Week 16 & 17

Me and the old T-6 Texan

Week 16

This week I finished my last SIM in the T-6 and just about finished instrument flying. All I have left is the check ride on Wednesday this week. I can not believe how close I am to finishing the first part of flight training. All that is left is formation. I have heard from a lot of people that this is where people really make up their minds on what they want to fly in the future. Formation can either be something you love or hate.

Week 17

What a big week. I finished instruments and did pretty well on my checkride (a lot better than I expected I would do). The weather was pretty good this week and I flew a couple of low-level (300 to 500 feet off the ground, simulated bomb runs). Those are way cool. You plan the entire mission in great detail. The plan is picking about 5 or 6 points on a low chart (map) and plotting headings, fuels, times and airspeeds. All of these factors come together to get you to your target within 10 seconds of the planned time. It does not sound that impressive, but when the mission is over an hour long, 10 seconds is pretty dang close. It is a lot of work doing all the math do come up with headings corrected for wind and magnetic variation, but it makes it all worth it when you fly what you have planned and you actually end up over the target when you thought you were going too. On my low levels I bombed a warehouse and a bridge. Both times I shacked the target. It must have been pretty cool for those people on the ground to see a T-6 fly overhead so low and do a victory roll after hitting the target. Next week I start formation, which is the last thing I will do in the T-6 before I begin my advanced training in whatever aircraft I decide is best for us, either the T-1, or the T-38. I am still undecided, but everyone tells me that your mind is made up after formation (either you love it or hate it). It is hard to believe how close I am to graduating T-6’s already.

Week 14 & 15

Week 14

This was a very big week for me. I started it knowing that they would push me through final contact rides so I could get to my check ride this week. So, I flew twice a day until Thursday when I was supposed to check. My flights before were going well and I felt pretty ready to check, although you never can tell. I hate how nervous I get waiting for these things. It seems like there is always something coming to make my stomach in knots (which always brings on an awesome case of diareah). Anyway, I found out on the morning of my checkride that my check IP changed. So, I got stuck with Captain Grey, aka Captain Hook (hook is slang for a failing grade, since a U looks like a hook). He is probably the hardest check IP here. So, my diareah increased that morning exponentially. Weird enough though, I did awesome. I had studied a bunch for the ground evaluation part (testing on just about everything) and I was surprised how well I knew the questions that he was asking me. Even the emergency procedure he gave me I knew well. It was just luck I guess. I got a 3E! This is the highest score in my class for final contact. I was pretty surprised, but it was a good surprise. Unfortunately, I did not have any time to celebrate, because I had a cross-country to plan. So, on Friday I took off for my first cross country. We flew into Fort Worth Friday, then to Oklahoma City on Saturday, and back to Laughlin Sunday. We did 2 flights a day and each flight came to about 3 hours. If you include the planning, briefing, and debriefing of all this each day lasted about 16 hours. I am exhausted right now and I even had to fly twice today. I just wish they would give us atleast one day off to rest, but nope, not here.

This is something a guy I went cross country with dad put together, I am in the middle.

Week 15

Time is just flying by, but I guess that is a good thing. This week was overall pretty average. Flew a bunch, SIM’ed a bunch, and took a couple of tests. I did do a couple of new things this week that was fun. First, in one of my SIM’s I finished the profile really early and the instructor I had was pretty cool. He loaded up San Antonio and just let me fly around and goof off. It was awesome weaving in-between the buildings and just being able to relax and have fun with the airplane. Another time I was in the MOA and there were a bunch of clouds. My IP let me again, goof off and we went “cloud dancing.” This is where you fly around the clouds and chop off their tops while doing aerobatics in-between. It was awesome, until I got sick and threw up all over the place, ha ha ha just kidding. I am full in to the instrument portion of flying and should be checking either the end of next week or the week after. Also, we are done with our weather classes and should be taking the test on Monday. This will complete the T-6 academic portion of flight school. However, this is also the hardest test and has a history of over a 50% fail rate. Good odds huh. In all of these flights I have to where a hood so I can not see anything outside. I have to navigate, shoot approaches, hold altitude, airspeed and headings, conduct departure and arrivals all using just my primary instruments. Instrument flying is tuff and it is hard to keep track of where you are and where you are going using just headings. Another tuff aspect of it is that you get really disoriented just looking at instruments and not really seeing what the plane is doing outside or where you are going. It is common for your body to think you are doing something different then the plane is doing (that is how JFK jr. died). I am still trying to figure out what is best for me and my family in the way of what I want to fly for my career.

Weeks 12 & 13

Week 12

I have not written for a while and ironically there is not that much to talk about. Christmas was awesome and was a well needed break from Texas for all of us. As you all know we decided last minute to drive back to Utah and surprise everyone. We left Friday the 22nd in the morning at about 4:15. It worked out great and the girls were excellent for the 19 hour drive, which we decided to do straight through. We arrived in Utah that night at about 10:30, Utah time. The look on my dad’s face was priceless as he opened the door and saw us standing there. The next day we surprised the Rudd’s at their family Christmas party, it was great hearing Diane scream and seeing Paul cry, big surprise there. We all had a great time in Utah and enjoyed spending it with our family. We also got the chance to catch up on some movies as well as catch up on some good restaurants. The drive back to Texas was quite a bit more interesting. It was fine until we hit Alberquerque (however you spell that) which was hammered by snow (it looked like Denver) and we could barely see through the fog. So we decided to stay overnight and hope things were better in the morning. We woke up and went to the continental breakfast and watched the news which said that the freeways we needed to take were closed. However, I had to get back because of work so we decided to leave quickly and hope for the best. The traffic was horrible but luckily right as we were about to turn onto the freeway it opened up, although it looked more like a snowway (ha ha ha). Once we got out of New Mexico the weather turned good again and the temperature grew much better.
At work it was a short week, but we still managed to take 3 tests, 3 SIM’s and 2 flights. Oh well, that’s my life. Everything went well so I am fine with it.

Week 13

This week started out pretty cool for me…literally. Monday we had off for the holiday and that night the big ice storm rolled into town. Of course Texas freaked out about it and to my advantage class was cancelled the next two days. Which was fine because we would not have flown in that kind of weather anyway. So, it turned out to be a two day week. However, I still managed to take two tests, four navigation SIMS, and work nearly 30 hours. Next week should bring a lot of stress as well. They just came out with a new boldface and opslimits that we have to memorize by Monday and I am hopefully going to have my final-contact check ride. Also, I am scheduled to go cross country during the weekend. We are planning on going to Fort Worth and check out the plant where they build the F-22 and F-35, so that should be cool.

Weeks 10 & 11

T-6B (Ground Attack Version)

Week 10

This was a pretty busy week. I took my advanced instruments test and did good on it. It was not as hard as everyone made it out to be, it might be because I was well prepared. I flew everyday and had a bunch of SIM’s as well. On Wednesday I flew twice so I could do my check ride on Thursday. I was ready for it, but that night a cold front came in and wrecked everything. When a front comes it changes the wind and in this case, the winds were gusting up to 50 knots all day. Not the best weather to fly in. So, pretty much no one flew that day so I get to check on Tuesday. The wind really played havoc with our Christmas lights as well. I spent most of yesterday trying to get the lights working again. Eventually I just broke down and had to buy a few new ones. I did not do anything really new in my flights this week. Just the basic aerobatics, stalls, spins, recoveries, and some other fun maneuvers. Next week I hear we get to do a couple night flights. That should be cool, I have never flown at night before. I heard that the class that just hit the flight line had a pretty funny story. One kid on his dollar ride got all kinds of airsick. While they were in the area and doing aileron rolls, the kid dropped his mask but could not get to his puke bag quick enough and vomited while the plane was upside down. So, vomit sprayed all over the cockpit, windshield, instruments, and himself. What a mess! I am just glad that I never got that sick. Oh, something else weird that happened to me was the instructor needed to do a spin to update his currency. His setup was normal and nothing interesting happened but right as the airplane stalled and began to enter the spin, a huge gust of wind flipped us inverted and we spun that way. It was crazy spinning upside down. When you spin inverted the recovery is a lot harder and you spin A LOT faster!

Week 11

I experienced a bunch of firsts this week. First off was I had the opportunity to fly an un-graded flight. This was due to the fact that I was suppost to have my check-ride last Thursday, but it never happened because of out of control winds. Friday was a maintenance down day, so there was no flying. So, they did not want to send me into my check ride without flying for four days. It was pretty cool just being able to fly without the stress of someone constantly analyzing every aspect of the flight. On Tuesday I had my checkride. I was pretty nervous. This first check ride, called the mid-phase, is the most failed one in pilot training. We started with a normal brief and the instructor told me the he would not say anything the entire ride, and if I messed up on a maneuver to just move on. Each check ride they give you a profile (list of maneuvers) that you have to complete and to pass (I got a middle of the run one). So, I took off and flew to our auxiliary field to do some precautionary emergency landings (landing with no power, simulated engine out) and do some no flap patterns and landings. These went just fine and I departed the field and headed to the MOA to do my aerobatics, stalls, spins, recoveries and a few other maneuvers. These I felt went pretty good and I was happy leaving the area. After that I headed back to Laughlin to complete a few more different kind of landings and my full stop. After my entry into the pattern and after my first touch and go I went around like normal, however, there was a someone from the new class behind me who turned crosswind in the wrong place and forced me to breakout out of the pattern (to avoid a mid-air collision). Breakouts are a favorite place for people to fail checkrides because of the million things that can go wrong in them. Luckily, I found the geographic spot that I needed to turn around to reenter the pattern right away and it went off without a hitch. After the flight you go through a ground-evaluation stage where they sit you down and you are tested. They ask you all kinds of different questions ranging from aircraft systems to weather. Also, you have to do an emergency procedure and if you don’t recite something word for word you fail. I did good and luckily he asked me to draw out the fuel system (one of the systems I know the best). So, I passed and did pretty good on my checkride. The next day I started night flying. Wow! It is a totally different feeling and atmosphere. It is scary at first but once I got used to it I really enjoyed it. It is beautiful to see all the lights from the cities and the first night we broke through a cloud layer and could see nothing on the ground and above us were a million stars, what a sight (its not easy to describe). The next day I flew twice. My first flight I went out SOLO and absolutely loved it. That is what flying is all about, no one to bug or critique you and now that I am much more comfortable with the jet could just enjoy the absoloute freedom that it brings. It was amazing to me to look out on my wing and see the USAF and realize it was me flying. That night we did the night low-level ride. This was interesting. We flew a pre-established, timed course at 1000’ AGL. Which would be no problem, except it is 20 times harder at night. I really enjoyed this one and was even able to see my house. Friday turned out to be rainy and cold and because of icing at higher altitudes all flights were cancelled. That was alright to me, I was ready for a little break.

Week 9

Week 9

SOLO!!!! Well, it finally happened, I took a 5 million dollar aircraft up all by myself. What an awesome experience it was. I flew my end of block (flight training is divided up into blocks) ride on Monday and did well. On Tuesday I flew the pre-solo (make sure I won’t kill myself or break something) flight in the morning and flew my solo ride in the afternoon. It was so cool signing out my own jet, getting my equipment on, and stepping to my own aircraft. It was a little weird doing everything myself. I was a little nervous taxiing to the runway and getting clearance to takeoff. Once I took off and did my first closed pattern and my first touch and go, I was not nervous anymore. I had the time of my life. It was great to just be able to fly the jet and not worry about someone critiquing every little thing I did. The pattern at Laughlin works out just right that I fly over our house every time I fly. I can not wait for the day that I can just fly by myself all the time, but that is a long way away. Once I landed for my full stop, I taxied back to my spot and got out. I saw Larissa and the girls waiting for me at the POGO pool. POGO is your call sign when you go on your initial SOLO, so I was POGO 33. You use this for all your radio calls and such, i.e. POGO 33, initial, request high key, ect. The POGO pool is an Air Force tradition that every new pilot on his first SOLO ride gets thrown into this pool. Your objective is to try and make it back to the flight room without getting caught, if you can do that then you escape getting dunked. The water in the pool is cold and nasty, and on the day of your SOLO they encourage you to bring an extra flight suit and a change of clothes. Luckily, I remembered, because I did not make it back to the flight room. It was great having the girls there to experience this with me and to able to see daddy flying around and waving to them. They brought me cookies and were so excited to see me. They even gave me a hug after I was thrown in. I have a great family. After you SOLO you are presented with the flight patch. So, SOLO’ing is kind of like a right of passage

On Wednesday I took our weekly test and did good. I also flew this day and had a SIM. I was introduced into a few new aerobatic maneuvers. I love doing aerobatics. They are so much fun. I did not realize how difficult they are however to do correctly. I got the hang of them now and are no problem. We did some more accelerated spins and this time the airplane reversed itself and turned inverted and started spinning that way. The recovery is more difficult for these but, I am still here so I did ok. We started doing Split-S’s on Wednesday as well. These are basically when you roll the airplane inverted and then pull as hard as you can. When you are pointed straight down your airspeed really increases and the G’s really take there toll. It is a little unnerving to be headed at the ground at over 400mph. Flying is very tiring. I am getting more used to it, but it still makes me exhausted. We have our advanced instruments test next week, I am a little worried about that one. I think I told you that it is the second most failed test here. I can see why, they expect us to learn about 400 pages worth of stuff and master it in a week. This is so fast paced and it is hard to keep up. Also next week I have my mid-phase check ride. This is a very big deal and is extremely hard. I hope I do well.

Weeks 7 & 8

Week 7

Well as far as these weeks have been going it has been pretty average. I got Friday off which was very welcome. My flying is coming along and I am getting more confident at it. This next week we solo! I can not believe that I am going to take a 5 million dollar airplane up all by myself. I am excited and a bit nervous. This week we started getting into some pretty insane maneuvers. We did accelerated spins which are crazy! You get into these by approaching stall speed with a nose high attitude and then when you slow to 80 knots you pull the stick back all they way to the seat, jam as much rudder in as you can and watch your nose drop like a rock. At the same time a wing will drop and start spinning around like crazy. From then the airplane just starts taking over. You get thrown around like its nothing and its very easy to get dizzy and lose focus on what you are doing. Everything moves so fast and you have to try and recover and anticipate what the airplane will do. I am getting the hang of it, and now they are not much of a problem, so if I ever get into one I will be just fine. They are blast though, even though you are borderline out of control hurdling at the ground at 300 miles per hour. Some other stuff we did this week is learning how to lose a lot of altitude in a short amount of time. Basically it is just winging over and going full nose down, then pulling up and starting it all over again without gaining too much airspeed. I got to the point where I could lose 20,000’ in less then 30 seconds, it was pretty cool. One more thing we did is a high altitude power loss scenario. So we simulated losing an engine at altitude. The instructor just said alright you just lost your engine and throttled back to idle. So I glided about 10 miles and began circling a private airport. It was cool making all the radio calls saying that I was coming in for a practice emergency landing and telling them to get out of my way basically. It was all about timing and calculating your energy state to see if you could make the field. I did awesome. I could not believe it worked out so well for me. I love flying, I just wish they could do away with all the stress that comes with it like the 2 tests we had this week, the daily standup, the checkrides and all the other garbage we have to go through. We just started the advanced instruments classes which is the second most failed test at UPT next to weather. So far it is pretty tough.

Week 8

Due to a scheduling error, I did not get to SOLO this week. But, I did get to fly 5 times. A couple times this week I had to fly twice in the same day. That is probably the most mentally and physically exhausting thing I have ever been, most likely because I am getting old. Every other day I flew once, and had a SIM. We just started the instrument SIMS. These could be the most boring thing I have ever done. All you do is watch your instruments and hold altitude and airspeed. It is a little cool learning how to navigate and be able to fly without even looking outside. Although I still feel safer landing actually seeing where I am going. We do instrument approaches, departures, confidence maneuvers (aileron rolls and wingovers using just instruments) fix to fix, arc intercepts, course intercepts, radial intercepts, vertical S maneuvers and all kinds of other things. My flights this week have been pretty much getting ready for SOLO. The IP’s in the back pretty much don’t say a word the entire flight (unless you do something where you could put yourself in a dangerous situation). So, the last two flights my IP’s never said a word to me. As it works out I will most likely go SOLO either Monday or Tuesday. It will be a great transition to a long weekend. Although, after thanksgiving weekend we have our advanced instruments test which is the second hardest and most failed test in pilot training. I am pretty nervous about this test because my entire flight, including me, do not get any of it. They make it all needlessly complicated. I had my pre-solo emergency procedures SIM this week as well. That SIM is the most failed SIM in UPT too. I did awesome! I was nervous going into it but everything just seemed to click for me. I was definitely blessed during that. Stanup’s are getting harder. They are becoming more obscure and strict with us. Our EPQ’s are getting harder as well. They love to pick the smallest information they can find. Oh, yeah, I had my first somewhat emergency in the airplane this week as well. We got a TAD fail during a inverted recovery. Really it is not a big deal, all it does is help trim your rudder to counteract the 1200 horsepower turbo prop engine that is right in front of you. It really was not a big emergency, but it was cool seeing all the MASTER CAUTION lights illuminating and the warning sounds going off. It was even cooler to realize that I knew what to do and how to try and fix it. That is why they drill us every day about emergency procedures and make us learn every little detail about the jet. The TAD fail did not reset, but we still had to finish our mission. But, my right leg got quite the work out. You have to use a lot of force pushing on the rudder pedals without working trim, especially at high power settings. We lost two guys in our flight this week. They could not take the pressure and stress and quit. It is hard to see people who worked so hard for something give up on it. It takes its toll on the class as well. The next day we saw them back in BDU’s instead of flight suites and they had big smiles on their faces. We asked them how they were doing and they said great, they slept in to 7, didn’t have anything to study for, and all of the stress was gone. I just smiled and asked if they knew what they wanted to do. Both said they will probably go to security forces in the Air Force.

Week 5 & 6

Week 5 (Oct 16 - Oct 22)

Well, I had my first flight today and my first real big step to becoming an air force pilot. It was quite a rush actually being the one flying and making everything happen. Overall it was a pretty stressfull day with my first standup and flight. Everything happens so quickly and it is very busy. I really enjoyed it. We did a few patterns at the auxiallary field and then went to the miliatary operations area (airspace directed for military training). There we did some basic flight characteristics and some basic acrobatics (loops, rolls, ect.). I did start to feel a little quesy at the end and was happy when I landed and was back on solid ground (I was not sure how much more my stomach could handle). There were a few guys in my class who vomited and now they have to go see the flight doc and take a few rides in the barany chair (the chair that spins you around until you have an active physiological episode, otherwise known as upchuking). Its been a very long day and now I get to eat dinner, sit for an hour and play with the girls and then back to the books to prepare for tommorrow, what fun huh.

Wow, what a week! I had my dollar ride on Monday. The rest of the week was spent with my stomach in a knot from being nervous all day every day. I have never been this stressed or this challenged. I am anxious to see how I come out of this trial. Anyway, my days are all 12 hours long and start at different times. Since this week was crappy weather I spent most of the time in the flight room studying and prepping for the next day. I was able to fly twice this week, out of five scheduled. I also had a 4 SIM’s. Flying is way cool and way stressfull. I am excited to get to the point where I don’t have to feel like I need to vomit while I am trying to land. I did feel better the second time, so there is hope that with every ride I will get more used to it. My IP’s are pretty cool and my flight commander seems to be a good family guy and me being the only one in the class who has kids, he knows where I am coming from. He pulled me in his office and said that family comes first, which made me feel better about spending 12 hours a day away from my family. He said that if I ever needed time to be with my family or it got to the point where Larissa would be pulling her hair out, to not hesitate and ask for a day or two away from class. The only hitch is I would be double turning, flying twice, sometime later that week. It would not be all that bad, but flying a high performance aircraft is severely draining both physically and mentally. It is rough to think that this kind of lifestyle will be mine for the next 5 months.

On my last sortie, we went up to 22,000 feet (which is a little different than in an airliner, because my jet has a bubble canopy and you really can see almost everything, it was beautiful) and did a bunch of stalls and topped it off with a spin. Holy cow, that was freaky! It was just like in top gun, but the T-6 can actually recover from it, and goose did not get shot through the canopy. Needless to say, I had the barf bag ready after that, luckily I did not have to use it. I cant believe the power this airplane has, its incredible what it can do. My flights are only going to get more interesting and more intense.

Week 6 (Oct 28 - Nov 3)

Another week has quickly gone bye and that is one week closer to my wings, only about a million more to go. Overall it was a pretty good week. I flew 4 times, SIM’ed twice, took two tests, planned 5 missions, and spent over 60 hours at work. Flying is awesome and as long as it is a good sortie, it really makes all the other junk you have to go through worth it. However, if the flight is not a very good one, then it leaves you feeling like crap. Wednesday my flight did not go so well, I know that I am a lot harder on myself then the IP was, but everything just seemed to snowball. I really made up for it though on Friday, everything just seemed to click for me that day. My Friday flight I thought was going to be cancelled at first because of cruddy weather. There was a thick layer of grey (threatening looking) clouds from 5000’ to 6500’. My IP and I decided to just go for it and took off toward our training field to do different types of touch and go’s. After which I called approach on the radio and asked if the high practice areas (14 to 22 thousand feet) were open, luckily they were and I proceeded to climb to my designated area. We started up through the clouds and it was a little disorienting. You really can not see anything and your body tells you that you are doing something different then what your instruments tell you, i.e. you think you are going straight and level when really you are in a left hand turn and descending. Our training tells us to just get on the instruments and trust what they are telling you. It is difficult at first and quite unsettling to have your mind and body completely disagree with one another. So, I stuck to the instruments and continued our climb into the area. Once we approached 6,500’ I could see the clouds begin to change color from gray to white, but still could not see anything outside. At 6,700’ we finally broke through and it was one of the most awe inspiring things I have ever seen. All beneath me became a sea of white clouds and the visibility was endless. It was beautiful. The only depressing part of that day was having to come back to Laughlin and back into the weather and the dreariness of being below the cloud layer. It is hard for me to believe that in only two weeks I will be soloing a military aircraft.

The T-6 is an awesome jet to fly. It has so much power and can do so much. In the area this week we were practicing out of control recoveries. These are when the IP purposefully puts the airplane into very awkward situations such as going straight up or going straight down and wings cocked at all kinds of weird angles. Once the aircraft is in these situations he tells me to recover (this whole time I have my eyes closed to try and train my body to feel the different ways the aircraft can fool you), I then take the stick and recover the aircraft. We are also doing some intensive G training. It is very interesting how squeezing your butt cheeks together during a 6 G turn can make it so much more comfortable. It takes a lot of practicing and studying to be able to understand and fly everything they require of us (patterns, radio calls, departures, arrivals, different altitudes, MOA’s and all kinds of different things). Also this week I had those two SIM’s which were emergency procedures training. Basically you fly a normal profile and the IP just starts breaking things in your airplane. The cockpit turns into a Christmas tree and your helmet erupts with all kinds of different warning sounds. So you try and figure out what happened, how to fix it, who to call all while trying to fly the aircraft and get to a position where you can safely put it on the ground. It is very challenging, but good experience in case we might ever need to use it. It is a little scary that about half of the emergency’s that were thrown at me ended up with me having to eject because the aircraft was erupting in flames.