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Captains do not get FAIPed. Whether it is behind or in front of the scenes, Captains do not get FAIPed.

I would say the best (only) way you can make a "smooth" PCS with the USAF is to not involve TMO or any of the other shoe clerks in the AF with your move. When I PCS'ed to CBM for UPT, I jammed everything I own into my car and didn't have to deal with the hours and days of endless agony that my friends and neighbors had to endure while trying to get their furniture etc. from TMO. I know this is not possible for people with a family, but I would recommend that new 2Lt's try to keep things to a minimum when moving to their first base or two.

Some older ones (that I looked at during my UPT endeavors): http://balder.prohosting.com/~live2fly/start.shtml http://www.geocities.com/scot_wilcox/UPT/UPT.htm

There seems to be about one FRED per drop here at Columbus and there is always more than one person who wants it for the aforementioned reasons.

Also beware of the color vision tests at Brooks. They give you like 5 tests, and 4 of them you will have never seen before and can catch you by surprise. I know of a few people who passed CV on the FC1 and are now flying a desk somewhere due to failing the battery of different CV tests at Brooks. Email me if anyone has any questions or if you might be weak at CV. jseeber66@yahoo.com

What if you don't have one? Can you wear service dress?

When? I never got one during my security clearance process.

Keep in mind that lazy-8's and clover leaf's are different in the civilian world. I did a few hours of acro in the civ world just to wet my beak before UPT. I would say it helped, but may not be worth the $200/hr if your sole purpose is to try to get ahead a little at UPT. If you are doing it for fun and to make you a better civ pilot, then go for it. Just try not to focus on the civilian way of doing cloverleafs. Oh yeah, if you count spins as acro, then you might want to practice them a little in your civilian acro. I had around 8 spins under my belt before UPT and it helped me get a jump on spins in the tweet (even though it is quite different, the fundamentals are the same)

I was in a similar situation - I had my instrument rating before UPT. I would agree with the other people that the rating definitely helps but may not be worth spending the extra $5K on. The guys in my class (including me) with their instrument ratings and the guys with their instrument ratings in the 2 classes behind me all did well or are doing very well in the instrument phase of T-37's and it can be partially attributed to their experience. On the other hand, some of the best I-checkride scores in my class were from dudes with no instrument rating, so go figure.

If I remember correctly (at least at CBM) in phase I you cover physiology, T-37 systems, aero, flying fundamentals, weather and basic instruments. In phase II you will study advanced instruments, navigation, and more navigation. The phase II academics of course runs concurrently with flying and sims.

Not enforced! This rule is just a CYA (thats Cover Your ***) rule that they created to give them something to fall back on when the local sluts come on base, spend the night with some pilots, and get raped/hurt/lost, or something like that. The AF can legally say "they were not supposed to be here overnight, so we don't know how your daughter wound up pregnant in some guys shower the next day." Just as many of the notes/warnings/cautions in the Dash one were written in blood or after some major injury occured, so was the rule about no overnight guests in the dorms. At CBM they have checked 0 times since I have been here and I heard they checked one time on a weekday in the distant past and caught a live in girlfriend in the dorms. That will be the day when I open my door for the dorm gestapo (which does not exist) on a saturday morning at 3AM when I am sleeping with some girl.

You will know beforehand your track select date and the date that you will transitition from academics to the flightline - supposedly those dates have been set for the next 5 years. But you are correct when you say that one day you will be in academics and the next you will be at the flight line. Same goes for phase II to phase III. You will be in your T-37 flight one day and in your T-1/T-38 flight the next day (and yes, there seems to be a lot of times where the transition occurs in the middle of the week). Like Toro said, you will not be flying the T-37/T-1/T-38 on the very first day you hit the flight line, but on the other hand they don't wait very long before your dollar ride (usually the 2nd or 3rd day on the flightline after some preparatory ground school missions). As a side note, you are not done with academics when you leave the phase I part of UPT. You will be doing academics concurrently with flying for all of phase II and phase III as well. Currently there are around 25 people per UPT class at CBM and they get split into 2 flights once they hit the T-37 flightline.

That's pretty awesome. What if someone has to breakout? I can't imagine the manueverability of a 74 is all that great. How do C-130's etc. do it?

Another thing to consider (in Tweets) if you go far is that there is a good chance that you will break down and have to drive home. Some IP's will caution dudes from going from CBM out to Texas because when you break, it is like a 12+ hour ride home. There is a chance that if you break down you can get two IP's to fly a jet out to you, but don't count on it.

Man. It makes me shiver thinking about fix-to-fix in the Tweet. A fix is a point in space, so a fix-to-fix is simply going from point to point in space.

I believe the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act allows you to break a lease if you are on orders. Before I left for OTS, my old landlord told me I could not break my lease no matter what - even if I was already in the guard and got activated. I did a little research and talked to my attorney (friend of mine from high school who just graduated law school). He found the clause in the SSRA that allows for military members to break their leases without penalty. I then told my landlord that I consulted "my attorney" about the matter and produced the section of the SSRA and my orders. I was out of there the next month and she even prorated my last months rent to correspond to the exact day I was leaving. It is amazing what a little strongarming and consulting of attorneys can do.

Bring a computer to UPT - you will regret it if you don't. You will be "that guy" who is always bumming computer time off other guys if you don't have one. You have to do briefings weekly that you can research and write at home. All of the gouge is electronic, so you will need a computer at home to read through it and print it out. A computer is essential to read all of the interesting posts here on baseops. Plus it is always nice to have the internet to keep up with emails and to look stuff up on the internet if you are that kind of person. OF course, as mentioned above, you need a PC to play the T-37 sim. I, and several of my classmates found it to be very useful for instruments and even a little contact. It helps you get used to staying in your MOA with just instruments.

"Dont learn the boldface on the Gouge websites too, they just changed it all!" LEARN THE BOLDFACE FROM ANY PLACE YOU CAN GET IT! Sure, they added two sets of parenthesis in the latest dash-1, but the core of them is the same. Learn as much about systems, ops limits, and boldface as you can find (from gouge websites) before hitting the flightline.

Go up for one or two aerobatics flights - it can only help. I did that before UPT and it gave me a slight edge on aero at UPT because I had already spun several times as well as done aileron rolls, loops, cuban eight's and cloverleafs. Sure it is totally different than doing acro in a tweet, but the basic concepts of acro manueuvers are the same. I totally disagree with people who say "they will teach you that at UPT" or "you will have plenty of time to do acro at UPT." In my opinion I had an advantage by having seen and thought about acro before my classmates did. I don't know if I would spend all of the money to get fully aerobatic qualified (I think the guy I flew with said you need 5 flights to get qualified - each flight was around $200). Good luck.

Yeah, take everything people say here with a grain of salt. Most people don't study much before UPT, but I did. I feel like it helped a ton by easing off the pressure (especially the first few weeks). To be honest, I never really noticed the whole "firehose" thing because I felt like I studied my nuts off before UPT and during down times in academics. I also studied the Dash one a lot before UPT. I finished my instrument rating before getting to UPT and it definitely gets you a leg up on instruments, but may not be worth the total investment. The tweet instruments are definitely different, but a basic instrument cross-check and good instrument habits should carry over to UPT if you did well with instruments (assuming you got your instrument rating) with the FAA. One more note, you may want to buy the T-37 add-on for Microsoft flight simulator to familiarize yourself with the gauges and speed of the tweet. I did this and found it to be very helpful. I have heard numerous IP's recommend this game (I don't think they are getting kickbacks either) to studs in order to help them chairfly real time. You can find the simulator at www.t37sim.com. Good luck.