Saints are going to the SHIP!

What a long week for me.

So..., let me see if I can explain how the "getting kicked out of pilot training" process works.....

86=If I have been out of the jet for more than 10 days they'll give me a "free" non-graded ride called an"86" ride.

87=Every normal ride that I have is called an "87" ride. Basically every ride that is not one of the other numbers here is an 87.

88=If I "hook" (fail/unsat) three rides in a row, then i get an "88" ride. (there is only ONE "88" ride given per airframe).

89=Then there is an "89" ride..., this could be your last ride in the jet.  If you fail/unsat/hook this ride then you are kicked out of the program.....that sucks. You can have unlimited 89 rides in the program.  But if you hook one....you're done.

So..., I hope that I explained that well enough.  Last week I was coming off of two unsats in a row.  So one more and I would go to my 88 ride.  That sucks.  My first unsat was for throwing up in the jet.  My second one was for not knowing the ground references at a particular airport (it was only my second time there). So I was pretty upset and scared to get a third unsat.  And to top it off I was two rides away from my mid-phase checkride.  That is THE MOST hooked ride here at pilot training!  Oh crap.  Well..., things just got worse from there.  I had my ride and it went great!  I flew awesome... I had no mistakes.  Once we got back on the ground my IP (Instructor Pilot) gave me a thorough ground evaluation.  I did good on that too.  But then he gave me an emergency situation in the plane.  I've had many of these before and all you have to do is tell the IP how and what you would do to work through the problem and arrive safely on the ground.  But...., in this case i made a mistake.  I forgot to say some thing important and I basically tied my IP's hands...... He had to hook me.  Oh no!!!!!!1  That was my third hook!  Now I have to go to my "88" ride.......

Well.., my 88 ride was scheduled with the commander of the checkflight <--Not a good thing.  He is a former A-10 pilot and just basically a badass.  I flew my 88 ride on Friday.  I passed!!!!!!!  I flew pretty good, and answered all of his questions that he asked me.  Wheeew..... Close call.  I don't like those close calls.  We have already had two guys kicked out of our class of 34.  And two more have already been to their 89 rides and passed those.

They say that the mid-phase checkride is the hardest thing here at pilot training.  And I'm done with it!  I'm kinda feeling good about myself.  Wheeew.  Big ton of bricks off my shoulders for a while at least.

Now I move on in the program.  Next I'll be doing advanced aerobatics!  Wow!  I thought that I was pushing this plane to its limits already...but I guess not. This week should be fun.  OOOHHHHhhh yeah.  I also get to take the plane solo again.  But this time not just solo in the pattern and land three times.  No.   I get to take the plane for an hour and twenty minutes and have fun with it.  Just do whatever I want!  I love my job.  The AF is really going to trust me, a wanna be pilot with no "official" wings on his chest, with a 6.4million dollars aircraft all by myself!  Ha!  Sounds like fun.  They say that after that flight your confidence in your abilities really goes up a ton.  We'll see.

OK.  Enough with the drama.... Let's talk about what Kristen and I have been up to.  Two Fridays ago it was Kristen's turn to make something for us (my class) to eat.  She decided to make Tres' Leches.  That is a Mexican cake made with three milks.  She made it from scratch!  It was amazing!  We cleaned the two pans of it.  She was so proud and I was proud of her.

Speaking of cake.  Kristen's parents sent us a king cake for our birthday.  It was awesome!  We shared it with all of our neighbors. 

Kristen decided to try work over here this week also.  She took a substitute teacher gig for two days.  She "taught" second graders.  Haha.  The first day I think they ran all over her.  She came home with all kinds of stories.  It was so funny.  Then on the second day she realized that if she just simply writes their names on the board they get scared and start behaving.  Haha.  It was a learning experience for her.  Onr of the second graders came up to her on the first day and said "This is your first day huh"?  Haha!  Classic!

On Wednesday of this week the weather was looking bad.  There was hail in the forcast for our area.  And since the T-6's are so new to AF they want to protect them.  W had to help maintenance push ALL of the planes in every nook and cranny that we could find on base.  There is one BIG hanger and a bunch of small ones.  It was so cool.  It was also kinda funny when they would take some of the other planes here on base out of their hangers and put them outside just to make room for the T-6's.!  Anyway....., the hail never came and it ended up being a false alarm.  It was still fun though.

Here is a picture of my reflection on a T-6 propeller.

Here is my next trainer plane (maybe). The T-1 Jayhawk.

I had to go work in the tower this week.  It was so cool.  I had a very small job there of making sure that every plane coming in for a landing did have their gear down and locked.  It was cool though.  I was right in between two of our three runways and there was planes taking off every few minutes.  I was there for five hours and was keeping track of just the T-6 runway....we had 131 landings! A little over one landing every 2 1/2 minutes.

DALLAS IS 1 TODAY(or 7 depending on how you want to count it)!!!!!!!!!!!!  Kristen is baking her a cake right now.  Dallas will have a doggie party sometime in the coming week or so.  Kristen promised it to her. 

Dallas opening up a box with some valentines day/ birthday presents from Kristen's parents.