T-6 Complete!

I was just reading my last post and I said that I was going to try to post more frequently, well....so much for that plan. A lot has happened since my last post. I am officially done with T-6s and am now in academics for T-1s. After my cross-country that I wrote about in my last post I finished up the nav portion of training, finished instruments, and then had my check ride. I was a little nervous because due to some last minute changes I was scheduled to fly my checkride to an airport that I had never been to. That was enough to make me a little uneasy, but it didn't help that the airport didn't have functioning DME (distance measuring equipment), so I had to change the way that I flew the aproaches. It was a little out of the ordinary, but I did fairly well and passed the checkride which is most important.
After instruments it was all about formation. At first I hated formation. I thought that what they wanted us to do should be illegal. It was so crazy. Flying an airplane at speeds of over 250 mph 10ft off the other guys wingtip is enough to make me feel a little uncomfortable, but once we got the "fingertip" position down we had to maintain finfertip distance in 90 degree bank turns. Then we were introduced to extended trail. Both planes set max power so that neither aircraft has a power advantage. Number 2 aircraft (wing) maneuvers to position himself a few hundred feet behind number 1 (lead), and then the games begin. basically it is a big game of chase. Lead begins to do all kinds of maneuvers like loops, barrel rolls, cloverleafs, lazy 8s, and cuban 8s. Both aircraft are now traveling at speeds ranging from 115 to 300 mph. The exercise is designed to teach the student how to use pure geometry and angles to gain on lead and stay in position without changing power settings. It is so crazy. Every time I would start extended trail I would immediately start sweating and after completing it my jaw would be sore from keeping it clenched the whole time. At first I hated it but toward the end I loved it. I am definately going to miss flying the T-6.
On November 17th we had track select. For all of the active duty guys in my flight this is a huge day. Track select is where you find out what type of aircraft you are going to be flying for the rest of your career. T-38s for those that want to eventually fly fighters, T-1s for heavies, and T-44s for C-130s. Since I am guard I already know that I am going to be flying the KC-135 so I knew that I would be tracking to the T-1s. For the active duty guys it is a big competition since a lot of them want to fly fighters. Out of our class of almost 30 guys 5 guys T-38s, 2 guys got T-44s, one guy was chosen to fly helicopters, and the rest got T-1s.
So, now I am back in the class room learning all about T-1 systems, and doing sims. I will be in academics until right before Christmas break. We are scheduled to fly one real sortie before we break for Christmas and then we'll finish up after the break....then I graduate in June. Time is going by so fast!

Pictures from the cross country

It is time for a new post

It's been a while since I have posted to this blog. It has been so crazy around here. I am going to try to post more frequently now. A lot has happened since my last post. I will try to update you on all of the major things that have happened recently.
This past weekend I flew my cross country to practice approaches at different airfields. It was so fun! We took off on Friday afternoon and flew to Birmingham, Al to shoot a couple of approaches. Then we headed north to Huntsville, AL to fuel up. We waited a little bit for the sun to go down and then we flew a night sortie to Chattanooga, TN to shoot approaches and then off to Knoxville, TN to stop for the night. We met up with 3 other crews and and went out to dinner. Saturday we took off and flew over the Great Smokey Mountains which was really cool. We shot some approaches in Columbia, SC cancelled IFR and flew VFR to Charleston, SC. Basically we didn't use any navigational aids to help us find our way. We pulled out some low level charts and and flew off of land features and rivers and such. We landed in Charleston for fuel and then headed VFR along the coast to Jacksonville, FL for more fuel. Then we took off again and headed further south to West Palm Beach, FL. It was definitely one of the funnest things that I have ever done. On our way to West Palm Beach we flew right by Cape Canaveral and saw where they launch the space shuttle. On Sunday we flew to Tallahassee, FL for fuel and then we were back in the air on our way back to Columbus. There was a big storm in Columbus and we almost had to divert. It was pouring rain and visibility was horrible. I shot the ILS and didn't see the runway until we were on very short final for the runway. It was awesome. Well enough about that. This week we are going in late because we are going to be doing all of our night flying. I am looking forward to that. I like flying at night. A lot has happened lately so I am going to try to make another post again soon. I have to go now though....So long!

My Family is back!

I know that it has been a couple of weeks....sorry. Things around here have been crazy. The biggest news is that my wife and two kids are finally back from Az. It is so nice to have them here with me. Besides the three days I saw them when Carter was born it has been three months....way too long! Flying has been going good and has been keeping my busy. It seems like there is never enough time to study for everything I need to know. I soloed on Tuesday of last week. It was so awesome! I spent about a half hour in the traffic pattern just doing touch and go's. After landing the guys from my flight were waiting for me to throw me in a tank full of water (tradition after solo). I thought that I would be sneaky so I didn't get on the normal crew bus and I walked the long way back ducking behind cars and using some good 'ol fashion ninja skills to try to get back to the flight room. The tradition is that if you can get back to the flight room without getting dunked everyone in your flight has to buy you a case of beer. I don't drink, but I still thought it would be fun to put up a fight. Well, I didn't make it back to the flight room, and was thrown into the dunk tank. I also took the weather test last week. People say that it is one of the harder tests just because there is so much information, and we take it during a time in the flightline when so much other stuff is going on that there is not a whole lot of time to study the material. I studied like crazy and was pretty happy with my score....missed three. I am scheduled to have my midphase check ride on Tuesday which I am a little nervous about. I have to go to bed. See ya!

Seasoned pro!

I officially have 5 flights in the T-6 under my belt. Oh yeah, I'm a pro....yeah right!. The past couple of weeks have been pretty crazy. We have been having early starts which means that our formal report time has been at like 0430 in the morning. Yeah, not fun. I have a hard time making myself go to sleep at 8:00 or 9:00 and so 3:45 am comes way too fast in the morning. We are on formal release which means that our work day is 12 hours long, so we are usually done by 1630. After that I come home and study or chair fly (imaginary flying...really fun). The flying is Awesome!! It is completely different than civilian flying.....I never pulled 5 G's in the Piper Warrior. In the traffic pattern we do 60 degree bank turns and pull 2 g's. It's crazy. Right now I am in the "Contact" phase and I am currently working on traffic patterns (which are completely different than civilian patterns), landings, and area work (stalls, slow flight, etc). It is a little weird not having the instructor sit beside me like in the civilian world. Instead all I have is controls to the left and right and a glass bubble around me (makes for a great view!). Now I just have a magical voice that pops into my helmet every time I do something crazy. On Thursday evening I got a good reality check. I was with a friend studying emergency procedures and I got a call from our flight leader informing me that a solo student had run into some problems out in an area and had to eject. He landed in a tree and was relatively unharmed and the plane didn't hurt anyone when it hit the ground, but it really hit home the importance of studying emergency situations so that I will be the most prepared that I can be if I ever encounter a real emergency. Well, gotta go to bed. I have some pictures I will try to post next time. See ya!

Phase II here I come

Phase I is officially history! On Thursday we took our last test of Phase I and now we will be transitioning into phase II. Phase I was primarily academics. It was a lot different than I expected. I thought that our days were going to be filled with classes and lectures and such. We pretty much have been teaching ourselves for the last 6 weeks. Every week we start a new topic and usually on the Friday of that week we have a test. Each topic has a gigantic book that corresponds to computer based training lessons. We are responsible for going to the computer lab and finishing the lessons. A typical day goes something like this: Wake up, eat, go to the computer lab, log on, study lessons, 4 hours later eat, go back to the computer lab, study for a couple more hours, then we might have an hour or two lesson by an actual real live instructor to review the things that we learned in the computer lab, then I go home, eat, and start studying again. Most of the nights we meet up with some friends and study in little groups. The last couple of weeks we have been going to the simulators to practice the things we learn about in the computer lab. The sims are actually pretty impressive. The cockpit is exactly the same as the real deal and enclosed in a gigantic circular shaped pod. The cockpit is surrounded by a circular screen that goes almost all the way around and almost all the way overhead. We practice departures, arrivals, area maneuvers, and emergency procedures in them. It is so realistic that I almost got a little queasy while practicing spin recoveries the other day. I hit the flight line on Tuesday. I can't wait. Gotta go!

A couple of pictures of the T-6

Here are some pictures of the T-6. This is what I will be in after I'm done with academics in a few more weeks.

The first couple of weeks of class

Wow, it is crazy how fast time is flying. Let me see, where should I begin.....well class started on the 15th of May. Well that was the official class start date but in reality they had us busy doing all kinds of in processing and medical stuff for a good week before class started. The first day primarily consisted of briefings and more briefings and then we had to take a boldface/ops limits test. Boldface...oh how I love boldface. Boldface are checklist items that are performed during an emergency. They have to be completely memorized and for the test have to be written from memory....perfectly. It's all about attention to detail. Every letter has to be capitalized and punctuation has to be perfect. There were a couple of people that didn't pass which means that now we have to wear dress blues to class now instead of our flight suits (which are basically like pajamas). The first week we learned about aerospace physiology. Basically we learned about the effects that flight has on the human body. We also learned how to properly eject from the T-6 and how to land properly. I though that week was super interesting. We got to drag each other around by parachute cords while the person being drug had to release his cables. It was fun. We took a test at the end of the week, it wasn't too bad, I think 2 questions. The second week was all about systems. We spent hours and hours learning about thinks like hydraulic systems, communication systems, flight instruments, blah blah blah. The T-6 actually has some pretty impressive technology.
On the weekends I've been able to see some cool local places and have started to love kayaking. I've gone almost every weekend since I've been here and love it. I want to buy a kayak now but the only trick is going to be convincing my wife that we need one.

PIctures from Mississippi and White Sands

Here are a couple of random pictures from Mississippi and the drive from Mesa.
This is at a little lake close to our new home in Mississippi.

This picture is actually from the drive from White Sands National Monument, New Mexico. This was probably my favorite stop along the way from Mesa to Mississippi.

We had to break down and get a little flight suit for Porter. This picture was taken in front of our little home here on Columbus Air Force Base.

It is so green here. Definately a change from Az.

Me and Porter.

We made it to MIssissippi!

Alright, I know I haven't been keeping this blog up to date like I wanted, but now that I have started class there is a lot more going on and I will post more often. I arrived here at Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi just a little over two weeks ago and I started class this last friday. I actualy drove here with my wife and 1.5 year old son from Mesa Arizona. That was quite an adventure....I'll just say if it weren't for portable dvd players and the movie "Cars" we might not have made it, go Lightning Mcqueen! We left on Monday the 27th of April and arrived here on that Friday. We stopped at some cool places along the way, but my favorite was at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Porter had a blast but for some reason thought that he had to eat all of the sand.
I spent the last couple of weeks unpacking boxes, getting the house put together, and spending time with my wife and son. The Air Force gave us a little home that was probably built in the 60's. It has some interesting features like bright turqois tile in the bathroom, but it is actually not too bad. I just like that I don't have to pay for it. I don't think that I told you, but my wife is pregnant and is due on the 12th of June. Since I am going to be so busy now that pilot training has started we decided that it would be best for her to be back in AZ to have the baby where she will live with her family and have her mom to help take care of her and Porter. She flew back home a couple of days ago and won't come back until the end of July. I am going to miss them a ton, but since she is going to have a C-section I already got approval from my commander to fly back to Az for the birth. I will only miss one day of training.
It is getting late and I have to go in early tomorrow so I've got to get to bed. I'll post again soon.

a couple more pics

These are some pictures from IFS in Pueblo, Co. The ones from the dunes are from a detour that I took while driving home from Pueblo to Mesa, Az. A couple of pictures are from a weekend that we drove up to the Air Force Academy and found a mountain to hike up. The patch is our class patch during IFS.

A few pictures

Mississippi or bust!

We're off to Mississippi.....well, we leave in a couple of weeks, but time is flying so fast. So I finished IFS about a week ago and made the long drive back from Pueblo, Co to Mesa, Az. I soloed on the Monday before I came home wich was pretty crazy. I wasn't really nervous because I have a private pilot license already and have flown by myself a handfull of times, but once I dropped my instructor off all of the sudden winds started picking up and let's just say that the mighty Katana isn't the best in windy conditions. It is such a small/light airplane that any wind gust will blow you off of centerline. As I was doing my touch and goes the tower reported winds at 12 gusting to 20. I did a couple of windy touch and goes and then ops announced over the radio for all solo's to come down out of the pattern and make it a "full stop". On Wednesday I had my check ride. I admit I was a little nervous before the flight. The way that the military does check rides is the check pilot acts as if he knows nothing. He/she does not say a word the entire flight and does not interact with you at all, unless they need to intervene for safety reasons. Once we got airborne I wasn't really nervous at all. I got lucky because winds were calm and there wasn't a cloud in sight. I flew around for about 1.4 hours and then returened to Pueblo. After the flight we met in his office and for about a half an hour he asked me questions. Then all of the sudden he asked, "are you ready to be done?", I thought are you crazy, of coarse! I told him I was and then he congratulated me and told me that I was done and that I had passed. It was an awesome feeling.
Now the next step is undergraduate pilot training (UPT). I am scheduled to start class on the 15th of May in Columbus, MS. My wife and I are packing up the car and making the trip into a 4 or 5 day road trip. With enough fruit snacks and Yo Gabba Gabba movies for our one and a half year old I think that we should have a good time. We are leaving on the 25th of April wich will give us a couple of weeks to get our house all set up and everything before class starts. O.K. I think this post is long enough now so until next time......toodles.

Initial Flight Screening

So I am here in Pueblo, Colorado doing Initial Flight Screening for the Air Force. I got here on the first of March and will be here for another week or so. This place is pretty amazing. We live in a huge building that has everything that we need for our training in the same building. On one side of the building are all of our rooms, and on the other side is the cafeteria, gym, barber shop, store, and flight rooms. Initial Flight Screening is designed to weed out pilot candidates that most likely would not be succesful at pilot training, and to better prepare other pilots for follow on pilot training. We fly little two-seat DA-20's or Katanas. I have been having a great time here meeting new people and getting paid to fly and learn about aviation. I can't complain. It is pretty intense though. The first week we were here was academic week which they crammed pretty much everything that you need to know to get your private pilot licence into three days, and then gave us the weekend to study for a huge exam. Needless to say that weekend was spent in the books. Since then we have been able to get out a little bit on the weekends. This past weekend we drove up to Colorado Springs and visited the Air Force Academy. We found a pretty cool hiking trail and hiked up on top of a mountain that overlooked the Academy. That was pretty cool. I have flown 7 times now and I will probably solo on Monday of next week and have my checkride mid next week. I have to get to bed. I will try to make another post soon to let you know more about this place.