A good end to a busy week (month...)

A recap of life in Phase III (T-38) of pilot training...
Our flight (Mob flight) got finished with our last contact checkride this week. I finished in the first wave of people to check, and I passed with 6 downgrades (a good score basically). We had a lot of people bust daily sorties because of miscellaneous reasons but I managed to get by with no busts (although some days I don't know why the instructor didn't bust me). During the contact phase, they had us doing instrument simulator profiles to get us started in that phase. So after I finished my contact checkride, I was already started well into the instrument phase. With that in mind, our IPs decided to push the 5 of us who had finished contact through our instrument rides so that we could get to the cross country and try to get the flight overall back on schedule (because of weather and an optomistic syllabus, we're always behind). The five of us students all planned out the flights to get us to Las Vegas (Nellis AFB) along with a bunch of back up routes. But for every reason in the book, things kept getting changed. And to narrow things down, there was the hurricane to the South and East. Also, finding destinations for the T-38 in the summer months is tricky because we require such a long runway.

So after a week of having a sim and flight each day (at least), we showed up Friday morning with a handful of shaky plans for getting out to Las Vegas. Thunderstorms started to pop up along our optimum route, so then we started looking at even more back up plans. A couple hours into it, and only 30 minutes before we were supposed to takeoff, 3 of the 5 pairs (student+IP) decided to drop out and just do a normal local sortie. For the other guy and me, our IPs were a lot more motivated to get us in the air and out to Nellis. So we drew up some plans really quick and stepped to the jet before anything else could change on us. Three legs later, we arrived safely at Nellis - completely exhausted. At each of our stopovers, we seemed to come up with completely new plans for the next leg. And with instrument flying, the exhaustion is more mental than physical because you're basically heads-down, staring at all the gages and you have a bag over the rear canopy where you sit so you can't just look outside and see where everything is.

So we got to Vegas, had a good weekend there, got no studying done, and the weather was perfect for our three hop back to Sheppard. So of course when we all showed up for work on Monday, the IPs saw that there were only two of us who had completed the cross country (and were therefor the only ones who could possibly go to checkrides at that point), we got thrown into the overdrive schedule. Me and the other guy flew everyday and did all the last simulators, AND we took the instrument phase test (we take a written test every phase to sort of go along with the checkride) AND we took the Air Force instrument refresher exam which is an annual requirement once you get wings. I passed the phase test with an 88 (needed an 85 to pass, yikes) and then I only got one question wrong on the other exam. So Thursday, I flew my last out&back instrument sortie (where we go to somewhere close enough to get in one flight with practice approaches, refuel, and then come home). I didn't finish debriefing until like 6pm and I was out the door at 6:10. And sure enough, the only flights available from the checkride people required that we be ready to go briefing at 6:30 am Friday. So we hustled and made all our phone calls to the places we were planning to, showed up, and got it done Friday morning.

And with all that, it turned out to be a great checkride. I made a few mistakes (judgement errors basically / not procedural), but that only cost me 2 downgrades, and I got an Outstanding overall so that was amazing. It was especially rewarding because this checkride is one of the scores that counts a little more towards our assignment in December. After two weeks of extreme business, I get to relax a little this weekend and say hello to Ellen who's been putting up with it for all this time.

Oh yeah- this week I also flew my Zoom & Boom ride. I accomplished one of my life goals and set a new personal aviation milestone
Fastest speed - Mach 1.11
Highest altitude that I've flown at - 41,000'

We had academics and briefings about supersonic flight so I had a pretty good expectation of how it would go. Unfortunately, you don't get to see the cool air bubble form as you break the sound barrier. And since you're in the jet and at the front end of the speed, you don't hear and sonic boom (that goes out and away from the jet). And really, you don't even feel any change in the controls. There's a little flickering on some of the gauges because of the airflow change, and then after Mach 1, the aircraft takes a lot more stick movement to get the jet to react. It also accelerates a lot quicker once you break through Mach .98-1.01 since that's where there's a lot of crazy aerodynamics happening. I won't be going supersonic in the T-38 anymore (not intentionally anyway) since this is just a special syllabus item. But now, I can say I have flown faster than the speed of sound. So boo ya.

Next up: Formation flying. Fun stuff, lots of procedures to learn, lots of concepts to visualize. And a whole lot less room for errors.

After formation is advanced formation (which is another phase that counts for a lot towards your assignment). Usually assignment night ends up being after everyone completes their advanced form checkrides, so that basically means 2 more checkrides until I find out my assignment. And then before graduation, we'll do low-level navigation (which is also in formation).

"This time- faster and funnier"