as much as I can, partially for me and partially for those who are coming to UPT after me.
  13. spectre56

    Day 17

    By spectre56,

    It's friday! We had a review lesson this morning and then I had a couple hours of free time before our sim. I don't know if i've mentioned it yet, but these first 2 sims that we have done is basically a show and tell type thing; the LSI instructors show us stuff in the cockpit and how they work, etc. Had to go directly to Commander's Call after that and get our holiday safety briefing. He was also talking about how he was trying to get the different MWSs to come and have a "fly in" type deal. I think Columbus does that (or did that), and it would be really nice to get touchy feely with the different aircraft that the AF has.

    Going to drop night tonight, so that should be a good time. Have a great weekend!
  14. spectre56

    Day 14

    By spectre56,

    Had to get up a little earlier than usual for a review that lasted 3 hours--that was painful, but it was useful for the test we had a little bit ago. After the class, we had a few hours of study time before the test, so I went and had lunch with a buddy of mine who just got here, then went home to study for a little bit. Went to take the test and my CAC card wasn't working properly...go figure! I'm starting to get tired of this. Warning: if the pin number on your CAC starts or ends in a zero, the CAI program that administers the test won't like you and you'll have to make up a new pin, so don't have zeros! I finally got to take the test and I ended up missing 1, making a 97ish. I'm pretty happy about that!
  15. spectre56

    Day 11

    By spectre56,

    Today was great! We had an intro class this morning and then took a tour of the airplane...pretty cool. Then we did a pubs check after lunch. What a pain...and all we did was the in flight guide and the checklist. I did a few computer aided instructions (CAI) before the 12 day was up and called it a day.

    This was the first time I actually felt like I was in pilot training. It's a good feeling and we haven't even done very much!
  16. spectre56

    Day 16

    By spectre56,

    Had a pretty mundane day today. We had a class and a bunch of CAIs throughout the day. Got done with those fairly quickly and headed home for a little bit. Then we had to come back and go through our dash 1...very painless, if not tedious: most of us had already put in the changes and there were only three write-in changes so it didn't take long at all.
  17. spectre56

    Day 15

    By spectre56,

    Busy day, sort of. Had a couple CAIs in the morning. I got done with those fairly quickly so I was able to go home for about 45 minutes, then had to go back up to work for a review class, then had a few hours of free time before we took our boldface/ops limits test. Hopefully we all passed it! Did a couple more CAIs after that and headed home.
  18. spectre56

    Day 13

    By spectre56,

    Really easy day today. I had to get my CAC card reissued because, surprise--MPF didn't put the correct stuff on it...happened to about half of our class. More of a hassle and an annoyance than anything else. We had 3 CAIs scheduled for today, but since I came in yesterday and knocked out 2 of them (i'm trying to stay ahead of the curve), I only had one to do today; so I did that after I got my new CAC card. I was free for a few hours until our introductory sim. We weren't expected to know a whole lot so it was pretty relaxed...the instructor showed us where basic things were in the cockpit. It was pretty neat, and i'm excited to get more into it.

    We have our systems 1 test tomorrow so hopefully i'll do well on it!
  19. spectre56

    Day 12

    By spectre56,

    Pretty cool day...we attended 09-02's graduation and got introduced as the freshman class. Pretty motivating, but I gotta keep my head grounded and focus on what's going on now. Had a review class after lunch and then finished a couple CAIs and called it a night.

    We have our first sim on monday so i'm going to look over what's needed for that over the weekend.
  20. spectre56

    Day 10

    By spectre56,

    Aero Phys day 7. Final day of aerospace physiology and i'm guessing the easiest day of training?? Just a guess! We had several classes on crew resource management (CRM) and talked all about communication and decision making and stuff like that. They put some funny video clips in the briefings so that made it bearable.

    We start learning about the aircraft tomorrow and I can't wait! I'm still excited to have the chance to live my dream and there really is no other place i'd rather be than here, in pilot training!
  21. spectre56

    Day 9

    By spectre56,

    Aero Phys Day 6. Did the altitude chamber today. That was pretty fun...it had been about 8 years since I had done it and it was still pretty cool. That took up the whole morning then one of the aero phys guys grilled burgers and hot dogs for us for lunch; good times! After lunch we came back to practice egressing from the aircraft/study for the test for a couple hours. I passed the test! Again, we had no failures. 2 tests down and 6 to go or something like that.

    We have tomorrow off for Veteran's Day...Let me say thank you to those who have served in the past and those who are serving in our military today. Thank you all for your service!
  22. spectre56

    Day 8

    By spectre56,

    Aero Phys Day 5. Had a couple classes on acceleration, stress, and the anti G strain maneuver (AGSM). We all got to look retarded in front of the class doing the AGSM, but it's pretty important, so it's cool to look like an idiot! After lunch we did the Barany Chair - or as some know it, the spin and puke. Also had a class on night vision and then we did the FACT test. I thought I was going to have a really hard time with it because my upper body strength is not great, but I passed it...I had a hard time with one or two of the exercises, but I pushed through it. We only had a few people not pass it. Getting through that makes for a good weekend!
  23. spectre56

    Day 7

    By spectre56,

    Aero Phys Day 4. We did parachute landing fall (PLF) stuff all morning and, while a lot of fun, my knees are killing me! After lunch we had a couple classes on spacial disorientation and noise and vibration. Pretty good day overall. We still don't know if we passed boldface/ops limits or not.
  24. spectre56

    Day 6

    By spectre56,

    Aero Phys Day 3. More classes on physiology and one on the parachute...pretty uneventful. We had our boldface/ops limits quiz today. We were sitting in the classroom waiting on our flight commander to get there and the lights flicker and then go out. Our flight commander came in and we went outside to do our boldface/ops limits. We didn't get done until about 6:15 or so, so he didn't get to grade them on the spot like he did last week. Hopefully everyone passed!
  25. spectre56

    Day 4

    By spectre56,

    Day 1 of Aerospace Physiology...sweet. Not too much done today; although, we do get to wear flight suits for most of this, so that's a big plus. We did a bunch of Aero Phys inprocessing and got more briefs from various people (Health and Wellness Center and various instructors). Had some classes over local area survival and learned basic SABC (self aid buddy care), what plants you can and cannot eat, how to protect yourself in a survival situation and signaling. We went out to practice with the signal flares and, to be honest, I was really disappointed. When I did this stuff for the Marines, we got to set off every kind of flare we had...here, we set off one and used the signaling mirror. I was disappointed in the apparent lack of training, but there isn't much I can do about it; plus, I was happy to get out of the classroom, even if only for a little bit.

    Tomorrow is egress training! I still tell myself every day how lucky I am to be in the position that I'm in and doing what I've dreamt about for years.
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