Bookends

I flew my last instructional sortie today. It went really well. I flew my aerobatics in the high area which gave me a few issues, but I flew all the maneuvers pretty well and came back for some decent patterns. I happened to fly with the same IP who gave me my dollar ride, which lends itself to the narrative. Tomorrow's my final T-6 checkride. I feel good about it. Thanks for all the prayers and support! I'm certainly not doing this on my own strength - and that applies to my entire life.

Been slackin'

...on writing blog entries the last couple days, not on flying. Tuesday and Wednesday's flights went alright. Formation is coming along. Tactical is still really fun, and challenging. Fingertip still gives me fits, but I think I have it under control. Today I flew regular ol' contact to rehack all my currencies for dual-only maneuvers like the spin recovery, stalls, and ELP. I got to see Hacker again for the first time in about 2 months, but it was largely uneventful. I forgot to squawk the appropriate code the whole time, but almost no one was there, so it went unnoticed. We debriefed, and I rolled right into a solo in the afternoon - probably one of the best times I had yet. Sky was clear with some white puffies below and some anvils off in the distance. Finished all my aerobatics and all of them felt pretty good...not perfect, but definitely improving. I got stood up this morning too, and it wasn't the end of the world. Funny how some of the days you just think will be terrible turn out to be the best. I love that. Seems to be the way God works.

Removing the Rust

I flew plain ol' contact today, complete with area work, emergency landing patterns, and aerobatics. I felt a bit rusty, but other than that the flight went pretty well. I would have liked to move through each maneuver in a more timely manner, but I got most of it done anyway. Flying more formation tomorrow.

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...

Another Solo

Flew another solo today. Still feels a little weird to just go fly myself around, but definitely awesome. Clear skies and mostly calm winds made it a really good flight. I spent almost a full hour practicing all the aerobatics, trying to work on the more difficult ones. On the recovery, my pattern was decent, with a slight overshoot and a serious crosswind. My instrument sim went well, so I'm planning for tomorrow's. Looks like our cross country will be to Houston. Cool, haven't been there yet.

Area Solo

I still can't quite believe the Air Force let me fly a $6 million aircraft into the lawless barbaric region known as Oklahoma today. It wasn't like I just flew circles either. I did all the aerobatics I could, given that the clouds were descending and pushing me north. They weren't happy clouds either. They were the depressing kind. One of the best parts about it was not getting evaluated. It was a great day, but I should have asked for better weather.

Combined

Yesterday I flew a combined sortie with an instrument approach up at Lawton and area work with aerobatics. Part of pilot training is learning to deal with last minute changes and being flexible. I had thought the sortie would be my solo to the area for aerobatics, but the crosswinds were out of limits so I went dual and my IP included the instrument approach because it's a requirement for two of the sorties in this block. Though my instrument approach didn't go very well, my patterns on the recovery were some of the best I've flown. Today I should fly my area solo if the weather holds.

Much better week

So this week was much improved over last. I had my first instrument sortie yesterday, and the unpredictable North Texas weather provided actual instrument conditions. It's a great feeling driving through the clouds and breaking out on a final approach with the runway in sight, positioned for a landing. Flying from the back cockpit was really weird though. I don't like it, but the visibility is better everywhere except toward the front.

Today's instrument sim did not go very well, but it showed me exactly what I need to work on.

I had another advanced contact ride today. I improved my aerobatics and landed in a nasty crosswind. Mongolian grill tonight with the dudes before a weekend of relaxing/studying. I made it another week!

Advanced Contact

Today I started the next block of training. It's mostly all the same stuff we've been doing with the addition of advanced aerobatics. Our new batch of maneuvers consists of the Lazy 8, Cloverleaf, Immelman, Cuban 8, Chandelle, and the Barrel Roll. The Cuban 8 is definitely the most difficult. The Cloverleaf is pretty fun. It's basically four successive loops each offset 90 degrees from the previous. I have another ride tomorrow focusing on the same stuff. Looking forward to it!

I finally had another instrument sim today too. It went pretty well, but it was also the last sim of the basic block. From now on, I need to study the approaches more beforehand, and chairfly the checks. I may regret it later, but I think instruments will be a welcome transition.

The best part about today was that I got to fly!

Fly the Plane!

Today I flew early. One of the first takeoffs, we were airborne shortly after the sun came up. The weather was clear and a million, and the air was crisp, with low cross winds. Couldn't have asked for better weather. The winds were blowing right down the runway. I did the area profile and the baby aerobatics without much incident. I enjoyed almost every minute. It wasn't great, but I felt like I was getting better.

I got much better at prioritizing tasks today. We say aviate, navigate, communicate all the time, but my latest IP has really crushed me for misprioritizing, so I think I'm finally getting it. I realized it's really a brilliant metaphor for living life. You really have to fly your own self first and foremost, in the immediate sense, then you can think about where you're going in the future, and then you can become part of a community and interact with other people.

I had an EP sim, and fought off EP after EP, but screwed up a couple. I had a really good IP who had a different viewpoint compared to most of the other sim IPs. He gave me some gold nuggets of EPmanship, so it was definitely a day of positive gains.

In the books,
Mulli

Taco Wednesday

I gave the brief this morning, followed by an uneventful early morning of FDO duties. Then I got a U for my ride later in the morning. Three more rides until the mid phase checkride, so I have some work to do. Frustrating but not unrecoverable. I have another ride tomorrow to clean up the mess.

A taco is another way to refer to an Unsat ride.

On a lighter note, the weather was beautiful today and I had fun flying. We started baby aerobatics too. Split-S, loop, and aileron roll.