By Riddller
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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 flight experience, don't worry about it.
I'm not flying today, so am spending my time studying some more.
We had an interesting brief from the commander of 19AF yesterday. He owns 95% of the training in the AF, both flying and otherwise. Some interesting facts:
1: The number of T-38 slots at UPT will be going down in the next year or two, too many fighter pilots I guess.
2: They are no longer going to track-select for T-38's vs. T-1's at the end of T-6 training. They are going to do it in the MIDDLE of T-6 training now. This means the T-6 guys who will be going to T-38's will start doing more "fighter stuff", like large formation flying, and those going to T-1's will start doing more "heavy stuff" (I'm not really sure what that means), all while still flying T-6's.
3: They've had too many people who have done really well in T-6's ask to fly heavies. Typically, they want the "best pilots" (don't get me started) to fly fighters. If you're the #1 pilot, in the past they have almost always given you you're first choice when track-selecting, even if it was heavies. Now, they will still give you you're first choice, but only if your first choice is fighters.
4: For you Raptor-pilot wannabes, they will start taking students straight out of UPT soon. Starting the summer of '07 (I think) they will select 2 T-38 students from each UPT base, for a total of 8, and one T-38 FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot). They will send all 9 to Randolph for IFF (Intro to Fighter Fundamentals). Out of those 9, they will take the top 4 to fly the F-22. The other 5 will get to fly the F-15 and try for the Raptor later. 2 of the 4 will go fly the F-16 for a few months, and the other 2 will fly the F-15 for a few months. After they "get used to a 9-g airplane" while flying with an IP, they'll get sent to the F-22. All the F-22's are single seat, so they don't want to have a guy who's only flown the T-38 to hop into a $220 million aircraft by himself, which is the reason they're starting out with the F-16's and F-15's. After those 4 make it through, they will determine if all the future new F-22 pilots will go through the F-16 or the F-15.
I would NOT want to be one of those four!! Every Col. and General in their ENTIRE chain of command will probably want DAILY progress reports on each of the four!! (This coming from the 2-star who briefed us)
That's it from the Dirty-P for today!! (Dirty-P is a reference to Pueblo, for those of who who didn't get it)
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