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Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

A blog by Riddller in General

  • Entries

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About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this 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

Fast and furious!

Was supposed to do an out and back last Thursday and broke in Arkansas! My IP and I had to drive back to Vance... 4 hours!! That sucked. My cross country started on Friday. We were supposed to go to Amarillo to get gas, then on to Albuquerque for the night. On to Denver on Saturday, then back to Vance on Sunday. Turns out that my plane had an inspection due so we had to come back to Vance on Friday. They had a plane for us on Saturday, so I made it out to Denver on Saturday night. 2 fl

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

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!

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

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

1st day of UPT!

So, I'm back. I had some friends who wanted a better idea of what it was like at UPT, and the blogs they found out there just weren't doing it, so now I'll blog UPT as well! I'm in class 09-05 at Vance AFB. Today was our "official" start date, so now I'm in Phase 1, academics. We're supposed to be done with Phase 1 on 10 March, then we'll move to the flightline and start flying the T-6 in Phase 2. The end of Phase 2 is scheduled for 22 July, and the end of Phase 3 (and winging) on 12 Feb

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-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)

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 2...

So 0800 at the OSS, in short sleeve blues, began the day. The head civilian instructor started us off with a brief about both what the civilian instructors do here (everything except flying) as well as how to survive UPT (don't get in trouble, study a lot). Then we had briefings from our Asst. Flight/CC, and a Government Travel Card brief. After an hour for lunch, we came back and got issued like 50 lbs. of publications (literally, 50 lbs, try stacking about 8 reams of paper [at least] on to

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

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

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.

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

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

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'

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