T-38 Formation Checkride Soon

Wow, it's been awhile! At this point, we're almost done with the formation phase and should be having our checkrides next week. The first few form rides in the 38 were very similar to form in the tweet as far as the maneuvers go, but soon we were into what they call tactical formation. The parameters are 4,000' to 6,000' feet horizontal spacing, +/- 2,000' vertical spacing (stack) and then line a breast. Anyway, the point is we're a lot farther apart while maneuvering. It's supposed to teach us the importance of clearing each other's six for bad guys while not having to worry about running into each other in close.

Along with the tactical formation stuff, we're also pressing forward with the sims. Right now, we're flying a mock cross-country to help us prepare for the real thing next weekend. They tell us where we're going, but we're responsible for planning the flights and studying up on the approaches we'll fly once at the destination. For example, in the first sim we took off from here, did a drop in over in Birmingham, AL and then ended up in Montgomery, AL. It gets us out of the environment we're in all the time around here and lets us experience something different. It's pretty rewarding to plan out a short trip like that, and then actually fly it successfully.

For my cross country next weekend, I'm going to go one of two places. I'll either be flying out to Colorado Springs, or making a trip up through Wright Patterson AFB again and the down the east coast. I've never been to CO, so I'm leaning that way. It'd be sweet to fly into the airport there at the base of the Rockies! The only problem is, we're leaving on a Friday this time and returning Sunday so there won't be as much time as we had in Tweets. It's about an 800-850 mile trip in the air, so it's very doable...I'll fill you in on the details of the trip later on.

A buddy of mine I knew back at Cedarville recently made his way down here for pilot training. He's in the reserves up at Wright Patterson AFB, and will be flying the C-5 once he's finished here. He also has a boat, so on the weekends we get some people together and hit the Tom Bigbee River that runs through the town for some skiing and tubing. Good times, even though the water isn't the cleanest...a little dirt in the system never hurt anybody! =) It's a nice way to get out and relax after a hard week!

After formation, we'll be into the instrument/navigation phase of training and it won't be long until that checkride. A lot of our instrument/navigation flights are accomplished on the cross country. Time is going fast and it won't be long before assignment night is here...hard to believe! Well, I'm off to a base function. Today is the end of the fiscal year, and we're having a little celebration. Have a good one!

Contact Checkride

These past couple weeks have gone pretty well for me in the 50th FTS...I came away from my contact check with a 3E (3 downgrade excellent), which I was pretty happy with even though I felt two of the three downgrades were retarded. =) The whole flight was normal. We started off by flying a heavy weight (full of gas) single engine touch-n-go, and it turned out great. Those are one of the harder landings since you're only using one engine and your approach speed is fairly fast...about 185 knots. It's pretty easy to make an ugly landing under those conditions. Anyway, after that it was out to the Military Operations Area (MOA) for my acro. All three of my downgrades came in the MOA...one for an improper g-strain (whatever), one for in flight planning area orientation (whatever), and one for my nose high recovery. I don't even remember, but I guess I wasn't g-straining when pulling up for my loop or something. We pull 4-5 g's in the beginning of the loop and I didn't have the proper breathing going on...a pretty lame downgrade in my opinion. The other was due to the fact I had to adjust the amount of fuel I wanted to start heading back to the base with...again, I realized my fuel state and made the necessary adjustments only to get a downgrade for that. The last one I deserved for buffoonery! =) We headed back to the pattern after that for some other landings, which all went fine. It's all good, I can't really complain having tied for the best score in the class.

With the contact phase behind us, we've been into formation flying pretty heavy along with instrument sims. Formation is too fun, and I'll be form soloing (either against 2 IPs or a student and IP in the other jet) sometime the middle of this coming week...nice! This past week, there's one formation flight that sticks out a lot due to the fact there were some great cumulus clouds to play around. Granted, the clouds make it harder to maneuver because we have to stay clear of them and we aren't always in the fingertip position like in the picture above. Sometimes we could be a mile apart in preparation to practice a turning rejoin, so you can't turn as lead and end up in the clouds...you'd lose sight and have to use other procedures to ensure deconfliction of your flight paths. We fly in fingertip through the weather a lot, but here in training that's only while going to the area and on the way back. Anyway, these clouds were huge and it was awesome while in fingertip to find holes here and there to go flying through. The clouds also give a close background making it easy to see how fast we're really going up there!

Besides the flying around in the area, doing a formation takeoff and landing is also pretty sweet. We're to the point now where we're allowed to do the takeoffs and landings...landing while flying on the wing is the hardest part. Trying to stay in the fingertip position, put your gear and flaps down and talk on the radios is pretty challenging! Especially if all of this is taking place in the clouds. My first attempt at landing on the wing was a success, and we touched down a pretty much the same time. My IP was fairly impressed...one of our objectives for that flight was to land in formation without the IP taking over and we did!

Well, I'll be in the formation phase for quite some time and won't have too much more info to pass along...I don't think. If there is, I'll let you guys know.

Flown Solo / Started Formation

We've had lots of nice weather and lots of sweet flying since the last post! So much so that we've all soloed, have had a couple formation rides and will be having our Contact checkride next week already. It's been great though! Flying the T-38 is so much fun...it's hard to explain unless you're actually the one doing it.

Once those first two instrument rides in the backseat were done, it was our turn to sit on the point of our new rocket instead of the IP! It helped a lot being in the front merely due to the fact I could see better...overall I felt the front seat help my situational awareness go up quite a bit. Just like in Tweets, the first block of rides are contact rides where we practice the same kind of acro (loop, cuban 8, immelman, split-s, barrel roll, lazy 8) and use ground references to stay in our areas . After the area work, we head back to the pattern for practice in preparation for our upcoming checkride. They told us the hardest part about flying the T-38 is landing it, but I didn't think it was too difficult. Thank God for good hands...He made me what I am. After my first flight with my new flight commander he said, "I rarely put well above average on a student's gradesheet, but I'm going to put it on yours." That gave me a lot of confidence right from the beginning.

Only after about a week of flying in the front seat we were ready to go solo. Not just a pattern solo, but solo to the practice area! I could hardly believe I was getting paid to go fly some acro in a small fighter jet by myself...a great feeling. There were times all five of us studs (students...of course) would walk together out to our individual jets for solo flights joking about how we should get a little formation solo practice in while we had the chance. The same went for the "pregame" jitters this time around too, but once I was strapped in the jet it was game time ladies and gentlemen! Your first solo in the T-38 you have to do some crazy stuff to push the limits, but what I did you will never know. We've had four solos already, and I have three more dual flights before the checkride. I'm feeling pretty confident about it. As always, I'm setting the goals high with shooting for a 0 to 2 downgrade excellent.

We also started formation this week, and like before it was sweet! The majority of our flights in the 38 are formation flights, so that's cool. We move beyond the basic form stuff we did in Tweets after a few rides and get into some more advanced maneuvers...like acro while in formation and tactical turns. Also, towards the end of the program we get introduced to 4-ship formation. I'll let you know how all that goes for sure...what a job!

Tweets On Steroids

I think that's a good way to put how the initial couple months of T-38's is going to be...Tweets on steroids. We have to learn a new plane again, but this time there's less time before flying starts. A typical day so far has been about 12 hours full of academics, sims and flights with 30 minutes of eating dinner and two to three hours of studying before bed...but it's awesome and wouldn't want to be doing anything else! I get a chance to exercise in the sometimes too. As you know, class and sims started right away getting us prepared for our first flights, and those took place this past Thursday and Friday. The sims are a really good representation of the actual plane (minus the movement), so it's been very helpful in getting us up to speed. There are three that have 180 degrees of view and three with just a flat screen in front of you.

After a week and half of academics and sims, we were off to Holloman AFB for the centrifuge. It wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be, but it was still pretty painful. The tumbling sensation along with the hi g's were the main factors making you feel weird. G's just means how much of an increase in body weight you feel. 7g's would be seven times your body weight, so for me that's about 1400 lbs. Dang! We did have a G-suit which increases g tolerance by about 1g. The purpose of the fuge is to make sure our bodies can handle the g forces of the next aircraft and give a chance to practice our g-strain (breathing techniques under high g loads). We had to do five profiles as follows:

Profile #1: a gradual increase to 4g's for 40 seconds (to warm up)
Profile #2: a slightly rapid increase to 5g's for 40 seconds
Profile #3: a rapid (about 1 second) increase to 6g's for 30 seconds
Profile #4: a rapid increase to 7.5 g's for 15 seconds
Profile #5: a rapid increase to 6g's while looking back over your right shoulder

The 6g's for 30 seconds was the hardest due to air hunger at about 20 seconds...you can't just relax and take a deep breath. Anyway, the whole thing took about 10 minutes per person, so we were out of there pretty quick with only five of us. We did have some time to relax after the fuge, so checked out some of the local dunes and were even able to fly a Stealth Fighter (F-117) sim and see a jet.



We got our new nametages the other day, which we're not going to wear until we solo...hopefully in a couple weeks. I'm in Falcon flight with the callsign of Pistol now instead of Skunk. My first couple rides were great...it's hard to explain a first ride in a supersonic jet! It's a total kick in the rear compared to the T-37. The training syllabus had us in the backseat for the first two rides, but we were still able to do the takeoff and even fly out the the practice area.

After some basic maneuvers, we had a little fun with loops and some other acrobatics. Just as an example, the entry parameters for a loop are 500 knots and at least 8,000-10,000 ft of usable airspace above you. It's a lot different since we're moving so fast. On our way back to the pattern, my IP took the jet so he could show me some of the ground references used and just so I could get a feel for how it all works. I didn't mind, it gave me a chance to take in the sites while flying in the pattern at 300 knots! My next ride I'm in the front seat and we'll start the contact phase of training. Speaking of all that I need to return to the books. I have a test and two flights tomorrow.

A Little Nicer Than The T-37

The T-38 is obviously a big upgrade over the T-37. It has what they call a glass cockpit along with other upgrades. Just check out the cockpit below...it's pretty obvious! =)

Thursday after track select was already filled with class and other things at my new squadron, the 50th Flying Training Squadron. The first 2 weeks will be academics and simulator training before we actually start flying in the 3rd week. The Talon has a lot more and complicated systems, but soon we'll have a good handle on it. Our new flight commander said that based on the weather, we could be soloing within 2 weeks after we start flying...TOO COOL! In a couple weeks we have to fly out to Holloman AFB in New Mexico to have our first experience in the centrifuge. I've heard it sucks pretty bad, but hey no pain no gain right?! =) Alright, I'd better get back to looking at some T-38 stuff.