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Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

A blog by Riddller in General

  • Entries

    100

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    74

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    198,496

About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this blog

T-1 Dollar Ride!

Had my dollar ride today... very cool! The plane flies a bit easier than the sim, but not by much. It was also nice to see how they do it "on the flight-line" vs. in the sim (checklists, etc...). We took off, went to a MOA for about 50 minutes, then went to McConnell AFB to do touch-and-goes. It's pretty nice to be up at 15,000 feet doing 300 indicated! Seriously cuts down on the drone time between places. We flew for a total of about 3.5 hours, split between two students, which I guess is

T-1 Academics

Back to doing CAI's again... (that's "computer aided instruction" for those of you who don't remember my posts from 6 months ago... what, you don't study these things??) The day after track select (yesterday) we showed up at the T-1 squadron at 0830 and got a couple of briefings from the flight commander and the SQ/CC. We'll still have another "15 day program" and be on formal release at first (12 hour days) but we were told it's much more of a "big boy program", i.e.-not as much IP harassme

Systems 2 Test

So we had a long weekend, which was nice, but now back to the books. We had our Systems 2 test today (Electrical, Fuel, Propulsion, Environmental, Canopy, and Ejection systems). 47 questions and it was way easier than I thought it was going to be, but maybe that's because I spent an extra 5 hours studying yesterday. Did very well again, as did the rest of the class (don't know what the average was yet) but we did have one fail. He retakes it tomorrow morning and should be fine after that. You're

Sunday...

So we're supposed to start flying again tomorrow, we'll see. Most of the new class has made it in by now, a bunch of people in my class have been grabbing them and giving them the nickle tour. Friday was nice, we were done by 0800, so most went back to sleep. I went out and grabbed a pony keg and grilled out for dinner again, good times!! Then a bunch of us went out on the town. It was dead!! There were hardly any people in the bars, and it was pretty slim pickings for the guys looking

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...

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

Still here...

I'm up to 9 flights now, still doing good. I need 4 more flights before my first checkride, the "Transition Check". I went to Amarillo today to do touch-and-goes. Nice, place! LONG runway, but lot's of birds. Which reminds me, I hit a bird a couple flights back, and didn't even know it! We got on the ground and did a walk-around after the flight, and had a big bloody smear across the right of the nose! It didn't do any damage (to us anyway) so it was no big deal. These 0530 show times

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

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

Sorry, I been sick...

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

Some good advice...

So I was saying "Later!" to some of the people at my squadron today and I got what I thought was some good advice from a Maj that I work for/with whom I respect quite a bit. He said, "The AF doesn't care if you've got zero hours or 10,000 at any of their pilot training courses. They care if you learn to do exactly what they say, exactly how they tell you to do it. They don't want to hear, 'Well, I learned to do it this way from my instructor.'" It made sense to me, and while I never in

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

Solo ride day

So I had my solo today, along with about 5 other guys. It was a blast. You have to do all your solo landings to a full stop then taxi back to the runway, but it's not a big deal. The problem comes in when you FORGET to do your full stop and just do a touch-and-go! Enter me... they understood that you build the habit patterns based on touch-and-go's, but they were still pissed after I told them about it (no one knew, the IPs were driving to the tower to watch us when I did it!). Oh well, th

Sim on brother!

Sorry no post for a week, but I've only had one flight since my check ride, and that was last Monday. The weather was crappy after my check ride, so that's why no flights last week. This week its 'cuz I've been double-turning in the simulator every day. My 88 ride went good, I just had to fill out a boldface sheet and tell the IP how the engine worked. He was very happy. I'm supposed to go cross-country this weekend, but I needed to have all my navigation simulator rides done, which is wh

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...

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!!

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.

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!

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!

More Form, Shorter Days

Done with 6 form flights now, and it is getting easier to stay in position. I only flew once last week because I messed up my back working on the house last weekend. I wasn't hydrated enough before flying on Friday and we were doing formation aerobatics. All those G's about made me puke! I didn't though, just kept flying. If you puke on any flights after you solo, it's an automatic hook, and we have had two guys in my flight blow chunks on formation flights because you're always looking aro

More flights...

Busy busy... I've been flying and simming along with more classes pretty much non-stop since my mid-phase. We started doing our navigation classes which are fairly long. I actually did my 3rd area solo today too, which is unusual because we're only supposed to have two. They ran out of instructors this afternoon though, so it was either give me the flight or lose it. I'm now technically only two flights away from my Final Contact checkride, but I'm doing a night flight tomorrow which doesn'

More Aero Phys, but some good stuff too!

So Monday morning was colder than crap, and we had to practice our "low" Parachute Landing Falls (PLFs) all morning... that sucked! In the afternoon we got a tour of all the simulators (very nice!) and got to check out a T-6 with most of the panels removed, so we could check out the guts. That thing looks like it'll be a blast to fly! This morning we had a dusting of snow on the ground, and had to do all our "high" PLFs. It was even colder outside than yesterday! Oh well, glad I'm done wi

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

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

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