Week 8 (27-31 Mar 06)

Something I never thought would happen actually DID this week. There are two elusive things to accomplish at TPS (or so at least I've been told)...
1) Fly every day of the week
2) Fly in a different type of aircraft every day of the week

Well, I did #1. I flew EACH AND EVERY DAY this past week! Woo-hoo!!! So, lemme break it down as it happened...

Monday, 27-Mar-2006
Aircraft: NU-1B Otter
I flew with Mr. Jerry Gallagher (yes, the comedian Gallagher's brother). It was my first handling qualities flight (HQ-1). The purpose was to evaluate how well (or poorly) the Otter flew. Lemme tell ya...it was a HANDFUL! I was always having to make control input corrections to keep it in the attitude I wanted. In fact, I had to write 4 R&E paragraphs on how poorly it flew. R&E stands for Results & Evaluation. Total flight time: 1.5hr

Tuesday, 28-Mar-2006
Aircraft: T-38C
I flew with Smokin' again. This time we flew W/delta test points and gathered all our required test points except two. Our assigned altitude was FL300, and we found out that the T-38 cannot go any faster than 0.95M at that altitude without using afterburners. Logged a 1.0hr flight.

Wednesday, 29-Mar-2006
Aircraft: T-2C
Again, I flew with Smokin'. This was a performance practice flight, so we ended up doing a lot of practicing maneuvers for next week's flight tests. We wrapped up the flight with a couple of spins. SCHWING! I need to get one of those on tape for y'all to see.... The funny thing that happened was my Pitot-Statics exam. The professor said we were allowed to use laptops on the exam but his disclaimer was "digital answers get digital grades". Ok, I wrote a program to calculate a LOT of what we were supposed to look up in tables and graphs. Screw that! If I can get the answer from a convoluted equations, I'll do that instead! Anyhow, a lot of my classmates decided to use my program (along with a program another classmate wrote) for the exam. We have 35 students and 32 of the brought their laptops to class. When the instructor walked in, his first words were "Holy crap that's a lot of laptops!" I think we surprised him! He told me later that the last class had 1 guy who brought his laptop and everyone else did it the old fashioned way. I think my class 130 has just set the bar a little higher! Schweeet...... ;)

Thursday, 30-Mar-2006
Aircraft: TH-6B
My second helo flight ever. I flew with CW4 Mark Armstrong. The TH-6B is the "Magnum PI" helicopter. That thing has some spunk but definitely seemed under-powered for a hover. We collected some helo perf data for the rotes in our class, and then he let me fly about 1/2 the flight. I'm not too bad at hovering a helo, but no-where-near what Mark can do. Logged a 2.0.


Friday, 31-Mar-2006
Aircraft: T-38C
First flight with Crack (LT Sean Mathieson). It was his first perf practice flight, so we went out and practiced lots of perf maneuvers. Ended the day by landing, logging the data, and getting ready for the You'll Be Sorry Party (YBS Party).

YBS.... exactly what it says.... It's the senior's way of welcoming the junior class and introducing us to WHY we will be sorry we ever joined TPS. A lot of what happens at the YBS party is hush-hush (as in what happens at YBS STAYS at YBS), but I can tell you there was a TON of liquor, a little hazing by the senior class (and some instructors), watching a home-made video about WHY we'd be sorry, good BBQ, and lots of socializing... Cindy was witness to ALL of this as she was my designated driver. Thanks honey!

-Vanna