Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training

Phase I

17-27 Jan 2006

    Finally!   I've left the great state of Tennessee and moved on down to Del Rio, TX.  It took me about 14 hrs to get here, but I'm here.  There's absolutely nothing here in this town.  I'm 7 miles from the Mexican border and there's only 2 radio stations that speak English.  Perfect place for a Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) base.  HA!  When I was driving down the highway and a tumble weed blew across the road, I knew I'd left civilization.  But hey, at least there won't be any distractions.  I'm really excited to get started.  I've moved into a duplex here on base with a long time buddy of mine, Keith Ashford, from Memphis who is also from my unit back home.  We were selected to go to UPT at the same time.  It's a pretty sweet setup and it's way better than living in a dorm.  So far I've been doing in-processing briefings so nothing spectacular to report.  In the mean time I've been studying my BOLDFACE items and Ops Limits for the T-6.  Bold face are emergency procedures that must be memorized and repeated without reference.  For example, later on in the program when I actually get to fly and  there's an emergency and I have to shut off the engine this bold face would apply: 

There are 10 different Bold Face scenarios that must be memorized.  When class starts we have to fill in the bold face work sheet verbatim 3 days in a row before we are allowed to wear our flight suits.  Until then my class has to wear blues.  Along with the bold face we have to know the operation limitations of the T-6 (Ops limits).  These are a bunch of different numbers and rules that apply to the engine and the performance of the airplane so we don't break it when we start flying.

For the geographically challenged

    I was issued all my flight gear the other day.  I have a lot more stuff to carry around with me than I did as a loadmaster.  Every time I go flying now I have to bring my helmet, oxygen mask, and G-suit.  The G-suit looks like a pair of assless chaps that have inflatable bladders around the waist and legs.  The reason I have to wear this is because the T-6 is a high performance aircraft that is capable of pulling +7.0 to -3.5 G's.  1 G is equal to my body weight, 7 G's is seven times heavier on my body.  Negative G's make you feel weightless or lighter.  When pulling G's your blood has a tendency of pooling in the legs and keeping it from reaching the brain.  The G suit aids in squeezing blood back up the body by inflating the bladders and squeezing the legs and waist.  Basically it helps keep me from passing out during high G maneuvers. 

The closest thing I'll look to a fighter pilot....

31 Jan 2006 - 01 Feb 2006

Aerospace Physiology

    Aerospace Phys. is our first class.  It's about 8 days long, here are the first couple with more to come.  It addresses how the body handles being put into an oxygen deficient, high stress environment and educates us on how to prepare ourselves for it.  It's pretty cool with all the hands on training that we get.  Today we practiced ejecting out of the airplane, leaving the airplane if there was a ground emergency (eggressing), and all the oxygen systems available to us.  We also discussed how to land on the ground while parachuting.  There's a special technique called the Parachute Landing Fall (PLF) which we will practice over the next week.

Strapping into the ejection seat	Eject!  Eject!  Eject!

Getting familiar with the T-6 cockpit in case of a ground emergency

Learning how to breath with a rubber mask over your face	Hey, it's pretty bright in here huh?

02 Feb - 09 Feb 2006

    More Aerospace Phys. stuff.  Mostly today we had classes on how altitude and lack of oxygen affect our vision during day and night time flights as well as spatial disorientation.  Spatial disorientation (Spatial D) is when you start looping, turning, and spinning around your inner ear and the rest of your body doesn't know which way is up.  It's a pretty dangerous condition to get yourself into so situational awareness and trust in the instruments is a must.  Here's a video of one of the Spatial D experiments.  The chair that they use to spin around in is called the Barany Chair (due to technical difficulties, I can't make the videos work, so click on the link).

    After we all discovered that flying an airplane isn't going to be like riding on a roller coaster, it was now time to start practicing for the unfortunate event of having to eject out of the aircraft and parachute down.  For the first couple of days we practiced jumping from a 2 foot and 5 foot platform trying to improve out PLFs.  Once we were PLF proficient, it was time to practice what to do if after you land and the wind blows your chute around with you attached to it still.  After jumping over and over again and being dragged across the ground a couple of times, we put our harnesses and practiced all the stuff we learned from a higher platform.

Yeah, it got pretty uncomfortable after a while.
	We had to jump off this contraption about 6 times.

    Once everyone was comfortable with their PLFs, it was actually time to test them out.  We drove out to a field where the Aerospace team brought out a truck and some parachutes.  We supplied the grill and brats and made a day out of it.  The plan was to grill out all day and when it was your turn, you would strap on a parachute that was attached to the back of the truck.  It's kind of like parasailing without the water.  In fact we were required to do it twice, once with a 300 foot rope that would stay attached to the truck, and a 600 foot rope where once you were all the way up, they release the rope and you had to steer yourself  to the landing site. 

Click here for takeoff

600 feet is pretty high

Click here for the perfect PLF (yeah right)