Demographics

Turns out the wives get more information sometimes than we do, but some general info about our class was finally passed down. We started class 20 Aug in phase I (academics). Phase II (flying in the T-6) starts 27 Sep. Track selection is 7 March, with graduation from flight school 5 Sept 08. Projected drops for track select: 5, T-38s fighter/bomber; 16, T-1s heavy transport; 2, T-44s for C-130s; and 1 Helo. That adds up to 24 students, 3 of which are female, with 1 international student from India. 9 are married, 4 have kids, ages range from 22 - 30, 11 Academy grads, 6 ROTC, 5 National Guard, 1 OTS, 4 prior enlisted, 6 private pilot licenses, 1 extremely ferocious Bearcat.
Today was our first real academic day, 0700-1730, not too bad. Most of the info is self taught on a computer at your own pace. Everything kind of slowed down and I got a warm fuzzy when they took us out to the aircraft and gave us a complete walk around, letting us pet it and scratch behind its ear. I'm pretty pumped.

Good Day

The Lord really blessed me today. I made a 100 on our 2nd physiology test today, which was 2 points higher than the class average, and since I was 2 points lower than the class average last time, i'm back on par. Also, all of our class passed the FACT today (a strength test). Before all of that we got to play around with some flares/smoke signals (apparently the smoke is caustic, but that wasn't explained to me until after I hid in mine like a ninja or batman. To top it off we got the afternoon off and got to eat at the sweetest down-home restaurant ever, Fleet's Eats, amazing!!
Also a Colonel gave us some insight as to aircraft choice, we really shouldn't even be thinking about this but you can't help it. He said that everything you fly ultimately becomes another job and eventually you don't even fly that much, so you need to be in the community that best fits your personality. So we'll see how that goes...

Mindset going in

I typed this up about a week ago before I had internet but just now getting around to posting it.

You can drive yourself crazy (and lots of guys do) thinking ahead and worrying about how you might do, and what you want to fly – everybody is always talking about what they want (usually fighters, but my class is about 50/50) which is funny considering we have very little to base that on. One day I think I want A-10s (which they apparently give out about 1 year), the next day C-130s or C-27s… but I’ve actually come to peace with all of that, I’ve said that in the past trying to make myself be at ease with it, but I truly am now. The indifference/peace came in the form of a message at church the other day and a new definition of “fearing God”. The sermon discussed God’s “moral, master, and my” plans. He has His master plan, and I need to forget what I think I might want at the moment, and get on board with what He knows will really make me happy – serving Him where He leads. (I can go into more depth if u gimmie a call.) Also I’ve never had a firm grasp on “fearing God” It is confusing to me how one can love Him and talk to Him as a friend knowing He wants to shower you with blessings, but still fear him like I fear failure, or opponents fear the Bearcats. But the other day in the foot notes I read “The fear of the Lord is a state of mind in which one’s own attitudes, will, feelings, deeds, and goals are exchanged for God’s” That puts a deep, new spin on “fearing the Lord”, fully comprehending/practicing that definition is going to be my goal for the next year.

Week 1

We just finished our first week of UPT!! Pretty exciting stuff, the first day 5 guys showed up late for a welcome brief from the Commander, ya that was a bad idea that earned us all the opportunity to were blues instead of flight suits all week, and be on "formal release" a program that takes away all free/extra time in the schedule. We had to go back to a classroom and just sit around until our Flight Commander felt like letting us go. Formal Release is usually reserved for when you start flying, to really annoy you, but we're that special.

Everything else about the week was awesome!!! It was all physiology stuff: how the body handles flying and all the environmental factors that play into flying. This involved spinning around in a chair and watching the crazy tricks your mind can play on you, as well as the altitude chamber in which they simulate high atmosphere and let you breath the thin air until you get really loopy. We learned some life support stuff, by far the coolest: watching the sunrise from a field as we took turns being pulled around behind a truck to simulate parachuting. They have you parasail about 300ft up and practice sailing back down. Being a redneck I already know how to fall out of a tree, so it was hard to break old habits and learn their way to fall, they played back the video of me hitting the ground and I did some kind of weird flip. We also learned the proper way to egress the aircraft, whether on the ground or in the air.
We had our first test, probably the easiest test we’ll have, and being the retard I am I missed 2, I seriously should’ve made a 100. I’m going to half to learn to except myself jacking up and move on. Hopefully I’ll learn from this, but there is so much information I don’t really know where to focus my time.

Game Plan

We got a schedule and syllabus the other day, looks pretty fun/fast paced. Most days are 0700-1800, but we’ve had one 0500-1700 so you never know. We have weekends off, first week is all physiology stuff, followed by 4 weeks of academics, the fifth week looks pretty simulator heavy transitioning us onto the flight line. From what I’ve heard once you hit the flight line (transition from the OSS to a flying sq to start flying (phase 2)) things really get busy and you have no more free time. I hear they are really intense long days for about 15 duty days then they let off some (still no free time), and we’ll ease into a routine until March when we’ll track select - find out whether we’ll go fly T-38s for fighter/bomber, T-1s for cargo, T-44s in Corpus Christi for C-130s, or down to AL for helos. From there we’ll fly in our specific trainer (phase 3) until Sep when we receive our assignments for our actual aircraft and location, but of course you have to learn to fly your final aircraft first with some survival mixed in, so we’re looking at about a year and half before actually being ready to do anyone any good.

Pubs (publications) (our books)

2 days (duty days) before class started we picked up all of our pubs for phase 1 & 2 (academics and T-6 flight). Here is a picture of them stacked up, they are 8 ½ x 11 front n back sheets, then they condensed it all onto a CD, HA. It seemed like a lot when I first looked at it, but its really not too bad. A buddy said you will read it all, but after you finish a section you move on never to look at it again. He said I’d be amazed at how fast you can actually learn it, apparently the learning curve is ridiculous.

4 - eyes

We had out PHA (preventative health assessment) today (three days before class). This is another area I could see people going crazy, but you have ZERO control over it. The AF screens you a good dozen times to see if you really are as healthy as you say you are. So they took some blood, foot prints (cuz boots don’t burn as well as the rest of your body), gave me half a dozen needle sticks, TB screening, complete physical (with cough), color blindness test, depth perception test, and the letter test. The 20/20 line on the old standard charts is DEFPOTEC, too bad they don’t use that anymore cuz it turns out I can’t see. Luckily the docs are helpful and want you to do well, so I get some reading glasses to take stress off of my eyes, but don’t have to wear them to fly (some people do). We also got some sweet drugs to see if we’re allergic to them, some antibiotics, a couple different no-go (sleeping) and a few go (mild speed).

Up-date: one of the no-to pills was ambion - it was awesome, i was as loopy as could be, and apparently called Wes after I was in bed - but I don't remember that...

NEW SUITS

Today was freakin awesome! All of your taxes are well appreciated, as I try on all of my new gear (see picture for a taste). We got a helmet bag, 3 flight suits, jacket, 2 pairs of thermal tops n bottoms, flask to fit in flight suit, G-shock watch, aviator sunglasses, a lame flashlight from the 30s, gloves, boots, fuzzy hat, crazy protractor thing, leg strap to attach checklists, and hearing protection (quickly put to use while shooting the 38 later that day). The suits/jacket aren’t in the pic cause we’re getting rank and name tags sewn up at the parachute shop, we made the name tags with a red hot stamp press that burned silver ink into the leather. I had to contain my excitement when we pulled my patch out, only to find I had mis-spelled my own name, whoops, so I didn’t do so well at containing my excitement after all...

Killing time: not really AF related

Waiting around for things to speed up is pretty easy for me, I’ve been catching up on movies and burning CDs thanks to the base library: all 10 Band of Brothers, 6 Star Wars, 3 Bourne’s, 2 Ninja Turtles, the classic series. We’ve also been working out/running a lot. There is a 4 mile route that runs parallel with the flight line, its awesome in the morning when its still hot (not yet miserably hot) and you see a dozen or more aircraft at once: some taxing, holding short, landing, taking off, in the pattern, its amazing, you almost forget you’re running in ridiculously humid Mississippi. I also enjoy bike riding around the perimeter of the base, it weaves in and out of the woods along the far side of the flight line. Head out about sunset, put some good tunes on the ipod, I feel like I’m in a movie. I figure that will be my get away over the next year, that and going shooting, we’ve been doing a lot of that too, with a little fishing thrown in here n there. I’m pretty much free to roam, just have to sign in during the day.

OPSEC

My dad, being the ever vigilant warrior that he is, reminded me that having all this info out there might not be the best idea, so I removed my name and all other personalizing info. fun stuff.

Movin to MS

I'm finally moved into the dorm - I have pictures if u want to see them. Its not much, but its plenty for a year. Everything went smoothly, they have a class of 30 starting every 3 weeks so they have this down pretty well. Class starts on the 20th and until then all I have to do is sign in by 1030, and I'm free to do whatever. I have an occasional briefing to attend, but most time is filled sittin at the end of the flight line watching planes. Life is hard. It blows me away how many students are here, this base isn't very big and it seems like there are nothing but Lts runnin around. There probably won't be any updates till school starts.