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.

Full Saturday

Yesterday's sim went just ok. It would have been good, but I lost SA doing a fix-to-fix and my copilot turned the wrong direction to start an approach. It's still totally my fault, because I was the pilot, as it should be. I let him do it, and didn't have enough presence of mind to correct it. Besides that episode, the approaches and events went well. I only have an EP sim and a low-level sim to finish before I'm UPT sim-complete.

Right before the sim last night, I got a call telling me to be ready to go for an out-and-back this morning at 9:15. I ended up going, so I showed up and briefed the first two flights. We ended up going to Houston. I shot a couple approaches on the way up at Palacious. It was a good intro to the block. I didn't screw up anything too major, besides getting a little slow single-engine on a couple approaches. We stopped to get gas and food at David Wayne Hooks Memorial Airport, one of Houston's GA airports. I got a shirt for $1 and my meal cost the same. I like this job.

Hopefully next weekend I will be on cross-country. I have the mid-stage instrument check on Thursday.

Change of plan(e)s

My last 4 flights were good memories. They were low-level Out-and-backs to Oklahoma City on Monday and Lawton on Tuesday. I flew my last two with the IP who gave me my dollar ride. The weather was just unbelievable, we flew the whole thing in 2-ship tactical formation and ate Chick-fil-A while stopped in Lawton. Can't ask for much better than that. T-6s ended well.

I had known for about a week that I might get re-tracked to fly T-44s down at Corpus Christi NAS because I struggled so much in T-6s, and I found out for sure yesterday from my Flight Cmdr. I have awhile before the move, but this curveball from life should actually really work to my advantage. The Navy training is a little more self-paced and laid back. I also have a much better shot at actually flying something that being a UAV operator. I'm excited to start something new and live somewhere else, despite the negative. At least Someone sees the big picture. It's lookin' up!

Sim

I had the last out and back sim today. Tomorrow I fly the last out and back sortie. Instruments are quickly coming to a close. I will probably check next week. The sim went alright, but I didn't have the most up-to-date profile, so much of the planning I had scrambled together at the last minute was irrelevant, because it wasn't applicable to the profile anymore. This partly worked to my advantage though, because I think the sim IP was a little more lenient. I didn't do anything completely atrocious, but the whole thing was just a little sloppy. Lots of planning time for tomorrow's out and back to Abilene, so I should fly it well.

Out and Back to Amarillo

I flew to Amarillo today. The flight there went as well as the flight back went badly. We ate at the Big Texan, the mandatory tourist trap in Amarillo. My IP convinced me to eat the Calf Fries, fried Rocky Mountain Oysters, though he didn't let me know until after I had taken the first bite. They're pretty good though. All I have tomorrow is the morning brief and a sim.

My job is awesome

I flew to Lubbock this morning. We departed IFR, then canceled our clearance once we found some good weather, and descended between the lines of clouds as we approached Lubbock. It was pretty cool flying 1000' up between the clouds. We just did a visual approach to Lubbock, then the ILS and localizer approaches. We made the last one a full stop, refueled, ate some Mexican, and took off again. Cool. Days like this make it definitely worth getting up at 5am.

Double sims

I had two more instrument sims today - only 4 left, plus 1 sim each for low-level and formation. That's it, only six sims left. Amazing! I found out I'm going out-and-back to Amarillo tomorrow. Planning that tonight should be fun. I have to be at Base Ops tomorrow morning at 0545. One of my classmates had my back and already helped me out a little on the planning, since I was doing a sim and found out late. We've got good dudes in our flight. Amarillo should be interesting, we're flying at 3000' on the way out so we can navigate VFR, using ground references. Wish I could take pictures.

Not too busy

The schedule changed over the weekend, so I didn't go out and back to Amarillo. That will probably happen sometime later this week. I just had a sim today, which went ok. I had lots of prep time, which is always a plus. We had a standup right before we all left, and I got stood up at the end, but I improved a bit over previous performances. It helped that the standup had already run for about 45 minutes at that point. Usually they take 20 minutes. Just 2 sims tomorrow. Only 6 instrument sims left in T-6s! Time flies...

Found time to get a 2 mile run in too.

Transition to landing

This morning I had another instrument ride. It mostly went well, with a few deviations and dipping below the minimum altitude on one of the approaches, but it went much better than yesterday's ride. I landed out of a GPS approach - pretty cool. I found out I'm flying and out-and-back on Monday to Amarillo if the weather holds, somewhere else if it doesn't. There goes the weekend. These things take planning, especially when you've never done it before. It'll be good practice for going to Houston next Friday. Another assignment night tonight, that's always interesting.

Cross Country Sim and Instrument Ride

I had a sim this morning that went well enough. I need to put in more time planning the cross country and out-and-back sims/sorties. My 3rd instrument ride didn't go as planned either. I was behind the aircraft the whole time. Gotta clean up for tomorrow's sortie. It's the end of block. Giving the morning brief, too.