Cross Country

Omaha - Madison - Lincoln - Topeka - Vance

Back in the Saddle

Well, today I did it. I landed the airplane again.

Whatever demon tormented me on Friday afternoon, was exorcised by today. I greased two landings and didn't hit to hard on the third. What a relief!

Now, on to a cross-country flight this weekend.

Defeated

It's been a really rough couple of weeks. I accidentally over-g'ed the airplane by .03 on an area solo. Forgot to call my strap-in on a flight. To top it all, I failed a check ride yesterday because of an inability to land the plane; with nasty winds and a bit of rust, I couldn't get it on the ground.

Halfway Home

It's been a quick ride through pilot training here in Oklahoma. I have completed about half of my hours in the T-6, and the second half will roll even quicker than the first half has done.

So far, I have flown a number of contact flights. These flights taught aircraft control, stalls, aerobatics, emergency management, and landing from a variety of positions (straight-in, circling, and overhead patterns). I have done well in the first half, working hard to get down the basics of flying. It's come quickly, with at least one class/simulator/flight/test every day - and often several events a day. That workload has kept me pretty occupied.

The next phase will get more interesting. We'll focus on instrument flying - how to get around when the weather/lack of daylight prevents you from using the ground as your baseline. It's a very different set of skills, much more precision-based than the previous segment of training. Integral to this phase is a cross-country trip, in which I'll fly seven flights to different airports far away from the comfort zone of Enid. I hope to traverse Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, but my instructor's guidance (and preference) may shape where we go.

I'll finish up with a bit of formation flying. The Air Force takes formation pretty seriously, so we'll get some great experience doing that.

Looking forward to the challenges ahead.

Back to Flying

It's been a week without flying. I was sick, with some bad sinus problems, for a while, so I did a whole heap of nothing.

Feeling better, so I expect I'll be flying a lot to catch up with our schedule.

It's a fun, complicated time in training. We are completing Contact (aerobatics) flying, Instrument simulators, Navigation and Formation classes, and some pretty meaty studying for check rides.

These checks are performed by special instructors, whose sole job it is to evaluate students at certain points in the program. The process is shrouded in mystery. They work in a secret lair, where students cannot enter. Though one hears of others' check rides, one has very little idea what to expect for his own. It's the best that I can do to study and pray - those ought to be enough to battle the check ride forces, right?

As you might guess, I'm coming up on my first check ride this week.