4:16 PM -- R.I.P Anna! --

 
1:13 PM -- YouTube time --

I finally jumped on the youtube wagon, here's my track and drop videos:

 
1:11 PM -- Wow --

So let's see...where did I leave off. June 05...ok.

Water Survival was pretty fun, especially after the pain of land survival. Basically 3 days of living it up in Pensacola. Highlights were watching the Blue Angels from our little dinghy's (The popped a little smoke over us to say hi), eating oysters, and destroying my personal raft because I forgot to close my riser covers. Was about to sink like a rock before I blew up my backup. AWESOME.

After survival it was back to Pittsburgh and a few weeks of quick training before it was off the South West Asia! Woohoo! 150 degree cockpits, sand, 18 hour days, sand, communal showers, sand, and 3 beers a day, with sand in them.

Start at the start I guess, we left Pittsburgh and made our way over there, I think I have to say to "an undisclosed forward operating base", since I know some of this stuff is classified, better safe than sorry.

Onec we go to our base we had a few days of in-briefings and bam we were flying missions into Iraq, I think 3 days after I got there. You name it we flew there. Really don't think I can say places or dates though. I was over there a total of 60 days or so, not that bad when you consider active duty nerds stay over there 120. They probably do about the same amount of flying as we do in one of our rotations, since we do a lot more flying when we are over there. Prima-donnas. I guess they need more recovery time after carrying 15 bags of gear each out to the airplane every time they go on an out and back. But I digress...

So long story short I made it back in one piece in September and have been doing the reserve bum thing ever since. I have one of those little fundraising thermometers you see on the side of the road in my house where I raise enough dough for rent and truck payment every month before I can take a deep breath. Getting married and Christmas aren't cheap either!

So I figured I would update some pictures on here, starting with let's see, survival school.

First is on the second last day of field training, hiding out waiting for a pickup we had some free time. I carved the old lady's name in the tree behind me.

Next is me prone on a rock recovering from an 18 mile death march through rugged terrain.

Here is my engineer and Nav on the trip over, in Scotland.

Ok here is my hero shot in front of the Mighty Herk, in Balad, Iraq

Here is me at an unnamed forward airbase that rhymes with Maghdad.

Finally me and my crew on the day we left for the States.

Hope you all enjoyed the pics, keep the e-mails coming I enjoy answering em. And if any guard/reserve dudes need a co-pilot shoot me an email! Will fly for man-days! OUT.

 
1:47 PM -- Update time baby! --

So after academics it was back to the flightline to finish up. I had a few rides and then they deemed me ready for my first checkride. We basically took the c-130 pilot checkride, include 0/50/100 flap landings, 3 engine go around and landing, and an instrument approach with holding or a procedure turn to a circling approach. It was a pretty hectic ride and I did ok, except I kept landing left of centerline. On my last landing, my 0 flap (which had been giving me the most trouble so I was already nervous) the evaluator said "I need to see that you're able to land on centerline..." hinting that my checkride hinged on my next landing. I have never concentrated so hard on the centerline in my flying career and I managed to snag it. Phew.

I had a cool checkpilot so after my landing he immediately let me know I had passed (unlike some who will wait for the entire flight and 2 hour debrief before letting you off the hook). I got a Q1 with 2 downgrades, one each on my 50 and 100 landings for, you guessed it, centerline. Stupid crosswind.

After that check it was right into my night flights. We did a bunch of NVG sorties and I came out of it NVG Airland and Airdrop qualified. Note to future prospective pilots, make sure your goggles are working WELL in the lane, don't wait till short final to figure out you are seeing double. Landing with your eyes closed is harrowing at best.

After my nights were done it was time to finish up the program with Tac formation/airdrop. It took about 10 flights or so and I was up for my next checkride. I flew a SKE formation (thats the instrument formation in the weather stuff) with a tougher checkpilot but did pretty well and got another Q1, no downgrades this time. With that it was time to bid farewell to my Fiancee, and head back home, C-130 type rating in tow.

Next stop was Fairchild AFB last month for survival school. Long story short, 6 days in the woods=suck. Being a POW=suck hard. 15 pounds lighter I got onboard a plane and was back in pittsburgh where I got to fly once and now I am here in Atlanta losing at poker waiting for my flight to pensacola.

I am scheduled to deploy in July to the desert, so I won't really be updating the site anymore for many reasons...hope you guys enjoyed my 2 year journey as much as I did...feel free to e-mail me, I get a kick out of helping out aspiring pilots.

Austin out.

 
4:26 PM -- Die Ducks! --

Had one formation ride as well, which was the same low level except we were following another airplane in formation. Herc form is 2000 feet back and just right of lead so pretty similar to T-1 formation. At least sight picture wise, since the Herk is bigger. (Herc or Herk? I don't know...e-mail me.)

So now we hav NVG academics tomorrow where we will learn to tweak the goggles, etc. Should be fun to throw em on for the first time. I just learned today you only use em to look outside, to look inside you just look under em (they are focused to infity so I guess inside will be blurry.)

Anyway so the left seat thing is going pretty well, getting decent grades (got a new compliment on one yesterday "Impeccable aircraft control...not too shabby!) Although I can't wait to go fly and NOT get a grade at the end, should be sweet. Or maybe the grade is you are alive and the boys on the ground got their widgets. More later!

P.S. spell check deleted these posts for some reason so excuse any typos.

 
2:45 PM -- I love Diet Cherry Limeade (Easy on the ice) --

So not really much new to report, will post when I get going in these new sims.

P.S. If anyone reading this is a duck hunter from Arkansas who needs a shooting partner drop me an email, I caught the bug!

 
4:19 PM -- Herc Driver (sort of...) --

So let's see a lot of crap has gone down. After academics we went into the sim phase of training. Just like in t-1's and tweets the sims here are run by retired c-130 drivers who are now civilians teaching us how to fly. There was the same mix of grumpy old men and people genuinely in it to teach. You are teamed up with a flying partner as well as a sim instructor who you stay with throughout the program. I teamed up with a fellow Pittsburgh pilot here doing initial with me and we ended up with an awesome sim instructor. He actually retired from the Guard unit here as chief pilot 2 weeks before our first sim, so he has a ton of knowledge to drop all over our faces.

The first sims were to get us ready for our EPE, or Emergency Procedures Evaluation. In the normal program this involves a sit down ground evaluation with an evaluator after your flying checkride and usually lasts 4 hours or so. But in this new left seat pilot program I am doing it is an actual ride in the sim where they throw every single EP they can think of at you and see if you can survive. We had about 6 or 7 sims to get ready for it and then the good old AF evaluator came up to test our mettle.

We ended up doing really well and were told my flying partner and I did the best out of all the groups that were tested that day. After that we got into the full motion simulator where we got ready for our instrument checkride that we were supposed to get in the sim before we hit the flightline. I say supposed since the sim ended up not being ready (had to have a certain FAA certification that it didn't have) so we ended up with all the asspain of a normal checkride (the ground eval, the evaluator, etc.) but it just didn't count. The evaluator said I would have gotten a Q1 though so I was happy. Now that I am in the normal airforce (pilot with wings) there are 3 checkride grades, Q1/2/3. A Q1 is the best and means you passed with no retraining, and is the most common grade given. A Q2 means you still passed, but you need a little bit of retraining before you are ready for the qualification. A Q3 means you failed, suck at life, and need to do it all over again. Permanent record stuff, not good.

I felt pretty good since I got a Q1 on a checkride from the left seat that people are usually taking once they have 800 so hours in the airplane.

Anyway then it was time for christmas. I got back here and was on the flightline ready to fly the real thing. First two flights I got scheduled for I ended up not flying. The first one my buddy flew the firsthalf and I got to watch the mission from the nav seat (kind of neat for the first time, but will get old...) but the weather crumped so we had to land. I actually got some taxi practice which was an eye opener though.

We have this little wheel on the left side which turns the nose-wheel. The Herc, big as it is, is sensitive and for that reason you can't stop or brake in a turn without breaking it. So here I am in the seat for 30 seconds, on a soaking wet taxiway trying to taxi this monster for the first time ever. All I remember is I turned the wheel a little too suddenly, everyone started yelling and I slammed on the brakes and there we were, stopped in the turn. Broken. So it basically took me about 30 seconds to break the airplane from my first time sitting in the seat. Has to be some kind of record.

The second mission the weather was better but our flap gauge took a dump on us so we had to cancel again. Finally though, yesterday morning the stars aligned and I got to fly. My buddy flew the first half again, but then we full stopped at Monroe, LA and I got into the seat. We taxied around a bit (a lot easier once I got the hang of it) and then took off and I was flying the Herc. It flew a lot like the sim , although rudder was a lot more important. I said "I can't believe I'm flying this thing" to which our crusty engineer replied "Neither can we..." After a few flights I am convinced the Engineer and Loadmaster's primary job on these student sorties is to rag on us new co-pilots.

So 6 hours later we were back on the deck in Little Rock and I could say I had flown the C-130. pretty neat. Now I have 3 or 4 more flights then get to do the instrument check for real this time. Then it's back to the sims to learn low level and formation flying.

More later, will try to keep this up to date. Have a full plate right now with flying/girlfriend/sleeping/etc. Keep the e-mails coming, good to hear from you all!