Graduate Aviation Program (GAP)

After graduating from SUPT, I moved into the Graduate Aviation Program (GAP) here at Columbus AFB. It's a fancy term to describe the flight I'll be in from now until I head off to Intro to Fighter Fundamentals (IFF) at Moody AFB, GA in May. The GAP flight is called Training Flight. It's actually a pretty cool program, and the goal is to keep our flying skills from getting too rusty. We are still a part of the 50 FTS and have both dedicated and sandbag flights. The dedicated flights are actual flights the squadron dedicates to the guys in the GAP program to keep them current whereas sandbag flights are those we can jump into whenever there's an open cockpit available. So far I've had one dedicated and two nice tries at sandbag flights...they've both been cancelled due to weather. But, I'm on the board to fly a couple 4-ship and a couple 2-ship sandbag flights this coming week. We're also allowed to sandbag cross-country flights if we can find an open cockpit, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for one of those. Besides the flights, we have dedicated sims and the commander's approval to use the sim whenever we want to keep instruments skills sharp.

In addition to being part of the GAP, I have an additional duty to help out as an assistance flight scheduler in Hawk Flight...one of the four student training flights in the 50 FTS. I actually requested a scheduling job because I knew I'd have a better chance at getting flights whenever they were available, and it would keep me in the squadron. We have a big base wide Operations Readiness Inspection (ORI) coming up soon and a few dudes are getting tagged to help out with that...thankfully not me!

As I mentioned on the graduation page, we were all looking forward to the awesome opportunity (cough, cough) to head back to Holloman AFB, NM and revisit the torture chamber...only this time a little more pain was expected. For the Viper guys, the max g load we had to keep from passing out under was 9g's. Like my first fuge experience, it was painful but thankfully I didn't chew my shoulder like a couple guys did. I was the fourth person to go of the F-16 guys. The first guy made it fine, but the second dude wasn't so lucky. This was his second trip to Holloman to try and pass the F-16 profiles, but he passed out on profile #3 again. Of course this made my pregame jitters increase a bit...but, I knew I was in good enough shape to keep the blood in my head. =) There was also an F-15C dude that passed out on his first try, but then made it a few minutes later after he had some time to rest. The F-16 profiles were as follows:

Profile #1: 0.1g/second increase without the g-suit or straining to determine our resting g tolerance...5.0g for me.
Profile #2: 6.0g's for 30 seconds
Profile #3: 9.0g's for 15 seconds...ouch!!
Profile #4: check six at 7.0g's for 10 seconds
Profile #5: 90 seconds of varied g loads from 3.5g to 9g to simulate an air-to-air engagement...very tiring!

Next on my schedule are land and water survival training, which I leave for in a couple weeks. Survive Evade Resist Escape (S.E.R.E.) training is the technical term for it. This kind of training prepares us for the unfortunate day we hope never comes...having to eject over enemy territory. The survive and evade part is meant to keep one from getting captured, and the resist and escape part is for post capture if it happens. The water survival shows us the additional difficulties of surviving if ejecting takes place over water. I'll be finished with this training in late March. I'll update everyone as much as I'm allowed (because of classified stuff) on how the training went when I get back. Fly safe, and check six!