Britton's Pilot Blog

Spain!

2011-12-13T23:27:00.000-08:00

After all of my initial qualification training was complete I had the opportunity to go to Spain for about two weeks in June of this year. We were supporting the whole Libya situation. I had a blast in Spain. The flying was actually a lot of fun and I learned a lot. The flights probably averaged around 8 hours or so, so the days were very long once you add a few hours on the front and back for briefings and paperwork. Since the whole thing was a NATO operation we had to work very closely with pilots and tactical air traffic controllers from other nations. I have to say that it was very difficult to understand what the French where saying. The neat part was that a lot of our receivers where from other countries as well. We saw a bunch of different types of fighter jets, and heard a lot of different accents. It is cool to see how everyone can come together and get the mission done, even though we come from different countries and different training programs.

As for Spain itself…..it is an awesome country! Luckily they didn’t have any restrictions on where we could go. As long as we were there at step time, and ready to fly no one cared where we went. The second week we were there I rented a car with a couple of other guys and everyday after our flight (we flew through the night and a lot of times would land around 7 or 8 am) we would hop in the car and explore southern Spain. We made it to the rock of Gibraltar, which was amazing. We saw ancient cathedrals, castles, and whole cities painted white. There is so much history in Spain. I loved it. I know a little Spanish, so I ended up being the translator for our group wherever we went and enjoyed brushing up on my Spanish skills.

Just shooting the breeze with some monkeys at the Rock of Gibraltar.

Foreign fighter

If this whole flying thing doesn't work out I think I might have a future in photography.

Ancient Roman bridge in Ronda, Spain.

Some pictures

2011-12-07T03:25:00.000-08:00

Altus, Oklahoma for KC-135 training. One of my boys enjoying a ride on my back, but you have to appreciate the card table and lawn chairs for our beautiful dining room arrangement.

My two boys. The appartment was so small, but we difinitely made the best of it.

In front of our appartment

Formation flying in T-1. We definitely got a lot of practice flying in bad weather in Mississippi!

Finally another post! Graduation, Altus, and SERE

2011-12-07T02:20:00.000-08:00

Alright I am going to make an attempt at getting this blog up to date, I know it has been forever since my last post and I know that most of you that used to read it have probably given up by now, but as I said in one of my first posts the main purpose of this blog is almost like a journal. I want to write down some of the things that I am doing so I can remember them in the future. I am just going to start writing about things that I remember so sorry if things are out of order or don’t make sense. So I graduated UPT on June 11 of last year (2010). I was at Columbus AFB, MS for Pilot Training. My Parents came out to graduation which was nice to see them since I hadn’t seen them in a while. I really enjoyed Mississippi, but let me tell you it is miserable in the summer. I am from Mesa, AZ, so I definitely know heat, but Mississippi is so humid it is ridiculous. I remember hitting the flight line in T-6’s in June of ’09. Our flight suits are long sleeve and then we had to wear G-suits, and parachute harnesses. We didn’t have A/C on the plane until we got the engines started. Let’s just say it didn’t take long to get very quick at my interior inspection and starting engines checklist. I can remember when my parents came to graduation I was pretty much sweaty the whole time. As a guard guy I had an added stress around graduation. The Guard Bureau for whatever reason said that I had to leave Mississippi the day after graduation and report to Ohio two day later (I was allotted two days drive time). This means I was busy packing up my entire house the last few days prior to graduation and trying to focus on my last check ride and get ready for my folks to come in town. The problem is that I am from Arizona and was hired into the Ohio Air National Guard. I didn’t have any family connections or anything in Ohio. I didn’t have a home or anything to go to in Ohio. Now you’re probably thinking alright dummy well why didn’t you just get an apartment in Ohio before finishing up in Mississippi. Great Idea! The only problem is that I knew I was going to be leaving to Altus, Ok (KC-135 initial qualification coarse) for five months just a few weeks after finishing in Mississippi. Altus is a TDY location meaning the Air Force doesn’t pay to move everything out there. Alright I know this story is getting boring so I’ll make it short. We just ended up renting a POD and having most of our stuff shipped to OHIO where it would sit for over 5 months waiting for us. We bought a little pull behind trailer and packed up the bare minimums and headed off for Oklahoma. Well actually there was about a month in between Mississippi and Oklahoma so we drove to AZ I dropped my wife and two little kids off with family and then I flew to Ohio for a couple of weeks to be with my unit. Then I flew back to Az picked up my little family and made the drive to Oklahoma.

Everyone that I had talked to about Altus always said it was going to be horrible. I actually didn’t mind it that much. I got there in July so at first it was pretty hot. We lived in a tiny little two bedroom apartment off base. We were on the second floor which wasn’t really fun. It was kind of funny though we used a little cot as our couch and literally had the bare minimums. We found a church there in Altus and made some friends. One guy that I had recently met at church was asking about where we were living and if we had furniture. I kind of half making fun of the situation joked about how we had a cot for a couch and within a few days I get a call from him that he was on his way over with a couch for us. He said it was someone’s from work that was going to take it to the dump. Now I have to say I was super thankful for his thoughtfulness, but this couch was the most hideous piece of junk ever. It used to be white leather, but was now a light brown color from probably being left out side and dogs making their way with it. It was gigantic too, so we ended up throwing half away and then cutting some of the cushions in half and throwing a sheet over it. Those were some good times. As far as the actual flying goes it is pretty crazy at Altus. The vast majority is done in the simulator.

Wow. So I wrote that post a couple of weeks ago with all intentions to post it right away. Obviously I didn’t and now it seems like such a long post about pretty much nothing that I can hardly read it myself. I do want to make more frequent blog posts because I have been doing some fun stuff and I want to remember it. So to wrap up what I was trying to say last post…….Altus was a good time. I brought my wife and two little kids. We stayed in a tiny little apartment off base. It was very hot at first and then it became very windy by the time I left. I only flew 5 actual flights in the jet the rest was all done in the simulator. Alright, that pretty much wraps up Altus, or as much as I feel like writing about it now. Maybe in the future I’ll come back and add some more about it.

So, I finished Altus the first part of December 2010. We made the drive from Altus, Oklahoma to Columbus Ohio with my wife and two kids. Lets just say portable DVD players are one of the best inventions ever, Definitely kept the kids busy. We arrived in the middle of the night in our little suburb home and slept on an air mattress in the middle of the floor in our empty new home. Maybe some other time I’ll tell you more about how we got our place in Columbus. It definitely was tricky. It is a HUD home that we got for a great deal, but I had to do everything from Altus. I found the place while visiting Ohio in between UPT and Altus and found a realtor to help me out. The process was full of hurdles from the get go being a HUD home and using a VA loan for our financing. I’ll save that story for later. I have to give my wife some props. She has been such a good sport about everything. I know it is not easy for her to leave family and friends to travel all over the country. It is especially difficult for her now that I am traveling a lot more and she is home alone with the kids a lot. She always keeps a good attitude though and I am so lucky to have her. Alright, back on topic. After spending about a month or so with my unit in Ohio I was off to Fairchild AFB in Spokane Washington to complete survival school, or SERE. Survive Evade Resist and Escape training is designed to train aircrew, and other military members that run a high risk of getting captured by the enemy, on skills needed to do exactly as the name implies, survive evade resist and escape if they find themselves downed in enemy territory. A lot of the training we received is classified, but I can tell you that it was one of the most diffucult/crazy/rewarding things I’ve ever done. Let’s just say 6 days in Northern Washington in the Winter with bare minimum equipment, no sleep, Snow everywhere, heavy packs, rugged terrain, snow shoes, and limited food and water is no joke.

After SERE I was back in Columbus for seasoning days; basically on the job training where I would fly anywhere from 2 to 3 times a week. I had a big long list of things that I had to accomplish before I would become fully mission qualified. On March 23, 2011, just over two years after starting the whole pilot training process, I finished everything I needed to accomplish and I became a fully qualified KC-135 co-pilot. That meant I was finally able to go on the road and do real world missions. My unit didn’t waste any time either. Since finishing Seasoning days I have been to Florida 3 different times, Tucson, AZ, California, Hawaii, Guam, Japan, and I am currently sitting on a jet over the Atlantic on my way home from a two week trip to Spain. I have had a great time, but I think this post is long enough for now. I will share the stories about these trips in the next post.

T-6 Complete!

2009-12-05T22:20:00.000-08:00

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

2009-10-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

It is time for a new post

2009-10-05T06:41:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-09T20:56:00.001-07:00

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!

2009-07-12T17:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-06-27T14:45:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T20:34:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-05-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Mississippi or bust!

2009-04-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

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.

I graduated!

2008-12-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

Well, I graduated from the Academy of Military Science which means that I am now a Second Lieutenant in the Air Force...crazy. I have to say that those six weeks really went by so fast. On October 12th I boarded a plane and headed for Knoxville, Tennessee where I would spend the next six weeks learning how to be an officer in the Air Force and a better leader. The first couple of weeks were pretty crazy. We would have to wake up at 5 am every morning and jump out of bed so that we would have enough time to get ready, clean our room, and be standing tall in formation at 0530. Now when I say cleaning our room I don't just mean throwing old dirty clothes under the bed like at home. We took cleaning our room to a whole new level. Every day we had to leave our rooms in "inspection order" which meant that everything had to be perfect. We had a book on all of the rules that we had to follow while at AMS. There were like 6 or 7 pages giving us instruction on exactly how our rooms should be. For example our beds had to be exactly 3 inches from the wall, 6 inches from the side of our wall locker, and our extra blanket had to be folded and placed on our bed with the fold exactly 21” from the top of the bed. That is only the beginning, everything had to be perfect. Let’s just say I’ve never had to iron my underwear, socks and t-shirts so that they would lie perfectly flat. We would have inspections randomly and would have to stand in our rooms and wait for our faculty advisor to walk in; we would then go to attention and wait to be yelled at. They would storm around wipe their finger on our locker, look at it very closely, and then look at us and say, "are you kidding me, this place is disgusting".
We lived in two man rooms with a common Squadron Room connecting the 10 two man rooms. In our Squadron we started off with 20 officer candidates and graduated with 18. They were all a great bunch of people. Just to become an officer in the Air Force you have to go before a hiring board and get hand selected by a reviewing board, so the people at AMS where top notch. They were professionals ranging from fighter pilots to intelligence officers. We were given tasks that would require us to come together as a Squadron and work as a team. For example toward the middle of the program we went to Patriot Challenge which was a 3 day adventure in Georgia. We had to simulate that we were at war against some fictitious country. The first day we were dropped off at a point and had to hike into our camp a few miles away using land navigation (map and compass). My prior training in the Army really prepared me for this challenge. At one point we had to Cross a 50’, river bed with nothing but a rope and a bunch of carabineers (it didn’t make it easier that we each had 40 lb rucksacks with all of our gear). This is where we really had to come together as a team. We had been instructed on how to build a rope bridge before we left. We had practiced by tying ropes around trees outside of our dorms and crossing a make believe river. The real thing was crazy. Once we built the rope bridge we all had to cross by hanging upside down and pulling ourselves across. It was a lot of fun.
That is all I am going to write about AMS today because I ran out of time, but I plan on adding a couple more posts about the crazy things that we did while we were there. I will also add some pics.

Finally....Class Dates!!!

2008-08-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

I got the call! It seems like I have been waiting forever to find out when I will be starting training, but finally the wait is over. I found out that I will be leaving for AMS (Academy of Military Science) on 13 October 2008. AMS is a six week leadership course somewhere in Tennessee that turns people into officers in the Air Force. I am actually excited to see what it is like. I have been through Army basic training and multiple Army leadership courses and I am curious to see what the Air Force has in store for me. I am so excited to get into training and start the whole process of becoming an AF pilot. The only problem about the dates of AMS is that my little boy, Porter, will be turning one on the 25th of October. It is going to be so hard not to be there for his first birthday. We are going to celebrate his birthday the weekend before I leave. It will be a couple of weeks early, but he won't know the difference.
Before I leave for AMS I have to go to a base in Texas and get a very extensive flight physical. They want to make sure that I am healthy before they invest all kinds of time and money into my training. I am scheduled to go on the 3rd of September. I feel so thankful for my health. Luckily I don't have any abnormalities or vision problems, so I should be O.K.
I still don't know the dates of pilot training. I will graduate from AMS on the 22 of November and from what I have been told I can pretty much count on a class date sometime in the beginning of January 2009. I will let you know as soon as I hear anything.

It's been a while

2008-06-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

Alright… I guess I haven’t done the best job at keeping this journal current. I don’t think I even told you what type of aircraft I will be flying in the Air Force. I am going to be flying the KC-135 (pictured above) whose main role is to refuel other military aircraft in air. It is funny because in the Army my job was to drive big fuel tankers, and so in the interview they where joking about how I am still going to be driving fuel tankers, only now they will have wings.

A lot of people have been asking when I will be leaving. I still don’t have dates yet, but I am hoping to know actual dates in the next couple of weeks. We are thinking that I will make it into the August officer school and leave for pilot training in October. When I was selected by the unit in Ohio I was actually selected for the fiscal year 2009 which begins the first of October 2008. I was told that there was always a chance that I would get a class date earlier since there are always people that don’t make it through training for whatever reason and slots become available. It looks like I am not going to be able to go any earlier though because I was serving in the Army Reserve and the transition process took forever. I was finally released by the Army and about a month ago I swore in to the Air National Guard. It was a crazy feeling swearing into the Air Force. I served in the Army for almost 9 years (right after I graduated high school) and so that is all I know. It will be interesting transitioning to a different branch of the military and getting used to all of their traditions, and customs. I am so excited! I am going to try and be better at keeping this blog up to date especially since I will be leaving soon. Until then....se ya!

Selection Process

2007-11-20T23:26:00.000-08:00

I started talking to air force recruiters and was informed about the pilot selection process for the Air National Guard. Every state in the U.S. has an Air National Guard unit but only a limited few select people “off the street”. Most units have plenty of candidates from within the unit to where they do not offer positions to outsiders. The units that do open up their pilot selection boards to people outside of the unit typically only select one up to four pilots per year. Needless to say the competition is pretty intense. I had decided that I was going to do whatever it took to get a slot. In March 2007 I took the AFOQT (Air Force Officer Qualifying). It was pretty similar to the SAT or ACT tests I had to take before college. Next I took the TBAS (test of basic aviation skills). This was a computerized test that evaluates the candidate’s hand eye coordination and ability to multi-task. Next it was time to start putting together “packets”. each unit requires different items to be included in your packet. I spent a lot of time and effort putting these together. I wanted to make sure that they where just right. I also spent a lot of time researching which units where hiring and when their annual boards where going to be held. I spent countless hours making phone calls across the country talking with units hoping that they would open up their pilot selection outside of their unit. I made a master list of all the units hiring and began sending off my packets. The following weeks were horrible. All I could think about was what the selecting officials thought of my packet and if I would hear from any of them. To make a long story short I was invited to interview with a unit in Spokane, Washington, Lincoln, Nebraska, Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was off to Washington and Nebraska first to interview with their units.
The interviews. Talk about intimidating! I was all decked out in my Army Dress uniform. Shirt perfectly ironed, shoes polished. I was ready to go! I was asked to enter the interview room. Eight men sat at a round table and asked me to take a seat at the head. I felt like I had just entered the Pentagon or something. They where all dressed in their Air Force Blues with like a million medals. They began asking questions. The whole interview lasted about 45 min. The interviews in Washington and Nebraska where on a Friday and Sunday of the same week so I was in the airport a lot just thinking of the interview and what I would say. The next couple of weeks after the interviews where horrible. All I could think about was if I made it or not. I finally got news that I was not selected and that they had chosen someone from their unit. Bummer! Around that same time I was invited to interview with a unit in Columbus, Ohio. I was very impressed as I drove the rental car around town thinking that I could see myself raising a family there. It was very green and the weather was awesome! (it was summer though, I heard that the winters are kind of brutal). I left the interview in Ohio with a good feeling. I really liked the people in the unit and was even invited to go out to eat with some of the pilots from the unit. A few days later I received a call and the voice on the other end said, “so….how do you feel about moving to Ohio?” I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy and excited that I could hardly say anything. The guy probably thought that I was a moron as I probably said thank you a million times.

Why the Air National Guard?

2007-11-20T22:21:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to be a pilot ever since I was a little child. The pilot selection process started for me around September of 2006. I had just started my senior year at Arizona State University. I was studying Aeronautical Management Technology and was sure I wanted to be a pilot, but was not so excited about doing it the civilian route. I was working at UPS at the time as a ramp supervisor and was in contact with the pilots on a daily basis. Whenever the opportunity would arise I would always ask them where they got their training and then tell them that I was interested in flying. Surprisingly on more than one occasion the pilots would mention the Air National Guard as the best kept secret in aviation. The difference between being an Air National Guard pilot and an active duty pilot is that once an Air National Guard pilot completes his/her training they return to the state that they will be flying for and will only have to fly a few times a month and a couple of weeks out of the year (theoretically that is, there are still deployments here and there throughout the year). This means that pretty much right after training an Air National Guard pilot can most likely get a job with the airlines. An active duty pilot is a full time military pilot for I’m not sure but like 12 years. This means that they can be stationed any where in the world, and they don’t know what type of aircraft they will be flying until halfway through pilot training. As an Air National Guard pilot you are hired to fly a specific aircraft so you know exactly what you will be flying before you go to training. I was definitely interested in flying for the Air National Guard. I was in the Army Reserve at the time and so I was familiar with the military. Besides, after going 3 weeks without a shower and sleeping on the dirt while deployed to Iraq with the Army I was pretty sure that things could only get better as an officer in the Air Force.

Starting a blog

2007-11-20T20:33:00.000-08:00

I have decided to keep an online journal as I proceed through the process of pilot training in the United States Air Force. I want to be able to someday look back and remember some of the feelings that I had prior to and during pilot training in the Air Force. I could keep a regular old fashion paper journal, but I have found that I am not all that great at that, plus many people have been asking a lot of questions as to what I will be doing and this is a perfect way to share my experience with everyone.