Monday, May 27, 2013

Week Eight: Time to Wait...

Hey guys,

This will be a bit shorter of a post due to the shorter week and pretty limited events. Also I didn't mean to rhyme in the title haha.

I wish I could tell you about my next couple of flights and how they're going... but unfortunately I've been extremely unlucky and delayed in that department so far. Because there are 27 of us going through UPT (at our phase of the program) they cannot possibly send us each to our initial check rides at the same time. So there is a natural spread between the class. I guess my name drew the short straw, because I've not been getting any rides this week, though not for lack of trying. As it stands I have one ride, the dollar ride I explained last week, while there are people in my flight with four right now.

I did the get chance to fly twice this week, however, so I wasn't forgotten. Just unlucky. I was scheduled to fly with a different IP this time, which is the norm. This time it was a lieutenant colonel, and he turned out to be a nice guy. He was worried about his wife possibly going into labor haha. So that was a factor included in our brief. Basically he said if he got called on LOWELL (a radio frequency that gives out notifications) that she was in labor we were gonna turn around and get back immediately.

So we got to the jet, started it up, and started taxiing. Meanwhile, the weather (which was supposed to be nice...) was looming dark. I had the aircraft on takeoff, and I managed a good one my first try, keeping it on the offset centerline and rotating smoothly off the ground. I put the gear and flaps up and continued my climb. All of a sudden, we got weather recalled... The departure frequency hailed us and vectored us back into the pattern, where we promptly landed. I wasn't flying the whole way back, so I just kinda sat there and looked around. It started raining on us and there was lightning arcing through the sky. Pretty cool.

Back on the ground, my IP said he saw in his mind an awful scenario: that we would have to be diverting to the alternate airfield... in Wichita, Kansas. Apparently we were minutes from having to do that. So he would be extremely far from home with a child on the way, and would not be able to live that one down haha. But we were alright in the end. It was considered an incomplete ride, so I have to do it again.

Besides that it was a whole lot of sitting around, studying, going to the gym, getting quizzed and such. On Thursday I briefed for another flight, but that was more directly cancelled by weather. As in, we didn't even leave the building. So that's cool...

Oh and we had to turn in 44 boldfaces on Thursday and 50 boldfaces are due tomorrow. Now's the point where if we mess them up, even the tiniest fraction of one (if one letter or number is off, the whole thing is incorrect), the person who messed it up and the person who checked their work owes more boldfaces. The number corresponding to which day of Fifteen Days we're in. So messing up tomorrow would mean 8 boldfaces for both people. So as a class we have been pitching in to help everyone get theirs done. It wastes so much time, and there's so many better things we could be doing with our time. I haven't messed any up so far (knock on wood) but we have to turn in at least one every day, so there's plenty of room for error if you get complacent.

Anyway, this weekend has been awesome. FOUR days off. Which is freaking amazing. I got a lot of relaxation and fun into these last four days, but now it's back to work.

That's it, like I said, not much went on. Hopefully this next week will be more action packed. Though it's still only a four-day week!

~ Dakota

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