Whether there will be Weather

It's getting hot down here. It's not quite April and it already reached the high 80s today. Hello, Texas! Good thing I'm in an air-conditioned building or airplane most of the day. I started off the day with an instrument sim again. This one went well I thought. It's good to start the day off with something successful.

My pattern-only flight today was ok. The crosswinds did nothing to help me out, but I improved enough that my IP was happy. I just get frustrated when I don't know how to fix a problem. Improving your landings is not something you can solve by reading more or chairflying more. You just have to do it.

Weather class was more about whether I was going to fall asleep or not. I stayed awake, but I should probably read the chapters the instructor covered, because I was not at my peak mental state to say the least. I got put on the schedule for tomorrow, so maybe soloing Friday if the weather holds.

Fair

I "faired" my ride today, which even though that is passing, is bad. It's better than unsat, but below average. The good news is it's only for one thing - landings. Tomorrow I have a pattern only sortie to fix that.

I had an EP sim this morning that also wasn't the best sim I've ever had. Luckily it's pretty much impossible to fail a sim.

Today I asked the controller coming back from Hacker to give me vectors to Orchard, one of the entry points for the opposite runway. Added that to my list of ridiculous things I've done so far. Probably won't solo until Monday or Tuesday because of scheduling and weather rolling in later in the week. The time will come soon enough. It always does.

Good Monday

It's tough to ask for a better Monday. The highs are high and the lows are low, but I appreciate the days when things seem to go well. It was an early day, but I much prefer a 0600 brief to getting back to my room at 2100. I might even be able to work out today.

My flight went pretty well, I flew the entire departure and arrived at Hacker without any intervention on the part of my IP, but messed up the straight-in. The rest of the sortie went well.

My instrument sim was a little rough. It went well up to a point, but I started getting the course intercepts all wrong. I couldn't visualize it and didn't really have the formulas down.

I made sure to look at our newly painted solo tank coming up initial on 15L.

Passed the Instruments 2 test as well. The weather's getting warm now...it's beginning to feel like Texas proper. I don't know if I like that, but I'll enjoy the good weather for now.

Solo Tank: Painted

We ate pizza and painted the solo tank today. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon except that we have an instruments test tomorrow. Studying right now.

Busy Day

As if they all weren't busy. Today stood out though, because we didn't even have a formal brief this morning. We had to start right in on the flight briefs, and a bunch of us went straight to instrument sims. My sim went pretty well. I descended out of the clouds and landed at the end, so I guess that's successful. (Can't wait to do that someday in real life.) I had to rush out of the debrief to go straight to my flight brief, which I was still late for, yet somehow I didn't get in trouble. Maybe I should watch my back. My flight, though rushed, went surprisingly well. We did spins in one of the high areas, and came back for 7 patterns, which were better than before. I flew with the German IP that I flew with on Monday. I was a little better, so I think he was in a little better mood. Good dude. We debriefed for 20 minutes, before I had to skedaddle for crew rest. I have to give the morning brief tomorrow, and I have 10 minutes to prep it. I'm sure everyone will help me out though. And it will be Friday. Wow! The week flew by...sort of like today.

Pattern Only

Today I flew my last ride over again and made the standard for basic aircraft control and got a lot better at maneuvering appropriately in the pattern. I flew the outside pattern almost every time and still got 12 landings. Having a pattern only sortie really helped me out at IFS too, so hopefully this will be a good turning point. The two hours I spent in the sim this morning probably helped as well. Tomorrow I have another instrument sim and the start of a new block. We start real standups tomorrow too. That's never fun.

Hooked my ride today

Graded unsat on today's ride. It was an end of block ride and my skills weren't up to standard, so my IP failed me. I guess it happens to everyone, I just didn't know it would be so soon. I'm definitely behind the power curve. More chairflying... It's not the end of the world, yet, but I've got my work cut out for me.

Pattern Trends is not redundant...no

So every morning in the formal brief, whoever's briefing goes through the prior day's "pattern trends," or what everyone did wrong in the traffic pattern. The traffic pattern is the oblong track you fly above the runway before landing. It has its protocols and procedures, which should be flown precisely. The pattern trends are acronyms that describe what a particular student messed up. For instance, IF means incomplete flare. I had an IRT and "PRD" yesterday. PRD, according to the chart that we have posted in the flight room, purportedly means "pilot requires discipline!" We got a good laugh out of that one. We're going to have to find out what all the codes actually mean, because there are some that are obviously jokes.

My flight today went pretty well. I finally had a decent landing that was on speed, on glideslope, and unassisted.

No flight today, but I got a cupcake

We started off with the Instruments 1 test this morning. I missed a couple, but was happy to pass - toughest test yet.

There weren't enough IPs to go around today, so I finally got to go to the gym. I enjoyed having no pressure today, but missed the flying. I'm only scheduled for a sim tomorrow, so I won't fly again til Friday. Lots of prep time is good, but too much is bad. You need to stay in the flow. I got some studying done today too, and one of the dude's wife brought in some cupcakes - always a hit, especially at 5pm when we still have three hours left before we get to leave. Even without cupcakes, if you don't fly, it's easy to just sit around and snack all day whilst attempting to study and prep.

Chairflew a bunch of EPs with a buddy tonight. I have an EP sim tomorrow afternoon.

Looking forward to instrument academics in the morning again.

Flying is Hard Work, but Flying is Fun

I'm pretty tired after a full day. We're only flying once a day, but it's definitely tiring. I love it. I have so much to work on. The area work went well. Power on stalls, the stability demonstration, and ELP stalls were pretty straightforward. Might have been better to have stuck my foot in my mouth today in the pattern before I talked on the radio for all the IRTs I had, but I was able to read back all the vectors approach gave me on my recovery from the MOA. I forgot some confirmations in the pattern as well. Gotta quit that. Tomorrow after the Instruments 1 test and Instruments 102 I go to the aux field, Hacker for some more pattern work.

Fly, Eat, Study, Chairfly, Sleep, Repeat

Flew again today. So cool. One decent landing. Weather was just ok. Got props for my ground ops. Average on everything else. Really busy tonight. I didn't even get out of the building until 8pm. Chairflew with my neighbor a hour tonight. Instrument academics tomorrow at 0830.

Visuals

These videos will give you a good idea of what I'll do for the next 5 months. Most of the video is formation flight, which is the last block of the T-6 syllabus, but it's the most interesting, to watch, so that's why there's so much of it on youtube.

07-14 Class video from Moody AFB - Lots of T-6 Footage

T-6 Airshow footage

10-03's Class Video - We're 11-03, so they graduated as we started. They have a classy video, but the T-6 stuff is mostly between 1:45 and 2:30.

Yesterday

Yesterday I stepped to 2 different airplanes, but both of them were broken. Both had canopy malfunctions, but we caught the discrepancies in the course of our preflight checks. As I closed the canopy on the first aircraft, my IP couldn't see the mechanical indicator that verifies the canopy is closed, so we didn't take the plane. We stepped to a spare, but as I was closing the canopy on that one, the canopy annunciator extinguished before the canopy was actually closed. Huge red flag! We knew we weren't taking the aircraft right then. We got maintenance up on the wing to take a look. We closed the canopy and reopened it, and the canopy annunciator and master warning didn't even come on. Wow! That's a big deal. Too bad, because it was a beautiful day. Since my IP and I didn't end up flying I got some good experience doing the preflight walkaround and exterior inspection. Getting in the books this weekend...

Dollar ride

We got our dollar rides today! It was sweet! Flyin' through the clouds, pullin' a few G's, pretty surreal. I was slow on ground ops, had a bunch of IRTs, and taxi like a drunk, but it was fun. The real deal is tomorrow. Ride #2 I need to be 100% better. 0545 show time...good thing it's Friday.

This is gettin a little ridiculous

So this has been our 3rd day of no flying. I'm confident we will fly tomorrow though. The weather looks much better.

Today we briefed our flights, but didn't step, just like the last two days. I didn't get a walkaround today because I was FDO("fido"). Answered the phone a couple times, wrote up some accountability forms and gradebook checklists for the IPs. The little office job stuff (AKA arts and crafts) never goes away. As FDO I also had to give the formal brief this morning, which turned out to be a disaster. The Computer folks decided to do something that made all the computers restart 2 minutes after login, so I had to give a hacked together brief with no A/V support reading from random slide printouts that the printer managed to spit out before the computers shutdown. There will be many chances for redemption as the year progresses. I'll have to brief at least once every 2 wks, since we only have 12 guys.

That said, I was really impressed by the help offered to me by my fellow classmates as we struggled to get the day started with seriously broke resources. Everyone asked what I needed and helped me out getting the weather, NOTAMS, the coffee, and figuring out wind corrections for the pattern.

Sim in the morning and flying after lunch. Get up for it.

Long day

Maybe tomorrow will be our dollar rides. We got cancelled for crosswinds out of limits today. Can't go fly if the winds will blow your plane all over the sky.

We briefed the rides and did a walk around so it wasn't a total loss. We started instrument academics too. Boring.

One of the IPs was talking about chairflying today and mentioned how practice DOES NOT make perfect. PERFECT PRACTICE makes perfect. I will forever testify that basketball was the best preparation I've ever had for my profession. I had a couple coaches who used to always say that.

I'm FDO tomorrow. Have to give the morning brief. Should be interesting.

Got some practice time in the sims today and a little chairflying back in the dorms about an hour ago too. Off to bed.

It Starts

Well, no dollar ride today due to weather, but quite the experience nonetheless.

The morning started of with a demonstration of the formal brief and some shotgun questions sitting at attention.

With the empty schedule, I got a lot of practice in the sims and chairflying today.

We realized just how much we don't know today. Sitting around the flight room listening to the IPs teach and ask us GK really emphasized just how much we need to study more.

Opted for the $ Ride

Today we all had to go to a short brief in blues. A couple of us had sims right afterwards, so we had to change in the parking lot. Funny stuff. My sim went alright, still need to work on trim, power control, and rudder coordination.

The OFT sims are pretty slick. You get a 270-degree view around you, so you can actually use ground references and fly traffic patterns. We went through a complete profile - area work followed by pattern work at Hacker.

With that sim completed, we are now opted for our dollar rides. Should be Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Very cool.

Bull riding tonight...just watching.

Sim anytime you want (time share flight sim)

Today we had the review session for the contact academics. No real take-aways besides the fact that I have more numbers to memorize - parameters and settings for entering and recovering from various maneuvers.

My sim today went pretty well. Could have been better, but I wasn't terribly disappointed. I need to trim the airplane quicker and increase the pacing on my EP procedures. I got an F on my ground ops, which seems bad, but the scale goes from U(unsatisfactory) to F(fair) to G(good) to E(excellent). You can make it through most of UPT on pure F's. Most of the standards right now are still U's.

We got checked out to use the sims without instructors today too. So now we can practice a whole lot more AND do it more efficiently. Actually flipping switches really beats looking at a cockpit printout. Most classes don't get the check out done for awhile, so we're ahead of schedule on that despite being behind on our dollar rides.

So now I have access to an expensive flight sim. We're getting somewhere.

No Sim

Yesterday we started the contact CBTs.

I wasn't scheduled for a sim, so I chairflew with a Guard guy from Buffalo. We went through some EPs and all the normal checklists using the cockpit trainer in the Aerospace Phys building.

Long lunch at the Hibiscus with a couple of the guys.
Ran 5k in the Fivefingers while all the Airmen did their PT. Glad I don't have to look forward to all those shenannigans.

EPs

This morning we took the Aero final, and I passed, despite missing a couple questions. No big deal. My neighbor and I went back to our rooms to change into flightsuits, and then went to grab our g-suits and helmets from lifesupport. My sim today was on Emergency Procedures, so my instructor activated several critical emergency situations and explained all the indicators and the procedures for safely recovering. It was good to actually put the boldface into action. The muscle memory is important. I nailed most of my callouts and radio calls too, which felt good. No sim tomorrow as of now. We start Contact academics. More on that later.