I'm starting to feel like a real pilot

This week I started my navigation phase of training.  The weather in Texas sucked here this week.  It started out with Hurricane Alex early in the week, and then record floods and then a high pressure system that just sat there and held the bad weather over us.  If this weather was like this any earlier week in my training then I might have been upset.  But since I'm in navigation phase now I can act like a real pilot.  We don't really care what the weather is.....,Well, I shouldn't say that......., Our minimums for weather that we can fly in have dropped A LOT!

It was so awesome flying into other airports this week and listens to the GA (General aviation) traffic call off approaches and ask for weather updates all the time.  Haha.  We just flew our plane right to the minimum weather conditions and did touch and go's.  IT WAS SWEET!

This week I had my first out and back (we affectionally call them "out and snacks").  An out and back is where one student flies to an airport, does a few approaches, then lands.  We get out of the jet, use a courtesy car to go eat.  Then we take off, do a few approaches at that airport, and then fly back home.  It's awesome. 

This week I went to Lubbock, TX (Home of Texas Tech).  It's about a six hour drive....., but a 40 minute flight from Del Rio, TX.  Haha.  We went and ate at a Mexican restaurant called Fuzzy's.  It was kind of like a Izzo's, Freebirds, or a Chipoltle...., but not as good.  Their slogan was "What's in your Taco?" Which was pretty funny so I had to buy the souvenir cup of course. Oh...., it was funny when we pulled up to Fuzzy's and everyone there was looking at us like, "Where did they come from?".  Like we were aliens or something.  And a few women whistled at us.  That was pretty funny.  I guess people in Lubbock don't see men in uniform to often or something.  Haha. 

They put up our (future) flight suit nametapes outside our flight room this week also.  These are different from the ones that we wear right now because they have our wings on them, which lets everyone know that you are a pilot. 

See, in the Air Force there are a bunch of career fields that wear flight suits.  And even some of those have their own wings that they wear on their flight suits.  Its kinda hard to someone not in the military, but you can start to tell the difference between them if you're around them a lot.  Anyway....., these are MY wings that I'll get on my chest 22 Oct this year!  When I saw them this week I got really excited.  Not to mention we took votes on what we want to eat at our graduation dinner, and how many guests we have coming.  Wow!  It's a lot closer than I thought.  Actually, it's 100 days away from this Wednesday.  I only have 14 flights left in this block of training (navigation).  And navigation is really the only checkride left before I find out what plane I get to fly at my drop (8 Oct).  So I'm getting there.  Slowly but surely.  I'm starting to get excited!!!!!!!!!!!

Kristen made me another countdown chain from 100 days.  These are fun.  Everyday I'll just tear one off till there are none left!

There was a drop Friday night.  It was a pretty good one for the T-1's.  There were six C-17's, one KC-10, one KC-135, and two predators dropped.

For anyone who has been here and gone with us to the lake take a look at these photos!  All eight flood gates have been opened on the Lake Amistad dam.  It flooded or washed away 100 houses down river so far.  The lake is so high here......Thanks a lot Hurricane Alex.  The marina was even shut down this weekend!

This week I have another out and back on Tuesday.  It looks like beautiful weather.  I'm really trying to fly to Roswell, NM.  They have a really long runway and a few challenging approaches to fly.  Also, I could see an alien there.  We'll see.   I hope everyone is doing well.  Thanks for all the comments last week.

If you click on this sentence you can see a cool video I took flying just above the clouds.