Week 32 (10 - 16 Sep 06)

Post-YBS party blues... it was an awesome party. Good job Crack on the video, which I can't post here for y'all to see... sorry.

Flew 3 times this week.
9/11 - Kinda expected something bad to happen this day, and it did for Kirby but not for SLAB and I in Tester 12. We just cloud surfed for 1 hour, which Kirby battled an engine failure (solo no mind you) to bring his T-38 back to Pax with one engine. Kudos bro... sorry I wasn't there to back ya up with the PCL.

9/12 - Tester 10 again, but this time doing a Dynamics exercise flight for Ellers. Total time: 1.1


9/13 - T-2C flight, probably my last one before they are retired, in none other than Tester 25. I have a love-hate relationship with that jet, as you may have already figured out from previous posts. Anyhow, I flew with Dumpy from Pax down to Chambers (Norfolk, VA) to shoot a couple approaches, then back to Pax River for a few more approaches. It was a good, solid IFR flight, but also somber. Dumpy's dad had been killed less than 2 week prior in a freak motorcycle accident, so he spent a good part of the flight quiet and reminscing. I just let him do that, while I flew the flight and took the comms.

Week 31 (3 - 9 Sep 06)

Monday was Labor Day... Federal Holiday.
Nice break from school.... NOT! Spent all day working on my FLIR RTR.
Didn't fly on Tuesday, and spent until nearly midnight finishing the FLIR RTR.

Only flew twice this week...
9/7 - Tester 10 for my Dynamics Eval with Tripper, for a 1.1 hour.
9/8 - Tester 10 for my Dynamics Eval with OD, for a 1.2 hour.

Those weren't actually MY Dynamics flights, I was just the "data recorder" for those pilots. I should get my own dedicated flight later.

The Class 131 YBS party was on Friday night. Great party, with some funny things, but again, best told over a beer... here are a few pics to tide you over...




On Saturday, 9-Sep, Cindy and I went to Tony and Lasandra's wedding. GREAT wedding you two!

Week 30 (27 Aug - 2 Sep 06)

Less than 15 weeks from graduation... man, time is getting short. We are 1 week from the Class 131 You'll Be Sorry party.

Started the week off distributing our patches and zaps (stickers for the civilians out there).
Weather was shitty thanks to Tropical Storm Ernesto. Due to that and the fact I had a FLIR RTR and my Lat-Dir RTR due, I was very busy with academics and not so much flying. I DID get one flight out...

8/28 - Tester 08 (T-38C) with Forrest, repeating a few PA100 Lat-Dir test points, flying some air-to-air maneuvers, and a little cloud surfing.

-Vanna

Week 29 (20 - 26 Aug 06)

First of all, I forgot to mention I had our final class patch design completed a few weeks ago. What you see is our final design. The "Toaster Testers" comes from our favorite professor, JJ, talking about toaster programmers, who just blindly write code without understanding the ramifications, and leading to airplane crashes. Anyhow, we've become known as the Toaster Testers... more details on this over a beer when we see each other.

8/22 - My first flight with Rusty. Up to this point, I'd flown with every fixed-wing pilot in Class 130 but Rusty. Now, I've got them all. We flew our Spin Exercise Flight in Tester 25 (can I never get away from this ONE particular T-2???). Great hop with lots of spins! It was a telemetered flight, with some of our buds watching the data roll in to the ground station. I think one of our spins resulted in a high speed spiral, which felt wierd. We were both thrown forward into our straps, and I could feel the g's building rapidly... not to much fun for that, and I'd not want to repeat it anytime soon.

8/23 - Lat-Dir exercise flight #2 with SLAB in Tester 10 for 0.9 hour flight.
8/24 - First H-60 flight! Flew my VTOL 2 Demo flight with Pupalakis and PinkF. That helo is so augmented, anyone can fly it. Amazing how little it really took to control it. The auto hover feature was way cool at 100 ft off the Patuxent River. The total flight was 2.1 hours long, but I only logged a 1.0.

8/25 - Flight test practice with OD doing air-to-ground and air-to-air work in Tester 10 for 1 hour.

-Vanna

Week 28 (13 - 19 Aug 06)

Almost had a 5-day fly week... missed Thursday crew rest issues.

8/14 - FAVORITE FLIGHT TO-DATE! Spun the T-2C (Tester 25) with the Spin-Meister himself, Jerry Gallagher. What a ride! Upright spins, inverted spins, coupled departures, all fun and disorienting! I've got some video of it, but it's too large to put here.

8/15 - My first Lat-Dir exercise flight with SLAB, for a total of 1.3 hours. He nearly made me sick, so I took the controls to fly a few more test points, and I nearly made him sick... called it a day and headed home.

8/16 - FLIR evaluation with the new MX-15 FLIR on the NP-3D (Tester 889). Flew it with Thommo (our fearless leader), Tripper, Jethro, and Pedro. Dave Hunt and Chachi were our pilots. The eval was fun, but it sucked knowing we were getting this data to write a FULL RTR. In the end, the FLIR was awesome! I was amazed at how much infrared can allow you to see, especially serious detail, like counting rivets on the wing skin on the airplane... 4 hours of flying, not so bad... it was a 1830 launch for a 2230 landing tho, which is why I was not on the flight schedule for Thursday.

8/18 - Another cool flight. My first C-12C flight (Tester 37). Flew it with Gozer (MAJ Morgan) for my asymmetric power demo flight. I flew nearly the whole flight, which was about 1.4 hours long. Great time!

-Vanna


8/18 -

Week 27 (6 - 12 Aug 06)

Sunday, 6-Aug... our return trip from Patrick AFB to Pax River. It was pretty much a get up and go kinda morning, in order to beat some forecast bad weather enroute. I think we launched around 11 am or so. The transient aircraft line guys were great. One of them snapped this pic of us just before we strapped in.

Our planned route was to land at Shaw AFB to get gas, but weather forced us to divert to, again, Charleston AFB. After a much longer than anticipated stay there, we launched and recovered back here at TPS around 3-ish. What a great weekend! Another T-38 flight for another 1.8 hours, AND Kirby let me fly most of it again!

Now, on to actual school...
The boring week. Weather turned shitty so we didn't fly a whole lot. I DID get to fly the U-6A (Beaver) on Monday with Craig Nixon and NoNo, for our Lat-Dir demo. A 2.4 hour flight in a fun airplane. This flight had been cancelled twice before due to engine issues, but today, the flight went smooth...

-Vanna

Week 26 (30 Jul - 5 Aug 06)

Here starts a busy week for me. Flew all 5 days!!! Summary as follows:

7/31 - Helo flight with Brian "Sandbag" Sandberg in a TH-6B (Tester 40) for 2 hours! All kinds of instruction on hovering, translation, flying qualities both low and high. Also knocked out a few test points he needed to get done. Thanks Sandbag! What a hoot! One of my favorite flights so far!

8/1 - Lat-Dir practice with OD in Tester 14 (T-38C) for 1 hour
8/2 - Lat-Dir practice with SLAB in Tester 16 (T-38C) for 1 hour
8/3 - Lat-Dir variable stability demonstration flight in a Lear 24 (Tester 77) with Pappy and Frenchy for 1.7 hour.

Now, the fun day. August 4, 2006..... Kirby and I took Tester 12 (T-38C) on a cross-country flight down to Patrick AFB in Florida. We launched in the late morning since we had no academics that day. Our fuel stop was in Charleston, SC (KCHS) where we were the very small jet next to a bunch of C-17s on the ramp. WOW! A little over an hour delay there for fuel, and we were on our way to Patrick AFB (KCOF). Kirby let me fly nearly the whole flight down. The total trip time down was only 1.8 hours, spending most of our time around 0.85 Mach at 26,000 ft. Amazing it didn't seem like 1.8 hours.... more like 1 hour.

We put the plane to bed there at Patrick, and went out for a night on the town, so to speak. The motor pool loaned us a government van, and we were lodged on-base at the AF Inn. Nice place actually. Very similar to a hotel.

Anyhow, saw Talladega Nights at a local theater, after spending over an hour driving around looking for one. We called it a night and spent nearly all day Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center, playing tourists. Shuttle Atlantis was already out on the launch pad, but we never did close enough to really see it. This picture is the best we could do.

My buddy Kevin was in Orlando for flight training, so he drove to Cocoa Beach to meet us for dinner.

Read the next blog for our departure back to Pax River...
-Vanna

Week 25 (23 - 29 July 06)

First thing Monday.... the dreaded Long Stab prog check.
Basically, I go fly a T-2C with an instuctor, who grades me on technique and test execution / test conduction, including time and fuel management. High stress situation, but still fun.

I had mine first thing on Monday the 24th. Flew with "Wichita" Bob Williams, for a total of 1.5 hours and a PASS grade! Woo-hoo! Tester 25 treated me right, but the back seat is for some reason less comfortable than the other T-2 aircraft.

Classes are same-ol-stuff.

Ended the week of flying on the 27th flying in Tester 12 (T-38C) with Ellers, practicing Lat-Dir flight test techniques...
-Vanna

Week 24 (16 - 22 July 06)

Week 2 after the break. Classes are fun. I'm back into flying now. Here's a summary:

7/17 - Flew in Tester 10 (T-38C) with SLAB for a refresher flight. Had 5 landings for a 1.1 hour flight. Not too bad, huh?

7/18 - Flew again in Tester 10, but this time with Rosey. We flew a TON of aerobatics, including loops, split-s, Immelman, aileron rolls, barrel rolls, and simulated dive deliveries on different ships on the Bay. Sweet stuff... for a total of 1 hour.

Feels good to be back in the "mighty" Talon.
-Vanna

Week 23 (9-15 July 06)

This was the "back-to-school" mentality week. The pilots had to get recurrent in the aircraft, so I had no flights... just safety meetings and academics. BUT, I DID build a deck on my house over the break!

Now, back to the grind...
-Vanna

Summary of Weeks 15 - 22 (May 15 - July 9)

Ok, so it's been awhile since I posted anything. Sorry about that. I'm now on my two-week break, but it's just about over. This has given me time, tho, to get caught up on my blog..

Since it's been awhile, I'm going to be short for each week, just to give you a summary of the highlights....

Since my last writing, I've flown an additional 15 flights, most of them in the T-38C, but some in the T-2C, one in a Lear 24, and one in an F/A-18B.

The T-38 flights were practice flights, and longitudinal stability test flights. Longitudinal testing involves mostly the pitch axis of the aircraft, and seeing how stable and maneuverable the aircraft can be at various G-loads, airspeeds, Machs, and altitudes.

The T-2C flights were practice flights, and included my Aircraft Performance Progress Check flight. The Learjet flight was a demo flight for longitudinal stability. THAT was pretty cool, because the pilot could vary the aircraft flight control gains real-time to make it feel like a fighter, a transport jet, or somewhere in between. It's called the variable stability learjet, and I'll get a few more flights it in before I graduate.

My hornet flight was a radar evaluation flight that encompassed a "lemme show you what this thing can do" flight by my pilot, Pinto. Really cool guy. We didn't go supersonic, but we were at M0.95 at 500-ft off the water for a practice pop-up maneuver to roll-in and drop a "simulated" bomb on the fishing pier at Point Lookout. We pulled nearly 7-g's and did a tail slide at 25,000 ft. Lots of good stuff, and I even have a HUD video of the whole thing.

Academics are/were going well. I've completed a lot of classes and passed a lot of exams, so when school starts back up again on Monday, 10-July-06, it will be a new schedule of classes.

Here's a short summary of my flight experience over the past few weeks. Hopefully I can find the time in the second half of TPS to keep my blog going strong...
-Vanna

5/16 - T-38C (1.0hr): Performance Practice with SLAB
5/17 - T-2C (1.3hr): Long Stab Demo flight with Mr. Warlick
5/23 - T-38C (1.2hr): Long Stab Exercise Flight #1 with Rip
5/24 - T-2C (0.8hr): Airborne Radar Target for F-18 with Tripper
5/30 - T-38C (1.0hr): Long Stab Exercise Flight #2 with Rip
6/1 - T-38C (1.0hr): Long Stab Exercise Flight #3 with Rip
6/2 - T-38C (1.0hr): Long Stab Exercise Flight #3 with Rosie
6/5 - T-38C (0.8hr): Turn Performance Flight with Forrest
6/6 - F/A-18B (1.5hr): Hornet Radar Evaluation Flight with Pinto
6/7 - Lear-24 (1.7hr): Variable Stability Longitudinal Demo Flight
6/8 - T-38C (1.0hr): Airborne Radar Target for F-18 with Tripper
6/15 - T-2C (1.5hr): Performance Progress Check Practice with Kirby
6/19 - T-2C (1.3hr): Performance Progress Check Practice with Doc
6/20 - T-38C (1.0hr): Flight test technique practice with Ellers
6/21 - T-2C (1.3hr): Performance Progress Check with Mr. Warlick

6/22 - Perf OTRR then all-day party at Buffalo Wings and Beer!!!!

Until next week....

Week 14 (8-12 May 06)

Wow, I am now more than 30% complete with TPS! Doesn't seem like it tho...
Well, this past week I nearly made the 5 for 5 again. On Monday, I flew a T-38C with Doc. The weather wasn't that great, so we filed for an instrument flight over to Dover AFB. Flew there, shot an approach, then came back to Pax to shoot 4 more approaches before landing.

Tuesday, I flew with SLAB in a T-38C for our climbs, descents, and stalls testing. Pretty exciting stuff, we climbed from 5000 ft to 40,000 ft in MIL power, which took a LONG TIME! The descent was uneventful, along with the stalls. We DID get some good data, which will be used before the end of June to develop an overall picture of how the T-38 performs.

Wednesday, I flew in a P-3C for my Radar Eval flight. Flew nearly 3 hours, in which we exercised the radar in air-to-air mode against another TPS aircraft, and air-to-ground mode with ground targets of opportunity. This flight was the follow on flight from last week where we learned about the radar, FLIR, and other P-3C systems. It was pretty fun tracking the other TPS aircraft, and even more impressive picking out vehicles on the ground with the air-to-ground radar. DON'T SPEED! We could easily tell how fast a vehicle was going based on its Doppler frequency shift (within a few MPH).

Thursday, I flew with Doc again to get a MAX power (aka afterburner) climb from 5000 ft to 40,000 ft. THIS WAS AN IMPRESSIVE CLIMB! It only took us 2 minutes and 59 seconds to get to 40,000 ft! WOW! Unfortunately the weather was rapidly deteriorating at Pax, so we didn't get a test descent or stalls. Headed back to Pax River to shoot the GCA (ground controlled approach) to Runway 14. We didn't break out of the clouds until 900-ft above the water. It was a great flight, and when I get a chance, I'll convert the HUD video to digital so y'all can see some fun things.

Friday was the day that hosed me on my 5 for 5. I was not on the schedule to fly. Oh well, 4 for 5 is not bad! Actually, since my last class of the day from 11 to 12 was cancelled, I decided to go home and work from home. That was a nice change of pace. Next week, we start our longitudinal stability test flights. Already had the briefings this past week, so it shoud be a lot of fun!
-Vanna

Week 13 (1 - 5 May 06)

Again a busy week. Quick synopsis...
Took a Theory of Radar exam on Tuesday. I think I did well.
Still have the same academic classes as last week.
Flight time: Flew 3 times this week.

Flight 1: Monday, flew an integrated systems demo flight in the NP-3D here at TPS. That was pretty cool, as we got to learn the radar (in air-to-air and air-to-ground modes), the FLIR, and the moving map. It was neat to see how they can all slave together to give a "big picture" look at whatever we really wanted. We targeted a tugboat going up the Chesapeake Bay using the FLIR signature from his engines, then slaved the radar to paint us a nice picture of him and the surrounding area, and then told the moving map to give us a pictoral view of where in the world he was, including LAT/LONG coordinates as he moved..... Easy to see why GPS weapons are preferred using a system like this!

Flight 2: Thursday, Flew a T-38C again with Smokin'. We flew his Handling Qualities #2 flight, which was nice. I had no reporting due, so it was really free flight time with no deliverables for me! Those are the BEST flights!

Flight 3: Friday, Flew a T-2C with Doc for the first time. We just went up and practiced turn performance so that we could repeat it later in the T-38.

A great week! Look for more details and maybe some pics for next week's blog.
-Vanna

Week 12 (24 - 28 Apr 06)

Sorry for the delayed posting. As you can imagine, school has kicked into high gear and I find myself with very little free time now. Spent this week taking a test in Statistics (which I think I did pretty good in), attending classes, and flying on a couple of flights.

Flight time: I flew twice this week. First flight was on Monday and I flew with the Brit, "Ellers". He's a cool pilot! Funny as hell too. We flew some performance test points that included sawtooth climbs. Got some good data, and even a funny HUD video of Ellers for blackmail later.
My second flight was on Wednesday with SLAB. Again, a rockin' pilot who comes from the baby hornet world. We also did sawtooth climbs. Both flights netted me a 1.0hr each of flight time.

Class: Classes consisted of airplane performance, airplane stability and control, subsonic aerodynamics, and report writing.

More next week!
-Vanna

Week 11 (17-21 Apr 06)

Very busy week this past week. With the exception of Friday, I didn't get home until after 9pm each night. The course work is not hard, it's just time-consuming and now it's starting to pile on.
We like to refer to our coursework as alligators. We're all in a canoe trying to beat the alligators away from us. :)

As far as flying goes, I flew 3 times this past week.
On Monday we were cancelled due to weather. Tue and Wed were GREAT days to fly. I was paired up with OD for both of those flights. On Tuesday, we flew his HQ-2 flight (handling qualities). He flew the test points like the T-38 was a fighter. We simulated dropping bombs, and did some air-to-air tactical maneuvering. Very cool! I hit 6-Gs for a short period, but we held 5-Gs for about 20 seconds. That wasn't much fun after about 10 sec. Also did some aerobatics. Nice stuff! On Wed, it was my day to fly MY HQ-2 flight. I had a few more benign test points, but nevertheless they were fun!

Thursday I flew with Kirby. It was a perf practice flight, so we did just that... practiced maneuvers. He flew a few and I flew a few. I made sure the HUD videotape was recording. I did an aileron roll (actually 2 of them) and got it on tape. So, when I get some time to convert the 8mm tape to WMV format, I'll post it here.

Friday was the TPS annual reunion, so we had a short day of classes and no flying. My class used that time to get caught up on schoolwork. Didn't really matter tho.. we are all so far behind it's not funny. I spent part of this weekend working on schoolwork just to try and get caught up, and I don't feel any closer to on-par... all I can say is a B is passing!!! :)
-Vanna

Week 10 (10-14 Apr 06)

Week 10... 22% complete.
This was a short week thanks to the Easter break. BUT, even though it was short, it was still busy as ever, and I have homework to do this weekend.

I didn't fly at all this week, but it was still fun!

Monday: I was one of 4 people to attend the Atlantic Test Range (ATR) facility to monitor a Pitot-Static calibration flight. The ATR looks a lot like mission control. We monitor one of our T-38s as it flies up the Chesapeake Bay and record it's height above the water at specific intervals. That, along with instrumentation on the T-38, allows us to get an accurate air data calibration for altitude and airspeed. It's a fairly complex thing to explain, so I won't bore you with the details. Needless to say, THAT is the homework I have this weekend... reduce that data and figure out the true airspeed and altitude of our T-38.

Tuesday: Headed down to the simulation lab for a controls event. That too was pretty neat. The simulator is set up to show us how changing the amount of force needed to move a control stick (and a lot of other variables) can affect what we like and how the aircraft will respond.

Wednesday: Safety standdown that morning. Classes that afternoon. That's it. Then headed home for a 4-day holiday weekend. Come Monday, its back to the grind!
-Vanna

Week 9 (3-7 Apr 06)

Sorry for not posting earlier. Been a very busy last 2 weeks.
As I mentioned last week, I got the check in the block for flying 5 days in a row.

Well.... I did it AGAIN this past week! Flew the T-2C on Monday and Tuesday, then the T-38C on Wed, Thur, and Friday. SWEET! Two cool things happened during the flights this week.

Cool thing #1: We spun the T-2 three separate times! My instructor flew the 1st and 3rd one. I flew the 2nd spin. The last spin was AWESOME! We pulled straight up until we had just about no speed left, then he quickly pushed full left rudder, full right rudder, full left rudder and pushed on the stick. It's called a rudder triplet departure to spin (or rudder triplet spin entry). WHAT A RIDE! Picture this... the airplane has no energy left, we force it to wag it's tail, and then it pitches over quickly and bobbles at the bottom (nose pointed straight down) like a pendulum. That bobble is equivalent to you holding a ruler completely vertical, then slightly release your grip and let it swing from the top to the bottom and pendulate at for a few swings. NOW, what does that feel like for me in an airplane? Put an ant on the end of the ruler and ask him.. :)
Actually it was way cool. I made sure my harness was locked and tight. When we pitched over, I was in negative G, then when it pitched back up, it was positive again, until it pitched back down at -1G. It oscillated a few times between -1 and +3 G, then settled out in a 45-deg nose down spin that was quickly increasing. We spun through 360 deg of heading change in about 2 seconds. The weird visual was the world spinning. I had to look UP through the canopy to see the horizon. The other neat thing was we were being safety chased by a T-38, and I can remember seeing the T-38 in a dive to keep up with us and watch us....

Too bad I can't take pics of this stuff...

Cool thing #2: Went supersonic again. This time, it was for a test and we hit Mach 1.15 in the T-38C at 37,000-ft. At that speed and with a little tail wind, we were going over 700 mph over the ground! SCHWING DADDY! The bad thing.... we used up all the restricted area at Pax River in no time flat and had to pull the throttles out of afterburner, put the speedbrakes out, and haul back on the stick for a 5-g pull to stay in the restricted airspace. BUT, we DID ge the data we needed. Here's some cool numbers...

Time to reach sea level to 37,000-ft at Mach 0.92: less than 2 minutes

From Mach 0.5 to Mach 1.15:

• Time to accelerate to max Mach: less than 1 minute
• Fuel burn rate: 13,000 lbs / hr

Keeping those numbers in mind, here's something to put them in perspective:
Max gross weight of the aircraft at takeoff: 12,500 lbs
Max fuel carried: 4000 lbs
Time until empty in full afterburner with full fuel: less than 15 minutes
Time until empty never using afterburner: over 1 hour

Don't ya just love the sports car style of the Talon? Man...what a sexy jet!
Next week will be a short week. We have Thur and Fri off for Easter.
Until then...

-Vanna