Room, tench-hut

The first real day of training is over with, finally!

After the first serving of the boldface/ops limits quiz we got this morning, about 8 people didn't pass because of grammatical things (it has to be exactly as they gave us on the handout before getting here, "30 sec." does not equal "30 seconds") and a couple no-answers. So then they turned right back around and gave it to us again. And after that there were about 2 or 3 people who still didn't get it all right. Fortunately, they said we can still get out of blues and wear our flight suits starting Thursday. It was a surprise to me because I figured it was one of those "we have to earn it" privileges.

I guess I should explain what this whole program is. IFS - Initial Flight Screening is a relatively new method in the Air Force for an old purpose. Anyone going to pilot training who didn't have their civilian pilot's license used to just have to go to their local airport and get about 15 hours of instruction. But now they've created IFS here at Pueblo, Colorado where all incoming Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training (UPT) students will go through first. About 200 people have passed through here so far, with class sizes getting bigger each month. Our class is the largest so far at 34 people. They also expanded the program to include every UPT-bound student, regardless of whether they have civilian flight experience or not (and that's where I come in). Eventually Navigator students will come through IFS as well. The whole purpose is to give everyone a little step up before going to the full blown pilot training (UPT) as well as pick out any of the people who got their pilot slot without ever touching a plane in their life and then decide it's not for them. It saves big bucks to figure it out here at IFS rather than in UPT. It's sort of a mutual understanding around here that there's not any shame or stagelights for those who are ground-bound, it's just a matter of fact that flying's not for everyone.

The whole program is set for 6 weeks, with 25 flying hours during 19 sorties (flights). Some people can take advancement checkrides in order to skip a couple training flights and go home early. But most of us agree that we might as well get all 25 hours logged since it's on Uncle Sam. Plus as class leader, I think I'm supposed to stay the full length regardless.

Near the end of our 12-hour day, when we were supposed to take our Physical Fitness Test (PFT), a thunderstorm conveniently rolled in our test was pushed back to Thursday afternoon. Thunderstorms are pretty common in the afternoon here, and we were all glad to get an extra two days to get acclimated and ready for the test. Going from sea level to 5,000 MSL can have an impact on your run time.

So after a crappy night of sleep (counting planes doing touch and go's doesn't work as well as counting sheep I guess) and a long day of not-so-brief briefings, I'm going to bed. Tomorrow's day off will be full of reading, study-groups, practicing in the cockpit trainer, and getting ready to give the first academic student briefing of the class thur morning (yay for me). Oh yeah, and the gym - PT, PT, good for you, good for me.