Next Assignment: Aviano Air Base, Italy

Yesterday was a big day in my Air Force career, and will be having a direct impact on the next three years of my life...we received our next F-16 assignments we'll be headed to after Luke AFB. The assignment process is a little different in RTU than it was in pilot training. This time around, our squadron commander was given eight assignments from the Air Force personnel center. After briefing us on the different bases with their pros/cons, he left it up to us as a class to determine who was going to get what assignment. Since there were a couple of us who wanted the same assignment as our first choice, we ranked each one and then rolled dice to see who would be going where. It was a rather tense time for most of us, seeing as how small dice would be determining a lot for us. But, I had prayed before the whole thing that God would put me where He wanted. God once again totally blessed me and gave me my second choice of Aviano Air Base, Italy for the next three years where I'll be flying in the 510th FS known as the Buzzards! Aviano is part of United States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE). I'm pumped and can hardly believe I'm going to be flying the Viper in Europe. My first choice was Kunsan Air Base, Korea for a year with a follow on assignment to Italy, but that didn't work out for a very worthy reason. Soon I'll be off to Italy, and will be traveling Europe to see some awesome places. The base is located in the northern part of the country near the Alps and about 45 min northeast of Venice. A ton of great places are only a short train ride away, and I plan to take full advantage of the opportunity!

We're obviously in the air-to-ground phase of training now and I'm having a blast. Yes, shooting the F-16's gun is as cool as it sounds! A typical ride in this phase consists of flying a low level as a four ship, hitting the bombing range to drop practice bombs (BDU-33s) and then finish with some strafing. Low levels are similar to those in the T-38, except the terrain is much more fun to fly over and we're doing it at 500 ft and 500 knots (instead of 360 like in the T-38). There are a decent amount of small mountains that make the low altitude flying a lot of fun...it can also make it more dangerous since there are big rocks you could fly into, but a good cross-check ahead of the jet will keep you safe.

Shooting the gun is very awesome...the whole jet shakes when the trigger is pulled! We roll in to strafe a target on the ground from about 2000 ft above ground level and 400 knots. By the time we shoot the gun and pull off target, the jet gets down to around 100-200 ft! That's pretty low in a Viper flying in access of 400 knots. I've been asked if it were scary flying low and fast like that. All I have to say is heck no! It's a total adrenaline rush, and when you can get back in the squadron and find out you had one of the better strafe scores for that flight it's a good feeling.


I have about 14 rides left in the program, and it has gone really fast as it has with other training I've been through. I have a great job and a great Lord who's guiding it all...I'm enjoying a great ride!

Air-to-Ground...Shooting the Gun

We've already completed half of the F-16 FTU training course! I have two air-to-air flights left before getting into the air-to-ground phase on Friday. Sometime this next week I'll get the chance to air refuel at night as well. It's been a lot of fun, and I've been learning a lot. The type of flying we've been doing over the past weeks is something that only time will allow me to get better at. I have a good understanding of my roles as a wingman during the "fight", and I'll get better at executing those roles with a few more hours under my belt. I had a great flight last week, which was a 4 blue air vs 2 red air engagement. We were supposed to have AWACS support, but they fell out for some reason. My main priority was to fly good formation, keep sight of my flight lead (I was #2 of the four blue air Vipers) and take shots at the red air when he directed me to. In a couple years, I'll be the guy leading the 4-ship of Vipers! In the picture below, I'm in the background on my first solo tanker flight.
A couple weekends ago, my squadron worked the NASCAR race at Phoenix International Raceway to raise a little money and help out the track. It was a pretty good time, but for the most part it was a different world. I mean, cars racing fast around a track is cool and all, but I'm not a dedicated fan or anything...different class of people. But hey, the world would be boring if we were all the same.

On another note, the 63FS is the next in line to get follow on assignments after training. Where would I like to go you ask? Well, if there's an assignment to Korea for a year with a follow on to Hill AFB, UT I'd probably try for that. Going to Germany or Italy is also up there on my list...we'll see what the assignment drop is like before I get too set on what I want. We've been told that we should know before Christmas, so we'll see. I know God has it all under control, so I'm not going to lose much sleep over it. I'll be flying the Viper no matter what. I'll get back to you all when I get a chance to fire the gun and strafe some targets out in the desert somewhere...I'm pretty sure that's this coming Friday!

"Break right, Bogey your 6 o'clock, 1 mile, slightly high!"

The air-to-air phase of training is sweet, and we're only about two weeks away from finishing and getting into the air-to-ground stuff. A little over a week ago, I had the most fun flight next to my solo flight in the Viper. It was an Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) flight as a 3-ship formation. It's the first flight where I felt that we were actually getting into the full up real thing of dog fighting as a team against the "enemy." My flight lead and I were "blue" air (the good guys) and #3 of the formation was "red" air (the single bad dude). Once up in the MOA we did a couple hard turns to test our bodies against the high g's we'd be experiencing on this flight. Everyone was feeling good, so we headed right into the fighting. I moved into my wingman position of 9,000'-12,000' at either lead's 3 or 9 o'clock and flew about 1,000' above his altitude. In this position I could check his 6 and keep my nugget on a swivel looking for red air and not worry so much about hitting him. Red air would fly around wherever he wanted to behind flight lead and I at about 1.5-2 miles, +/- 2,000' or so of our altitude in preparation to engage one of us. "Viper 1 ready, Viper 2 ready, Bogey ready" was called on the radio once in position and ready to fight. If you had been listening to the radios during our fights, this is what a typical engagement would have sounded like: "Viper, fights on! Viper 1, break right, Bogey your 6 o'clock, 1 mile, slightly high/low...Viper 1, tally one...Viper 1 engaged...Viper 2 supporting...Viper 1, merged hostile F-16...Viper 2, fox II/III...Vipers, bugout 150, Viper 2, kill hostile F-16, right turn,15 thousand, Viper 2...Viper 1 blind...Viper 2 is your right 3 o'clock, slightly low for 2 miles...Viper 1 visual." The break turn is a full up 9 g turn while putting out flares to defeat a IR missile shot. During all of this, I'm having to keep site of the two jets as they fight, fly my jet in such a way to lock up the bad guy with my radar and then shoot him without my flight lead being in the way...there's a lot going on. I'm sure the radio comm sounds like gibberish to most of you, but it's very important during a fight to keep it quick and precise. There are AF regulations that specify exactly what should be said during an engagement and when so a lot of time has to be spent studying it. I still jack it up sometimes, but it's getting better. The time between each of those calls will also vary in length depending on what's taking place in the fight at the time. The flight was an awesome flight to end the week on...the bigger picture of all our training is making more sense!

A few weeks ago, my flight commander left for his new assignment as the opposing solo on the United States Air Force Thunderbird demonstration team. I think that's pretty awesome, and could potentially see myself doing the same thing in the future if the opportunity presented itself. We're hoping to get up the Nelis AFB, NV as a class sometime in the next couple months to check the Thunderbirds out as well as some of the other cool stuff they have there at the base. I'll keep flying high and having a great time until the next post!

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!