Dollar ride in the C-5B!

I put all of my ribbons and medals together this week.  When I graduated pilot training I had four ribbons and two medals.  Now I have eleven ribbons and five medals!  A deployment will do that to ya.  For Mia's (my sister) wedding I'll be wearing my mess dress with my medals on it.  I'm pumped up for Mia, pumped up to see everyone and pumped up to wear my mess dress! Wahoooooo....

On Monday I had my simulator check ride.  I passed!  It really was not that bad.  I felt way over prepared, which is a great thing.  I answered every question that the evaluator had and then flew a great jet.  No issues.  After the check ride our evaluator took us to show us where we would meet to brief to fly the real jet!  As it turns out the next day, Tuesday, we had an air refueling sim instead of hitting the flight line.  On Wednesday thought...., we finally had our dollar ride scheduled (dollar ride is the name to your first ride in an aircraft).  You "owe" your instructor a dollar after the ride is the tradition.  Most people just give liquor instead.  I gave my IP some beer.

I put em' to sleep when I'm landing... haha

On our dollar ride we were riding with some IP candidates (these are already C-5 pilots for a number of years, who are now coming back to school to become instructor pilots).  We showed up at 0615 for a 0645 brief.  We did the brief with the whole crew, then we cut the engineers loose (they go from there straight to the airplane and start the preflight).  Then our IP asked us a bunch of questions and talked about the airplane.  We did well and then headed out to the plane.  The two IP candidates went first so we just hung back and watched at first.  We took off and went to TSTC Waco (Waco, Texas) for some approaches.  After about two hours of flying it was my turn.  we got some extended vectors to give us time to seat swap...., and then suddenly, I heard "You have the airplane".  Holy crap!  I have the airplane!!!  Haha.  I haven't flown a gov't airplane since 25 Nov and that was a 15,000lb airplane.  When I took the controls on Wednesday we weighed in at 530,000lbs!  To put that into perspective, a fully loaded Boeing 737 (like all of Southwest's airplanes) weigh approximately 155,000lbs.   So I just took control of three and a half 737's.  I did awesome.  All of my landings were squeekers!  The plane had so much power and was so agile.  You wouldn't think that because of its size, but because it's control surfaces are so big it does exactly what you tell it to do when you tell it to do it.  I did five landings and then handed it over to my partner.  he did four landings and then flew us home to San Antonio.  It was a great day!

Hi down there!

My parking job. I told the marshaller that I wasn't even looking at him... haha

On Thursday we flew again.  This day it was just us.  I went first which meant that I had to taxi out.  Taxiing is very hard in this plane.  Just think, the nose landing gear sit almost 20 feet behind the pilots.  And the rear landing gear can caster (swivel) to help with our turn radius, which can be turned on and off and has limits to be observed...... Anyway..., it's difficult.  But I did it..., good times.  I did four landings and then on my fifth there was a problem.  The nose gear did not come down.  We knew about it because of our indications on the cockpit, but very soon after the tower called us to let us know that our gear wan't down.  At first we were annoyed, like "no shit, tower".  but then we figured it was a good thing that they were watching that sort of stuff.  So just like in Top Gun, I buzzed the tower so they could have a better look at what was the hang up down there.  they told us their observations.  And right after that we get a call from someone on base to our private radio.  It was base safety people..., they wanted to let us know also that our gear was not down and NOT to land.  And again, at first we were like "no shit".  But then again...., it was good to know that people were paying attention.  So from there we flew out west, far away from people and worked out our gear issue.  We got into the emergency checklist and the gear came down just as it was supposed to this time.  So we came back for a landing.  That was awesome!!!  I had my first "real" emergency in the C-5 on flight number two.

You have to remember, this plane is no spring chicken.  It was built in 1968.  Which means that the technology in most of the plane if from the early 60's.  Now some of it has be re done since then, but things like the gear are still the same gear and mechanisms since the 60's.

On Friday I had ride three.  My partner went first since he didn't get to fly on Thursday.  We stayed here at Kelly AFB.  he did his five approaches and then it was my turn.  I did two and was setting up for my third when a "HIGH OIL TEMP No.3" (engine number three) light came on.  Well....., if this happens we're supposed to shut it down.  But since we were right next to the runway we decided to just make this a full stop.  So, I only got three approaches complete out of my five.  But the instructor called me complete so it's OK with me.

I have two flights left here.  Hopefully I'll be done by Wednesday.  I have Mia's rehearsal dinner on Thursday, wedding festivities on Thursday and the wedding on Saturday!  I can't wait to see Kristen and Dallas this week also.

Till next week!  See ya'!