Late night

Pretty much got the runaround today as far as scheduling goes. I showed up not on the schedule, got put on the schedule, switched IP's, switched back, was told the line was canceled but maybe something else would show up, briefed up anyways, was told the line was really canceled, then back to not flying at all. Classic UPT. I was recorder for the night flying go, which ended up being really boring.

Lunch at Hibiscus was nice though.

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."

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.

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.

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.

RSU

I spent a few hours in the Runway Supervisory Unit today. Basically the mini control tower for a single runway, the RSU monitors the aircraft in the traffic pattern and helps take some of the workload off the tower. The RSU crew are pilots and student pilots keeping records, calling out tail numbers, and directing traffic. It was 4 lazy hours compared to actual flying. I also test-drove a Porsche today. That was pretty fun. Tomorrow is a half day, flying in the morning with a safety brief later.