Today I finished giving local 5th grade students in Corpus Christi tours on base of one of the airplanes we have. Since it was my last day, I brought some of my extra UPT class patches from Vance to give to some kids I thought deserved them. Throughout the day I watched kids climb into the cockpit and listen to my little talk about what the attitude indicator does and what the altimeter tells you, most of them paying attention but not being overly enthusiastic. But then this one little girl came up with the biggest smile on her face, clearly overjoyed to be finally getting her two minutes inside the airplane. She asked many good questions, and was clearly thankful to be sitting here. It took me back to the enthusiasm I once had as a little kid who wanted nothing more than to be around airplanes his whole life. So at the end of the day I gave away my extra patches to some kids, but tore off the only class patch I ever flew with off my shoulder and gave it to this little girl. I will never forget the look on her face when I told her what that patch meant to me and that I was giving it to her. It was an 11 out of 10 on my scale of worthwhile tasks.... She was an inspiration to me to be excited for what lies ahead. I get to continue living out my childhood dream of flying airplanes in just 10 short days! And I now know at least one little girl who shares that dream with me....
Chris
P.S. I promise to finish my Vance blog about the end of T-6s...it was an exciting time! I've been busy with other things but I promise I'll get back to it!!
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Instrument Phase
The past few weeks have been very busy…but it’s been a great experience….
After Final contact checkride, we began flying under instrument conditions in the airplane. To do so, the instructors put us in the rear cockpit and make us wear a flimsy “hood” over our heads so we can’t see outside and are forced to focus on our instrument displays for navigation and orientation. It takes some getting used to…a lot of guys early on said they got headaches from focusing so much on the instruments for an hour and a half at a time. Flying from the rear cockpit certainly feels a lot different than flying up front, but I’ve since gotten used to it.
The first week since my last update was spent preparing me for my cross-country flight in the T-6. On the Monday, I flew an “Out and Back” to Fayetteville, Arkansas. An “O&B” is where you land somewhere outside of Vance, stop to get gas and some lunch, then hop back in the jet for another flight home. It simulates what it’s like to fly a couple legs on a cross country, since you’re not only flying instrument approaches into a strange airport you’ve never been to, but also having to navigate along “Victor Routes” or “Jet Routes” which are like highways in the sky. It takes a lot of mental concentration to stay focused the entire time, constantly multi-tasking and prioritizing the tasks at hand. If you do it right, you should be able to fly the whole mission from the rear cockpit without ever looking outside. But usually the instructors are nice and give you a break to blink and look outside.
After landing at Fayetteville, we dropped off the gas card for the jet at the front desk of the terminal, then sauntered up to the “pilot’s lounge” where they already had freshly made BBQ burgers for us for $1.00. It’s so cheap since we’re paying about $500.00 in gas…it’s the least they could do for us, lol. Anyways, I sat down with my lunch when my IP tells me, “This is what you get to do every day in T-1s!” Ok, I’m sold! After the lunch, we found a couple lazy boy chairs in front of a TV and watched ESPN while my IP used a foot-massager he found…rough life, I know.
We hopped back in the jet and flew back to Vance uneventfully. The most stressful part of the whole ordeal was the mission planning prior to leaving Vance, but it was well worth it when we finally took off and were chewing up the radios with all the other Airline pilots sharing the friendly skies with us. It was a sign for me that this was gonna be a good week.
The rest of the week made me pay for all the fun I had on my Out and back….double turning sims all week…. Yeah, it’s kind of like playing a giant flight simulator video game, but usually I’ve never been graded or critiqued when I play games on my own free time. Suffice it to say, it’s still a tough environment to look forward to being in on a daily basis. I had 2 sims every day until Friday because I had to meet all the prerequisites for my cross country flights that weekend. On Thursday, the secretary in the sim building finally asked me if I was ever gonna fly an airplane again because she had seen me in the sims so much! I told her they were training me to fly the predator…haha….which is probably true, I just don’t know it yet ;-P.
Friday finally came around…the first of 3 days of my cross country trip. The plan was to go to Scott AFB in Illinois to meet up with one of my instructor’s friends. I originally wasn’t too excited to be going to Scott AFB, but tagged along anyways (not like I had a choice!). It turned out to be an amazing trip! Again, the most stressful part was trying to leave Vance…there’s a ton of paperwork and planning you have to do ahead of time. Because it was all so new to me, I again felt like I was drinking water from a fire hydrant…barely finding time to breath. But we got off the ground and headed to Fort Smith Arkansas for gas and food. We shot a couple of approaches into Fort Smith before landing, during one of which we were overflown by a C-130 about 1,000 feet above us!! It was quite the sight to see…wish I had a picture of it. We landed, started taxiing to parking when we saw two gentlemen on the flightline, one holding a sign and one holding a flag. My first thought was “These better not be protesters!!” Quite the opposite actually. They turned out to be guys who lived nearby and enjoy welcoming military aircrews to Arkansas, even those just passing through briefly like us. We took off our harness and G-suit, ended up eating at a bar in town, then came back to the airport to wait for it to get dark so I could get a night flight in. While we waited, we had the chance to talk to the gentlemen who very warmly welcomed us in to Arkansas. They gave myself and my IP each an American flag to take with us…I now have it on my desk in my dorm room…something I’ll always have for the rest of my life to mark my first leg of my first cross country in the T-6!
We left Fort Smith at night to go to Scott AFB. Somehow, the best landing I have ever had in the T-6 was my first landing at night….really weird!! We parked and put the airplane to bed, then met up with a good friend of mine’s parents who live and work at Scott. We took them to the Officer’s Club to chat for a while…I’m still amazed they were willing to visit with us even at 11pm at night! It definitely made the trip to Scott worthwhile.
The next morning my IP and I got incentive rides in a sailplane at a small airport near Bellville, IL. It was an absolute blast. We later flew over the St Louis arch in the T-6, then passed over the sailplane airport to say thanks for showing us a great time! The flyover of the arch was really special to me…the last time I was there was with my dad when we drove my Civic up to Colorado from Florida. Definitely some good memories.
We landed in Knoxville, TN for dinner, then continued on another night sortie into Pensacola, FL where I met up with a really good friend of mine from the Academy I haven’t seen since he graduated in ‘08. I stayed at his place until Sunday morning…we left Pensacola, flew along the Gulf Coast (couldn’t see the oil spill yet), flew over New Orleans and stopped in Lake Charles Louisiana for the best seafood I’ve had since living in Florida. We finally came home Sunday evening….man was I tired! It was a fun trip, but each leg was 1.7 hours long. I got 8 hours of sleep every night, but I was still exhausted by the end.
The following week, my instructors were very generous to me and didn’t schedule me for anything until Friday when I flew on my last out and back to Rick Husband International Airport, named after the commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia during STS-107. I thought it was a fitting location to fly to as my last navigational sortie in the T-6. I finally felt fairly comfortable flying into strange airfields and navigating in places I’ve never been to before.
This past week, I wasn’t scheduled for any flying the first couple days (Tuesday and Wednesday). Wednesday, I had a midterm feedback session with my Flight Commander and Assistant Flight commander. They said I’m exactly where I need to be, but cautioned me to not let my guard down. There is still plenty of flying left, and 2 more checkrides in my future. I later flew with my Assistant Flight Commander on Thursday, and had a great time. I think my two best flights in the T-6 have been with him. Don’t know why, but they’ve been a ton of fun. We just did a local instrument sortie where we flew to Woodring for 3 approaches, then hung out in the area to fly some basic instrument maneuvers before calling it a day and flying home. Friday was a similar sortie, but instead of flying to Woodring, my IP and I flew all the way down to Wiley Post in Oklahoma City and shot our approaches down there. It was a good thing to see how busy the radios can get in a very congested airspace such as Oklahoma City. Good experience.
Overall I’m pleased with my performance in the airplane during the instrument phase so far, but I feel my general knowledge has more work to do. I’m gonna continue studying this weekend, since I will most likely be having my instrument checkride this week. Even though I had a lot of fun during my navigation flights, I still am leaning towards tracking T-38s and trying to fly either fighters, bombers, or spec ops. But that’s a long way off, and as my flight commanders said, there is a lot of flying between now and track select. Anything could happen, and if I fail one of the two checkrides between now and then, that will pretty much erase any chance I have of flying the T-38. It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to go to Test Pilot School, and I know the best way to do that is to become a fighter pilot. But in today’s Air Force, that’s tough to do since there are so few fighter slots left. We’ll see what happens… Until next time…..
Chris
Jeremiah 29:11
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Freedom's cost
Wow, I'm really sorry it's been a couple weeks since I've updated last. This is the part of phase II when the 12 hour days really matter though. For the past several weeks ever since we soloed, we have been opted for Navigation and Instrument Academic classes/computer based training, emergency procedure as well as instrument simulator sorties, and Contact flights as well as instrument flights (following our Final Contact checkride). The pace is bearable, but you really have to focus on taking every day one event at a time. You might have an academic class or test in the morning for an hour (which, if you fail 3 tests in a row, you'll probably wash out), formal brief 5 minutes later followed by stand-up or shotgun questions, then you'll run to the sim building to brief up an instrument sim ride, fly it for 1hr + 15min, debrief for a half-hour, then run back to the flightline in time to eat a PB&J sandwhich for 10 minutes before you have to get ready to brief your contact flight in the afternoon. After briefing, flying, and debriefing the contact flight, you're usually pretty worn out; but it doesn't stop there. Academics are still in full force, so we usually have to accomplish a computer based course on our down time in that 12 hour period. By the time ths is done, it's time to clean up the flight room and prepare for formal release at the 11 hour 40 minute mark...just in time to leave the building by 12 hours into the duty day. Yeah, it's a rush, and you usually have a sense of numbness after it's all done, but there's still dinner to be made (or microwaved!) and studying to be done before you hit the sack and repeat the process the next day. That's what the last several weeks have been like for 11-05, so now I'll rewind and get into some of what has specifically been happening these last few weeks.
Two weeks ago, I had my eyes opened...I think a lot of us did. If you recall, there was a T-6 incident that resulted in a solo student ejecting about a month or so ago. It brought a lot of attention, and safety became the focus for all T-6 pilots. Well, on Monday we almost had another major incident. A guy in my class came in to land on 17L at Vance after a successful Area solo. He entered the pattern normally, configured the aircraft for landing, and started his final turn to the runway. Little did he know his nosewheel was cocked to the right 6 degrees off centerline. We have a hydraulic system on-board that is responsible for keeping it centered when the aircraft is off the ground, but his wasn't working properly for whatever reason. After landing on his mains, he let the nose wheel contact the ground and was about to apply his brakes when the aircraft jolted suddenly to the right. He applied full left rudder when the aircraft lost traction and began to just drift as if it were on ice. His right main gear went off the runway by about a foot before the nosewheel finally centered itself and the T-6 began tracking again. The investigation showed that it was simply a maintenance fault, and the pilot did a superb job of keeping the aircraft on the runway as best he could. We dodged a bullet.
Tuesday, another friend of mine was Area solo when he entered a 4G loop and began to grey out. He unloaded the aircraft to prevent GLOC, but unfortunately the aircraft was pointed straight up and losing airspeed rapidly. He subsequently lost control of the aircraft and entered a power-on inverted spin. Luckily, he just happened to know the correct procedures for recovery and applied the correct control inputs. This is something we never practice because it should never happen. Unfortunately on Tuesday, the stars aligned and he had to get out of an inverted spin. It was an emergency because the engine isn't designed to go through the strains of a spin at any power setting above idle. He came back and told the supervisor of flying what happened - my guess is they took the aircraft off the line to make sure it was ok...we dodged another bulet.
Thursday was my Final Contact checkride. This is the last ride of the first half of T-6 training...I had to prove that I was capable and proficient in all my aerobatic maneuvers as well as some of the other "stalls and falls" that we do. I went into the flight fairly confident I would pass and do reasonably well, provided the winds would cooperate! We took off from Vance and headed out to the Area to get all my aerobatics out of the way. If I remember correctly, I just had to do a split-S, Cuban 8, and Lazy 8...the rest of the maneuvers were stalls and slow flight. After finishing up all of that, my IP stayed quiet like a normal check IP does and we headed off to Dogface (our Aux field) to do 2 landings. All I had to do was get a Simulated Force Landing down on the ground and a No-Flap landing. It wasn't supposed to be too hard.....we have almost 7,000 feet of runway at Dogface! I was excited at this point because I knew it wouldn't take long...just 2 landings and you're done!
I entered the pattern but had to quickly break out because there was a traffic conflict between us and another aircraft already established. I was the lower priority, so I flew to another entry point when I heard the most disturbing radio call I could possibly imagine. I heard "[unintelligble] 41, Canopy Blown, request closed!".... This instructor was shouting as loud as he could over the radio because all you could hear in the background was 160 mph winds and a 1100 shp turbo prop engine. There was no canopy to protect the crew from the heat off the exhaust stacks pointing straight at them, no protection from the brutal winds, and no way of knowing if the aircraft would be able to keep flying. At this point I was pointed back at the runway and could see the aircraft off the departure end of the runway. I could feel my own heartbeat in my ear from having heard what I thought was my Assistant flight commander's callsign. Bison 41 was my assistant flight comm's callsign, and I had just flown with him the day prior. Now I thouht I was watching him trying to fly a crippled aircraft back to the runway...probably ready to eject any moment. I was just waiting to see the parachutes....there was no way they were gonna bring this thing back! I would later learn that the wind was so strong, it was pushing the student's head down below the glareshield...a not so ideal body position for ejection. Had they ejected, he probably wouldn't have made it. So the only option really was to try and land it. We watched the plane limp it's way back onto the runway and could see emergency vehicles being dispatched from the fire department moments later. The entire time I was praying for them. They emergency ground egressed, and were transported to a hospital to be treated for some cuts they received after the canopy had shattered. At the time though, I couldn't tell if they had gotten out of the aircraft when we flew over the runway. All I could see was the T-6 on the runway, canopy rail still attached to the jet, but missing the transparency. I was definitely worried I had just witnessed my assistant flight commander and some other student in my class get severely injured. I would later learn it wasn't the case....this was a different crew from a different squadron.
Now that the emergency terminated on the runway at Dogface, the field was closed and we were forced to head back to Vance to get those landings in. I remember talking to myself, thinking "Alright, just calm down bro. If you're in combat, and you witness a friend of yours get shot down, you're gonna have to still keep your head on straight and finish the mission. That's what you gotta do here. Put it behind you and focus on what's ahead." I couldn't stop thinking about what I had just witnessed, and also started thinking about my own canopy. We didn't know what happened or what caused their canopy to come off, but I started to worry if it was some sort of maintenance problem. What was keeping my canopy on still?! I was definitely rattled, but kept flying towards Vance knowing what was waiting for me. When dogface closes, everyone is forced to do patterns either at Woodring or Vance. When it gets really busy at Vance, it takes 3 or 4 times as long to get your required landings in because everone tends to get in everyone else's way. The first landing I attempted was my SFL. I climbed to 3000 feet over the runway, reported my position, and began my turn back to the runway with a simulated dead engine. I thought I had my position nailed, but the 20 knot winds down the runway were pushing me away from usuable concrete...not good when power is not avaiable to get you back. I ended up coming up short and had to go around. I tried it again, only once more to come up short with the same problem...winds. At this point, I was really worried if my check IP would even pass me if I couldn't land an SFL within the first two tries. I knew I probably only had one more chance to get it right, so I climbed up to my position, pulled the power, and this time pointed the nose straight at the runway. There was no way I was going to come up short again! I kept it tight, and found myself 500 feet above the runway less than a quarter mile away. I rolled in all the flaps I had and slipped the aircraft down. Because of the winds, my groundspeed was really slow. We were descending but not going forward very far....we call it "riding the elevator." But since I flew it so tight, I was able to put it down on the runway...relieved but still afraid I wouldn't pass. I flew my last pattern and gave it to the check IP for the full-stop. Long story short, he still gave me an excellent overall even though my pattern work wasn't great. Praise the Lord...another checkride done!
Because of the week we had, T-6s were on stand down on Friday; leadership gave us a break from flying to think about all that has happened. It was an eye-opening experience for me. I realized how dangerous it really is to fly...even in the Air Force with top-notch maintenance and a good aircraft. I thought about how this event had affected me; it showed me the real cost of freedom. Yes, we lose brave men in combat on a weekly basis. But what about in training? The cuts and scrapes that crew received from their shattered canopy is a physical representation of the risk in training...thankfully it WAS only cuts and scrapes from shrapnel. It's a risk most Americans will never learn about. They'll never learn about those 45 seconds that crew had to fly while enduring the high winds from the propwash and heat from the exhaust. That's a fraction of the cost of what it takes to keep us free. Is it worth it? It's worth it enough for me to keep flying. Should people be a little more aware of the risks and sacrifices people endure to keep them free? We do what we do so that nobody else will ever have to know what it's like to witness something like that. I'm not saying people need to appreciate the military any more than they already do. I'm saying people should appreciate the freedom's they have more than they already do. I know I will.
In my mind, the same goes for freedom from sin. So often do I take for granted the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. But God used this experience to make the cross a little more real to me. He sent his Son to die on the cross and pay for my sins because there's nothing I can do that could possibly pay for them. I'll never know what that was like. God doesn't want me to...but what He does want for me is to appreciate that freedom from sin and use that freedom to come closer to Him.
This last week was mostly sims and academics. I had my first instrument flight on Wednesday...had a TON of fun! Instrument flying is a lot of work, but very rewarding. It's head game, and I'm looking forward to my cross country flight next weekend! Until next time....
Chris
John 15:13
Chris
Two weeks ago, I had my eyes opened...I think a lot of us did. If you recall, there was a T-6 incident that resulted in a solo student ejecting about a month or so ago. It brought a lot of attention, and safety became the focus for all T-6 pilots. Well, on Monday we almost had another major incident. A guy in my class came in to land on 17L at Vance after a successful Area solo. He entered the pattern normally, configured the aircraft for landing, and started his final turn to the runway. Little did he know his nosewheel was cocked to the right 6 degrees off centerline. We have a hydraulic system on-board that is responsible for keeping it centered when the aircraft is off the ground, but his wasn't working properly for whatever reason. After landing on his mains, he let the nose wheel contact the ground and was about to apply his brakes when the aircraft jolted suddenly to the right. He applied full left rudder when the aircraft lost traction and began to just drift as if it were on ice. His right main gear went off the runway by about a foot before the nosewheel finally centered itself and the T-6 began tracking again. The investigation showed that it was simply a maintenance fault, and the pilot did a superb job of keeping the aircraft on the runway as best he could. We dodged a bullet.
Tuesday, another friend of mine was Area solo when he entered a 4G loop and began to grey out. He unloaded the aircraft to prevent GLOC, but unfortunately the aircraft was pointed straight up and losing airspeed rapidly. He subsequently lost control of the aircraft and entered a power-on inverted spin. Luckily, he just happened to know the correct procedures for recovery and applied the correct control inputs. This is something we never practice because it should never happen. Unfortunately on Tuesday, the stars aligned and he had to get out of an inverted spin. It was an emergency because the engine isn't designed to go through the strains of a spin at any power setting above idle. He came back and told the supervisor of flying what happened - my guess is they took the aircraft off the line to make sure it was ok...we dodged another bulet.
Thursday was my Final Contact checkride. This is the last ride of the first half of T-6 training...I had to prove that I was capable and proficient in all my aerobatic maneuvers as well as some of the other "stalls and falls" that we do. I went into the flight fairly confident I would pass and do reasonably well, provided the winds would cooperate! We took off from Vance and headed out to the Area to get all my aerobatics out of the way. If I remember correctly, I just had to do a split-S, Cuban 8, and Lazy 8...the rest of the maneuvers were stalls and slow flight. After finishing up all of that, my IP stayed quiet like a normal check IP does and we headed off to Dogface (our Aux field) to do 2 landings. All I had to do was get a Simulated Force Landing down on the ground and a No-Flap landing. It wasn't supposed to be too hard.....we have almost 7,000 feet of runway at Dogface! I was excited at this point because I knew it wouldn't take long...just 2 landings and you're done!
I entered the pattern but had to quickly break out because there was a traffic conflict between us and another aircraft already established. I was the lower priority, so I flew to another entry point when I heard the most disturbing radio call I could possibly imagine. I heard "[unintelligble] 41, Canopy Blown, request closed!".... This instructor was shouting as loud as he could over the radio because all you could hear in the background was 160 mph winds and a 1100 shp turbo prop engine. There was no canopy to protect the crew from the heat off the exhaust stacks pointing straight at them, no protection from the brutal winds, and no way of knowing if the aircraft would be able to keep flying. At this point I was pointed back at the runway and could see the aircraft off the departure end of the runway. I could feel my own heartbeat in my ear from having heard what I thought was my Assistant flight commander's callsign. Bison 41 was my assistant flight comm's callsign, and I had just flown with him the day prior. Now I thouht I was watching him trying to fly a crippled aircraft back to the runway...probably ready to eject any moment. I was just waiting to see the parachutes....there was no way they were gonna bring this thing back! I would later learn that the wind was so strong, it was pushing the student's head down below the glareshield...a not so ideal body position for ejection. Had they ejected, he probably wouldn't have made it. So the only option really was to try and land it. We watched the plane limp it's way back onto the runway and could see emergency vehicles being dispatched from the fire department moments later. The entire time I was praying for them. They emergency ground egressed, and were transported to a hospital to be treated for some cuts they received after the canopy had shattered. At the time though, I couldn't tell if they had gotten out of the aircraft when we flew over the runway. All I could see was the T-6 on the runway, canopy rail still attached to the jet, but missing the transparency. I was definitely worried I had just witnessed my assistant flight commander and some other student in my class get severely injured. I would later learn it wasn't the case....this was a different crew from a different squadron.
Now that the emergency terminated on the runway at Dogface, the field was closed and we were forced to head back to Vance to get those landings in. I remember talking to myself, thinking "Alright, just calm down bro. If you're in combat, and you witness a friend of yours get shot down, you're gonna have to still keep your head on straight and finish the mission. That's what you gotta do here. Put it behind you and focus on what's ahead." I couldn't stop thinking about what I had just witnessed, and also started thinking about my own canopy. We didn't know what happened or what caused their canopy to come off, but I started to worry if it was some sort of maintenance problem. What was keeping my canopy on still?! I was definitely rattled, but kept flying towards Vance knowing what was waiting for me. When dogface closes, everyone is forced to do patterns either at Woodring or Vance. When it gets really busy at Vance, it takes 3 or 4 times as long to get your required landings in because everone tends to get in everyone else's way. The first landing I attempted was my SFL. I climbed to 3000 feet over the runway, reported my position, and began my turn back to the runway with a simulated dead engine. I thought I had my position nailed, but the 20 knot winds down the runway were pushing me away from usuable concrete...not good when power is not avaiable to get you back. I ended up coming up short and had to go around. I tried it again, only once more to come up short with the same problem...winds. At this point, I was really worried if my check IP would even pass me if I couldn't land an SFL within the first two tries. I knew I probably only had one more chance to get it right, so I climbed up to my position, pulled the power, and this time pointed the nose straight at the runway. There was no way I was going to come up short again! I kept it tight, and found myself 500 feet above the runway less than a quarter mile away. I rolled in all the flaps I had and slipped the aircraft down. Because of the winds, my groundspeed was really slow. We were descending but not going forward very far....we call it "riding the elevator." But since I flew it so tight, I was able to put it down on the runway...relieved but still afraid I wouldn't pass. I flew my last pattern and gave it to the check IP for the full-stop. Long story short, he still gave me an excellent overall even though my pattern work wasn't great. Praise the Lord...another checkride done!
Because of the week we had, T-6s were on stand down on Friday; leadership gave us a break from flying to think about all that has happened. It was an eye-opening experience for me. I realized how dangerous it really is to fly...even in the Air Force with top-notch maintenance and a good aircraft. I thought about how this event had affected me; it showed me the real cost of freedom. Yes, we lose brave men in combat on a weekly basis. But what about in training? The cuts and scrapes that crew received from their shattered canopy is a physical representation of the risk in training...thankfully it WAS only cuts and scrapes from shrapnel. It's a risk most Americans will never learn about. They'll never learn about those 45 seconds that crew had to fly while enduring the high winds from the propwash and heat from the exhaust. That's a fraction of the cost of what it takes to keep us free. Is it worth it? It's worth it enough for me to keep flying. Should people be a little more aware of the risks and sacrifices people endure to keep them free? We do what we do so that nobody else will ever have to know what it's like to witness something like that. I'm not saying people need to appreciate the military any more than they already do. I'm saying people should appreciate the freedom's they have more than they already do. I know I will.
In my mind, the same goes for freedom from sin. So often do I take for granted the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. But God used this experience to make the cross a little more real to me. He sent his Son to die on the cross and pay for my sins because there's nothing I can do that could possibly pay for them. I'll never know what that was like. God doesn't want me to...but what He does want for me is to appreciate that freedom from sin and use that freedom to come closer to Him.
This last week was mostly sims and academics. I had my first instrument flight on Wednesday...had a TON of fun! Instrument flying is a lot of work, but very rewarding. It's head game, and I'm looking forward to my cross country flight next weekend! Until next time....
Chris
John 15:13
Chris
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Trying to stay on top of things
Picture of me after my initial pattern solo.
Initial solo takeoff on Vance Runway 17R
Taxiing out by myself for the first time!
Trying to stay focused after the dual portion of my initial solo
Strapping into the jet for the dual portion of my initial solo.
Sorry it's been a couple weeks since my last update! The past couple weeks have been pretty busy but also very productive.
Two weeks ago, I recovered from my weird stomach virus and started flying again, preparing for my first checkride in the T-6. The "Midphase Check" is designed to test our abilities to safely fly the aircraft in the pattern and prform certain maneuvers in the practice areas. It has a deceiving name because it's not really in the middle of the T-6 program...it's only the first of four checkrides we have to go through. Most of the flights leading up to the check kept me fairly confident in my abilities to pass the checkride, although my poor performance during my initial solo flight was still lingering in the back of my mind. For whatever reason, my initial solo had me rattled; it was just one of those days where my hands weren't talking to my brain, and vice versa. Again, it was a plenty safe flight, but not quite as nice as what I'm used to. That's what makes pilot training...pilot training. There are so many variables that can affect your performance...one little gust of wind can turn a great landing into a near catastrophe if you let it. However, like I said, most of my flights a couple weeks ago were rather assuring.
During the week, I watched other members of my flight go through the checkride - we had several who failed due to problems with their pubs. Pubs are written documents that govern how we fly...kind of the "rules of the road." Often there are updates that need to be written into the documents. If they are not updated, there's no written proof that shows you are abiding with the new publicaitons. It's a technicality that cannot be overlooked when preparing for a checkride.
To prevent this from happening to me, I sat down with some friends that had the updated pubs, and went page by page through all my documents and ensured they were up to speed. It's a tedious process, but necessary to make sure I didn't fail for something so simple as a pubs problem.
Monday afternoon at about 3pm was my scheduled takeoff time for my checkride. All flights in the morning were cancelled for weather, and we weren't exactly sure if we were gonna get clear skies in time. My check IP and I briefed like normal, but he sent me back to my flight room to wait for further word as to whether we were going to launch. The time when we were supposed to walk out to the jet (step time) came and passed, but T-6s were still in a no-go status. For about 10 minutes I thought I was given an extra day to study, but we soon found out there was a clearing line in the clouds forming. T-6s were given a "go" status and the schedulers gave us new takeoff times for all our checkrides (I was one of 5 checkrides in our flight that day). So I went from thinking I had another 24 hours to prepare for my first checkride to having to gathering all my in-flight pubs together and stepping to a new jet in about 10 minutes. Lesson learned: you always have to be prepared to go no matter what external factors exist. All you can control in pilot training is yourself, so make sure you're ready for whatever may come your way....
We took-off and had a pretty normal flight until I finished all my maneuvers in the area. My last maneuver was slow flight where we have our landing gear and flaps extended. I finished the maneuver, brought up the landing gear, but forgot to make a VERY important cockpit call-out that verifies the gear actually was raised. This type of mistake was the same mistake people would hook flights for in earlier missions. This type of mistake was what I knew I could hook for, and would probably be one of the only reasons I could reasonably hook a checkride for. The IP asked me for the gear confirmation, to which I quickly replied "Gear up, flaps up, lights out by 150 knots." It was a costly mistake that I was sure would hook me. I couldn't believe it. All this work and preparation, and I was probably going to hook the ride for a simple sentence I forgot to say. Checkride IPs are not allowed to say what mistakes you made until after the evaluation is complete, so I knew I wouldn't hear whether or not that made any difference in my grade until after I was on the ground. I did my best to put the mistake behind me, but it was a tall order.
The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful....I returned to Vance and landed, got a drink of water, then waited outside my IPs office for the ground evaluation. While sitting there on the couches, I couldn't help but think about that mistake I made. I knew I would fail, have to go onto a progress check (what we call an "88" ride)....not even sure if I could pass that! If I wash out of pilot training, there's very little incentive for the Air Force to keep me especially with the budget cuts we've been going through. All this was floating through my mind as I sat there on the couch for what seemed like an eternity. My IP finally called me into his office, I said a quick prayer, and then I went into the ground eval. In the ground eval, the IP asks general knowledge questions and gives you an Emergency situation which you have to talk your way through. Both parts of the eval went fairly well....I HAD to make up for my mistakes earlier.
Long story short, he NEVER MENTIONED the gear confirmation problem. He talked about the flight, made several comments about some areas I can clean up, but never mentioned what I thought I knew was going to hook me. When he said "Excellent overall!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was saved! I passed, and scored one of the two excellents in the flight. Wow....
It was a lesson in how much God really does have in His control...and how little I have in my control. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a checkride thinking you hooked it...keep flying and pushing forward! You never know the final grade until the end.
Tuesday I celebrated my checkride by flying in the morning with an IP who never flew with a student before! Itw as a blast...I think we both enjoyed it. He showed me some new aerobatics like the cuban-8, immelman, lazy 8, and a few others. In the afternoon, I had my first area solo where they let me take an airplane by myself out to an area to practice the aerobatics alone! It was an absolute blast! I did the same thing again Wednesday morning, but never flew again the rest of the week because of weather constraints. Friday was a welcome end to a long and stressful week.
I wish I could blog a little more, but I'm afraid I need to get back into the books before tomorrrow! We're learning all there is to know about instruments and navigation flying...we'll be picking up instrument flying after our "Final Contact" checkride which will likely be the end of this week. Thanks for the prayers....God Bless!
Chris
Psalm 1
Two weeks ago, I recovered from my weird stomach virus and started flying again, preparing for my first checkride in the T-6. The "Midphase Check" is designed to test our abilities to safely fly the aircraft in the pattern and prform certain maneuvers in the practice areas. It has a deceiving name because it's not really in the middle of the T-6 program...it's only the first of four checkrides we have to go through. Most of the flights leading up to the check kept me fairly confident in my abilities to pass the checkride, although my poor performance during my initial solo flight was still lingering in the back of my mind. For whatever reason, my initial solo had me rattled; it was just one of those days where my hands weren't talking to my brain, and vice versa. Again, it was a plenty safe flight, but not quite as nice as what I'm used to. That's what makes pilot training...pilot training. There are so many variables that can affect your performance...one little gust of wind can turn a great landing into a near catastrophe if you let it. However, like I said, most of my flights a couple weeks ago were rather assuring.
During the week, I watched other members of my flight go through the checkride - we had several who failed due to problems with their pubs. Pubs are written documents that govern how we fly...kind of the "rules of the road." Often there are updates that need to be written into the documents. If they are not updated, there's no written proof that shows you are abiding with the new publicaitons. It's a technicality that cannot be overlooked when preparing for a checkride.
To prevent this from happening to me, I sat down with some friends that had the updated pubs, and went page by page through all my documents and ensured they were up to speed. It's a tedious process, but necessary to make sure I didn't fail for something so simple as a pubs problem.
Monday afternoon at about 3pm was my scheduled takeoff time for my checkride. All flights in the morning were cancelled for weather, and we weren't exactly sure if we were gonna get clear skies in time. My check IP and I briefed like normal, but he sent me back to my flight room to wait for further word as to whether we were going to launch. The time when we were supposed to walk out to the jet (step time) came and passed, but T-6s were still in a no-go status. For about 10 minutes I thought I was given an extra day to study, but we soon found out there was a clearing line in the clouds forming. T-6s were given a "go" status and the schedulers gave us new takeoff times for all our checkrides (I was one of 5 checkrides in our flight that day). So I went from thinking I had another 24 hours to prepare for my first checkride to having to gathering all my in-flight pubs together and stepping to a new jet in about 10 minutes. Lesson learned: you always have to be prepared to go no matter what external factors exist. All you can control in pilot training is yourself, so make sure you're ready for whatever may come your way....
We took-off and had a pretty normal flight until I finished all my maneuvers in the area. My last maneuver was slow flight where we have our landing gear and flaps extended. I finished the maneuver, brought up the landing gear, but forgot to make a VERY important cockpit call-out that verifies the gear actually was raised. This type of mistake was the same mistake people would hook flights for in earlier missions. This type of mistake was what I knew I could hook for, and would probably be one of the only reasons I could reasonably hook a checkride for. The IP asked me for the gear confirmation, to which I quickly replied "Gear up, flaps up, lights out by 150 knots." It was a costly mistake that I was sure would hook me. I couldn't believe it. All this work and preparation, and I was probably going to hook the ride for a simple sentence I forgot to say. Checkride IPs are not allowed to say what mistakes you made until after the evaluation is complete, so I knew I wouldn't hear whether or not that made any difference in my grade until after I was on the ground. I did my best to put the mistake behind me, but it was a tall order.
The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful....I returned to Vance and landed, got a drink of water, then waited outside my IPs office for the ground evaluation. While sitting there on the couches, I couldn't help but think about that mistake I made. I knew I would fail, have to go onto a progress check (what we call an "88" ride)....not even sure if I could pass that! If I wash out of pilot training, there's very little incentive for the Air Force to keep me especially with the budget cuts we've been going through. All this was floating through my mind as I sat there on the couch for what seemed like an eternity. My IP finally called me into his office, I said a quick prayer, and then I went into the ground eval. In the ground eval, the IP asks general knowledge questions and gives you an Emergency situation which you have to talk your way through. Both parts of the eval went fairly well....I HAD to make up for my mistakes earlier.
Long story short, he NEVER MENTIONED the gear confirmation problem. He talked about the flight, made several comments about some areas I can clean up, but never mentioned what I thought I knew was going to hook me. When he said "Excellent overall!" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was saved! I passed, and scored one of the two excellents in the flight. Wow....
It was a lesson in how much God really does have in His control...and how little I have in my control. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a checkride thinking you hooked it...keep flying and pushing forward! You never know the final grade until the end.
Tuesday I celebrated my checkride by flying in the morning with an IP who never flew with a student before! Itw as a blast...I think we both enjoyed it. He showed me some new aerobatics like the cuban-8, immelman, lazy 8, and a few others. In the afternoon, I had my first area solo where they let me take an airplane by myself out to an area to practice the aerobatics alone! It was an absolute blast! I did the same thing again Wednesday morning, but never flew again the rest of the week because of weather constraints. Friday was a welcome end to a long and stressful week.
I wish I could blog a little more, but I'm afraid I need to get back into the books before tomorrrow! We're learning all there is to know about instruments and navigation flying...we'll be picking up instrument flying after our "Final Contact" checkride which will likely be the end of this week. Thanks for the prayers....God Bless!
Chris
Psalm 1
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Solo, Stomach Virus week
This week is one I'm trying to put behind me and move on from! Weather forced my solo from Monday morning to Monday afternoon. After briefing with my IP, we suited up and stepped to the jet early. Everything felt pretty normal up until takeoff. After I got off the ground, my hands and my head just didn't feel like talking to each other. Nothing I did was unsafe, but sometimes I came close to doing some pretty stupid things. All of my landings with the exception of my last one were definitely "firm" which is pretty unusual for me. The whole time I was pretty frustrated with myself wondering why I couldn't fly this jet like I usually do. All my IPs, including this one in the past, have all marveled at my basic aircraft control. But Monday brought along the ugliest flying I've had to date. Nevertheless, after the dual-portion of the solo, my IP told me to sit tight while he unbuckled and sent me on my way solo! I have pics I'll try uploading a friend of mine took of me while I was on the ground. It was quite an experience to take a 4 million dollar airplane up in the air by yourself...gotta say I was a little bit nervous! But despite the jitters, one of my friends later told me he saw me land while he waited to take off and said I "greased it in"...(ie, smooth landing). If I did, I don't remember it, haha!
After landing, post-flighting, and getting thrown in the solo tank (which feels good after sweating for over an hour), I started feeling queezy and cramped up. Our flight soon got released and I went home and went straight to bed after trying to down some chicken noodle soup. About an hour later, I learned how painful it is to throw up chicken noodle soup! If you've never done it, I wouldn't recommend it, haha! I spent the rest of the night traveling to and from my bed and my toilet, "crapping puke and puking crap." The next day I went to sick call and saw a doctor who found it amusing I was "leaking at both ends." Gotta always find the humor in everything.... He gave me an IV for about an hour because my heart rate was slightly elevated from being dehydrated. The rest of Tuesday was much of the same...traveling to and from the bathroom and bed. Wednesday came and I felt slightly better, and by Thursday I was good enough to return to work. I got off of DNIF (Duty Not Including Flying) and was cleared to fly a couple sims. I'm quite a bit behind in the realm of Academics, but my flight commander and I worked out a schedule to get me caught up by the end of this week.
Even though it was a bit of a downer week, God has been really good to me and I've been able to use a little bit of the down time to spend more time with Him. At this point in pilot training, I really don't know what track I should go down (if I were to have a choice in the first place), but I'm confident in the fact God has His hand on my life and will steer me where I need to go. I don't know if it was the illness or something else, but I've been steadily realizing recently that there's more to life than flying in the Air Force (no kidding sherlock!). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE flying, LOVE my job, I love the flight I'm in, and love the fact I get to live out my childhood dreams. But even in doing so, God has been showing me that there's more to life outside of a career. And that is a big reason why I'm not sure what track I should go down right now. Granted, I have PLENTY of time to think about it because we won't actually track select until the end of July. But my decisions now will have an impact on the rest of my life and on my future family's lives as well (God-willing). Plenty of things to think about, but I can rest in the truth that God is in control and knows exactly what I need to do to fulfill His will, not mine.
God Bless!
Chris
Proverbs 16:9
After landing, post-flighting, and getting thrown in the solo tank (which feels good after sweating for over an hour), I started feeling queezy and cramped up. Our flight soon got released and I went home and went straight to bed after trying to down some chicken noodle soup. About an hour later, I learned how painful it is to throw up chicken noodle soup! If you've never done it, I wouldn't recommend it, haha! I spent the rest of the night traveling to and from my bed and my toilet, "crapping puke and puking crap." The next day I went to sick call and saw a doctor who found it amusing I was "leaking at both ends." Gotta always find the humor in everything.... He gave me an IV for about an hour because my heart rate was slightly elevated from being dehydrated. The rest of Tuesday was much of the same...traveling to and from the bathroom and bed. Wednesday came and I felt slightly better, and by Thursday I was good enough to return to work. I got off of DNIF (Duty Not Including Flying) and was cleared to fly a couple sims. I'm quite a bit behind in the realm of Academics, but my flight commander and I worked out a schedule to get me caught up by the end of this week.
Even though it was a bit of a downer week, God has been really good to me and I've been able to use a little bit of the down time to spend more time with Him. At this point in pilot training, I really don't know what track I should go down (if I were to have a choice in the first place), but I'm confident in the fact God has His hand on my life and will steer me where I need to go. I don't know if it was the illness or something else, but I've been steadily realizing recently that there's more to life than flying in the Air Force (no kidding sherlock!). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE flying, LOVE my job, I love the flight I'm in, and love the fact I get to live out my childhood dreams. But even in doing so, God has been showing me that there's more to life outside of a career. And that is a big reason why I'm not sure what track I should go down right now. Granted, I have PLENTY of time to think about it because we won't actually track select until the end of July. But my decisions now will have an impact on the rest of my life and on my future family's lives as well (God-willing). Plenty of things to think about, but I can rest in the truth that God is in control and knows exactly what I need to do to fulfill His will, not mine.
God Bless!
Chris
Proverbs 16:9
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Week 9-10
The past couple weeks have been a little crazy. I flew both on Monday and Tuesday of last week, Tuesday being my "pattern-only sortie". The pattern only sortie gave me a chance to fine turne my pattern procedures which I will need to have down cold before I take the airplane by myself during my "solo." Both flights went pretty well, and I felt like I have a pretty good handle on the landing characteristics of the T-6 after my pattern only. Unfortunately, little did I know that I wouldn't see the inside of the cockpit again until 8 days later. Wednesday and Thursday I wasn't scheduled for flying at all. I completed my last emergency procedures simulator ride on Wednesday morning, but wasn't scheduled for any events on Thursday. Friday, I was scheduled to fly in the early afternoon, but a T-6 pilot ejected and precluded anyone from flying. For more, you can go to www.vance.af.mil for more information.
Due to a combination of scheduling and weather, I didn't get back into the aircraft again until this past Thursday and Friday. Both flights went very well, especially considering how long it had been since I had last flown. But I can't slow down the level of studying I need to do. I have my solo flight on Monday morning, then my first checkride only about 4 rides afterwards. On top of this, we as a class have started instrument academics and simulators, so I could be double-turning from a flight to a class or a flight to a sim to another flight in one day. Monday morning, we have our first instruments test before I fly solo. This will probably be the busiest time in phase II since we have to balance academics, simulators, and flying all at once. It'll take some thinking ahead, but we should be able to manage.
I wish I could update more. We've been restricted on what we can say about last Friday's incident, and I've been pretty busy and stressed with all the events of pilot training in recent weeks. Every day has something new for us, so it's never a dull moment. I still absolutely love the flying, but it can be a little stressful to try to stay on top of everything we are responsible for. The good news is we are now officially finished with the 15 day program! One milestone down, plenty more to go! It's tough to convey what the day to day experience really is like on this blog. Maybe I'll spend a little more time next weekend explaining what the day to day ops typically look like now.
Next week will be spent taking my first instruments test on Monday followed by my solo flight later in the morning, then preparing for my first checkride known as "Mid-Phase" checkride. Very important and busy week; hopefully the weather will hold out!
Chris
Due to a combination of scheduling and weather, I didn't get back into the aircraft again until this past Thursday and Friday. Both flights went very well, especially considering how long it had been since I had last flown. But I can't slow down the level of studying I need to do. I have my solo flight on Monday morning, then my first checkride only about 4 rides afterwards. On top of this, we as a class have started instrument academics and simulators, so I could be double-turning from a flight to a class or a flight to a sim to another flight in one day. Monday morning, we have our first instruments test before I fly solo. This will probably be the busiest time in phase II since we have to balance academics, simulators, and flying all at once. It'll take some thinking ahead, but we should be able to manage.
I wish I could update more. We've been restricted on what we can say about last Friday's incident, and I've been pretty busy and stressed with all the events of pilot training in recent weeks. Every day has something new for us, so it's never a dull moment. I still absolutely love the flying, but it can be a little stressful to try to stay on top of everything we are responsible for. The good news is we are now officially finished with the 15 day program! One milestone down, plenty more to go! It's tough to convey what the day to day experience really is like on this blog. Maybe I'll spend a little more time next weekend explaining what the day to day ops typically look like now.
Next week will be spent taking my first instruments test on Monday followed by my solo flight later in the morning, then preparing for my first checkride known as "Mid-Phase" checkride. Very important and busy week; hopefully the weather will hold out!
Chris
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Week 9
Monday and Tuesday were both great weather days for flying. Clear skies, plenty of horizon, and not too many bad gusts of wind. The profiles I flew were both pretty similar to what I've been doing. Go out to the practice area, practice full stalls, traffic pattern stalls, emergency landing pattern stalls (ELP stalls), slow flight, and recoveries from unusual attitudes. Then we would go to another airport (either dogface or a civilian airport just next to Vance called Woodring) and practice different types of landings and visual approaches. I think it was Tuesday I got to see my first spin in the T-6. A spin is where you stall the airplane so it can't fly, but you induce a yawing motion so the aircraft will continue to flat-spin until you recover (remember Top Gun....spinning out to sea??) Anyways, the IP demoed the first one, then let me try the second. It's like you're in control of your own rollercoaster ride...and you don't even have to stand in line :-).
Wednesday was a little more exciting than what I had anticipated. I briefed the flight with my IP in the morning just as we had done in the earlier two flights, even though the weather wasn't that great. We suited up in our harnesses and Gsuits at life support, then humped it out to the jet for our pre-flight inspection. This time, the IP let me strap in while he did the exterior walk-around...again, because we wanted to beat the impending thunderstorm that was on its way. After getting everything hooked up in the cockpit, we closed the canopy and started it up, just like every other flight. While taxiing, we went through our last "brief" which we call R-NEWS (RAIM, NAVAIDS, EMERGENCIES, WEATHER, SID). The most important of those is the weather and emergencies checks. We look at the weather and determine what we would do in case of an in-flight emergency near the airport. We go into more detail with this brief an hour prior to the flight in the squadron, but we also discuss a little while in the aircraft. On this particular day, in case of an engine failure the clouds would have prevented us from climbing to our "high key" or the top part of our emergency landing pattern we fly when we don't have an engine. This usually isn't a problem, since there are other ways to intercept an ELP, so we kept going wtih the flight.
After takeoff, I brought up the gear and started a turn to crosswind to keep us in the pattern at Vance. When we got on downwind, my IP asked me if I heard a noise. I kept very quiet on the radio for about 5 seconds, when I could start to hear a metallic "ringing" noise, albeit very muffled. I told my IP I also heard it, when he asked me where it was. As I leaned forward to try to tell, it got louder, meaning it was in front of my position. I told him it was in front of me, and not a second later, he took control of the aircraft and pulled us into an abrupt turning climb to intercept the ELP below high key just as I briefed on the taxiway. We declared an emergency and got traffic priority for an immediate landing on Runway 35R, the closest piece of concrete to us. We climbed well over 1,000 feet above the normal traffic pattern altitude just in case we lost our engine in the process of trying to land. This type of procedure is something they harp on us and beat into our heads, and now I finally see why. From the moment we declared an emergency to the time we shut down the engine and had firefighters on our wing was probably less than two minutes. It only took about 90 seconds to climb, intercept our ELP, drop the gear and line up on runway centerline to put it down, then use our remaining energy to taxi clear of the runway. We shut the engine down as soon as we were clear of 35R and started going through normal post-flight procedures. My IP stressed to me how important it is to do all the normal checks even slower than normal during an emergency, because it's easy to overlook something easy and simple when you're all hyped up on adrenaline. As it turns out, our "emergency" might not have been anything more than a loose screw on my rudder pedals making a high pitch noise that sounded like an engine problem. But it's better to play it safe than lose the one and only engine you have on the aircraft.
So, I'm officially the first in our class to have an in-flight emergency in the T-6...lucky me ;-). Thank God it didn't turn out to be anything serious, but if it had been an actual engine problem, we were always in a great position to put the aircraft down with plenty of runway to spare. That's what training now will do to prepare us for the day when we have a real problem and we're the only ones in the plane to solve it. Hopefully that won't happen again any time soon :-).
Thanks for the prayers...got a big week ahead. I might be able to solo on Friday if I fly every day this week. If not, I will be soloing early next week. Take care!
Chris
Joshua 1:8-9
Wednesday was a little more exciting than what I had anticipated. I briefed the flight with my IP in the morning just as we had done in the earlier two flights, even though the weather wasn't that great. We suited up in our harnesses and Gsuits at life support, then humped it out to the jet for our pre-flight inspection. This time, the IP let me strap in while he did the exterior walk-around...again, because we wanted to beat the impending thunderstorm that was on its way. After getting everything hooked up in the cockpit, we closed the canopy and started it up, just like every other flight. While taxiing, we went through our last "brief" which we call R-NEWS (RAIM, NAVAIDS, EMERGENCIES, WEATHER, SID). The most important of those is the weather and emergencies checks. We look at the weather and determine what we would do in case of an in-flight emergency near the airport. We go into more detail with this brief an hour prior to the flight in the squadron, but we also discuss a little while in the aircraft. On this particular day, in case of an engine failure the clouds would have prevented us from climbing to our "high key" or the top part of our emergency landing pattern we fly when we don't have an engine. This usually isn't a problem, since there are other ways to intercept an ELP, so we kept going wtih the flight.
After takeoff, I brought up the gear and started a turn to crosswind to keep us in the pattern at Vance. When we got on downwind, my IP asked me if I heard a noise. I kept very quiet on the radio for about 5 seconds, when I could start to hear a metallic "ringing" noise, albeit very muffled. I told my IP I also heard it, when he asked me where it was. As I leaned forward to try to tell, it got louder, meaning it was in front of my position. I told him it was in front of me, and not a second later, he took control of the aircraft and pulled us into an abrupt turning climb to intercept the ELP below high key just as I briefed on the taxiway. We declared an emergency and got traffic priority for an immediate landing on Runway 35R, the closest piece of concrete to us. We climbed well over 1,000 feet above the normal traffic pattern altitude just in case we lost our engine in the process of trying to land. This type of procedure is something they harp on us and beat into our heads, and now I finally see why. From the moment we declared an emergency to the time we shut down the engine and had firefighters on our wing was probably less than two minutes. It only took about 90 seconds to climb, intercept our ELP, drop the gear and line up on runway centerline to put it down, then use our remaining energy to taxi clear of the runway. We shut the engine down as soon as we were clear of 35R and started going through normal post-flight procedures. My IP stressed to me how important it is to do all the normal checks even slower than normal during an emergency, because it's easy to overlook something easy and simple when you're all hyped up on adrenaline. As it turns out, our "emergency" might not have been anything more than a loose screw on my rudder pedals making a high pitch noise that sounded like an engine problem. But it's better to play it safe than lose the one and only engine you have on the aircraft.
So, I'm officially the first in our class to have an in-flight emergency in the T-6...lucky me ;-). Thank God it didn't turn out to be anything serious, but if it had been an actual engine problem, we were always in a great position to put the aircraft down with plenty of runway to spare. That's what training now will do to prepare us for the day when we have a real problem and we're the only ones in the plane to solve it. Hopefully that won't happen again any time soon :-).
Thanks for the prayers...got a big week ahead. I might be able to solo on Friday if I fly every day this week. If not, I will be soloing early next week. Take care!
Chris
Joshua 1:8-9
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