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I am glad to hear things are progressing nicely Sim.


Wheels

Lifestyle to determine aircraft choice?

That's only if you have a family, and even then, except for trainers, some specialized VIP aircraft, and maybe the B-2 and F-22, most units have been rotating in and out of theatre. 180 day rotations are not unheard of for everybody!

Choose based on what you want to fly! If you're a meat eater and want to fly fighters, then put that at the top of your list. You can always fly heavies later in life, but it's a rare thing to fly fighters.

FC

I probably will put something with pointy nose. T-38s look nice on a ramp.

Today, I didn't get to fly. But I had a sim that was preparing me for a solo. Sim involved pattern only sortie with bunch of emergencies. So as I took off, engine quit on me so I had to land aircraft back safely. Basically, entire sim was involved something going wrong and me trying to return back safely. During entire sim time, I ejected only once. My engine quit while on fire and I wasn't in position to land safely.

One unique thing, engine went out outside downwind and I've attempted to bring aircraft back. I couldn't get to low key so I went straight-in and landed safely. But as a solo, I shouldn't have. If engine quits, my responsibility is to keep my pink body safe by giving aircraft back to tax payers.

Oh, and where is a youtube video of spins. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaIt7ybwEe8

Friday, I learned a good lesson. I was supposed to do a pattern only sortie. I was fully prepared to rock and roll. But as we taxied for "number one", we heard a PIREP that weather was still poor. So IP told me that we will go to MOA using IFR departure. I wasn't prepared for that at all. Entire sortie I was behind the jet. Thankfully, we landed early to do incomplete so it was a no grade.

During flight, I felt I did everything wrong and was feeling poorly. I looked on canopy rail and it said "He hates you". Some student scribbled that long ago. IP didn't hate me. It was my own damn fault.

Lesson learned - be prepared for not only planned sortie but a back up. For next flight, I will have three preplanned mission cards. I think I did only one thing well - spin recovery. But even that I didn't verbalize properly.

Very good lesson learned.

Once you get farther in the syllabus, you find you'll be opted for several different kind of sorties at the same time. It's not unusual to go from a 2 ship low level, to a formation, to a contact sortie from the time you brief until the time you takeoff. You have to be ready for all of them...because the WX, status, or whatever can change in an instant.

And once the scheduler starts slinging pucks, all bets are off.

This is one of the critical things in learning to become a pilot...going from a strict script to improvising to get the sortie done.

FC

Hey sim, I think I found one you should put on your list....looks glamorous

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hANySXFKqVg&feature=related

"Kick the tires and light the fires, first one in the air is lead, and we'll brief on Guard."

I recently read a book on F-15's and it was more or less just that when on alert detail. You didn't know when, where or what, but you know there was some sort of launch coming. OK, lead and wing was set, but the brief would be by secure radio when talking to the GCI guys.

BTW, in all of the years of F-15 alerts in Germany, there was only ONE honest to God real intercept of a bad guy.

Some poor guy punched out of a jet that he thought was broke, and it flew to the Netherlands by itself before crashing.

There was only one weapons release as well. Different mission, different pilot, and caused by a fault in the jet he was flying.

I'm still a while from making it up as I go.

Weather has been bad entire week so other than sims, no regular flying. Due to so many days of no flying, I quality for 86 ride tomorrow which means I get to 'relearn' flying. If this continues, our entire class can be rolled back...

Sorry to hear that Sim.
I hope good weather starts heading you way, and soon.


Wheels

Weather is horrid. No flying today even though weather folks predicted 'partially cloudy'. So it was 'partially cloudy' all day long with overcast at 1500 / 3.

Welcome to Columbus!

FC

Yep, but today due to cold front, it was near perfect; just very light turbulence at 2-3k.


So today I had an 86 ride. After almost 10 days of no flying, it felt good. After going to MOA, I finished all of maneuvers in 12 minutes. So for rest of time, I played in pattern. Most memorable thing was ELP landing. Unlike discussions in IL2 forums awhile back about how landings should be 3 points, that is not the case in reality. Nose wheel doesn't like being landed on. My landing was firm but not enough to damage front gear. T-6 is rated for 600 fpm descent or 3.7Gs so it can take punishment of 'great' landings.

Solo expected in 3 rides.

Awesome reading about your training.

It's great to hear that you got to fly again.


Wheels

I was expecting a flight today, but IP was sick. Right now, I'm two flights away from solo. Tomorrow, I'm scheduled to fly so hopefully, if weather permits, Monday will be the day.


Things are going ok. Weather test passed. Instruments as confusing as ever. Contact portion of flight is fine.

Interesting thing during my last flights - During my pre-flight I need to lower ejection seat to my height so that view is same each flight. Well, seat doesn't respond. After getting expert crew chief to fix problem, we go on to our flight. Next day and different jet, exactly same thing happens to me; seat doesn't move. This time crew chief fixed it quickly and off we went. But what chances of seat going bad in two different jets. Odd.



In my last flight, I played a game to see who lands better with IP. IP was a bit off in perch but landed at almost perfect speed. I was exact on perch but landed a bit fast. I lost
So far I have ~17 hours in T-6. Hard to imagine that soon I'll get to fly solo in 5 million jet.

Make a dash for the border and see how far you get!

That reminded me of that old Del Taco commercial.


Wheels

I got to fly on Friday and it went fine so Solo on Monday. My scheduled takeoff time is ~0800. First I'm going up with instructor and do a couple patterns. After which, I will land and shut engine down to let instructor out. He will do walk around. Since engine is going to be fairly hot, I'll motor engine for 20 seconds to get it within norm for a normal start.
It's going to be only 2 touch-n-goes and one full stop which equals to about 150 pounds of fuel. Following landing a small tradition performed by flightmates. They will try to catch and dump me into little kiddy pool. If they don't catch me and I walk into flight room, every person will go into light financial debt by buying me a case.

After solo and on next flight, I'm getting intro to basic acrobatics; barrel roll, aileron roll, spit-S and loop.