Week 5 (6-10 Mar 06)

School is really starting to pick up now. Academics are still straightforward, but we are now talking about how to apply what we're learning via a flight event. Looks like my first TPS flight test event might be as early as next week. I will have a calculus exam for sure next Thursday. Plus, I should be on the flight schedule.

Now, the best part of this past week.. My first T-2C flight! What a flight! I got to fly with my classmate, "SLAB". We briefed the flight, went to the paraloft to get all geared up, then walked to the jet. The first thing I noted was how HARD it was to lift my leg up high enough to get on the first step. You board the aircraft via built-in steps on the side of the plane. With all that gear on, it's damn near impossible to have the flexibility needed to get your legs high enough off the ground to get the first step. I finally did it, but after much contorting and twisting.

After I got into the seat, the Plane Captain helped me get strapped in. I quickly realized that once I was strapped in to the ejection seat, I could not reach down between my legs to pull out the seat safety pin. The PC helped me do this too.

After startup, we taxiied out to the runway. SLAB let me taxi the aircraft. SWEET! Differential brakes are the only means of steering at low speed. We took the runway and got airborne in short time. After a short transit time to the restricted airspace, we started flying the heck out of the jet.

Stalls, Loops, Hi-G maneuvers (about 5Gs), rolls, inverted flight, zero G... all good stuff! SLAB let me fly most of the flight. We logged about 1 hour of flight time. All was uneventful until after landing...

Once we exited the runway, we started through the after-landing checklist. SLAB raised the canopy as I was trying to put the safety pins back into the seat and canopy jettison handle. There are 4 pins... 3 are all tied together on one REMOVE BEFORE FLIGHT streamer, and the canopy jettison pin is on its own streamer.

I started pinning th seat up as the winds were whipping through the cockpit. Winds were gusting about 30-knots. As we continued to taxi to the TPS ramp, I realized I could not find the canopy jettison saftey pin. After lots of feeling around and looking, I came to the conclusion it was NOT in the back cockpit.

We taxiied to our spot, and shut down the engines. As soon as I was unstrapped, I got out of the airplane, again a major pain to get out similar to getting in. SLAB crawled to the back seat and also could not find the safety pin. The two maintenance guys on the ramp took turns looking too. I was beginning to think it must have blown out of the airplane when SLAB raised the canopy. TPS maintenance had base ops drive out to the taxiway where we opened our canopy. Sure enough, there was the pin. Sitting right there on the ground. I felt like an idiot. All these people in a frantic search for it just because I couldn't hold onto a pin....sheesh!

In the end, it was a great flight! Looking forward to another T-2 flight soon!
-Vanna