Rolling to backup backups

Today after giving the morning brief I prepped to fly two of the navigation routes we fly. One's the primary and one's the backup. Today though, as my IP and I were on our way to step, the bird status changed and we had to bust out another map of a different route right before we flew. Stuff like that happens more often than you might think. I still managed to fly the low-level ok. It helped that I flew the same route yesterday. I came back to the pattern for a firm touchdown and some sloppy landings. Check tomorrow.

Rainy

I woke up at 4:30 this morning for a 5:20 show. It had been storming all night, so the runway was wet and the winds were almost 90 degrees to the runway at about 20 knots, which is out of limits. The first go didn't fly, so we took our EPQ early. I wasn't even on the schedule. I just had a 3 hours spotter tour in the RSU. Nothing too crazy happened, so it was a pretty laid-back day. The combination of rainy morning and my choice of parking location had everyone reminding me that my window was down. It was pretty funny after the 3rd, 4th, and the 99th advisory, and then everyone after them who just reminded me for the fun of it. "Oh, thanks man. It would never have occured to me that my window was down if you hadn't told me. It's not like I'm the one who drove it in to work today, and I just couldn't quite understand what the first six people were trying to say." So just cause I thought it would be even funnier, I put a sign up in the window that said, "I know. It's broken...but thanks."

Short day

After giving the morning brief, I sat through a standup, listened to a couple of war stories courtesy of our resident Eagle driver, checked my gradebook, studied a bit, and then we all left. Only four guys were flying, so we all had nothing to do. I swung by finance and changed my pay to get paid once a month, bought some milk and orange juice, and here I am now, about to get an early start on a much-needed weekend. I might go down to the lake today. It's been too long.

FORMATION...WOOOO!

I went into the day thinking I'd fly low-level and went out realized I'd flown formation. After giving the morning brief in which I relayed to everyone how the bird hazard was out of limits for flying low-levels, the IPs rolled another guy and me to flying our first formation rides. We had about 30 minutes notice before brief time. Standard. I definitely looking forward to it though, and with good reason. It was a ton of fun. Really way different than any other flying we've done so far. It's pretty crazy being so close to another aircraft, but so awesome. The weather was great too. We had some great cumulus clouds to fly around as each of us were struggling to stay in position. It's really difficult, but I feel like I got a much better feel for the way it works now. On the way back in, we flew straight through a isolated rain shower approaching the runway. That was new too. Great day.

Aerobatics Refresher

After my low-level today I went to the area and got some aerobatics practice before flying back to Sheppard for a straight-in. It was fun to pull some G's again, if only for 15 minutes.

The low-level was largely uneventful, but I still have things to work on. I get to use the GPS next time, which should make things a whole lot easier. A ground speed readout and exact track over the ground will hopefully make it impossible to miss my turn points. Now, if I could just get a radar altimeter...

Sim Complete

I got pulled for "random" drug testing for the 5th time today, so I missed the morning brief and the standup. I'll probably get stood up tomorrow. I didn't fly, but I spent the day making maps, and I had my final T-6 sim this afternoon. Flying formation, even in the sim seemed pretty crazy. It feels so much different than the flying we've been doing, but it's really cool when you think about what you're doing - flying 10 ft off the wing of another aircraft, not that I was able to stabilize right at 10 ft!

Way to start the week

Flew another low-level today, which went pretty well besides the part where I kinda got lost...not what we aim for when flying 500' above the ground, but I got lucky and found the next turn point even though it was probably 2 miles to the left of where it should have been if I'd been on course. Live(fly) and learn. I departed the route corridor and went for an practice emergency landing pattern at one of the nearby airfields. I made a great position report only to look down and see, as my IP was reminding me, that I was transmitting on the wrong frequency. HA! Wasn't the first time, probably won't be the last, but embarrassing nonentheless. I came back to the pattern and flew some patterns that could use some clean up, but weren't awful. I was just happy, because I was landing the plane like it was my job...which it is. Awesome.

Formation sim tomorrow - I'll be sim complete! Also awesome.

Nothin'

Today I didn't have anything scheduled. I didn't even have to show for the morning brief, because I had to stay late yesterday as the recorder. I came in late, and worked on prepping a map for Monday, watched the US catch up and go to a draw against Slovenia, got some paperwork taken care of, and left around 3pm. Not bad.

There was another assignment night tonight. It was a somewhat disappointing drop - only two assignable fighters, two C-17s, and two UAVs, which is two too many in my opinion. Hopefully at least one of the guys requested it.

Thunderbirds this weekend up in OK City!

No more hand-drawn maps!

I flew my 4th low-level today, which means I can make the rest of my maps using the computer software we have instead of prepping them by hand. Excellent! For the past couple of rides I've had to draw out the route, mark the towers, emergency airfields and information, intersecting routes, abort altitude, headings, airspeeds, and altitudes for each leg, and timing. It's much easier on the computer, and you can actually read it, which is the best part.

Yesterday my pattern work was decent, but today it was a little sloppy. The crosswinds didn't help either. However comma I rocked my area work with almost no prep. I like that.

Flying low-levels has been really fun. I have 6 more until the check which should be next Friday at this point. Today I sat another recorder tour in the RSU. It was pretty uneventful except for one aircraft that had a suspected bird strike on landing roll.

Low-level and RSU

I flew another low-level nav route today. It was a little longer one, and I flew over a lake at one point which was really cool. It's more difficult that I thought it would be to pick out towers from the air. Even 400' radio towers are difficult to see until you're 2 miles away.

I sat another tour of recorder in the RSU, and upgraded another dude. About halfway into it, I just had him do it, so it got kinda boring, but oh well. Gonna prep another map for tomorrow's low-level.

My neighbor got pizza, so that was a welcome surprise.

Ground Abort

I was supposed to fly another low-level today, but the aural warning tones in the rear cockpit of our aircraft weren't working. Thunderstorms rolled in right after we aborted, so it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway. Instead we were treated to a standup. We'll try again tomorrow.

Low-Level

So low-level is definitely fun. You stay very busy in the aircraft, assessing your fuel state at each turn point, making sure you stay at 500' AGL, maintaining course, looking at the map to verify your position, and spotting towers along the route. I can't wait to do this back home in the mountains someday. It would be so awesome! Flying low-level on the coast or over water would be really cool too. There are some lakes around here that we fly over, and it's way better than flying over plain old North TX. My landings were atrocious though, so I should probably devote more time to patterns next ride.

See Spotter Watch

Today we had individual report, as in no formal brief! I went in at 1020 this morning. Awesome! The weather was such that I didn't have to go out to the RSU for my spotter upgrade until about 1230. The spotter's job is to sit in the RSU with binoculars and make sure no one lands gear up, calling out normal configuration to the controller and keeping a count of all the patterns that have been flown.

Lazy day.

I had an EP sim later in the day, leaving only one sim remaining for all of the T-6 phase!

I have a low-level map to prep for tomorrow. Should be fun.

Passed my I-Check!

I passed my instrument check today! It should be illegal to be this happy. I had 9 downgrades all stemming from trim and crosscheck issues, but I flew a great penetration, and my area work was solid. Movin on to Low-Level...yeah! It was beautiful out, so it was kind of a bummer I had to wear the hood the whole flight, but hey.

I studied for and passed the Formation test later in the afternoon. Tomorrow I'm just scheduled for a sim and spotter upgrade in the RSU. Should be a semi-relaxed day.

Check tomorrow

So I flew my end of block ride over again today. It was much better this time, so tomorrow should go well. The weather was great, but under the hood flying instruments you don't really get to look outside the airplane. Winds were pretty calm, which made things a little easier. Hopefully I'll roll a good profile tomorrow.

I spent most of the afternoon prepping my lineup cards, so tonight I'm going to read up on the GK and EPs my check pilot tends to give. Pizza night!

Rust/Rush/Recorder

I felt a little rusty today. My area work was fine, but the two approaches I did felt rushed. I was behind the aircraft a little bit, and I paid for it. My ILS went way out of limits, so by my own choice I'll be repeating the ride tomorrow. I had another RSU tour as the recorder later in the day, which got really busy. It's good experience though. It let's you see more of the big picture, how the pattern works, and what you can do to make it easier on everyone around you. That's something I want to be good at.

DDA

I sat DDA again today. It was rather uneventful. Pretty lazy day all around. After my DDA shift, we had an EPQ and a formation academics review.

Instrument Sortie

Flew another instrument sortie today. I flew one too many approaches, so we didn't have time for area work, but I flew the approaches well so I was happy. Check ride next Tuesday.

Lockdown

No flying today, just a lockdown exercise...just like high school...and the Academy. Study time and a workout are in order.