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
Today was a good break from the normal classroom briefings. We still had some classroom instruction, but we got to go out to the aircraft where some of the senior class folks showed us what a preflight is for this plane. That was a great distraction from the tediousness of the classroom stuff. I have to be honest, the academics (aircraft systems, etc) are coming fairly quick to me because of my Marine maintenance background. Don't get me wrong, though, it's definately NOT easy by any stretch
Well, today we learned a bit about patterns, departures, and arrivals into the 3 airports we use up here. Some of it is fairly straight forward, but a good bit of it is sort of confusing. I'm sure it will become much more clear as we start flying. My suggestion would be to get with a buddy or your class and set up a runway on the floor with tape and simply go through taxi, takeoff, patterns, landings, etc. so at least you know the procedures. That way, it should be a little bit smoother when
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
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.
Today I got to sit in on several briefings to see how those go and to get a better feel for what I need to do to prepare for my dollar ride. That and studying is about all I did today. I wasn't flying today, so I got to absorb all the info I could from those who were flying.
I was supposed to fly tomorrow, but me and several others got bumped for guys that are doing their checkrides. I'm not complaining, though. Hopefully I'll get thrown in the mix tomorrow or Wednesday.
Alright, I didn't fly today...don't know if i'll fly tomorrow, either. There's 2 of us that I know of that haven't flown at all. Our IP said that he would bump some folks tomorrow to get us up in the air, so we'll see how that goes. So, i'm stuck studying the same stuff: radio calls, checklists, etc. I feel like I can't get any more productive studying done until I fly and figure out what I need to work on. Maybe tomorrow!!
Woohoo!! Dollar ride, baby!! It finally happened and I think I did well overall. Even though I got all U's: that means I attempted the different maneuvers but wasn't that great at them, I did get the plane back in one piece! There wasn't too many maneuvers on this ride; just slow flight, steep turns, and your takeoff, landing, radios, approach and departure. Sounds fairly straightforward, but it's a lot of work to do in not much time. It's pretty exciting, and I finally know what I need to
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
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
Flew again today. I've been flying about every other day to start out with; but as the senior class finishes up this week, we will start getting their IPs so our class will be flying much more. I'm looking forward to flying, but not to double turning, oh well...gotta do what you gotta do.
The flight went well today; had smooth air and I thought I did fairly well for the point I'm at in the program. Basically just did some steep turns, stalls, slow flight, and my IP demonstrated an area SFL
So, as of last night, wasn't scheduled to fly...but I get back from breakfast this morning and, voila! I'm on the schedule! I'm getting ready and planning, etc, and there's a stop launch because of winds....again. There were a few people that flew today, but not too many. Chalk another day up to weather.
I'm thinking that i'll probably fly tomorrow since the senior class' IPs are getting freed up. Also, the new class got here today, so the place is getting crowded!
So, I didn't end up flying on Friday, which just makes it that much more hectic for me this week. Yesterday, I flew in the morning; today I flew twice in the morning (double turning). The first flight was decent, but the second flight sucked. The winds had picked up and I was all over the place. Not to mention I got a headache as we were stepping...I fought through it, but I was beat from the first flight so that wasn't helping any. I ended up getting a good overall and for the most part, m
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
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
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!
As I was stepping to fly this morning, the winds started to pick up. I think they went out of limits about halfway through the flight, but who knows. I hooked it, though. It was just a terrible flight...I was getting blown all over the place (sts) and my maneuvers sucked. I guess I wasn't 100% today and I paid for it. I'll try it again tomorrow and hopefully be ready to check on saturday: that would make for a great weekend! Wish me luck tomorrow!
So I did my 306 ride for the second time yesterday and passed. I got scheduled for my checkride and pattern solo today.
Just got back from my checkride...PASSED!! I still need some work in many areas, but apparently i'm safe enough to go solo. Scheduled for the solo here in a couple of hours. This short weekend could potentially be great as long as I pass the solo.
(about 4 hours later)
And just got back from my solo, and did well! My IP said I did better by myself than I did with
Flew my 601 ride today...not too bad. I messed up some simple radio calls and my IP downgraded me for those, but got a good for the overall flight. Going out for my area solo (602) in the morning, should be exciting (and boring from what I hear)! Then i'll get my 603 later in the afternoon when it will be nice and hot...sucks. Should be a good day...actually, should be an "A day"!
Flew twice today: first was my area solo, 602, then the second was the 603. Area solo was pretty fun! Kinda boring once I got into the area simply because the only maneuvers we are allowed to do are steep turns and VOR navigation stuff. Overall, a very fun flight.
Second flight was ok...wind was picking up and it was hot. Nothing eventful about it, just another flight.
Only 3 more flights left!!
So, Wednesday I was initially scheduled for one flight around lunch, but the weather was acting up a little bit, so a priority list was made up that consisted of folks that were behind, and I was on it! So, I'm eating breakfast and I get told that I'm double turning and my first brief is in like 30 minutes! I go brief up my 604 with a different IP than originally planned and the flight went pretty decent. I get back and sure enough, I'm supposed to be briefing AGAIN with the same IP for my 60
One week closer to starting, and i'm pretty much ready to go (I hope). I've been completing checklists, getting all my flight gear and all that good stuff. Trying to get cable set up...what a pain in the ass. I decided to go with Time Warner (whom i've heard is not so good in Texas) and the tech who came out to install the stuff was from some other company that Time Warner contracted out...he didn't have a clue what was going on. It's like they gave him a box and said install this at this ad
Day 3 was flight physicals. We showed up at 7 and I was out of there before noon. Not too shabby. I thought it was much "easier" than the one at Brooks: not quite as intensive and it seemed like it was just a diagnostic to make sure that nothing had changed since the initial flying class I. Looking forward to the weekend; going to go to the airshow up in San Antonio, should be a good time!
Went to the airshow this weekend...AWESOME! If any pilots reading this were there, it was amazing. Saw lots of cool aircraft (just like most airshows) and got to look around some of them...pretty sweet. I'm not going to say much about it, except that it was probably one of the better airshows that I've been to. I thought the F-22/F-16/F-15/P-51 show was one of the highlights in my opinion: I had never seen that in person and it was great! The Blue Angels were there and, as was mentioned in
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!
