U! Taco! Hook! Bust! UNSAT! FAIL!

Yup, so this week didn't go at all how I pictured it. My flight leading up to the checkride got pushed back because of bad weather. And then when I took my checkride on Thursday, I failed. All my maneuvers were great and he said my overall flying was strong but I busted about 4 items which were all big items. I won't go into too much detail because I've already had to explain it to every single person I've talked to at pilot training in the last 48 hours. That's the thing about failing a checkride, everyone wants to know what you did so they don't do the same.

Since my flying was strong and the things I jacked up were sort of "fluke" events, they recommended that I didn't take any extra flights and just go straight to the recheck. They call it an IPC (Initial Proficiency Check). It's taken with someone who is a little higher in the chain of command and supposedly approaches the flight with a broader view on what they're looking for in the student. If you fail the IPC, then you go on to a final check where someone really higher up flies with you to see if you're good enough to finish pilot training. (3 strikes, you're out).

Along with all that stress, you also have to go through a list of extra procedures that comes with failing a ride. I got counseled by my flight commander, signed some forms saying that it was my fault I failed and not due to a lack of training, verified that it wasn't because I'm depressed or anything at home, and THEN- the salt on the wound- they make you go straight to the doctor to take an eye exam. No pilot likes taking an eye exam because that's like the quickest way to kick yourself out of a pilot slot. But fortunately, even being tired and stressed out, I still got 20/15 and passed all the depth perception stuff.

I took my IPC on Friday and passed. I thought it was a really strong flight but the instructor said I had an inattention to detail so I got a handful of downgrades on various items. This is why I said "supposedly" before about the IP having a broader view. I didn't have to redo my ground eval or emergency procedures test portions since I did fine on those in the first checkride. And since none of the specific maneuvers were bad in the first flight, he just had me fly the standard list.

With my first checkride, I honestly thought I had passed walking back from the plane. But as we debriefed and he reminded me of how big the things were that I screwed up, I realized that it wasn't going well. In the civilian world, the oral portion and flying portion are usually two separate parts. But in the Air Force, you go fly first and then before you debrief the flight, you get the quiz on general knowledge and go through a simulated emergency procedure (they say "so there you are..." and you have to talk through every little detail you would do to land the plane safely).

I was sort of expecting to hook a checkride somewhere in UPT but I definitely didn't think it would be the very first one. I don't really think there was anything I could have to done to prepare better. But I've taken the things I got busted for and spread them to the rest of the class so hopefully they don't get caught on the same things. So far, we've had about 6 or 7 people in our class take the checkride and three of us failed the first time. Now that I'm done with the Contact phase, I'll be moving on to Instruments and Advanced Contact. Instruments is something I actually feel pretty confident about since I've got a decent level of experience in that sort of flying. Advanced contact will be wild since it's all the acrobatic type maneuvers (cloverleaf, split-s, barrel roll, etc).

One last tidbit about checkrides in UPT: After every training sortie, when the IP fills out your gradesheet on the computer, there's about 25 items for them to grade (each manuever and type of landing possible, plus task management, planning, area oreintation, etc.). It can be rated Unsat, Marginal, Fair, Good, or Excellent (or something like that). There's a minimum grade for each block of training that you need to attain for every item (usually Fair or Good). So on an average day with a training sortie, you can expect to get mostly Goods and a couple Excellents if you do well. And that's something to be happy about. BUT, on a checkride, it's the reverse. Anything marked less than an Excellent is referred to as a "downgrade". So whenever you come back from a checkride, everyone judges how you did by asking how many downgrades you got. So even if you get a good or excellent overall, you might have gotten 7 downgrades. It's a crappy system for your ego. From what I gather, 6 or 7 downgrades is about average. I got 5 on my first check and 7 on my second check (the reason I failed the first was because 4 of the 5 downgrades were all the way down to an Unsat level - the other downgrades were all Fairs or Goods).

One checkride down, 4 left until I'm done with Tweets and move on to the T-38.