More ups and downs

I think the last time I posted was after failing and passing my contact checkride. Since then, it's been a rush of instrument training. We also start advanced contact (aerobatic maneuvers) which is awesome but it's hard to study for two completely different topics at the same time. We've also been doing academics for navigation which we don't fly until after instruments and advanced contact. So the push for new material just keeps going. Only about 3 months until we're finished with the T37 phase all together! woh.

I took the final exam for navigation today and got 100%. So that was the good for the day. The bad is that last weekend on the way back from hanging out in Dallas with some other couples, I got a speeding ticket. And so because of that, I have to report in to my squadron commander (not good!). Not too brutal of a counseling session, but it's just one more shitty thing to have on the record.

I double-turned today with an advanced contact solo in the morning and and instrument sortie later in the morning (I'm back on 5 am days now). I pulled about 5.5 Gs on my solo while doing tons of cuban-eights and split-S, etc maneuvers. It's pretty fun but halfway through the flight, I had to just cruise straight and level around my area for a while to let my body catch up. As for the instrument ride, most of it went well until I got back in to the pattern and had to do a normal straight-in approach to landing. It had been so long since my last contact sortie, I totally blanked on some basic maneuvers. So thanks to the speed brake, I was able to fix up my mistakes and catch up with the jet.

A couple weekends ago, a bunch of us took a motorcycle ride up to the Wichita Mountains. We ended up having 6 of us so it was a pretty fun ride. Half of them were Italian so I had a little bit of a hard time keeping up with them (they're used to taking turns way faster than me and leaning the bike over as far as it goes - I chicken out). And we went up to the top of Mt Scott there so it made for a great view. And since it was a beautiful day, there ended up actually being like 20 other bikes there on the same day.

This weekend, I'm scheduled to do a cross-country flight to Scott AFB (St Louis). It's a weekend-long deal (half training / half fun). The weather is looking a little snowy though so we might end up doing San Antonio instead. Either way, I've been planning for it for a long time so I just want to get it done. There should be about 4 people from my flight going so it'll be a good time.

Lastly, Ellen got her birthday present early. After begging for a few months now, she finally got her Tivo. It was supposed to be a surprise but getting packages in the mail when you live together just makes things a lot more tricky. Now we can finally fast forward through the commercials to see the end of all our "Deal or No Deal"s.

It's 3 in the afternoon and I'm exhausted so everyone knows what that means - it means there's still time for PT "yay".....