The T-44A Up Close

Today after academics, one of my buddies and I went out to the flight line just to hop in one of the T-44s and familiarize ourselves with the cockpit layout. We were surprised to find that the aircraft actually feels even older than we thought it would. It's going to take some getting used to, but the little bit of exposure to the actual aircraft that we got today was well worth it. We just read through the checklist, tried to find all the switches, and ran through basic ops. It's going to take some solid chairflying and checklist runthroughs, but it should be fun.

It is weird having a toilet in the back and an actual door into the aircraft.

Form check PASSED!

Feelin' good in the neighborhood...My formation buddy and I both passed our form check today. We had our share of downgrades, but as they say, "A kill's a kill." Let me detail all the typical checkride day events that occurred:
- We were on the opposite runway that we're usually on, especially for this time of year, which changes the departure/arrival procedures and just messes with your typical flow.
- I went to step and found out my G-suit had been condemned and had to get fitted for a new one right then. The life support dudes took care of me though.
- We chairflew the whole profile twice through with me winging out and leading back, but when we briefed it up, the IPs decided to have me lead out and wing back.

Despite all this, we flew a solid sortie, and managed to avoid doing anything hookable. Thank you, God.

To Check

Today we flew our to-check, the final ride before our checkride tomorrow. It felt like we had been sitting for two days, but we didn't do anything too terrible. We chairflew tonight to iron out the wrinkles, so we should be good to go tomorrow. I expect good things. Must relax.

Fly, Eat, Study, Chairfly, Sleep, Repeat

Flew again today. So cool. One decent landing. Weather was just ok. Got props for my ground ops. Average on everything else. Really busy tonight. I didn't even get out of the building until 8pm. Chairflew with my neighbor a hour tonight. Instrument academics tomorrow at 0830.

Long day

Maybe tomorrow will be our dollar rides. We got cancelled for crosswinds out of limits today. Can't go fly if the winds will blow your plane all over the sky.

We briefed the rides and did a walk around so it wasn't a total loss. We started instrument academics too. Boring.

One of the IPs was talking about chairflying today and mentioned how practice DOES NOT make perfect. PERFECT PRACTICE makes perfect. I will forever testify that basketball was the best preparation I've ever had for my profession. I had a couple coaches who used to always say that.

I'm FDO tomorrow. Have to give the morning brief. Should be interesting.

Got some practice time in the sims today and a little chairflying back in the dorms about an hour ago too. Off to bed.

No Sim

Yesterday we started the contact CBTs.

I wasn't scheduled for a sim, so I chairflew with a Guard guy from Buffalo. We went through some EPs and all the normal checklists using the cockpit trainer in the Aerospace Phys building.

Long lunch at the Hibiscus with a couple of the guys.
Ran 5k in the Fivefingers while all the Airmen did their PT. Glad I don't have to look forward to all those shenannigans.

Radio Calls, Oh Radio Calls

Today's sim went well. I knew most of the challenge and response and the call-outs, and my instructor could tell I'd been running through the checklists. (My neighbor and I chairflew the checklists last night.) We did the 45 min brief, went over to the sim, I strapped in (g-suit and all) went through the checklists, taxi and takeoff, and then hydraulic failure and emergency gear extension, and a straight-in landing. (Wearing a helmet and mask for an hour and a half really let's you know if it fits well. Never thought I could get so sweaty in a low-stress sim.) I struggled with the radio calls the whole time, but I that was a tough thing at IFS for me, so it's to be expected. We haven't really studied them much yet, but that's what I need to spend my time on. He gave me a few good intros to good mneumonics and checklist flows, so I'll try to learn that stuff soon. I picked up a kneeboard finally too. I've been just carrying around my checklists and IFG in my binder. Same thing tomorrow along with starting aerodynamics. Gotta keep chairflyin'.

The afternoon Flying Fundamentals review was a pretty brutal 2.0 hours of staring at blue screens, but we got through it.

Flying Fundamentals

Today after another easy test (let me know if you want to actually know how it went down, funny story) we were finally finished with T-6A systems. On to Flying Fundamentals. We're now learning some techniques for actual aviation, keeping a pitch picture based on cockpit references to the horizon, when to roll out of a turn or level off from a descent/climb, acronyms for in-flight checks, etc. Tomorrow is our first graded sim. It's just running through all the most frequent checklists: before exterior inspection, cockpit preflight, engine start, before taxi check, taxi checklist, overspeed governor, blah blah blah, lineup check, after T/O, climb check, ops check, a couple EPs, descent check, blah blah. I'm writing this as I chairfly in preparation. It's also a chance to demonstrate knowledge/practice the callouts and the challenge and response portions of what we need to know. This is still gonna be in one of the small screen sims. I'm looking forward to using the gigantic wrap-around sims.

Our dollar rides got moved back about a week, because of the weather delays. Lookin' at Mar 8 now.

Had some rosemary potatoes tonight...tasty.