Light the burners baby, it's back to 12 hour training days!

I don't remember the last time I (Mason) posted so here's a quick recap-

I passed the centrifuge so I was good to go for pulling Gs in the T-38. We had a few weeks of academics that were boring, but yet still overwhelming. And last week, we hit the flight line! I got my dollar ride and then my second ride in the T-38 last week. In short, it's freakin amazing.

New aviation milestones:
Personal top speed: 500 kts
Most Gs pulled (in the centrifuge): 7.5 (That's like 1600 pounds of Mason!)
First time flying a pressurized aircraft
First time flying a jet with afterburners (sweet!)
First time flying an aircraft with tandem seating (one in front of the other)
First time flying an aircraft with a HUD (Head Up Display)
First time flying with a G-suit

It's a ton of new stuff to learn so I'm struggling to keep up on all the studying. But getting to fly this jet is a huge honor. Below, one Mason Kehs (Cadet Third Class at the time I believe), about 4 years ago, having only my private pilot license, standing in front of a T-38 visiting Champaign's airport.

And now... it's mine!

Everything in the plane happens a lot faster so it's hard to keep up. By the time you get into the training areas to do your practice, you've only 20 or 30 minutes of fuel to work with. The flights only last just over an hour and every minute is just one thing after another. It's difficult to get used to flying a "high-performance fighter-type aircraft" but it's a blast since every turn is treated like it should be a max-performance turn. There's no more floating around at 30 degrees of bank. If you're flying North and need to go South, you roll sideways, pull to the "tickle", roll right side up, and you're done. Wearing a G-suit is a little strange too but it's a good reminder to do your strain as the G load is increasing. Otherwise, you get so focussed on the parameters of whatever maneuver you're doing, you forget that you need to take care of breathing. The syllabus is pretty fast-paced so I've only got another 9 rides or so until I solo. And after that, the pressure just keeps on going. There's 5 phases in the T-38: Contact (basic aircraft handling, visual maneuvers), Instruments (flying in the clouds and shooting approaches into other airports), Formation (the basics of flying with another T-38), Advanced Formation (taking things to another level with more complex maneuvering), and Low level (two T-38s in formation, 500 feet above the ground, 400 knots, WAHOO!)

So that's all the good news, the bad news is that the stakes are pretty high around ENJJPT lately. After we finished the T-37 phase, we had one member of our class get retracked to T-44s at Corpus Christi, TX (which is the trainer for C-130s). It was pretty unheard of for that to happen, particularly here at ENJJPT. But then this weekend, we found out one of the two guys who had washed back a class during the T-37 phase is now also getting sent to the T-44. So that makes two classes in a row to have someone get sent there. It's definitely not a horrible fate to fly the C-130 (especially when compared the UAVs and U-28s), but it's just a hard turn for all of us here at ENJJPT who come in with big dreams of fighter this and fighter that. I'm trying to not get caught up with the assignments too much and just focus on the task at hand. All in all, I just feel really good about getting to fly the T-38 and I'm trying my hardest not to mess that up.

On the lighter side of life, Ellen finished knitting her hat

So now she's back to the needles to start her scarf. By the time she finishes that, maybe we'll actually be living somewhere where it gets colder than 50 degrees in the winter...

Back to studying now, if no later, I'll post again when I do my contact checkride. Keep your fingers crossed!