Bouncing, part 4

ITEM: Vanna's 4th Hornet flight
DATE: Thursday, 26-Jan-2006
TIME: 1345-1600 Eastern Standard Time
LOCATION: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland (KNHK)
EVENT: Field Carrier Landing Practice (FCLP)
CREW: LT Reid Wiseman (Tonto) / Mr. Pat Svatek (Vanna)
AIRCRAFT: F/A-18B (Salty Dog 323)

What is a FCLP? Well, basically it's carrier landing practice for the pilots but landing on land instead of the boat. Pilots fly FLCPs prior to going out to the carrier so they can hone those skills in a more forgiving environment (i.e. 8,000-ft of runway versus 800-ft). I was lucky enough to get on the flight schedule in the back seat of a 2-seat jet for the FCLPS.

The day started well enough. LT Wiseman called me about 0800. "Pat, I guess you are in my back seat today. Be over here for the brief about 1345. By the way, I'm Tonto."
"Ok Tonto, I'll be there. Oh, and by the way, since we are staying local, do I need a drysuit?"
"Well yeah, the weather is damn cold out there, and since the wind is really kicking, if we eject, there is a high likelihood we'd drift out to the water before we landed. Not a real good day to be in the water."
"Ok then, I'll see you at 1345."

After wrapping up my cubicle packing session (hey, I'm moving out of this cube and headed to TPS), I stopped and got a salad at Mickey D's. They hosed up my salad by giving me the wrong dressing, but I didn't have time to mess with that. Down the hatch!

I arrived at Tonto's office about 1335. As soon as I walked in, I had a feeling of I KNOW THIS GUY! He seemed very familiar. We waited for the rest of the flight crews to arrive. Although we were a single ship today, there would be three other hornets performing FCLPSs with us. My TPS soon-to-be classmate, Deb Gillispie, was in the back seat of another hornet today. We'd both be flying with Lieutenants (LTs) about our age.

It didn't take long for the rest of the pilots to show up. One of the LTs would not be flying today. He was designated as "paddles" for today's flight. Paddles is the nickname for the Landing Signal Officer (LSO). His primary role is to talk with the pilots on final and walk them through roll, pitch, and power corrections. Not so much of a big deal on land, but a very big deal when trying to land on a moving ship, at night, with large seas....you get the idea. His ACTUAL duty today was to grade each FCLP attempt for each pilot. If you look at this picture, you can see a white truck and the landing lights (lens) system. The LSO is in the truck on a radio with the pilots.

The briefing went something like this...
Off the deck by 1515, primary freq 342.7, tower control until passed to paddles, blah blah blah, calls to paddles are Salty Dog 323, ball, fuel state....more blah blah blah...
I didn't understand MOST of what they were talking about. It was being briefed very quickly, and the questions that came up seemed in some sort of code, with a "coded" answer. I call it Hornet Lingo. I just don't speak it. But it was fun listening to the whole thing. After the pilots briefed, Tonto briefed me on the back seat procedures.

"Pat, I like to talk, so you will hear me talking about pretty much everything going on today."
"Great," I said, "I like to know what's the heck is going on."
His back seat brief was standard squadron cookie-cutter items. Don't touch this...in case of this...go ahead and tell me if you see this...ask questions...that kind of stuff.

After we finished our brief, we walked out to my truck to drive over to the PR shop. The whole time during the pilot briefing, I was scratching my head on why Tonto seemed familiar. I guess it took a cold wind to hit me in my face as we walked out the building.

"Hey, Tonto, did you start out in Tomcats?"
"Yeah, sure did."
"How did you get into Hornets?"
"I went to TPS class 125, and when I got out, I went to Hornet school and here I am."
"Did you do primary flight training in Kingsville?"
"Yeah, in the T-45."
"Really, what year did you get your wings?"
"Back in 1999, why?"
"Was it April 1999?"
Now Tonto has this sort of paused looked on his face..."Yeeeaaahhhhh, why?"
I'm all smiles as this point.
"DUDE, I've met you before! Down in Kingsville! At your winging!"
"Really, Pat? I don't remember you."
"Did you have a Daren Jewell in you class?"
"YEAH!"
"Do you remember James Lynch, and Andrew..I can't remember his last name, but he wore a goofy German motorcycle helmet?"
"Yeah, I do remember them."
"We shit man, it's a small world! Daren was my best friend, and I was down there for his winging taking pictures!"
"No shit! I'm sorry I don't remember you man..."
"That's alright. We did a lot of drinking at the luau down there."
"OH yeah...those days...wow.... it's a shame what happened to Daren."
"Yeah, that wasn't good at all," I said. We were just about to my truck.
"It was real hard on everyone. I am still great friends with his mom and ex-girlfriend."

Time was getting closer to launch. We strolled into the paraloft and started getting geared up. I won't bore you with the details, since I've spoke about it so much in my previous blogs. I was having an issue with one of the zippers, and that caused us to be a little late. We started walking to the jet, and Tonto told me to go ahead and get strapped in. Yeah, strapped in. My least favorite part. What a pain in the ass (and arms, and legs). I'm a big-framed guy and a hornet is just a little too small for me. With all that gear on (especially the drysuit), I can't really reach my calves to fasten the lower leg restraints. Tonto and the plane captain had to help me out.
After a few suck-it-up motivational thoughts, Tonto said, "This ride's not free...you gotta work for it, so suck it up and get strapped in." Damn, exactly what I was mentally telling myself.

After a little fiddling with the harness, I was good to go. Tonto lowered the canopy first. It was too cold and windy to sit there for a few minutes and wait for the engines to start up. Weather was showing about 40F with 30-40 MPH winds gusting to 45 MPH so the wind chill was well below freezing.

Deedle-Deedle... that sound in my helmet told me the aircraft electrical power is now online. Tonto began walking me through the start procedures. Way too complicated for me to remember much less try to write it down here. You'd probably have better luck finding those procedures on the internet somewhere.

Shortly after starting the engines, we were taxiing out to Runway 32. Wind was pretty much straight down the runway. "Salty Dog 323, Runway 32, cleared for takeoff." I got a sweet video of the takeoff. Because we were a little too heavy to start the FLCPs right away (too much fuel), we had to burn some off. The restriced areas (airspace) were crowded so we couldn't go out there and just fly around for awhile. Ask youself this question....what's the quickest way to burn off fuel???

AFTERBURNER baby! Tonto lit the burners to full (MAX) power. As soon as we were airborne, he raised the gear, and slightly climbed to about 300-ft above the ground. Before I knew it, we were 360 knots over the end of the runway, burners still going, and he pulls a 90-deg right bank and pulls back on the stick.....SHIT MAN! 6.5Gs! That's my new max G. I could feel it too. I wasn't properly ready for that many Gs that quickly, and I got my first ever hint of a gray-out. Very weird feeling. Anyhow, like I said, I got it ALL ON VIDEO (43MB)! Definitely my best takeoff ride in a hornet yet! I could not believe how fast it accelerated! It was still throwing me back in my seat even during the turn!

Once we got back around to the airfield, Tonto entered for the overhead break. That's where you come screaming over the field and just about mid-field, yank the aircraft into either a left (which we did) or right bank to bleed off airspeed and enter the pattern. It's pretty cool if done right, and it's easy to hose it up.

A few minutes later and we were configured for the FCLPs. Flaps set to FULL, gear is DOWN and LOCKED. The first pass was an intentional waveoff. The next few passes were all pilot skill. During later passes, Tonto set up various things...one of the passes he simulated a partial HUD failure. This forces the pilot to use old-school techinques of sinkrate, airspeed, and watching the ball. A few other passes he used the autothrottle to control speed as he controlled everything else. I think we did about 8 passes total, all of them A+ in my book! Our last pass was a full-stop landing. Plenty of videos (11MB) and pictures on this flight. Even some good pictures of Pax River.

Even though I only logged 0.6-hr of flight time, it was probably the best 0.6-hr of flying I've ever had! What a small world this is.....I just thought about how random it really was to have Tonto as my pilot. Here I am, an aerospace engineer, who could be working just about any aerospace job in the world.... Here is Tonto, an F/A-18 pilot, who could be anywhere else in the world...BUT, I'm at Pax River and Tonto is here...and VX-23 operations paired us up for the flight. Wow.... Daren, thanks for letting me fly with your bud!

3rd Flight is the Charm, or is it?

ITEM: Vanna's 3rd Hornet flight
DATE: Tuesday, 24-Jan-2006
TIME: 1200-1500 Eastern Standard Time
LOCATION: Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland
EVENT: Safety Chase Plane SD 423 for a Hi-Alpha test flight in SD 420
CREW:
LtCol Gray (Haze) / Mr. Pat Svatek (Vanna) [SD423]
Mr. Wallace (Sting) / MAJ Taylor (Opie) [SD420]

AIRCRAFT: F/A-18D (no aft cockpit stick tho)

The plan for the flight was briefed as 1200. SD420 would be the flight lead and test aircraft. Today's testing would include high angle-of-attack test points with the new flight control software. SD423 would act as a safety chase aircraft and provide assistance where needed. My duties were simple.... if I see something that does look right, seem right, or feel right, speak up and Haze know. Otherwise, take pictures. The flight tests were scheduled to take 3 hours. In order to accomplish this, there was a C-130 tanker waiting for us. SWEET! I'll get my first in-flight refueling ride!

We briefed the flight and walked to the paraloft to get geared up. This was my first flight wearing a drysuit. Way uncomfortable wearing all that flight gear. Part of the drysuit procedure involves using a shopvac to suck all the air out of the suit. When that happens, the suit feels likes its crushing you... it literally molds itself to your body contour, which severely restricts mobility (as you will hear about later).

Once I was geared up, I walked out to the jet. Haze was already there doing a thorough preflight. I walked up to the boarding ladder and attempted to board. Remember that restricted mobility? Well here is where it first shows up. I really can't lift my leg high enough to reach the first rung on the ladder! I did not want to ask for assistance boarding the plane so I put forth a huge effort (and nearly got a cramp doing it) to get my foot to the first rung. DAMN, I did it! Ok, three more rungs to go....

Once I sat down in the back seat, I realized the feared restricted mobility monster would show its face again. Now back in my first few blogs, I wrote about having to strap into the jet. Well, I could not reach the lower leg straps... I waved for the PC (that's plane captain) to come and help. She came over and proceeded to strap me completely into the jet. The only strap I did myself was the upper right parachute fitting. Thanks!!!!

Haze was in the front. Engine starts were smooth. He lowered the canopy and we taxied out to meet up with SD420 who was waiting for us. All systems go! We taxied to Runway 6.
SD420 took off first and we followed 10 seconds later. One airborne, we joined up to look each other over and make sure there were no visible issues with the aircraft. Looks good. As we proceeded out to the test area, we performed a G-warm. Right for 4Gs, then left for 6Gs. Man, that feels good! G-suit was definitely working! We began a formation climb up to 40,000-Ft.

We leveled off at 37,000-Ft while SD420 climbed. During this level-off we lost SD420 in the sun. In the process of doing this, we were climbing and descending, accelerating and decelerating. This gave me a check in the block for one of the things I'd like to have done before I die... the picture shows why. Look closely at the picture. Can you decipher what it is saying? Why would I be all excited about this?

Once we found SD420, he began his maneuvering. We lost sight of him again, but eventually found him and rejoined. He was having fuel imbalance issues, and those were preventing him from starting his high alpha tests. The guys on the ground monitoring the flight recommended putting G on the airplane to see if the fuel imbalance would correct.

We of course have to follow him, so we too are putting G on the airplane. After a few G maneuvers at 37,000-Ft, the test aircraft SD420 is still having issues. We decided to roll on his left (from the right, as you can see in the picture below). Shortly after we join, I heard a loud POP from behind my seat and a whoosh/whistling sound of air. My drysuit began to inflate. WAIT...only my G-SUIT has inflation capability. Why is my drysuit inflating?

"How are you feeling back there," asked Haze. "Well I'm beginning to feel inflated," I responded. "Kinda like the Michelin man?" Haze asked. "Well yeah, exactly like that! What happened?"

It was at that point my engineering brain began to work in physics mode. Less air pressure means trapped air expands. The air trapped in my drysuit (yeah even after all that shop vac suck the air out to form fit it to me scenario) was expanding and making me feel like the Michelin man because the outside (i.e. cockpit) pressure was less. I looked down at the cabin pressure gage at my lower left and it read 26,000-Ft. Not good. A normal reading should be about 8,000-Ft. "Pat, I think the pop we heard was us losing pressurization. Do you have you O2 mask on?" "Yep, its on." "Ok, we're gonna descend." Haze was right. The cabin pressure gauge confirmed it. The master caution light just reminded us we had a problem.

After Haze told SD420 we had a cabin pressure loss, we took lead and SD420 followed to inspect us. That was it. No tanker today. Airplane is down. We're headed back home.

As we descended, I could feel the outside air pressure increasing. My drysuit began to get uncomfortable again. When we reached 6000-Ft, it was giving me that crushing feeling again. The flight back to Pax gave me a good opportunity to snap a beautiful shot of Point Lookout, MD. It gave me the time to think about how I got here...what it took to be in this back seat...all the folks who have helped me get to this point in my life, and the road that lay ahead of me. What a cool feeling!

We returned to Pax and landed number 2 after SD420. Uneventful landing and roll-out. A short taxi back to the hangar and my 3rd hornet flight was done. The final number was a 0.8-hour flight. Hopefully I can get back up at least one more time before I start TPS in two weeks. Oh, one more thing. Did you figure out what was so special about that picture earlier? If not, here's what it is.... I can officially check off the block of things to do before I die... GO SUPERSONIC (or faster than the speed of sound). Look at the "M" in the picture. That is Mach number. We actually hit Mach 1.06, but by the time I could get the camera on and focused, we had slowed to exactly Mach 1.00. The interesting thing about flying through the sound barrier in the hornet is.... you don't know you've done it. I mean I felt a very slight and rapid bump, and didn't know exactly what it was. I was just looking over all the gauges and happened to see our Mach. Amazing isn't it? Only 60 years ago people were dying trying to get through the sound barrier and their airplanes would not let them do it. Now... you don't even know it!

Gearing Up

This is not a flight story, so I apologize to all those who were expecting a jet story. Nope, but nontheless, this is an important step in getting ready for TPS.

Part of the new student process is to check in with the PR shop (Parachute Rigger shop, aka Paraloft). The folks in there are responsible for pretty much all your flight gear. From the boots and flight suit all the way to the survival equipment, they literally are your first and last line of safety should you need to eject. Throughout my 4 years at Pax River, I've come to really appreciate the Paraloft folks. Not only is their job paramount to flying, they bring a sense of security (and sometime comedic relief) to an already stressful situation.

My visit to the TPS paraloft would be no exception...

When I first walked in, there was an older gentleman sitting there, eyeing me as I approached. It must have been the not-so-suave posture I was walking with, or the fact that he has been there forever, but his first words to me as I approached were.. "So, Class 130 student, eh?"

"Um, yeah...but how.. nevermind, I'm Patrick." "Well hello Patrick and welcome aboard, I'm Jerry."

The TPS paraloft is definitely an aviation shrine. There are all kinds of photos, patches, old flight gear (and new gear too of course) in there. It SMELLS of aviation! Jerry introduced me to the rest of the crew....Frank, Bill, Frank, Lynn, and a few others that I've already forgotten their names but will quickly remember come Class Day #1.

"Yeah, I'm here to get fitted for my gear. I'm going to be in the jet curriculum."
"Ok Pat, well, first things first, have you flown before?"
"Well, yeah, I'm a civilian pilot, and I have about 200 hours on an E-6, and only a couple of hornet flights."
"So you've worn the gear before then....good, this should come as no surprise to you."

Hmmm...are they going to start the class 130 hazing at the paraloft? Their smirks seemed to tell me YES, but at the same time, I also got the same feeling of comedic relief and professionalism. Well, this is going to be fun nontheless.

First was to verify my flight suits were the right size for me. 46 Regular, yep, those fit good. Now the boots... yep they fit.

DAMN IT! Ok, this blog is not making me happy. I had A LOT more stuff here, but somehow it did not save it...SO, I will update this more later when my frustrations have cooled down....