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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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    201,967

About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this blog

Maybe solo tomorrow?

Short post: I was supposed to solo today, but the weather was crap, so I'm on the schedule for it for tomorrow. We have our Friday Standards Test tomorrow, though, which is a huge pain. We've had like a 50% pass rate so far, if that. Now that the 15 day program is over, everything counts, so if I don't pass, I can't fly! Therefore... back to studying!

Lots of sims now

Sorry about no post for a week (again) but it's been kind of boring. I finished all of my flights (except for the one before my Instrument checkride) in the middle of last week, but I still needed like 6 sim missions before I can do my checkride. It pretty much sucks, same-old same-old stuff over and over. I should be doing my checkride on Thursday or Friday though, which I'm excited about. One good thing: We finally got off Formal Release last week (week 10 of Phase II) because everyone fi

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

Long days...

So Thursday and Friday were pretty long. We had to show at 0700 and didn't get out until after 1700. Lot's of CAI's and lectures on Thursday, mostly on Aerodynamics (lift, drag, stalls, spins, etc...) but some intro to the checklists. Friday was a sim day, I got to use one of the ones with the screen which was pretty sweet. It was designed to mostly just get through all the checklists, but my sim instructor let me do a bunch of approaches. They sucked pretty hard at the beginning (that sim is to

Leaving tomorrow...

So I guess I had to have one more post. It's tougher than I thought leaving my flight. Every single one of them are great guys and I see them doing fantastic things for the Air Force. As of the time I'm writing this, (Friday night at 2300 hours) we have one guy who washed out, and another guy who decided it wasn't for him. I wish them both the best of luck. That brings the grand total (so far) to 3 guys saying it's just not for them, and one not making it through, for a 15% "not graduatin

Last Block Of Training!

To the Maj at the SUP desk today who reads my blog: here's my next entry, thanks for reading! I've done one of my two low-levels now and have started the last block of formation flying (4 flights) of my training in T-6's. The low-levels are fairly low threat. You only do two of them, the low-level charts are already made up for you, and an Excel sheet calculates all your airspeeds for you. You fly it at a constant 210 knots ground speed, so just adjust your airspeed to maintain your timing

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

Info from BTDT

So, I've changed my plans a bit. A friend of mine told me that if I get a hotel room in Pueblo, then I will have zero chance of getting reimbursed because I "arrived" at my destination. So, I'm going to get a room in C-Springs Tuesday night. On a similar note, I talked to another friend who went through IFS recently. He said him and a friend drove the 9 hours to get there, showed up in there civies w/ their blues in hand, expecting the IFS people to allow them the use of a restroom to chan

In-processing day

Made it to IFS today. Got here about 1300. The website says be here between 1200 and 1800 in one spot, and between 1200 and 1500 in another. There's nothing bad or good about showing up early or late. I guess I wold reccomend early. Showed up in blues after my short trip from C-Springs (I DEFINITELY reccomend staying the night somewhere close by before driving in in your blues). The people were very nice, and the one officer I've met, our MTO (Military Training Officer), was very cool and hel

IFS Flash Cards

So I posted this in the IFS thread, but I figured it would be good here too. I made flash cards on the computer for all the boldface and ops limits, to be put on 4 x 6 cards. It's in color, but if you don't have color, the required limits all have asterisks. And the front and backs of the cards are on separate files for those of us who don't have duplex-capable printers. Unfortunately, this Blog program doesn't allow attachments (or I can't figure out how to make it work), so here's a li

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

Hotel in C-Springs

So, made it to Colorado Spings, after only 10 hours on the road. I checked into the Double Tree hotel, just south of the intersection of Hwy 24 and I-25. Nice place! I told them I was on orders and got the Gov't rate. I don't know if it's any better than the normal rate, but it said Gov't rate on the receipt. $80 a night for the rooms w/ a queen-sized bed, $90 for the king. $80 is the max-lodging in C-Springs, so that's what I took. Big chocolate chip cookie on check-in, I was sold!!

Hooked my Trans Check

Doh!!! Had a great flight, only 4 downgrades, and I hook for ground stuff!! I'm a dummy, it was my own stupid fault, but I'm not going into specifics. I just need a swift kick to the jimmy. All my flights have been great up to now, and hopefully that will continue. It just sucks that I get the hook on a check ride! Oh well, guess I have to take my lumps and move on. Ground-88 tomorrow. The days are still the same. Show at 0530, start briefing between 0600 and 0700, takeoff between

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

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

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

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!

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

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

First Formation Flight

Yup, instrument complete, now straight into Form. I'm not going to lie, the first flight scared the crap out of me. Flying 10 feet off the guys wing with 90 degrees of bank just doesn't seem right (at least not when I'm the guy doing it!). Overall I had fun though, it should be a good time. Was supposed to have my second Form flight today, but due to the "mishap" we might not be flying for a bit, I don't know. Unfortunately, all we're allowed to say is that both pilots are OK, and the MIB

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

Final Contact... here's your taco!

Yup, first flight I hook, and it's a check ride! I did fine in the air, screwed up some aerobatics, but no big deal. Had some crazy dealings with ATC, but handled them very well and my IP said he was very impressed. The problem came after the flight during the table-top Emergency Procedure. They give you a situation after every flight you do, and you have to talk through how you would get through it. It's the same with check rides. Anyway, if there's a boldface involved, you have to say it

Final Contact on Tuesday now...

This sucks. When they first told me I was doing my Final Contact checkride I was like, "Crap! That's too soon! I need more time!!". However, the winds were way out of limits all day on Friday, so nobody flew. AND we are having a "safety day" on Monday because of all those crashing T-38's, so now I'm not checking until Tuesday. I just want to hurry up and get it over with now! Oh well. Navigation test at 0650 tomorrow, guess I'll go study...

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