San Antonio

Today I had my second review stage ride. It wasn't too bad, but I kept shooting myself in the foot. I haven't flown since last Thursday. I sat SDO on Friday, answering the phone and talking on the radio tracking the flights in the morning. We got canceled yesterday, so today was the first flight of the week for me. I flew a partial-panel (no heading or attitude indicator) ASR approach to start things off, then flew over to Beeville for a GPS approach and circling maneuver to the opposite runway. Those both had two bad moments in them, but were otherwise ok. On the ASR I got really slow at one point, and on the GPS I started descending at an intermediate fix I confused for the final approach fix. I'll have to fly another GPS approach to make up for that, but the SSE circling and missed approach went well. I flew the ILS up at Lackland AFB in San Antonio following that approach.

On the way back I wasn't flying, but the IP thought he had unsafe gear up indications, so we went through the checklist and did a low approach for the tower to check the gear and everything. Everything was fine, but when we got on the ground, we asked why he had called for the gear EP checklist and he couldn't really say. It was a lesson in CRM. He'd had a few gear issues in the past and thought he heard a weird noise, but when he called the gear on the climb checklist he thought he might have actually been looking for gear lights when they were actually supposed to be out. We thought he'd seen something we hadn't but never called him on it. Just a good lesson in assertiveness and speaking up when something doesn't look right. We did the safe thing though.

Not the best day for me, but not the worst either. Early flight tomorrow.

Out and Back to Amarillo + Double Turn

Yesterday I got a call around noon saying that my flight we'd be flying my event in an aircraft we had to pick up in Amarillo, so we had to leave early to pick it up. We sat in the back all the way up to Amarillo with a gas stop in Ft Worth at AFW. My buddy flew his event, but we were running short on time when I got in the seat and we'd had an issue with the pressurization system, so the IP just called me incomplete, but still had me shoot a GPS approach so I could knock that out.

Today I double turned the last two flights of the block. I flew down to the valley after a couple of GCA approaches (ASR, PAR) and then flew back.

Check ride tomorrow.

First RI

RI's are Radio Instrument flights. They're just instrument flights, but that's what they're called down here. I had my first one today. There were two other students on the flight with me, so it was a long day. We started in the local area to knock out my approaches, an ILS, a VOR/DME at CRP, and two radar approaches at Kingsville NAS. One of the other guys got in the seat and flew down to McAllen on the Mexican border where we ate lunch. We then flew back and landed. We were done by about 3pm. I got up at 3:30am for the 5am brief. Very early day. My earliest in a very long time!

My flight went ok for the first instrument ride. The weather was actually IMC, so it was cool to get some actual instrument time. My first transition to land was kind of questionable. I made a really steep descent when I probably should have just gone missed approach. I flew the PAR really well. I intend to continue that trend. Tomorrow will be more instrument approaches.

Long day

To clarify, this was a long day compared to the days I have recently had since beginning Navy pilot training.

I had to do two instrument sims today. Where previously I have had the best instructors, today I got those that were less so. On top of that, I screwed up a number of things that were pretty elementary, some of them as copilot which reflects very badly upon the current pilot flying. It's making mistakes and having them end up on someone else's gradesheet. Not a good feeling.

I flew an ILS, a PAR, and an ASR in the first sim, which were fairly solid, but my ILS, localizer, and localizer back course approaches in the second sim were sub par - lots of S-turning and chasing the CDI. Ugly.

One of those days. Tomorrow is new.

Checkride Prep

Flew just ok today. Not stellar. I had a solid sortie overall, including an ILS to a low approach and ASR to a touch and go, but my two ELPs were trashy and I was struggling with the crosswind controls.

After flying today, we got a tour of RAPCON, radar approach control, all the people we talk to everyday, but never see.