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Geoff's Blog

A blog by spectre56 in General

  • Entries

    110

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About this blog

Fun times at IFS, UPT and Airfield Ops

Entries in this blog

So far so good

Had our first test today and I passed with a stellar grade...almost 100, but not quite! I'm pretty proud: it's a much better start than what I had at pilot training! I'll have to keep it up though...it doesn't get any easier. Getting into tower stuff this week and hittin the sim at the end of the week. Should be a good time.

Day One

Today was an ok day. Death by powerpoint describes it well. We had our first boldface/ops limits test today, overall, not too bad. The PFT is another beast all on it's own. If you aren't running, start running well before you get here. You lose about a minute or two on your run time because of the altitude, and there is no waiver for altitude...we missed it by about 400 feet. This weekend is free for us, but it will most likely be the last one as all the classes are backed up and we'll p

Last minute flight, anyone?

So, there I was, sitting around the table, studying when one of our guys calls the flight room and says that he's sick in quarters (or whatever the AF calls it). Well, our scheduler and flight commander are scrambling around trying to fill the slot (see where this is going?) and they come up with me. Fantastic! Fortunately I had about 30 minutes to get my data card ready so that was sweet. I get to the brief and I had forgotten to put winds, fuels, and weather on the card. That didn't go

Waiting

So, still sitting around waiting on a RIP or some orders to move on to the next stage of my life/career. On a different note, it seems like our class is getting knocked out like flies! We have another person on Commander's Review for flying stuff, one guy on the edge for puking 3 times after solo and someone else on med hold for eye problems. I really hope for the best for these guys...they are really good people and are busting their asses to do the best they can in this tough program.

Day 10

Aero Phys day 7. Final day of aerospace physiology and i'm guessing the easiest day of training?? Just a guess! We had several classes on crew resource management (CRM) and talked all about communication and decision making and stuff like that. They put some funny video clips in the briefings so that made it bearable. We start learning about the aircraft tomorrow and I can't wait! I'm still excited to have the chance to live my dream and there really is no other place i'd rather be than

Another week

Well, my flight last friday didn't go as well as it could have, and I got a fair on it. Oh well, I know what to work on. Besides that, I had a study day today with an hour of extra instruction thrown in there with one of the sim IPs. I've got the instruments 2 test tomorrow morning. I'm pretty confident about it, but I know there's going to be a couple obscure questions thrown in there that will attempt to trip me up. I'll let ya know how it goes. Have a good night!

A few days left

Well, I'm taking a cue from Riddller and doing a blog about IFS (and hopefully UPT). I know he put a lot of great information in his so i'll try to do the same. Hopefully I'll be adding a different perspective on things. So far, everything Riddller has in his opening remarks of his IFS blog holds true...i'll find out for sure when I get there. Also, my supervisor and a Major in my squadron have been trying to help prepare me for this by imitating standup EPs...I am given a situation and I hav

Day 4

Day 1 of Aerospace Physiology...sweet. Not too much done today; although, we do get to wear flight suits for most of this, so that's a big plus. We did a bunch of Aero Phys inprocessing and got more briefs from various people (Health and Wellness Center and various instructors). Had some classes over local area survival and learned basic SABC (self aid buddy care), what plants you can and cannot eat, how to protect yourself in a survival situation and signaling. We went out to practice with

Thur May 1

Today we had our first real formal briefing and standup EP. I think they went well overall, but I don't know how much the flight commander liked it. We'll do it again tomorrow and every day until we graduate, so I we're going to do our best. We had some classes and then our academics test, and I made 100%! I'm pretty happy about that. After that and lunch, we spent a few hours in our flight room; just studying, nothing too daunting. Some folks are getting their dollar rides tomorrow (fir

Day 13

Really easy day today. I had to get my CAC card reissued because, surprise--MPF didn't put the correct stuff on it...happened to about half of our class. More of a hassle and an annoyance than anything else. We had 3 CAIs scheduled for today, but since I came in yesterday and knocked out 2 of them (i'm trying to stay ahead of the curve), I only had one to do today; so I did that after I got my new CAC card. I was free for a few hours until our introductory sim. We weren't expected to know a

Instruments 1

Another uneventful day for me. All I did was study all day for the instruments 1 test. Most others flew, but some of us didn't. Then had our instruments test this evening. I was feeling confident about it ever since we had our review of it the other day. Well, I made a 91! Only missed 4...would've only missed 2, but I couldn't resist the urge to change my answers to 2 of the questions...dummy! Never change your answers unless you're 1000% sure that you're changing it to the right answer.

Day 5

Day 2 of Aero Phys. More classes on life support stuff. Also got to go into the altitude chamber to test mask functions; we'll go "up to altitude" in a couple days, pretty sweet. We also did egress training. Ended the day with a test: everyone passed so that was good. One down, 7 to go or something like that...taking it one at a time. Blues tomorrow and boldface/ops limits. Hopefully everyone will pass...we'll see!

Thur May 22

Supposed to fly twice today and only got the first one in this morning. Second one was cancelled due to winds. We went out to the other aux field (Fremont) and did a bunch of touch and goes. I thought the flight went pretty well and my IP pretty much agreed. This is a one time flight where you only go out to the aux field and beat up the pattern and you don't go to an area at all. It's a nice change of pace, plus there aren't nearly as many people at that airport as there are here at Pueblo

Learnin, learnin, learnin

Sweet couple of days at work. Almost fully in processed and checklist is almost done...only a couple more mass briefings to attend and i'll be good to go. But I also got word that i might be going to Keesler next month...much, much quicker than originally scheduled! That's awesome! Anyway, been hanging around some of the guys just trying to get a feel for what part of their job entails, getting a tour of the field, etc. Good times. I'm trying to learn as much as I can before I potentiall

Wed May 21

I was supposed to fly this afternoon, but, as you guessed...we had crazy winds! (This seems to be a trend!) I get to switch IPs now also, which is cool because I get a different perspective on what I'm doing right and wrong. I'm on the schedule for tomorrow morning, but winds aren't looking promising, again, so we'll see. If this weather keeps up through friday, I won't fly until tuesday (monday is Memorial Day!). This just means we'll be here that much longer than scheduled. Oh, and we ha

Fri May 2

Today was the first day of flying for our class. I'm not sure about the other flight, but I don't think any of the 3 or 4 folks in our flight who were scheduled to fly did so. Winds were way too high all day. We got let go at about 1530 which was sweet. My first flight is on Tuesday so I'll be studying tomorrow and monday for that...should be fun! Oh, went and saw Iron Man last night. Pretty sweet movie! I definitely recommend it if you haven't seen it yet.

More of the same

Had a great 3 day weekend, but it didn't last nearly long enough...no kiddin, huh?! Came back and flew tuesday morning. The flight went fairly decent; ya know, for my 4th flight. I was supposed to have an EP sim in the afternoon, but I was having some personal issues, so that got cancelled. Took the next EPQ this morning, and unfortunately, it was more of the same. I busted it, again. I take solace in the fact that about half our flight didn't pass it, but it still sucks. So that's my 5

Tues May 27

I was supposed to fly this past friday, but winds were crap...again. So I had a nice 3 day weekend; went to Colorado Springs for the night on Saturday and relaxed and didn't think of IFS once! Finally got to do my 304 just a little bit ago. I think it went well overall. Weather was still kinda crappy but not so bad that we couldn't go to the area and do some stuff out there. I'll get to the checkride....it may take a long time, but i'll get there!

Free Agent

So the commander's review process begins and I am what they refer to as a "free agent". I'm not actively in pilot training, but i'm not out yet either, so I just hang out everyday like the guys on casual, but I have to stay up at work all day to study and stuff like that. Not too bad, I guess. I'm staying positive and hoping for the best.

Fri May 9

Another benign day of just studying. The guy that was doing our formal brief didn't know what some of the stuff was that he was briefing about (I think it was the NOTAMS: Notice To Airmen). Well, our flight commander didn't like that so much so he got a little upset and told us that he was thinking about putting us on formal release, but didn't since we had worked so hard this past week. Just means we need to keep it together and help each other out that much more. We all got out at a decent

Day 23

Pretty good day overall. Finished a couple of CAIs this morning covering flying fundamentals, then had our review class. Went straight into doing our boldface/ops limits and a class on basics of the checklists (challenge/response items, etc.). Afterwords, we had our PFT...passed, but I need to work on it a bit. Came home and have been studying for a couple hours now and i'm all studied out. Oh, I didn't mention...my son's cousin was sick over thanksgiving, which got our son sick, who in

Moving!

Well, I haven't been updating this lately (for the few who are still reading this) because there hasn't been anything worth mentioning going on. I've just been biding my time waiting to either move or go take that FAA test in OK City. I guess the move came first! I'm not sure what's going to happen with that test, but i'll definitely keep you updated on that. The movers came and packed our stuff yesterday and took it away today, off to California. We're going to stay a week or so with som

Day 30

Had a boldface/ops limits test this morning...I can only assume that we passed it: guess we'll hear about it on monday or tuesday if we didn't! Had a brief by the IG after that, then learned how to log in to ePex (which i've heard some folks don't like). Had a couple hours for lunch and came back after noon for 5 hours of weather classes. I could have shot myself halfway through them...it was brutal! One more day of phase I and then we hit the flightline! I am super excited and nervous.

Day 24

I had a pretty good day today. We started out with a briefing from the wing commander and the command chief, then I went straight into my sim. It went well and the instructor gave me an excellent! Came home afterwords and had about 4 hours to study for flying fundamentals test. Took it and passed on the first shot! Also, heard we passed our boldface/ops limits (finally!) so it's flight suits to work now.

Mon May 12

Had my second flight today...ugh, not so good. The wind wasn't that bad when we started and taxied, but as we were finishing the runup, the SOF called stop launch for high winds. He cleared us all to go about 5 minutes later (there was about 6 of us waiting to go). My IP said I improved from my first flight, but the winds were kicking us around pretty bad, so the whole flight I was trying to keep altitude and airspeed. Just when I thought I had good airspeed and altitude, a downdraft or updr

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