As of yesterday, the 15th, I'm what they call IFT complete. In other words I fulfilled all my FAA requirements, took the final oral exam and checkride and received my private pilot's license. The checkride wasn't bad at all, and as long as you're confident in your own ability the FAA examiner will be a little more relaxed and make the time enjoyable. He even had me do some extra flight maneuvers to see how I'd do, and things went well. Getting my private license is a good thing because I've checked another AF box on my way to get those silver wings. Now I can take up whoever I want without my instructor in the plane. But, now that I can't fly on the AF's ticket I probably won't do much of that between now and my SUPT class start date in January. Some of my friends and I have talked about renting a plane together to take a short trip, so that may give me a chance to go up again...it's all good either way! IFT was a lot of fun, and I had a blast flying around and taking a couple trips down the the Gulf. Having some hours before I started IFT helped out because that meant I could burn hours just having fun taking cross-countries, flying like a bush pilot about 75-100 ft above the Tom Bigbee River (shhhh...) and getting better at flying in general. Not all students get the chance to fly down down to the Gulf, but I guess my instructor felt I was capable to do so without hurting myself. 
Along with the flying stuff, I've also had a couple chances to make it down the Pensacola, FL to see my buddy Matt Chapman from OTS. He's in Navigator training at Pensacola NAS and has an awesome apartment about 10 minutes from the beach, so needless to say it's a little more interesting than here in Columbus, MS! The first time down there we hit the beach and also rented a couple jet skis to add a little extra fun...awesome! The second trip down my friend Rodney (from here at the base) and I drove over to Dentin Beach, FL to hang out for a day since it's a little nicer. The beaches down there are white sand and the water's really clean...just a great place to hang at the beach! We also stopped off at my old college roommate's house while in Dentin for dinner before heading back to Pensacola. Hopefully I'll get down there a couple more times before class starts to hit the beach.
Recently I've been fortunate to find some Christian people in the area to "fellowship" with. You don't really appreciate having friends and family around with similar goals and beliefs until you're in a place for awhile where that isn't the case. After 3 months here at Columbus I was ready to find that again, and thankfully God has allowed me to meet some pilots and individuals from a local church to help build me up and continue living outwardly what I believe to be true...ultimately that the Bible is truth, Jesus Christ is really who He said He is and eternity with Him and all that matters. Flying is going to be awesome and I can't wait to start, but in comparison it's just a drop in the bucket. I know He's in control, and that fact makes facing a very hard year ahead a little less intimidating! Well, I'm going to sign off for now...T-38's, here I come!
Not much has changed since I last posted on the site. I've slowed down quite a bit with the flying because I recently got word all but one class is full between now and my original start date. So, it's looking like I'm slated for 8 Jan. I have another month and a half before I have to be done with the private license, so I'll just take my time. Starting in January is fine because it's going to give me a lot of time to get familiar with the T-37. I'll just try to be as far ahead of the game as possible with the time comes to buckle down! Anyway, I was thinking the other morning when I was on a run how awesome it is that I'm here waiting to start pilot training. It totally pumps up a wanabee AF pilot to see the 37's, 38's and T-1's flying around all over the place...the pattern around here is SO crazy. It's full all the time! At least that's one way I'll be able to keep the motivation around while I wait it out on casual status...I'll just take a run out by the flight line. Speaking of running, I need to get off my lazy butt and go for one.
Next up is my FAA written test. I finished up my solo cross-country work last week, and have just been studying for the upcoming tests and getting ready for my checkride. As it stands right now, I've used a little less than 30 of my 50 AF funded hours of private flying time so I'll be taking some more cross-countries to burn up some time. All of those 30 hours haven't been used for instruction or cross-country work...I've taken the plane up a few times just to fly around on a nice day. Since I have about 20 hours left, I'll hopefully head down to Pensacola to see my buddy Matt Chapman and possibly to Dolphin Island southwest of Mobile, AL.One of those days of flying just for fun was today. A friend of mine here at the base needed to take a solo cross-country, so I figured I'd tag along in my own plane. We went to two other airports besides the one we took off from (I left from the Golden Triangle Regional Airport (GTR) in the pic above, and he left from an airport about 15 miles east of me), and planned to stop at the second one for lunch. He flew over to GTR about 9:30 this morning and we were off. It was pretty uneventful on the first leg, but we had some fun along the way. We each arranged before takeoff to tune into 123.45 (no one uses that frequency around here) on the radios so we could talk back and forth and keep updated where the other guy was.
Once we reached the second airport on our route, it was time for lunch. They have a courtesy car at the airport for people coming into town to use for up to 2 hours. We called ahead to make sure they had a car, so we were thinking like a typical rental type car...but no. We got the Oldsmobile hoopy from the hanger. We hit a place called Jake & Rip's for some good eatin'!
Well, it was a good time...but all good things have to come to an end. The both of us will be finished with the private pilot training soon, and they've been saying that those who have SUPT class dates months down the road (like us...Jan 8th) will most likely get bumped ahead. So, that means we'll probably get moved into the November class. I'm cool with that, and it'll still give me some time to work on some T-37 stuff before I get started. That's it for now.
Since my last update, I've been doing lots of flying...not much else. It's nice because it gives me a chance to get used to the place without much going on before SUPT starts. It also gives me time to hit the pool, gym, and the golf course too...you know, the important stuff! The reason those of us on casual status don't have much to do is because there are a lot of us around. With the AF Academy, ROTC and OTS grads coming in over the summer there are a bunch of new 2nd Lt.'s around. Anyway, it makes for getting IFT out of the way pretty quick. I've gone on one cross-country, and will be headed on my second tonight. A night x-country will be cool. After that I don't have much left besides some instrument time, my solo x-country work and night flying. I haven't thought much about where I'm going to head on the solo x-country, but it'll be cool wherever I go. I've been trying to talk my instructor into letting me head down to Pensacola, FL! How cool would that be?! Anyway, I'll keep everyone up to date on that one. 
As it stands right now I've been up two times for about 2.4 hours of flying in the Cessna 172, and I should be soloing after my next flight. I just needed to get up to speed on everything since it had been over a year since I flew. It's been a ton of fun and has felt TOO good to get back in the air. I've talked with my instructor and I'm hoping to take a couple cross-country flights down to the beach on the Gulf...how cool is that?! I also have some friends from OTS that I'd like to meet up with for lunch or something like that. More later...
Along with the flying stuff, I've also had a couple chances to make it down the Pensacola, FL to see my buddy Matt Chapman from OTS. He's in Navigator training at Pensacola NAS and has an awesome apartment about 10 minutes from the beach, so needless to say it's a little more interesting than here in Columbus, MS! The first time down there we hit the beach and also rented a couple jet skis to add a little extra fun...awesome! The second trip down my friend Rodney (from here at the base) and I drove over to Dentin Beach, FL to hang out for a day since it's a little nicer. The beaches down there are white sand and the water's really clean...just a great place to hang at the beach! We also stopped off at my old college roommate's house while in Dentin for dinner before heading back to Pensacola. Hopefully I'll get down there a couple more times before class starts to hit the beach.
Recently I've been fortunate to find some Christian people in the area to "fellowship" with. You don't really appreciate having friends and family around with similar goals and beliefs until you're in a place for awhile where that isn't the case. After 3 months here at Columbus I was ready to find that again, and thankfully God has allowed me to meet some pilots and individuals from a local church to help build me up and continue living outwardly what I believe to be true...ultimately that the Bible is truth, Jesus Christ is really who He said He is and eternity with Him and all that matters. Flying is going to be awesome and I can't wait to start, but in comparison it's just a drop in the bucket. I know He's in control, and that fact makes facing a very hard year ahead a little less intimidating! Well, I'm going to sign off for now...T-38's, here I come!
