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Riddller's IFS & UPT Blog

A blog by Riddller in General

  • Entries

    100

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About this blog

IFS first, now my fun at UPT!

Entries in this blog

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...

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

TD-whatever+3&4

Flight went good again yesterday, getting ready to fly again here in a couple hours. The new class is supposed to start flying Monday. I was told yesterday that they want to proficiency advance me. Same with the other guy in my class with a PPL. We're supposed to have 6 flights in this "block" of instruction, but they want us to skip the last two flights and go straight to the pre-solo checkride. So I've got one more flight today, then my checkride on Saturday. Oh yeah, everyone is fly

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.

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,

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

TD-12

No flying again today. They're not sure when the engines will be fixed, seems to be a fuel control problem. So, we're all hanging out until then. We had some random briefs, then were done by 1400. They mentioned something to the effect of possibly extending our time here so we can finish, if and when they get the stuff fixed. It might be a few days, it might be a few weeks, until it's all taken care of. Oh well! Livin' the dream in the Dirty P!!

TD-whatever+2

Groundhog day... Rained in the morning, the first two lines on the schedule didn't go (12 flights). I was 4th go, had a good time. We went to another airfield about 20 min away and did nothing but pattern work. Finally got the slips down, and nailed centerline on every landing... woohoo!! The next class is supposed to start flying on Saturday. Not much else is new, like I said, groundhog day...

TD-5

Crap!! I didn't get to fly today. The weather was fine for the morning, but by the time the afternoon flights were supposed to take off, the storms had rolled in. Oh well, I was rescheduled for tomorrow at 0930. Cross your fingers!! We had CRM and ORM classes when we weren't flying (an hour and a half total), the rest of the time was spent studying in the flight room or listening to other people's briefs or debriefs (they encourage that). There's also a radio in the room that you can use to l

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

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

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

Chamber day

So we all got our chamber rides today. For those of you not in the know, the "chamber" is a little room they sit you down in, with a bunch of oxygen regulators. They depressurize it up to 35,000 feet, then bring you back down to 25,000 feet. Then they tell you to take off your mask and do really simple things like writing your name and simple math problems. Within a minute or 2 everyone starts feeling different symptoms of hypoxia, and when you feel you could no longer fly an aircraft (i.e.

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

5 rides done

Had my fifth ride today, went really well. I needed to do a "pattern only" flight, so this was it. I got like 10 landings in. The aircraft control is pretty much there, and my SA is definitely bigger than most with my prior Nav time, but it's also definitely not where it needs to be. I'm starting to get to the point where I don't have to worry as much about my aircraft control and can start concentrating more on expanding my SA bubble. I missed some stuff today, but it was good training.

Woo hoo! No more blues!

So we passed our 3rd consecutive boldface/ops limits today, so no more blues... unless we bust a test later. They only give the tests every Monday now, though, so we're in flight suits for at least this week. We did a GPS CAI this morning, basically all about how to work the GPS system, and we had our first simulator. We just got in the cockpit and the instructor had us flip all the switches on and off to see what they did, not graded and no biggie, but pretty cool! The avionics on the T-6 a

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!!

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!

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

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

Beer light is on!

So they "turned on the beer light" for my flight for the first time this afternoon. It just means you can drink beer in the flight room and tell funny stories about each other. A lot of other flights get it way earlier than we did, but with 5 guys on P-CAP they didn't want to. I also delivered our flight gift -- a kegerator me and some flight-mates built -- to the flight room today, so that probably helped! I had my first flight since my double-turn today too. Dental appointment on Wednesday

TD-13.1

Still no flying, but here's an update: There's 14 students left in the senior class. 10 of them are having their last flights waived and will be leaving tomorrow. The other 4 will roll back to my class to do their last few flights. They (DOSS) have 7 aircraft that have never had any problems. They're going to take those 7 aircraft and give them each 8-10 FCFs (Functional Checkflights). Assuming they all run good, they'll use them to start flying us again on Monday. This is still too f

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

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

T-38 Sim Complete

So once you get towards the end of T-6's (at least at Vance), they have you go over and do a T-38 sim. At this point, no one (except for the Navy guys) know what we'll be flying for Phase III, and supposedly this sim has nothing to do with that selection (no one at Vance even sees the results, they just go to Randolph for statistics). Anyway, it was fun. You take off from Randolph AFB in your T-38, and fly an ILS at 250 knots. Then again at 300 knots. Then again at 350 knots. Over and over

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