First Time Supersonic

This past week I had my first chance to go supersonic...the best part is I was solo! I was flying a 1 vs. 1 intercept ride (I know, Greek to most of you =) and had the chance to light the afterburnner and reach mach 1.1. In the jet of course you don't hear the sonic boom, but since we were flying in the far South parts of AZ I'm sure some Mexican's trying the sneak across the border into the US gave it a second thought...they probably thought they were being bombed or something. HAHA! The only way you can tell in the jet is some of the needles on your instruments bounce a little bit while the shockwave reaches the pitot boom. I'm retarded and didn't think to look back to try and see a condensation cloud from the shockwave...oh well, next time! The speed of sound is something like 700 miles an hour depending upon the temperature of the air and altitude you're flying at.

This week went well and was a lot of fun...as always. The further we get into training, the more I realize I have to learn. Funny how that's pretty much life when you're not the one ultimately in control of things. Flying and being in formation when you need to be is becoming more second nature...but learning to use all the sensors on the jet efficiently is going to take time like I've said before. But, I could be flipping burgers somewhere (no offense to those that do...) but I'm flying the coolest fighter out there and training in the best country there is! God's totally given me the good end of the deal!

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!

Viper Qualification Checkride (Form 8)

Well, I officially have my F-16 "driver's" license...I passed my initial qualification checkride this past Wednesday with zero downgrades! The checkride was solo again with a chase aircraft following me around as I went through my profile for the flight. While the IP was chasing me, he was taking notes on any big mistakes made during the maneuvers and instrument approaches that might have be worthy of a downgrade. Thankfully I was flying well and none of the minor things I did bought me any hits...sweet! Now that I've been checked out in the Viper, I can fly solo without a dude looking over my shoulder from about 1000 ft away watching every move I make. Also, as I mentioned before I'm cleared to fly in the weather down to minimums of 700 ft for the cloud base and 2 miles in flight visibility.

Next week we start into the fun stuff...the air-to-air BFM phase of training. The first ride of the phase is with a backseater, and the rest are solo. It's going to be an awesome time learning how to use this machine to bring the hurt on anyone who wants to try and bring his game to the table! It's going to be a lot more involved compared to the little bit of BFM we did in IFF when you add in the radar and other systems you have at your fingertips...literally. Almost all of the switches and buttons you need to shoot and kill another guy or drop a bomb on target are all on the throttle and stick. They call it hands on throttle and stick (HOTAS). That way it keeps your eyes from getting locked down in the cockpit causing you to lose sight of the bandit or situational awareness of what's going on in the fight. It's going to take me awhile to get good at all of this, but it's a really good program of building on skills one step at a time. I'll get back with you guys when I have some cool news from the air-to-air phase of training!

Viper SOLO!

The coolest thing I've ever done in life was solo the F-16 Viper this past Wednesday! I said it was hard to explain the feeling of running the show from the front seat of a two seat trainer (F-16D)...well, trying to explain the feeling of running the show in a single seat Viper (F-16C) is even more impossible! With it only being my fifth flight in the jet, I had to admit I had a lot of what I've called before on my site the "pre-game jitters." You know the anxiousness you feel before a big sports event or something like that. But, once I sat my butt down in the seat of the jet it was "game time." On these solo flights, we have an IP in a chase aircraft fly about 1000 ft. off our wing as a safety observer. He's also in an F-16C...basically the only difference between the D and C model is one or two seats. After making our way to the jets, my IP and I did our preflight, finished our ground ops and then I checked my IP in on the radios after engine start. Once we had taxi clearance to the runway, we were off to have some fun...soon we switched to tower frequency and took the runway for takeoff. As we taxied into position, I centered my jet on my half and my IP centered his jet up on his half of the runway. My IP gave me a head nod signaling he was ready for takeoff, and I returned the run-up signal to check engine operation before releasing brakes. With both our engines working well, I selected afterburner did my takeoff being thrown back in the seat as the afterburner lit! Fifteen seconds later, my IP released brakes and soon had rejoined to the chase position off my left wing. While enroute to the airspace, I selected autopilot and just took a few minutes to take in the sites...I could hardly believe I was flying the F-16 solo! I always feel that my situational awareness goes up a ton when flying solo because there's no one to fall back on without a backseater...what a great feeling!

After we entered our assigned airspace, we flew some formation and acrobatics. Those maneuvers didn't take too long, and we were soon headed back to the pattern for some landings and simulated flameout (SFO) practice. Since the F-16 has one engine, the mindset we have is a lot different like explained before...we're always aware of the closest runway in case our engine quits and we have to glide in for an emergency landing. The SFO is practiced to prepare us for the unfortunate day something like that would happen. I've flown about 10 or so SFO's so far, and I'm getting the hang of it and feel confident that if needed I could put the jet on the ground safely if at a point to do so.

I also had another solo flight today. I planned up an instrument ride down to Davis Monthan AFB in Tuscan, AZ where they have the A-10 FTU. It was pretty cool to fly down there and see the Air Force's bone yard where they send all the retired aircraft and shrink wrap them or use them for spare parts. While on final for one of my approaches, I had a two ship of A-10's fly over about 500 ft above me. Another thing that's cool is there are some pretty tall mountains just to the north of the airfield. So, as we (myself and the IP in the chase aircraft) flew into the area I could look over my shoulder and my IP and I were below the peaks...an awesome site! This flight was obviously somewhere I had never been before, which that can be interesting sometimes being unfamiliar with the area. But, thankfully everything went well. I have one more solo flight before my checkride next Tuesday, which is also solo...I'm liking all the solo time we're going to get. After all, we're training to fly a single seat, single engine aircraft that kicks some serious butt! OK, it's time for me to shower and meet the buds for dinner. Check six and fly safe!

F-16 Solo Flight on Wednesday!

Wow, this job rocks! I've only had three flights in the front seat and will be going solo on flight number five! It's almost impossible to explain the feeling I've had actually running the show from the front seat...the best thing in the world! The cockpit is set up perfectly and it wraps around you as you sit in the seat. The F-16 has what they call a bubble canopy, so there no canopy rail obscuring your vision like in the T-38! The visibility is great. Up to this point the flying has been pretty basic stuff just like with any other flying program. We're working on ground ops, take-offs and landings, area work to get a feel for how the thing flies and then instrument approaches...usually three per flight before hitting the overhead pattern for some touch-n-gos. This is also preparation for our Form 8 checkride, which checks us out in the jet and allows us to fly solo in the clouds if needed down to minimums of 700-2 (700 ft above ground level and 2 miles visibility). There are a few parts that make up the Form 8. The first part is testing...missed one question out of 100 there. The second part is an Emergency Procedures Evaluation, or a checkride in the simulator making sure we can safely handle emergencies in the jet and get it on the deck safely if able. I had that yesterday and received a Q1 with no downgrades, so I was pretty happy. The third part is an actual flying checkride, which I'll have the week after next sometime...then it's on to the air-to-air phase of training! So, things are moving along well and I'm ready to solo the F-16 in a few days...too awesome! I'm pretty sure I'm one of the most blessed people around!