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Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

A blog by Riddller in General

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About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this blog

CAI marathon...

So we had one CAI (Propulsion 2) this morning at 0800, then had our propulsion review with our instructor at 0930, then 4 more CAIs after that!! Environmental controls, ejection system, canopy systrem... Ugggh. The good thing is that most were done by 1430. So my whole class has to go to the graduation of class 08-05 tomorrow... in service dress. I guess it's tradition that the class one year behind the graduating class goes to "take the torch" or some such. Oh well, should be interesting. Th

1st Saturday

Went to C-Springs for a steak at Outback w/ a bunch of people last night. Came back and had a few too many Captain and cokes in the lounge last night. Had a great time, but had a hangover like you read about this morning. Didn't study much during the day. One of the security guys has a crap-load of DVDs that he gave me (class leader, the old guy) to let everyone use for free (check-out of movies at the front desk costs a couple bucks). Watched a couple, then did some chair-flying/studying with s

Getting ready to go

So, here's my Blog of going through IFS, class 07-11. I've never done a Blog before, so please no bashing if I break some rule of "Blog etiquette". There are a number of active duty pilot's there, and I'm sure at least one of them has heard of Baseops.net, so I'm not going to be doing any serious bashing of anyone, I still want to graduate!! And I won't guarantee spelling either, so suck it up if you're a grammar/spelling nazi!!! I'm driving out of my base this Tuesday for the 10 ho

Week 2 of T-1's

Flying is going well, but I've only had two flights so far. My third will be tomorrow. I'm actually really surprised at how much better I did on my second flight than I did the first. I think it was just not flying for a month that did it. I was by no means perfect, and made some mistakes, but did some of the landings, maneuvers, etc... really well too. I'm not the only one in my class to make these comments either. The days are long, again. Last week we were in at 0500 every day and us

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

Checkride Saturday

Did my checkride yesterday, went well, I passed no problem. I actually thought I busted standards on a couple of the maneuvers, but the IP said they're more looking for people who notice when they bust and try to correct right away, which I did. I solo with like 5 other people on Monday. Everyone in the class should be checking within the next few days, then doing their solo's. Yes, they are back to letting us solo by ourselves in the pattern. I've got 5 more flights in the syllabus after my

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

Doin good...

Had three rides in the "Nav" phase of training now. Good times! Pretty much every ride in the Nav block is an Out and Back, so now I've had lunch in Lubbock and Ft. Worth with the T-1. I'm planning on going to Abilene on Tuesday 'cuz I hear there's a fantastic steak place open in the evenings called the Beehive. We'll see! The flights are usually two hours out then 2 hours back. You fly someplace about 30 min away, do a bunch of approaches, then continue on to your "outbase" another 30-4

Still sick...

Short entry, I'm still sick as a dog. I think it's getting worse. Had the first "fly the plane around and do some landings/takeoffs" sim today, pretty cool. Studied for the Flying Fundamentals test the rest of the time. I did well and so did most of the people I know. Guess we'll find out tomorrow if anyone didn't do so hot. Show was 0800 and we were out of there by 1730, same as the last few days, kinda long but not too bad. Goin' to bed...

Couple more weeks to checkride

So I'm about 3-quarters of the way through the Nav phase of T-1's now, which, they say, is the "meat and potatoes" of T-1 training. Had my first low-level flight yesterday, it was fun flying 230 kts at 500 feet, but the completely flat terrain of northern Oklahoma and southern Kansas doesn't exactly inspire youtube videos of yanking-and-banking through canyons... not that the T-1 ever would anyway! There's a number of guys in the "senior class" of my flight who are now Nav-check complete, and

Sorry, Kinda Boring!

Hey all! Sorry I haven't posted for a bit, but academics is kinda boring to talk about unless your actually here. The stuff I'm learning about the plane, i.e. what all the switches do, how the electrical system works, etc... is pretty cool for me, but I'm sure you would all fall asleep if I started talking about how the DPU interfaces with the EFIS and the IAPS and is controlled by the DCP. The days are still fairly easy. I got ahead on my CAI's and so got to sleep in until 1130 on Monday

Cross Country complete

Just got back from my cross country. We only get one while we're in T-1's and more than likely it will just be a one-nighter during the week. Some people get to do them over a weekend, by not many. The other student I was with and I went to Omaha then spent the night in Denver. On the way back, we stopped in Rapid City then came home. It was cool getting out of the local area and doing mission planning on the road. I'm now finished with the first half of the Nav phase of training. I,

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

UPT Complete!

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

Nav check complete!

Finally go my Nav check out of the way before the holiday break last week. I did extremely well and am very happy, hopefully that will make up for my dumb mistakes on my Trans check! When we get back from the break, it will be straight into formation and Mission Fam (simulated air-refueling and air-drop flights). Only 4 weeks to Assignment night on Jan 29th!

Another day, another dollar...

So it was nice not having to show up to class until 0900 this morning. We had 2 CAI's this morning: Aerodynamics 1 and 2, which I was done with by 1030. Then we waited for the review which started at 1400. That was done at 1530, then we had our "Intro to Operational Procedures" until 1630. Basically just a "here's what's in the checklist". We were done after that. Tomorrow starts at 0700... ugh.

TD-3

So Sunday was pretty mundane. I slept in, got some chow and studied all afternoon and evening. Nothing interesting to report. Today kind of changed my opinion of the overall instruction here. They made it pretty clear that if people are having problems, the instructors will stay to all hours of the night to help you. That doesn't mean you always get extra flight time (you can, though), but they will go over things with you again and again if they know you really want it and are really trying.

Graduation!

Today was graduation. 54 weeks of fun/pain/work/play ending in getting my wings. It was all worth it, I'd do it again if I had to. The graduation ceremony was this morning at 1000. Class 10-05 was sitting in the back in their service dress, just like we were sitting in the back of class 08-05's graduation a year ago. It's weird thinking about all that's happened and things I've done since then, and knowing those guys are all just getting started with it. We have our graduation dinner t

One more week...

One week until I Nav check. I was flying only once a week for the last few, which sucks because you lose a lot in that week. Checklists don't go as fast, your not as smooth on the landings, etc... but I've flown twice this week so far and will probably fly on Thursday and Friday as well. That's good, because the flying in general goes a lot better, but bad in that it can be draining. Regardless, I'd rather be flying than not. I should two-check on Monday then do the Nav check on Wednesday.

TD-6

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

TD-whatever

Wahoo!! Started flying again today. I was scheduled for the last flights of the day, but saw this morning that the weather was supposed to get crappy. We had a guy get sick, though, who was supposed to fly at around noon. I let the scheduler know that I was behind a number of other students in the syllabus AND the weather was supposed to be bad for my flight. So, I surreptitiously suggested (50 cent word!!) that he schedule me for a double turn. He did it, but the weather was too bad for my

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

TD-1

Up at 0530, get into blues, then breakfast at 0600 (you don't have to eat if you don't want). In-briefs started at 0635, and went until 1200. Every guy in our chain of command, up to the OG/CC, had to have his 30 minutes to tell us: "You're lucky to be here, it's really hard, don't fvck it up." Also got our boldface and Ops Limits test today. They look EXACTLY like the practice tests on the website. Everyone has to do it over and over again, until everyone gets it PERFECT. You have to writ

Formation complete

So we only get 4 "actual" formation flights, by which I mean only four flights where you work just on formation flying. After that, we do simulated airdrop and air-refueling flights, all of which are done as a formation. We're also in the process of filling out our drop requests at the moment. Should be interesting to see what happens!

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

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