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Blogs

Geoff's Blog

Let the good times roll

Ok, got here to the lovely brand new IFS facility at around noon. The Doss IFS website says report between 1000 and 1800 in one place and 1200 - 1800 at another spot on there. I think 1000 is what they mean. As was said in Riddller's blog, doesn't really seem like any better or worse to get here earlier rather than later or vice versa, but I guess I would err on the side of early. We have a meet and greet type thing later tonight, but once you get your room and get your flight gear, you're f
Geoff's Blog

Colorado Springs

Me and my buddy got to Colorado Springs a little bit ago. We're staying here tonight so we don't have to wear our blues for that long when we actually get to IFS. Not too much to post for today...pretty much just driving the whole day (came from Texas). Tomorrow is day 1, so i'm sure i'll have much more to post then.
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Midphase Checkride

Had my Midphase Checkride today. I passed with a 'Good' but am mad at myself for messing up what I messed up. It was a crappy day all together. My check IP got changed 5 min before the brief so I had studied all the gouge for the wrong guy, then the weather was crappy and the IP had to take the controls at one point, and the field I was supposed to do my pattern work at was closed so I had to come back to Vance... and land on a runway I'd only flown to once before! Oh well, at least I passed
Geoff's Blog

A few days left

Well, I'm taking a cue from Riddller and doing a blog about IFS (and hopefully UPT). I know he put a lot of great information in his so i'll try to do the same. Hopefully I'll be adding a different perspective on things. So far, everything Riddller has in his opening remarks of his IFS blog holds true...i'll find out for sure when I get there. Also, my supervisor and a Major in my squadron have been trying to help prepare me for this by imitating standup EPs...I am given a situation and I hav
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Beer light is on!

So they "turned on the beer light" for my flight for the first time this afternoon. It just means you can drink beer in the flight room and tell funny stories about each other. A lot of other flights get it way earlier than we did, but with 5 guys on P-CAP they didn't want to. I also delivered our flight gift -- a kegerator me and some flight-mates built -- to the flight room today, so that probably helped! I had my first flight since my double-turn today too. Dental appointment on Wednesday
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

First double turn

We had some of our guys on P-CAP not do so hot on their test this morning, so they couldn't fly today. I was scheduled for just one flight originally, in the afternoon, but after that test, I got thrown on a flight this morning with 4 minutes to plan. Luckily I already prepared two flights in advance, so I was ready to go. By the time I finished my debrief for my first flight, I was already late for my second one, so no time to rest. Before you solo, they aren't allowed to double-turn yo
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Solo!

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
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Same same

Still no solo, I'm scheduled for Monday. 10 days of no flying! Ughh!!! Everyone not on P-CAP had to take the stan test on Friday and everyone passed,so that was good. I actually aced my first one, woohoo! Hopefully the winds will be in limits and not too many clouds on Monday so I can solo. Cross your fingers!!
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Still no solo

It's now Wednesday,and still the weather sucks, so no solo. I got some sims out of the way, but I'm done with everything I can do now, so it's just a lot of sitting around the flight room. I passed the stan test, but was one of only like 5 in the whole class who did so. Some failed the retest too, so now we've got 5 in my flight alone on P-CAP, which means they are on the Commander's Awareness Program for academics. Not a big deal, just lot's more tests and studying. Everybody did pass the w
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

More 12 hour days...

Jeez it's hard to catch a free minute in this place! Last Friday, yesterday and today were all 11 hour and 59 minute days. We haven't gotten out on a Friday before 1930 for 3 weeks! I didn't fly Friday but did two sims, and did a sim and flight both yesterday and today. The day started at 0630 with our Instruments 2 exam. I and most people did well, but we did have two failures. They'll have to get extra training and retest tomorrow. To show you have fluid the schedule can be, when
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Another 12 hour day...

Showed at 0730, got let loose at 1920, and I'm still studying for Stan Test #3 which is tomorrow. I was just supposed to have a sim today, but halfway through the formal brief this morning the scheduler IP threw my name on the schedule for the first takeoff. We didn't even have time to do stand-up or shotgun questions this morning after the brief because people had to go fly, me included. I had about 3 minutes to prep before sitting in front of an IP I'd never flown with before and tellin
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Spins today

Flying went good today, significantly less wind then my last few flights. Get used to flying high cross-wind landings if you're coming to Vance, it's almost always windy. I completed the first block of training last Monday (6 rides) then started the second one today. We went up to 19,000 ft and did a bunch of spins. You can see a T-6 spin video somewhere on T-6 Driver.com if you don't know what one is. Anyway, it was a blast. Came back to Vance and did a bunch of patterns after that. M
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Been a while...

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. We've still been crazy busy on the flightline. Flying, simulator missions, academics, studying for stand-up and shotgun questions, it just doesn't stop! Top that all with the fact that I got food poisoning last Thursday night! I was up all night with that (I'll spare you the details) then got put on quarters for Friday. I crawled back into bed at 0800 on Friday and didn't leave it until 1100 Saturday! I think I'm finally back to normal today.
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

I'm beat!

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
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Day 2

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
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Day 1

Yesterday was "Day 0" of the 15-day program (the scripted harassment of the first 15 days on the flightline). They showed us all how it was done yesterday, then we had to perform today (Day 1). That meant us doing the formal brief (that was a cluster-f), then stand-up and shotgun questions. The shotgun questions all come from required reading they give us each day, including the "notes, warnings, cautions" (NWC) out of the Dash-1. There can be up to 7 or 8 NWCs for each emergency procedure (
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Good times!

Dollar ride was a blast! It was kind of weird because they actually put my IP and I in a van to go to another airport down the road to take off. They had a number of aircraft come in off of cross-country's yesterday while Vance was closed so they had to park at Woodring. It's not unusual I guess. What was unusual was having a guy on his dollar ride do his first ever takeoff in a T-6 at someplace other than Vance! Anyway, we took off (this thing climbs like crazy!) and did a touch and go at
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Another day in the sim

Had my first "Contact" sim today and it was in one of the sims with the full wrap-around screens. Very cool! It doesn't move but I actually caught myself getting queasy a couple of times! I've been told they've had a ton of students yak in there. Anyway, we took off from Vance, flew up to Dogface (the aux field north-west of Vance) and did some pattern work. Then went to one of the training areas, did a spin, some slow flight, and a power-on stall. Came back to Vance after that and beat up
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Flightline is coming up!

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
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Short day!

We had CRM training at AeroPhys today and were actually done by 1030! We decided to head over to the flight room to work on getting stuff ready, so didn't actually leave until 1230, but it was still a short day. I guess we're actually hitting the flightline on Monday, maybe even a dollar ride! Guess we'll see...
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Uggh... back in blues...

So one of our boys busted his boldface/ops limits test yesterday, so we were back in blues today. That sucks after having been in flight suits for so long. The good thing is we have to go back to Aerospace Physiology tomorrow to learn about Crew Resource Management (CRM), so we HAVE to be in flight suits, and we have simulator missions for the rest of the week, so we have to be in flight suits then too! So technically we're supposed to be in blues for the rest of the week, but so much for that.
Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

Moving on...

I'm still sick, but now it's just down to a cough. Friday was a Emergency Procedure sim, full g-suit, hemet, etc... It was neat, I learned a bunch. After the day was up we went to the club to cheer on our team in the crud tournament, then went to roof-stomp the OSS/CCs house. Good times! Ended up back at the club after that and hung out for a while longer. Not a bad evening!

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