Week Thirteen: Double-turning

Why hello there,

If you're still reading, I commend you. It's funny, I can see the number of page views each post gets and they are gradually tapering off with each new update. Not that I expect people to read religiously, this is more for posterity than anything. But I do get a chuckle when the first post has like 20 views and the last one has 2, haha.

Oh well. Anyway this week was a very busy one. Four out of the five days I double-turned, which is two flying events a day. This means either a sim or an actual sortie, since both take the same amount of time, generally, and they're both graded events. On two of these double-turn days I flew twice, which was pretty sweet. I could mold the second sortie around what happened on the first, which was very beneficial to my flying.

I also carried the bone around everywhere this week, resulting in some odd looks and questions. Then I'd have to explain what happened, or simply say "It's a D Flight thing." When asked by the noob students in academics what it was, I said "It's a flight line thing, you wouldn't understand." Speaking of which, we finally got our red solo patches in the mail, which is sweet since now we don't have to wear our black name tags anymore. It's basically a sign that you're brand new when you wear the black patch, so we've moved beyond the rank of chump to semi-knowing what we're doing.

I did well on all my rides this week, and will be going to my check ride on Monday. This is the first big evaluation ride I'll experience, so it's a little nerve-wracking, but I feel good about it. There's a lot of general knowledge questions asked, as well as the actual flying skills and such. So far our flight has done pretty well on this check ride, so here's to keeping up the streak.

We are also preparing to take our Instruments 2 exam tomorrow morning, which does kind of suck seeing as how I have the check ride to study for, but overall I'm not particularly worried about it. We've had about four review sessions for this exam, and there's really a finite amount to know about this portion of academics, as with any portion.

It's been an interesting weekend... to say the least. I've enjoyed it for the most part, though today was very rough. Ended up making the best it, but my day definitely could've been better. A little sad that Spain really underperformed in their game today against Brazil... but you can't win all of them all the time. Here's hoping that this relatively bad day is a sign that tomorrow will be good.

Tune in next week for how I did!

Take care.

~ Dakota

Week Twelve: Soloed! ...with mishap (heh heh)

So this week was a pretty good one, I'd say. Overall that is, there were definitely some downsides to it, but the big picture was positive. Also this is a very picture-intensive post!

As you can guess from the title I soloed the T-6 this week! It was a pretty awesome experience, when you think about the magnitude of it. Basically I was given permission to take a $4.6 million dollar aircraft up in the air and fly around alone! Pretty amazing. It was so much quieter without an IP in the back seat, but along with that comes the knowledge that your survival depends upon YOUR actions and decisions. Pretty sobering, but overall pretty sweet.

IP's out!

Not a bad day job

Prop's spinning, chocks out

Now there was a mishap as well... and it was my fault. I'm sad to say that my solo didn't go as well as I would have liked. I was approaching the end of my sortie and had just taken off from my last touch and go before I would full stop. Up until this point I had not been getting "closed" which is essentially a short cut in the traffic pattern to turn right around after taking off, flying the length of the runway, and landing in a short amount of time. This is the ideal. Otherwise, we have to fly a large outside pattern which takes up a considerably longer amount of time. So I kept requesting closed but I never got it. So I was getting a little peeved. I had gone around the box about 6 or 7 times by the time I got fed up and decided to just land and call it a day. Well on my last takeoff, I was a little more worried about getting my closed request approved than I should have been, and it led to me forgetting to raise the flaps on my wings. I raised the gear, no problem there, but for some terrible reason I guess I thought I got the flaps when I hadn't.

So I was flying along at normal traffic pattern speed (200 knots) thinking everything's good, when I notice a weird feeling in the atmosphere of the plane. It was a slight rumbling, both a noise and a motion, and I quickly looked down to see what was wrong. That was when I saw that my flaps were still in the takeoff position. A few choice words were shouted... and I quickly put them into the up position. By that time it was too late: I had oversped my flaps by a whopping 50 knots... So I did the right thing and requested the high pattern and a chase ship to check out my aircraft to ensure there was no damage.

Once you request the high pattern, pretty much everyone in the area knows you did something wrong, so I felt pretty crappy throughout the rest of the flight. But, as the aircraft commander, I had to see it out to landing. It's not like someone's just going to magically transport into the back seat and solve all my problems. So I went through chase aircraft procedures in my In-Flight Guide, and soon enough another aircraft was joining up on me to check my wings out. It was actually pretty cool to see them that close! They were about 30 feet off my wingtip, and soon enough when we start formation training, our wingmen will be even closer. Very cool to see.

Anyway he told me my plane looked alright, so from that point on I flew at about 130 knots with my gear and flaps down and landed via a straight-in approach. Everything went fine.

On the ground, my buddies all were waiting for me. As I strode back in to them laughing at me and taking pictures, I couldn't help but crack up as well. I had screwed up pretty big time... but the important thing was that the plane was landed and I was on the ground safely. That's an important thing to remember; if nothing else went right, I'm alive.

So they escorted me to the solo tank, and proceeded to dunk me, all the while spouting off things like, "Whoa there! Going a little fast!" and "What are your flaps set to?" and stuff like that. Yeah, I've earned some ridicule.

Everything removed for the solo tank. Like the socks?

On Friday I was nominated for the bone. After some pretty embarrassing remarks from my buddies, I was voted to it unanimously. So I've been carrying around this giant freaking dog bone which you can see in the above pictures.

This weekend my mom flew a trip to Tulsa, so I drove over to see her! It was the first time I'd seen family since February, so it was pretty awesome. We hung out for the day, but she had to leave early the next day, so I headed back to Enid and had a good time the remainder of my weekend.

~ Dakota

Week Eleven: Solos, Instruments, Patches

Hey there,

So this is a day late, I know. I didn't feel like getting around to writing last night due to studying, but better late than never!

This week was a pretty good one. All told, I had six sorties, consisting of four flights and two sims. I've gotten much closer to soloing now and am only one ride away! This week my focus during flight was on the traffic pattern, since that is what the initial solo is all about. Overall my flights went pretty well, and I was able to work out some issues with certain areas of my flying. Our average work day is getting much shorter now, as well as less packed with stuff to do, though there is still a lot and some days are fuller than others. Take Friday for example. I had to show late because of a sim that would last until around 8pm, and right away I took an EPQ (a weekly quiz we have to take). Then I unexpectedly was put on the flying schedule! So I went up for a sortie and it was a really good one. After landing, we went as a class over to the academic building and had our first real academic course in about a month. This time it was covering the basics of instrument flight, which is our next phase of training after Contact. Then right after that was my sim. So it was a true 12-hour day, but I still had the energy to go out that night haha.

We also had a lot more people solo from our class. The first ones were last week, which is an incredible turnaround. They were all from C Flight, so they've really been pushing them through the program. D Flight had its first solo this week, and go figure it was one of the guys who kept getting sick in his first few rides! So that's good for him. He doesn't like being the farthest ahead of us though haha.

Sadly, this week was also a pretty bad one for another member of our flight. I won't say his name, but he hooked three rides in a row, which puts you into an 88 ride. This is a progress check ride, essentially seeing if he's good to resume normal training. However, he also hooked that one, and was moved to an 89 ride, which is an elimination check. We were all hoping that he'd do alright on it, and actually I was flying when he was and he sounded ok on the radios. But he hooked that one as well. So he's now on the Commander's Review Process, which determines his fate in the Air Force. Talking with him, it sounds like he's accepted pilot training is not for him, and that he's going to try to head into Special Operations selection training. I say good on him for wanting to do that. He's a great guy, and I really do wish the best for him. It just sucks to see how quickly you can wash out, if you're consistently having bad flying days...

But overall, we're doing alright. I might as well cover today as well. We had our Instrument 1 exam and I passed, missing four questions. This was the most I've missed on one test, so I wasn't happy about that, but a pass is a pass I guess.

Oh! Something else that's cool: our patch was officially approved and I also got the finalized design back from the patch company I've been working with! So now we just have to wait for them to get here and then get the privilege from our flight commander to wear them and we've got our class patch!

Ain't Nobody Got Time Fo Dat

So that will be on our shoulders for the next year. I think it turned out pretty well (and I'm not just saying that because I designed it... haha). On Fridays however, D Flight concurred that we would have a Friday flight patch just for us. So this is what we came up with:

The reference is to a movie called The Other Guys, and I recommend watching it, because it's hilarious. So yeah that will be our little motivational patch for the day before the weekend.

That's about all I can think of right now. I'll probably remember something else that happened, as is usually the case haha.

Hope you are doing well and everything's good for you.

~ Dakota

Week Ten: Late Shows, Long Week

Hey again,

It's late Sunday night, so I'm going to make this a pretty quick post. This week was quite a long one... seemed to drag on forever. The nice thing was our show times every day this week were between 10 and noon, which was pretty sweet.

Overall the day-to-day wasn't so bad. This was our last week in the 15 Day Program, so that was a cool thing to look forward to. I flew three times this week, and they were pretty good flights. I finished out the first block of training on Wednesday, which means I get to do new things while flying. Namely, spins. These were pretty cool: you basically bring the aircraft to a stall by climbing with power set to idle, and then right at the stall point, you add full rudder deflection in one direction, which sets the airplane into a violent spin towards the Earth. Pretty fun, like a roller coaster only there's no track. Easy to recover from too, so no worries about crashing and dying (unless you perform the recovery wrong). But mostly, the flights this week focused on traffic pattern operations and low-threat area maneuvers, the same as we've been doing in the weeks prior.

On Friday we had our first day outside the 15 Day Program. It was really cool, since our morning formal brief was vastly shorter than normal, owing to the fact that we didn't have to do a standup, shotgun questions, or say the notes-warnings-cautions! So that's something nice. We also got to have our first beers in the flight room. On Friday our flight commander went over to the "beer light" and flipped it on. We then sat around and discussed our week and also voted on who would have to carry "The Bone" for the next week. Basically whoever did the most stupid thing has to carry around this massive dog bone everywhere, even out to restaurants and bars and the like. Our reservist (the only non-Academy guy in our flight) was the unlucky guy. His was more of a cumulative two-months' worth of stuff though.

D Flight of class 14-08. The beer light is illuminated behind us to the left, our flight's patch is on the wall on the right. Pretty good group of guys!

We hit some CAIs again after quite a while away from that dreaded lab of boredom. They weren't too bad though.

I dunno, mostly it was a pretty standard week, but it just took forever to go by. I try and pass the long hours of the day by at least hitting the gym. Gives you a chance to not think and just work out. Vital, I think, in order to not lose sanity.

The weekend was nice, just a lot of hanging out with friends in the gorgeous weather. Honestly, life is good, and I find myself looking forward to going in to work, which is all I can ask for. But the time off is great too haha.

It's been getting pretty hot here. In fact this week, we're supposed to have temperatures in the 100s... Yay for heat waves.

Take it easy!

~ Dakota

Week Nine: Cloud City

Hey again! Hope you're all well.

First let me say that this was a pretty awesome week, both on and off duty. I celebrated my 24th birthday yesterday, which was a really fun time. A bunch of people from my class and a couple other friends went out with me to celebrate and have a good time with friends, food, and drinks. It was a great night after a great day.

Rewind to Tuesday this week, when we went back to work and prepared to get some more experience under our belts. It turns out that I was on the schedule every day this week! So that was really awesome, actually flying regularly. I flew with my regular IP as well as a new one this week, but overall everything went well and I definitely got much more comfortable with my area maneuvers as well as traffic pattern operations.

I managed to get E's on all of my flights so far! So I will definitely be doing all that I can to ensure I keep up this pace. There were some weather worries this week, but overall I was able to get up in the air without any delays. Oh and don't worry about all the tornado stuff happening in Oklahoma: we've been clear of them so far. Actually it's been quite beautiful out this weekend.

There were two experiences this week that really stand out. The first was filling the recorder position in the Runway Supervisory Unit (RSU) which is essentially the tower for the single runway that we use. There is also the controller, who speaks on the radio to aircraft and grants clearances (the most difficult job, one an IP does); the observer, who clears his end of the runway (also an IP); the spotter, who gets the aircraft tail numbers and ensures their gear are down and locked on final approach (a more experienced student); and the recorder, who marks down every aircraft's tail number, callsign, takeoff and landing time, and any improper actions that they take (a newbie student). Everyone is working hard in the RSU, but for me, it was quite confusing and fast-paced to keep track of every plane and write down all this information. I missed a couple takeoff times, but overall I did a pretty good job. It was crazy because we had 12 aircraft in the pattern which is the max amount allowed, and about 8 of them were solo students. Pretty cool experience though.

The second was much more hands-on and enjoyable. On Thursday I almost got weather cancelled. In fact I did, and was just sitting down at a desk to work on something when all of a sudden my IP came rushing into the room saying that we were actually going to go. So I jumped up and grabbed my gear and we stepped out to life support to get suited up.

As we climbed out to the area to do maneuvers we encountered weather on the way, which is quite confusing to fly in. When you're in the clouds, you have no possible way of knowing your plane's orientation. No way, that is, without your instruments. You've got to trusts those things. It's really odd, your mind is saying "Oh, we're good. We're totally climbing and wings-level right now." Nope. You're actually 45º of bank and descending. So you've got to keep locked on those instruments and fly what they tell you, and you'll be fine. Good lesson to learn.

The really cool part of the flight was in the area. Our alternate airfield, Dogface, was closed so we decided after doing our maneuvers that we'd just head back to Vance. But that would also give us 15 or so minutes extra to just do whatever. In this case, fly around these awesome clouds that were perfectly located in our area. Here's a picture of what they looked like, well at least as close as I could find on Google.

So in between all of these clouds were rifts, valleys, tunnels, and pathways that we zoomed through, turning just enough to avoid going into them but grazing the edge with the wings or the canopy, flying around, under, and over these clouds in whatever way I wanted. It was a pretty amazing experience, and I remember thinking "I can't believe I'm allowed to do this. I shouldn't be allowed to to do this. I get paid to do this." It was incredible.

I also had another sim ride on Friday, so all told I had four more rides added this week, which really caught me up. That's about all there is to tell, besides enjoying the company of friends this weekend and watching/playing a lot of soccer.

Pretty good week! Here's to a great one coming up.

~ Dakota

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

Week Seven: Time to Fly

Well, this is the week! We hit the flight line on Wednesday of this week and it's been a radical change from everything we've been doing so far. But along with other less-desirable changes, we also get the awesome parts as well: actually getting up in the T-6 and controlling this awesome aircraft!

Starting out on Monday, we went in for our initial brief with our new flight commander. It's kind of weird because our class of 27 now gets split up into two flights that do everything flying-related separately. I'm in D flight along with 13 others, the Delta Dogs. C Flight is the Cobras. Our flight commander went through a lengthy powerpoint presentation on expectations, and after that we got the rest of the day off.

Oddly enough, we also had the entirety of Tuesday off as well! So I took advantage of this free day by relaxing as much as possible and enjoying my remaining freedom from studies and stress.

Wednesday, it began. The 15 Day Program is the first fifteen days of flight operations in UPT. It's meant to suck, and they keep us pretty busy with things to do. A typical day looks like this: you show up EXACTLY at the designated show time; any earlier and you bust your crew rest period, meaning you have to leave earlier as well. We go on a 12 hour on, 12 hour off period, so they HAVE to release us at that 12 hour mark, to the second. They make a big deal out of that.

Most of D flight waiting outside until exactly our show time (I'm taking the picture).

Then we start our formal brief, sitting at attention while we're briefed the weather, notifications, and any other important info for the day. I haven't sat at attention since freshman year!! So that sucks. We also then have something called standup. Naturally, one of us is called to stand up and work our way through an emergency procedure. If you do something wrong, make the wrong decision, or kill yourself in this simulated emergency, you get told to "sit down." Which is bad. However if you successfully navigate the battle of wits with the IP running the emergency, you get told to "have a seat." Which is good.

We then have shotgun questions, during which they go around the room and throw questions out to each individual. So you better hope you know it or you'll be standing until they work all the way around the room and you get to try again. Because we're in the 8th Flying Training Squadron, we also have to know Warnings, Cautions, and Notes for every emergency procedure, meaning there's just more stuff to memorize.

Our squadron's sweet patch...

Then we brief to fly, or head over and do our scheduled sims. This is when we split up and do our own schedules, because everyone flies at different times with different IPs. On Wednesday, I was excited to get up in the air and do my dollar ride (first ride in an aircraft). But alas, I was fated to do a sim ride. So I gathered my stuff and headed over to the sim building to do another sim. Got another E, so that's good.

All of my classmates flew that day, except for me and one other. Not a big deal: the syllabus separates people naturally, because there are not enough sorties to keep everyone equal and sometimes people get sick or have issues that prevent them from flying. In that case, you might get unexpectedly bumped up to fly, so you have to be prepared for ANYTHING you're opted for. After waiting around for the 12-hour mark, we finally finished up and got released. At 8:30 at night. Woo.

Our T-6s. You're lucky if you get one under the shades!

Thursday I was on the schedule to fly! I was going to take off at 12:12, which is kind of cool haha (considering my Academy class year). But we got weather cancelled.... I actually got all done up in my G-suit and harness, got strapped into the jet, started it up, and then we cancelled and shut it down. Haha talk about anticlimactic. So I got moved to the later block of flights, and eventually got back out on the flight line. It was actually pretty nice, because it was much cooler, and that cockpit gets REALLY hot, especially under the sun.

Ready to go!

Well, we started it up again and started taxiing out! I had control of the aircraft, so I was ecstatic. It was surreal. I can't explain how cool it feels to be in this bubble canopy, looking out the front windscreen and seeing this massive prop blurring around. And how high it felt, much higher off the ground than a DA20 or anything like that. I was already in love, and we hadn't even taken off yet. We got to the runway and held short, doing our last checklist items. I was pretty nervous when I looked down at my checklist and the next step was "Seat Safety Pin - Removed and Stowed". This meant I had to take out the safety pin guarding the ejection handle. I carefully moved my hands to the yellow and black handle sticking up between my legs and grabbed the pin. My seat was now active and would eject me if that handle got pulled! For the rest of the flight I had to remember to keep away from it!

Pulling onto the runway was really cool, and eerie. The runway stretched off to infinity. My IP took control of the plane, revved up the engine, and released the brakes. We were off in an instant. It was such a rapid acceleration that I couldn't help but feel out of control, like when you're riding a bike too fast and you feel like you might crash. I had to remind myself I wasn't even in control haha, my IP was. And he knows what he's doing. In a flash we were going 85 knots, and we rotated off the ground. A few seconds later and we were at 100, 110, 120 knots and climbing. I remember thinking, "I can't believe I do this for a living."

Then we were off to our working area for maneuvers. The coolest part was flying through the low-hanging clouds in our flight path. It felt really weird to just fly straight through them. Even though I knew what was on the other side of them (nothing) it still felt like there was this big brick wall we were going to hit! You really cannot see ANYTHING through the clouds.

A couple minutes later and we were climbing up to 13,000 feet and the cabin began to pressurize. Finally, my IP asked that fated question, "Are you ready to fly?" I said I was. Then he passed it over to me, I shook the stick and said, "I have the aircraft."

It was really weird talking to someone I couldn't see, but who was sitting just five or six feet behind me. In every plane I've flown so far, the seats have been right next to each other. This was a pretty cool experience, feeling alone up front, but realizing the IP was also back there and keeping a watchful eye out for trouble. Soon enough we will be able to go completely solo, though.

When we got into our area, I started practicing some turns. It's crazy how responsive this aircraft is. Any slight movement of the stick and the wings roll quickly, or the nose pitches up or down. A bigger movement and you're at 60, 70 degrees of bank. I also felt my first substantial Gs in an aircraft. My IP took it back and did a quick turn, pulling around 3 Gs. I was surprised and didn't do any AGSM to help stay conscious. I started to get tunnel vision, and it felt pretty weird! After that I stayed on top of my G-awareness.

Not us, just a cool picture.

We also rolled inverted! This was the first time I've ever done that, and it was pretty sweet. Looking up at the ground above you is definitely a weird feeling haha. After messing around some more in the area we started to head over to our practice airfield for landing practice. You're moving pretty quick up there (usually greater than 200 knots!) and the ground definitely moves by quickly underneath you. My IP demo'd a couple traffic patterns and landings, and then gave it to me to try. I got a couple on my first ride!

We eventually headed back to base and landed, pulling off the runway and putting the safety pins back in our seats. Then we shut down and got out. The whole experience just shot by in an instant, but really took about two hours! We then went inside and debriefed the sortie.

It was an awesome experience and I couldn't wait to get back up. It made all the suckiness of the 15 Day Program worth it. Unfortunately we got weather cancelled again on Friday, so no one flew and we ended up getting released early (score!)

This weekend was fun, and I spent a lot of time hanging with friends at our local bar, Callahan's. It's pretty much the pilot bar haha. Overall it was a relaxing weekend. Now I need to study!

Sorry for the long post, but this first flight was worth describing!

~ Dakota