Academics

The last three days have all been academics - lectures and computer based lessons, followed by reading and preparing at home. There is just so much information with this new aircraft. It's huge, has four engines and a million other systems. The interesting part is that most of the systems are mechanical as opposed to electrical in nature since it was built before the advent of the microprocessor. Having fewer electronics has the interesting effect of making the aircraft much more robust and reliable. So far we've covered the engines, props, and normal checklists. Tomorrow we have a review and the first cockpit familiarization trainer sim. On Friday there's a test over everything.

Incomplete

Today's flight did not go as planned. I started out with an uneventful taxi and takeoff out to the working areas. We did my highwork, which went reasonably well for Day 2, before switching to my wingman. He did his highwork and transitioned to the aux field. Just as I was about to switch back into the pilot's seat, the props started acting up. In the T-44 you move the props to full forward to slow down while on final at the end of a landing pattern right before you touch down. When he moved the props forward, they weren't changing their blade angle, so the IP decided to return early after replicating the problem three more times. We wrote it up, so it would get fixed. I got an incomplete, so I get to do the ride over again. Free flying time!