Returning from a leave of absence

So it has been three weeks to the day since my last post and even though I still have a lot of studying to do today, I wanted to take a moment to update everyone just to try to get back into the groove of things.

Last week we had three flying days. Our scheduler had said the Friday before that if you had soloed already, you wouldn't be flying and if you haven't soloed, plan on flying everyday till you solo. I still had 4 flights till my scheduled solo at that point so that meant I was going to have to double-turn (fly twice in the same day) one day and then have one flight the other two days to have 4 flights in three days. Monday came and I was scheduled to fly but the weather cloud ceilings were too low for contact (visual) flying so none of us got to go up. Then Tuesday came and I double turned which made me super busy but it sure made the day go by fast. Then Wednesday came and I had my end-of-block ride followed by my pre-solo, then solo. Unfortunately, I was not on top of the game and "hook-ed" that ride (got an unsat) and didn't get to have the second ride. It's not a big deal as long as I correct the things I didn't do well tomorrow. If these go well tomorrow then I should solo (fly the T-6 without anyone in it except me).

After that I started getting ready for thanksgiving. I had teamed up with some of the guys from our class and we divided the food that was to be made. The turkey had to cook a little longer than expected but the food was amazing. We cooked a 19lbs turkey along with all the traditional fixings. After we sipped eggnog and bourbon in the backyard with our fire pit going. Overall a really nice time.

Flying, adoption, and wake surfing?

Monday through Thursday of this past week went zooming by like the Aries rocket launch a few week ago. I had two flights, both of them with significant improvement along with a big academic test that I got a 94% on. It was busy but in a good way and I felt like things were going pretty well with a big "end of block" ride on scheduled on Friday. End of block rides are rides that check your progress to make sure you are at certain points of progress before going on to the next "block" of rides. Friday morning, the first thing we did was take the weekly Boldface and Operations limits test along with an EPQ (Emergency Procedures Quiz), which covered about 200 pages of random facts and numbers about the T-6. I passed the EPQ which I had been studying all week for but messed up the the boldface with must be done exactly word for word, coma for coma, dash for dash like the example. So I looked kinda stupid for that but luckily I wasn't the only one in the flight who didn't do them right so we both just retook them right after and passed them without any problem. So I thought that was all cleared and what reviewing my flight profile when the flight commander came out and said I owed him an additional 5 more Boldface/Ops limits test on his desk by the end of the day. So as I was filling those out, my assigned Instructor Pilot for the day's flight said that he was sick and DNIF (Duty Not Including Flying) and he was couldn't find another instuctor to go with me so my flight can been canceled. On top of that, a lot of the guys were having bad flights and one guy got in huge trouble for missing a simulator lesson.

After the duty day was over. Matt and I road our bikes straight to the O Club for dinner and a refreshing adult beverage to help ease our minds do a little "penguin punting". Luckily it was a "Drop" night, where the soon to be graduating class finds out what aircraft they will be flying upon graduation and also there locations. Its always a pretty exciting night since they make the even quite humorous by making fun of the students one by one talking about the strange, different, or just dumb mistakes they have made over the past year in training. After the even is over, I always enjoy socializing with individuals from the graduating class and sometimes rubbing elbows with the higher ups. At one point, I stepped outside to take a phone call and noticed a white and tan colored cat outside sitting on the sidewalk and meowing practically non-stop. He looked lost and didn't have a collar but I didn't really pay much attention to it other that noting it looked pretty sad and lost.

Some time later, as Matt and a few other friends stepped outside to get home, I noticed the same cat sitting there, and just as before, meowing up a storm! Matt picked him up and he immediately started purring. Matt looked at me and said just like a little kid, "Can we take him home?" Once we got home he went in our house and just as any curious cat would, explored. That night we had also received our new Cuisinart bread machine and were pretty excited about that so we just decided to name him "Art" for short. We think hes actually part dog because you can call him and he will run up to you, he loves to sleep in the bed with you and loves to jump up on the kitchen counter. Below are a few pictures of the new quite talkative, attention loving cat.

After that Friday, a couple of the guys in my class have really nice water skiing boats and we were invited to come along. We went out to the lake in a more secluded part where the water is much calmer and we went wake boarding. Then Matt, who brought a surf board along showed us how to find the sweet spot in the wake you can actually stand up on it and surf the wake without any rope after you get established. It was super fun and like I said, much needed after that Friday. Below is a video of me "almost" standing up, I think I'll get it next time.



That's all for now, I'm scheduled to fly tomorrow morning but it's raining right now so we'll see what happens. Here are a couple of pictures from the Halloween post I forgot to post up last time. I was Legolas from Lord of the rings.

Weekly Update

The guy in our class who was in charge of ordering our patches sent out scans of the finished product. They should be here in a few days.

The skull patch is our daily patch that we will wear on our right shoulder. The 10-15 is our class, 10 is for fiscal year 2010, the year we graduate and 15 is for the fifteenth class of that year. The planes in his eyes are the T-1 and the T-38, the aircraft that most of the will be going on to after we are done with Phase II and T-6s. The wings in his mouth are the wings we are going to get at the end of training "minus the XL", that's just the slang name for Laughlin.

If anyone would like a patch sent to them email me at daves1986@gmail.com and give me your address and I'll send one your way.

As for the other patch... well... that's called our "Friday Patch" because usually it doesn't have to be approved by the Commander. In our class has this saying that goes, "You can only fit so many penguins on the iceberg before you have to start kicking others off"; basically saying that your brain can only take up so munch information before you start forgetting something else. So on Fridays our class 10-15 goes "Penguin Punting" at the O-club to make more room for next weeks material, as indicated by the adult beverage in his hand.

Halloween was pretty low key. One of the guys hosted a class costume party at his house on Friday night and there were a bunch of house parties on Saturday but I was pretty drained by then so I stayed in. I went out as Legolas from Lord of the Rings with the blond hair and all, I'll post up a photo when I get one from my friend.

I'm not scheduled to fly tomorrow at this point but that is always changing. I should be flying on Tuesday and might even have an instruments test which I spent most of today studying for.