I passed......on the second attempt

What a week.   We have had nothing but great weather since I started T-1s so far.  Of course on the week that I am supposed to take my checkride a storm, Hurricane Alex to be exact, rolls on through.

I had my checkride on Tuesday.  We were told that our checkride would be flown to Waco, TX.  Now Waco is the farthest of all the "local" airports that we fly to.  And my partner and I had never flown there before.  They say don't do anything dumb, dangerous or different on your checkride......, but, we were doing just about all of those.  Haha.  It was a very cloudy day here at Laughlin.  I was chosen to be the pilot to take off and get us there and my partner would fly us back.  I am a little slow on my "ground ops" (all of the ground operations, like moving switches, starting engines, and basically everything that has to be done before takeoff).  Oh well, I'd just have to take my time today to make sure that I do everything in my power to help me succeed. Ha.

Long story very short, I hooked the ride for a switch.  For some unknown reason I moved the anti-skid switch, which tests, turns on and off the anti-skid, to OFF....?!  I have never done this before.  There is no reason to do it.  In fact, it's bad if it's OFF because if we were to have a takeoff malfunction and it was OFF the anti-skid brakes would not help us stop.  And we need their help to stop 16,000lbs before going off the end of the runway.

Oh well, so that's the reason I hooked.  It was a stupid mistake.  I did well everywhere else though.  I had to go onto my 88 ride on Thursday.  An 88 ride is a overall big picture ride where the evaluator grades if they think that you have what it takes to complete the program.  It sounds very menacing..., but with the reason for my 88 ride I was not expecting it to be a big deal.  On Thursday I had my 88 with the checkflight commander, oooohhhhhhhh...., gulp.......  I was nervous about that until I sat in his office to brief for the flight.  He was so cool with me.  He told me that he's sees no problem with me being able to clean up this checkride.  And that he talked to my flight commander and he had nothing but good things to say about me. Whhheeeewwwww....  I was relaxed then.

Long story very short again.  After a lot of hurrying up and waiting we finally took off.  the check pilot flew one pattern and then I flew one to a full stop.  Haha.  It was only a 15 minute flight!  It has to be one of the shortest T-1 flights without an emergency ever...  So thanks for every one's prayers and thoughts.  I am on to the next chapter in training now, navigation.  It is the bread and butter of pilot training.  It is nine weeks long and it is the most fun and the most challenging time in pilot training.  I have my first flight in this block of training on Wednesday.  I'll take pictures.

I am peeling from last weekend!  That'll teach me (again) to put on sun screen!

We decided, on a whim, to go to Sea World for the 4th of July.  We got our neighbors to watch Dallas for the night and we left.  We left on Saturday afternoon.  We got a room to stay at on the drive there. We found a room at Lackland AFB in San Antonio.  Staying on bases is nice because its safe and cheap.

We stopped at a taco Bell on the way up there because we don't have one in Del Rio.

We got a room at the VOQ (Visiting Officers Quarters).  It was my first time as an officer getting a room on base.  Nothing to special..., I just felt cool.  The room was OK.  It had a separate living room/kitchen.  It even had a walk in closet.........all for $39.00!

This is a really windy shower that was in our hotel room.  We laughed about it for a while.  Click on this paragraph to see it.

We went eat dinner at Outback in San Antonio.  We don't have one of those either.

On Sunday morning (4th July) I woke up for a morning run (in the rain).  It was a great place to run because the base is big and there is a lot of heritage there.  Lackland AFB is where the Air Force has all of its basic training (the yelling and buzz cuts).  I went running around the parade field.  It's where big ceremonies take place.  The field is HUGE and is lined with WWII fighters, cargo planes all the way up to some of the most modern planes.  There are A LOT of planes on display there.  I just ran by them all taking pictures of a few.  It made me think.... who would try to mess with us?  I mean, these are planes that we have de-commissioned sitting on poles out in a field and they're still better than probably 95% of all other nations air forces.  Wow.  We're awesome.  Don't mess with us.

Sea World!  We both got in free because I am active duty military, thanks Sea World.  We were there early enough to beat most of the crowds and plus the sky was still cloudy so we had free reign of the park for a couple of hours. 

We saw some dolphins up close.

In the large aquarium we saw stingrays, sharks and other large fish. Click on these sentences to see video of it.

We went to Shamu's show.  It was fun...., I guess.  I think the whole Sea World experience might be for kids though.  Shamu was pretty cool though.  No human were eaten on the day that we went.

We saw a ski show also.

Log ride.

We went on the two roller coasters there.  Haha.  They were fun.  I guess I am used to pulling G's and loops.......Kristen was not though.  Haha.

When we got back to the truck we saw a grass hopper on the windshield of the truck.  I thought that he might have been confused.... he's a GRass hopper...., not a GLass hopper!  That was bad.  Kristen puts up with me though.  God bless her.

Thanks everyone for all the comments last week.  I check the blog every night for comments.