The firehose is on, and the water is coming out my ears!

I have flown the tweet! Monday was our first day in the flight room where we spend our whole days, surrounded with our IPs. We received some briefings and then spent about an hour in the simulators with our instructors. There's 12 students in my flight (Hotel Hogs) and about 6 IPs assigned to our flight. So each IP has about 2 students who are assigned to them. That IP is the one whose desk you sit at and are supposed to take the majority of your questions to you. You'll fly with them a lot too, but it's very common to fly with a different IP just due to scheduling. I learned from the sim flight but I don't think we really got a lot done. While my flight partner (the other student assigned to my IP) went, I watched. But even then, I still was fumbling around when I got into the cockpit. The simulators here are really nice. The T-37 sims aren't full motion, but the cockpit is pretty much complete (you climb into it) and then it's always hooked up to the computer and running. So at any time, you can go in there with a classmate and just do a practice flight with no hassle or restrictions. My instructor kept bouncing around with all these different techniques about how to do the starting up checklist flows. And we ended up going back and forth so much on different techniques that in the entire two or three hours that the three of us were there, none of the "flight" was ever spent in the air.

Most of the week, our report time was around 7 am and we would start off with academics (which is nice in the morning, because academics are really low-stress; unlike with the IPs). Then around 10, we would head to our flight room where a student would do a briefing on the weather and restrictions for the day. Then the flight commander or a lead IP would give some critiques and quiz the flight on general knowledge. General knowledge are questions that come from anywhere in our regulations/books/manuals that relate to airspeeds, procedures, limitations, etc. So basically, on day 1 in the flight room, you're already expected to have read ALL your books and memorized everything. One at a time, each student stands up at attention and the IP asks a question. If you get it right, you sit down and they go to the next person. If you get it wrong, you stay standing until it gets all the way around the room and back to you again. Our flight did pretty well all week on all the questions (I didn't get any wrong, woo-hoo). How do we do this you may wonder? Gouge. And that's all I'll say about that.

After general knowledge, we would take a quiz on boldface emergency procedures and operating limitations. There's a form that lists all these items and boldface on the back. So you know exactly what the quiz is going to look like, you just have to fill in all the blanks (verbatim - including dashes, capitalization, etc). For all of Phase I, we were in blues. When you get to the flight room (Phase II), you're still in blues. You don't get out of them and into flight suits until the whole flight passes the boldface quiz three days in a row. So you really want everyone to pass! We passed Monday. Failed miserably Tuesday. Passed Wednesday. Passed Thursday (sorta - they let one mistake slide for some reason). And we should have passed Friday, but the official word isn't out yet. The flight room has an answering machine on which they record the next day's schedule every night. So everyone calls before going to bed to find out when they're flying the next day. And our IPs said they would post the results over the weekend. So everyone keeps calling to find out if we get to wear flight suits, but no message yet. Part of the reason blues are a pain in the ass (besides just being uncomfortable) is that we have to change into our flight suits for our flights. And then when we're done with flying, we have to change back. It gets pretty tiring and gross from the sweat. Not to mention everyone laughs at you when you walk down the hallway to the bathroom wearing your blues and carrying your flight suit.

On Tuesday, we had our dollar rides (your first sortie/flight is called the dollar ride because you don't really have to do anything, and you pay the IP a dollar afterwards that you decorate with quotes and such). We did sort of a tour of all the local visual references in the area and came in to a full stop landing (no touch and go's). It was awesome, but verrrrry different than the little Pipers I'm used to. Just wearing the helmet and breathing oxygen for the whole flight is enough the throw your game from the civilian world. Wednesday and Thursday, I flew again. No flights Friday due to scheduling and weather.

So how does it compare to civilian flying? How hard is UPT? Is it really like sucking on a firehose and trying to drink it all during the beginning? YES, it's f'in hard. The hands-on flying isn't much different than civilian flying, but the procedures and techniques are very different. Although the terms IFR and VFR still exist in the military, they're so blurred during your flight that they really lose all meaning. Basically every sortie involves portions under both VFR and IFR (regardless of the weather). And you think you need a clearance to land? No. Do you need to read back a clearance to taxi a runway? Only certain runways. And if you miss one word in the script of radio calls, you get written up for it. All the procedures and the way the pattern works are really hard to grasp. Each of my three flights, I've taken huge steps in seeing the big picture. But still, it's like trying to fly with a completely fogged windscreen. Each flight, I wipe off a little section of the window. And you think you're getting there, but then the IP tells you that you suck because it should all be clear already. When talking to other guys in the flight who have commercial ratings, etc. we all agree that it's a ridiculous feeling to know that you used to be such a great pilot, and now you can't even hold within 200 feet of your altitude.

So I've been doing a lot a lot a lot a lot of studying. It's hard, but when life sucks, I remind myself that it's supposed to be hard. The guys in my flight are great and we all get a long really well. There's been a few cases of airsickness already, but it's not a big deal (yet). Even I felt a little queezy on my second flight, which is the first time I've ever felt sick in an airplane. But I kept calm and just sorta "survived" the rest of the flight. When the question starts forming in your head about whether you're going to lose it in the cockpit, the learning process is pretty much over for that flight.

Personal aviation milestones this week:
Highest altitude flown while at the controls - 14,000'
Fastest airspeed flown while at the controls - 220 knots
Most Gs pulled - Positive 3.5
First hour in a jet aircraft (and two jet engines)
First flight using oxygen
First time flying inverted (that's right - upside down, WOOOO)

Three flights down. About 11 left until we're expected to solo. Got a lot of learning to do before then. Thank whoever that we get a three day weekend for veteran's day. Maybe I'll actually figure out how the hell to fly a military pattern with radio calls by Tuesday.

For any UPT-bound kids reading this, here's my advice so far:
When you get your pubs, read the manuals. Don't worry about the academic books because those are easy. But read the manuals, memorize the radio calls, and chew some other student's brain to learn what the heck a military overhead pattern and container are all about. I thought I knew from IFS, but they left out a lot of parts to it. As one of my IPs told me in the air - if you don't know it at zero knots on the ground, you sure as hell aren't going to know it at 200 knots 1000 feet above the ground.

Friday evening was the graduation for class 0801. So one year from now, it'll be our class (0901). As the baby class, we were required to attend and serve oddjob tasks. It was a good piece of inspiration after the first week of flying. Having everyone in their mess dress with all the past generations of pilots and IPs pinning on wings to new grads was good stuff. It was surprising how many pilots graduating had parents who were military pilots.

And today, we hosted a flight dinner at our house. Ellen sent out the invitations last weekend (before she realized we wouldn't have any time during the week to plan and get ready for it). But she spent the whole day cooking and we did a bunch of cleaning and it came out a big success. Not everyone in the flight made it so we have tons of leftovers now, but I'm not complaining.

Ellen's motorcycle helmet came in the mail today too along with my Illinois license plate so that's awesome. Maybe we'll take a spin around the neighborhood tomorrow. As soon as one of the Italians gets his Ducati (fancy Italian bike) which he ordered, we're all going to take a group ride up to the Wichita Mountains in Oklahoma.

On a final note, UPT is awesome. Despite the bitching and how hard it is, it KICKS ASS to go out to the jet with your parachute, strap in and put the visor down on your helmet, take off and climb way up there, go upside down, pull some Gs, and take it home (or try to do all that anyways). Ellen was telling a story about how she was telling someone I was "busy at work" and it didn't even click with me at first that she meant I was at pilot training. Flying jets for the Air Force is no job.

(I didn't take this photo, but it is of a T-37 and it gets the point across)