My new lair...

Well got my room organized enough where I am willing to take pictures of it to show the world. I also own furniture for the first time in my life (non-partical board furnature anyway)!

I am in the process of scrounging around for some art/posters/etc to throw up on the walls. They are a little too barren for my taste. Maybe some quality airplane wallpaper would do the trick?

Graduated From IFS

Sorry for the long delay between posts, but to say I was slightly busy would be an understatement.

So, I'll just retrace the major events of the last week:

We had the "early" briefing time, so I was waking up at 3AM to prepare for a 4:20AM briefing. This included slapping myself until my brain started working, getting breakfast (critical), and then if I was briefing updating the slides or helping the person who was briefing.

The briefings would cover mostly basic stuff dealing with the day, from the current weather (METAR), to the future weather (TAF), runways in use at Pueblo and at other local airports, the overhead patterns for the runway in use, any changes to local flying procedures, any DOSS mandated rules, the emergency procedure (EP) for the day, and the question of the day.

After the briefing was culminated the flight would have our stand up EP. One lucky soul was picked from the flight to be the victim. Our instructor pilots (IPs) would then give him a scenario. For example, you smell burning and see smoke. We then had to proceed in agonizing detail about how we would fix/deal with the problem.

"Sir, I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take proper action, and land as soon as conditions permit." That had to be verbatum, and then we had to go into detail about how we would accomplish that. "Sir, I will maintain aircraft control via coordinate rudder, aileron, elevator, and throttle inputs." Where my hands/feet are, what they are doing, etc.

So anyway, after doing that we were expected to either go work out or fly. I did a lot more flying than working out while I was there, since if you were double turning (flying twice) you were exemped from working out. This was a good thing because I was always physically drained after that, as well as dehydrated.

I learned quickly that I needed a snack before my second flight otherwise my stomach wouldn't agree with me. I generally snagged an apple and a banana and scarfed that down around 9am (note: I have been up for 6 hours at that point).

After flying I would get lunch around 12/1 and then go back up and prepare for the next days flight(s), study, or help any of my struggling flight mates. As SRO (senior ranking officer) I was held responsible for keeping their heads above water.

Then dinner came around and we were released for the night. I would continue studying, preparing, and helping until 9pm or so when I would try to get some sleep...normally falling asleep around 10-11. Rinse and repeat.

On Tuesday I had my solo flight. I went with my instructor to a local airport called "Bullseye" which is owned and operated by the Air Force Academy (USAFA). It's really just a strip of asphault in the middle of nowhere. So I "drove" over there, did 3 landings, and then kicked my instructor out. I managed to squeeze in 3 solo landings before I had to pick him back up (important) and fly back to Pueblo.

I was also double turning, so had my pre-check flight with a new instructor. I did pretty well to his standards (not to mine) and got thrown infront of the line for my checkride on Thursday.

My checkride was a retired (Colonel) Air Force F-16 pilot. He was a very very awesome, cool, nice guy. I ended up rocking my check ride. I flew to "Fowler" airport and then to the area to do maneuvers. I really did use up all my good landings the day before during my solo ride though, and I wasn't happy at all with them. But he was content so thats really all that matters. I came close to blowing it on my simulated engine failure (SFL) and I extended a bit too long and it looked like I was going to come in short (also threw on my flaps way to early) but he convinced me to stick with it, vs going around, and I managed to land pretty much spot on. I then proceeded to destroy (in a good way) all my area manuevers as well as my ground reference manuever (turns around a point).

So after a fairly short oral review after the flight, him asking about general knowledge questions as well as specific DA-20 (the airplane) questions. I was also acing this portion so he cut it short when he deemed me competent.

I finished my departing IFS checklist too late on Wed for me to get out of there that night so I ended up spending one more night and jetted out of there on Thursday.

First Weekend

Well my first weekend here in Pueblo was fun! I ended up passing out right after my flight on Friday, probably zonked out around 730pm (these 12 hour duty days are killing me).

Woke up at 5am on Saturday...promptly hit snooze and finally rolled out of bed around 10am. That felt good!!!! Studied for a while and met up with another flight member and his friend and went out.

Did a bunch of errands, went to Peterson AFB and checked it out (it's very nice). Met up with one of their friends for dinner. She just pinned on 1st Lt and is in charge of GPS...so if you like your Garmins, TomToms, or whatnot you can thank her!

Went to an Oriental place where the cook the food infront of you. Good food...and some warm Saki.

Following that we drove through and explored the "Garden of the Gods." It was really awesome to see that kind of natural art and archatecture. Platetonics rock! (Pun intended).

Didn't get back til about midnight and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Sunday has been studying all day.

Dollar Ride

Well had my first "government paid" flight, known as a dollar ride (not sure why it is called that but I ended up giving my IP a decorated $1 bill to commemorate the event).

Anywho, I can't begin to explain to everyone reading this how fast paced this program is. As I have told my mom and brother on the phone, its like drinking from a fire hose. I truely feel pitty for everyone in this program that doesn't have any flight experience. It isn't so much the stick and rudder flying that is difficult (I like to say, give me enough banana's and I can teach a monkey to fly), but rather its the amount of academics and little procedures we need to have memorized. The amount of knowledge they expect us to know verbatim in such a short period of time is unreal.

On Monday we are having our written test, and its practically the FAA private pilots test I took 4 years ago...which I had a years worth of ground courses for!

Anywho, it's late. Just wanted to show off my spiffy new picture...check out that onezy!

IFS

So today was my first day...and boyo was it a long one! Got up at 0530 for a physical fitness test at 0600. The altitude here sucks!!! It added a minute to my mile and a half run time. I maxed pushups and sit ups though (62 and 55 respectively) and ended up passing the PFT anyway.

Then the rest of the day was "death by powerpoint." Had briefings pretty much straight to 1700. Also had the Ops Limit/Bold Face test today, everyone in our flight needs to pass it with a 100% (verbatim). I did fine, but we some other guys made some stupid stress related mistakes...like spelling "fuel" wrong (fule) and leaving the R off of "Master." To be fair, there is a lot of stress going on so I can't blame these guys, hopefully everyone gets it togeather for tomorrow. When we accomplish that task we can swap out our rather uncomfortable blues uniform and switch into the pajama/onezie/awesome flight suit (aka: Bag).

Oh yea, I am also the Senior Ranking Officer (SRO) in the flight...which makes me the flight commander! Kinda interesting, I only am the SRO because of all my previous flight experience, not because of my date of rank (like it is normally based off of).

Well I am gonna go hit the gym again for a light work out...then rack out. Another 0600 go time tomorrow. We are expected to hit the flight line on Friday...kinda crazy how fast they expect us to advance here.

Leaving on a jet plane

Tomorrow I head out to go to IFS (Introductory Flight Screening) at Pueblo, Co.

I will be there three to four weeks, following which I plan on spending a week back at the University of Illinois and then a week back home in Northbrook.

I will be updating this blog with more juicy info and pictures once I get cracking at IFS...since I will actually be doing something!

Bring Your Airplane to Work Day

Enjoy!