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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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About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this blog

Form Solo...wahoo!

My Form Solo was this morning and it was a blast! It's so much nicer being out in the area with someone to play with (sts). The other plane had an IP and one of my classmates working up to his Form Solo. We did a bunch of lazy-8's while -2 tried to stay in fingertip (5 - 10 feet away), and bunch of pitch-outs and rejoins, then went to Extended Trail (ET) Lvl 3. ET is when both of you have your power set at 85% and -2 tries to stay in sight of lead about 500-1000 away at about their 4 or 8 o

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

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

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

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

TD-10

Had our first official casualty of the course today. He wasn't sure about doing the pilot thing in the first place, and after a few flights here, he found out it just wasn't his thing. I've got a lot of respect for him because he studied is butt off, did great on the tests and had no problems in the plane. He gave a 100% effort and figured out it just wasn't for him. He's on the road now, headed home, and his base is working to find him another job, no hard feelings. Down to 27... Had my t

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

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

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

TD-whatever+1

Another fine day for flying!! My flight went good again, except for those stinkin' steep turns again!! I was fine a few weeks ago, and now they're back to crap!! Oh well, maybe next time. Also, this plane seems a bit more squirrelly when slipping it down for a landing than the -172 was... or maybe I just need to replace the nut that holds the stick! Had some more storms this afternoon, and they're talking about moving our brief time up to 0510 (ugggh!!) to get us done earlier in the after

T-1's Pretty Cool...

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,

TD-2

Class started at 0715 today, more academics. We went through more systems, then went into reading a VFR sectional, how to land and take off, the pattern, and airspace classifications/requirements. 45 min for lunch, and we started PT at 1620. Circuit training until about 1715, then we're done! First Formal Brief is Monday morningat 0640. The IPs will demonstrate it, then we take over Tuesday and every morning from then on. DON'T expect be allowed to leave the immediate (C-Springs is ok)

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

Third Form Flight

My formation flying is getting better, I can hang with lead a bit easier than for the first 2 flights. Our days are shorter now. If we fly first go, then we only have to hang out until second go leaves to go fly, then we can go home. Works out to be about 7 hour days now. The weekly stan tests are still kicking peoples butts. Luckily I haven't busted one since the first one, but a lot of people have been busting multiples, which means they have to take a retest, then another retest if t

Instrument Check Ride Complete!

Wahoo! Only one more checkride to go and I'm done with phase II! Check ride went really good. Sorry if I have to brag, but after hooking my last one, I hope you understand. I'm sure no one who already has their wings will care, but it's a big deal at the moment. Anywho, the IP only marked me down on one item, so like I said, I'm pretty flippin' happy! I'm academics complete (our Formation test was last week), and I only have two sim missions left (formation and Low-level). The formation sim w

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!

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 8 & 9

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

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

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...

T-6 Complete!

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

LOTS of computer classes

So we're back to our normal training now, and back in blues. About 90% of the instruction we've received so far has been on the computer, which is actually working really good. Each section (Hydraulics, Navigation, Communications, etc...) has it's own ~1 hour "class" on the computer. They have rooms full of computers so everyone can "take the class" at the same time. You just click through the pages, they each have maybe 3-8 sentences and a picture or video, and answer the quiz questions at the

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.

TD-4

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

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