Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training

Phase II

Sorry it's taken me so long to update my site, but a lot of things are happening now since I'm flying.  Phase I was definitely easier in comparison to what's going on now.  So let's start from the beginning.  After completion of phase I my class was split into two flights.  The flights are identified by names.  My class is in the Bees and Elvis flights.  I find it ironic that I am in the Elvis flight because first off I'm from Memphis.  Second, my squadron's callsign back home when we fly missions is Elvis.  So I've accepted the fact that the "King" is following me everywhere.  So of course our flight room is completely decorated with Elvis memorabilia.  Speaking of flight room stuff, now since I'm in phase 2 I'm now on this thing called "formal release."  That means my class is required to stay in the flight room for something around 12 hours a day.  This is where we're supposed to study, sit in on flight briefs, and practice emergency procedure stuff.  This is part of the reason why I haven't had time to update this site.  My daily routine is get up really early, try to study before we have to report in, give a formal weather brief, prepare for the day's flight or simulator, study in the room, get released, go to the gym, grab a quick bite to eat and study until bedtime.  But at the same time I'm loving every minute of it. 

So now to the good stuff.  My first ride in the plane was awesome.  It's the only time I was able to fly and not have anything expected out of me.  This first flight is called the "Dollar Ride."  It's tradition that whatever IP (instructor pilot)  takes you on your dollar ride, you're supposed to give him a dollar.  But the thing is you have to be creative with it.  You're not just supposed to hand out a dollar and that's it.  What I ended up doing for mine was pretty original.  A few days after my dollar ride I went and bought something and when I got my change back I noticed one of the dollar bills I was given had this red stamp on it.  Apparently this dollar was registered with the U.S. currency tracker at www.wheresgeorge.com.  So I updated the dollar's history on the site and printed out the history of the dollar and then decorated it.  Here's what my masterpiece looks like:

So now this is framed and sitting on the desk of the IP that gave me my dollar ride.  As you can see, I felt the need to replace George Washington's mug with a face of the fattest Elvis picture I could find on the internet.

I had a blast on my dollar ride.  We took off and departed to the practice area and flew around.  It was the first time I've ever done loops and rolls in an airplane.  It was awesome!  Click here to see a T-6 taking off.  After the dollar ride it's back to work as usual.  Everyday we have something going on.  Usually you fly once a day and do one sim a day.  It can get pretty tiring.  For the simulators we practice different things.  Right now I practice doing emergency procedure situations and flying on instruments.  These are all the instruments and gauges I have to use for instrument flights as well as flying under normal conditions.

It's good to have time on weekends to relax after an intense week after week.  Last weekend was great.  After a long hard week of ups and downs, I had the best surprise ever.  My girlfriend Candice orchestrated a surprise visit to come see me last weekend.  We had a great time.  My buddy Curt and his wife have a boat so we went water skiing at the lake near here.  It's a pretty nice lake.  That's the first time I've been water skiing in 6 years.  I can't believe I got up on the first time for slalom skiing. 

Me and Candice at the lake.  Don't I look cool with my Air Force issued aviator sunglasses?

For the past 5 weeks I've been flying and simming, simming and flying.  Up until now it's always been with an instructor.  Until today.....

Today was the first time I flew solo.  What a rush!  Everything going on, the takeoffs, the landings, the turning, the radio calls were all me.  This is a pretty big accomplishment for where I am in the training.  All I did during the flight was fly around the pattern for about an hour and a half, but when there are 11 other airplanes constantly in the pattern,  it's gets pretty busy up there. 

There are endless lines of planes waiting to be flown here.	Here I am starting my preflight to make sure the plane is ready.
Double checking to make sure the ejection seat safety pin is in.	"Prop Clear, Ready To Start"

Before I left out for my first solo I had to get a photo op.........

The standard "Hero" picture

After the solo another Air Force tradition is to try to make it back to flight room before getting thrown into the dunk tank.  If you make it back to the flight room without getting wet, your classmates owe you a case of beer.  Guess who has a free case of beer coming to him.  This guy!  Yeah I made it back to flight room, but you still have to get dunked.  So my classmates got back at me by throwing me in with my boots still on.  So for the rest of the day I had squishy feet.  What a great day!

My buddy MG trying to escape	Looks like it didn't work out too well
Dustin's turn to get thrown in	That water was nasty

Okay, I've been slacking off trying to keep this website updated.  Things have been really busy for the last couple of months.  So I'll pick up where I left off.  My initial solo was a lot of fun and an eye opening experience.  After the initial solo or "Pogo" ride (Pogo is the call sign for initial solo students) it was back to training.  Every time I flew I would go with an IP and practice stalls, spins, slow flight, recoveries, and basic aerobatics (not acrobatics; acrobatics are little Chinese men that do flips)  like loops, aileron rolls, and split S's.  I'd practice these for a few weeks in preparation for my Mid Phase check ride.  A check ride is a progress check to see how your flying ability is coming along.  If you don't pass your check ride, you get one more retake and from there you might be getting washed out of the program.  So naturally everyone is extremely nervous and not knowing what to expect especially this being the first of many more to come.  Well I either fooled the system or practice paid off because I passed my Mid Phase check ride.  Mid Phase was really an evaluation to see if you're competent enough to fly solo out to the practice area and the auxiliary field without doing anything "dumb, dangerous, or different."  Which brings me to my next exhilarating experience.....going solo out to the practice area.  For the first couple of rides we were introduced to advanced aerobatics by our IP's with the intent of having us practice them by ourselves.  Advanced aerobatics includes lazy 8's, cuban 8's, chandelles, immelmanns, cloverleaves, and barrel rolls.  That stuff was awesome.  I can't describe a better feeling than being all by myself at 10,000 feet yanking and twisting a giant piece of metal through the air.  Too bad there are no cameras are allowed in the aircraft because I would have loved to post some pics on here.  So all in all I was able to solo 4 more times and three of them were in the area.  I enjoyed it while I could because I don't believe I will ever have the opportunity to fly by myself and do aerobatics again in my career. 

Before my Final Contact check ride I went cross country.  All I'll say about it was that it was a learning experience.  The cross country was over the weekend so when everything was said and done, I had been flying for 12 days straight.  Man was I exhausted near the end.  We left out of Del Rio Friday afternoon and flew up to Fort Worth to get gas and wait for sundown.  From Fort Worth we flew to Oklahoma City and spent the night.  The next day we flew from Oklahoma City to Robert Gray Army Airfield.  It was a nice field for training, but there wasn't a damn thing there.  We got gas and waited for sundown again and then flew into San Antonio.  Then once again we got up and left San Antonio and went to Lubbock, TX and then back to Del Rio.  Fun.

After the cross country my Final Contact check ride came around.  Nothing new to report there.  It was very similar to the Mid Phase but it incorporated the advanced aerobatics and my performance level expectations were raised.  Then it was off to instrument flying.  I had two instrument rides prior to going on my cross country, but after flying cross country instrument flying didn't seem as complicated because I had a lot of practice over three days.  Instrument flying is very different than contact flying because there are more rules that govern you, your vision is restricted, and  precision flying is paramount.  I like flying instruments because there is a feeling of accomplishment when you fly an approach to a strange airfield that you can't see because of the weather, and then all of a sudden there it is, right where it's supposed to be (give or take a couple of miles for my "precision").  So I flew a bunch of instrument rides and then took my Instrument check ride. 

So now I have around 14 rides left.  Two of them are low levels where we fly a ground track 500 ft above the ground to simulate a bomb run or something.  I've also done some night flying and I have one more of those left.  And today I had my first formation flight which is the last section of training for the T-6.  That was intense!  It's crazy flying right next to another airplane.  Formation also takes precision as well as anticipation.  I had a ton of fun and I can for see this being a fun challenge to tackle.

Wingtip formation	Echelon Turns

Here's pretty good formation video filmed here at Laughlin.  It's not me flying but that's exactly all the stuff we do during formation sorties.

T-6 complete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Actually I've been done a while ago, but when one door closes another one opens and I've been busy learning about the T-1.  So let's recap from where I left off.  Formation was awesome!  Flying a couple of feet from another airplane was challenging enough, but when you throw in aerobatic maneuvers like cuban 8s and loops in formation, things just get crazier.  What a rush though.  That's another thing I can say I'll never have the chance to do again.  I wish I had more pictures to show but there weren't any more great photo ops.  So now that we're all done, track select was next.

    Track select is when everyone in the class puts down their top three choices of what kind of trainer aircraft they would like to go on to next.  Since I'm in the Guard, I had to fill out one of those forms even though I knew I was going to T-1s.  For the people that were active duty, it's a competition and what you get is based on your performance.  Your academics, flying ability, attitude, peer ranking, and your commander's ranking weigh into your chances of getting your first pick.  Also the needs of the Air Force can weigh into that as well.  So here's the 4 choices of training aircraft that we can track to plus the number of people from my class that got them.

So that's all of Phase II.  Now on to Phase III!!