Done With BFM

It doesn't seem that long ago I had just finished my qualification checkride and was all pumped to let you guys know I had been cleared solo in the Viper. Well, here I am already done with OBFM and DBFM (dogfighting)! For those of you who have forgotten what those stand for, it's offensive and defensive basic fighter maneuvers. The flying is set up to start a "fight" either behind the bad guy at about 1.5 miles or with him behind you. The objective from the "fights on" call is to maneuver into a position to take both simulated missile (AIM-9 and AIM-120) and gun shots while on offense, or to fly in such a way as to keep the bad guy from doing the same to you when on defense. We had four rides in both the offensive and defensive phases with the forth being what they called a demonstrate proficiency flight. We have to show the IP the other jet in these air-to-air flights that we're able to execute the tactics they've taught us well enough to move on in training. Thankfully both my demo prof rides went well! We're learning these basic building blocks so that we can build on them in more difficult phases of training, one which is called Tactical Intercepts (TI). This is the next phase of my training and we'll be using our on board radar to run intercepts on the "bad" guys. In short, we'll start beyond visual range (BVR) and end up maneuvering our jets in such as way so that we arrive at a picture familiar to what we saw in the two previous phases of training...hopefully it's the offensive picture! We'll start 1 vs. 1 and move on into more complicated formation attacks such as 4 vs. 4.

Almost two weeks ago now, we also had our naming ceremony and solo party. Of course, the naming for a fighter pilot is a pretty big deal, so the squadron has a big ceremony where a lot of things take place...most of which are highly classified and I'd have to kill if you if I told you... Needless to say, after a lot of being made fun of and eating some very disgusting things I was given the callsign "TRUMP." It's a long story, but it has to do with a real estate purchase I didn't go through with and therefore was threatened to be sued...nothing has come of it. So, since Donald Trump is a huge real estate investor and people try to sue him for his money, the guys in the squadron thought "TRUMP" would fit well. I think it's pretty funny, and at least my name didn't come from something I did crazy while flying.

Besides soloing the Viper, probably the coolest thing I've done in the jet is meet up with a tanker earlier this week. At the beginning of a DBFM ride, we hit a refueling track and got gas from a KC-10 out of Travis AFB, CA. It was an awesome time. We rolled in behind this huge tanker, made radio contact and pulled into the precontact position. The precontact position is about 50 ft directly behind and slightly below the tanker. When I was ready I made the call, "SCAR 02, stabilized and ready" to which the boomer replied, "SCAR 02, you're cleared contact." I slowly pushed up the power and moved forward towards the boom, flying slightly to the side. The F-16's air refueling door is directly behind the cockpit, so it was up to the boomer to fly the boom to the receptacle and plug in after it was past my peripheral vision. Once I felt the small shudder telling me I had made contact, I then shifted my attention to the director lights on the belly of the aircraft. Two rows of lights tell the guy getting gas to go up, down, forward or aft. I was able to get all 2500# of gas without falling off the boom my first try. After disconnecting, I tried some dry connects for practice and fell too far aft a couple times and lost connection...it'll get better with more practice. All that matters is I did well enough to be clear to the tanker solo!

In a little over a month from now I'll be getting into the air-to-ground phase of training. We'll get to shoot a live gun and drop live bombs a couple times, so there's some awesome stuff yet to come!