4:35 PM

This is what the cockpit looks like with a couple of goons sitting in it.

All in all it went pretty smoothly except at one point when one of us was egressing from the cockpit seat and hit the wrong button. Let's just say you want to turn off the oxygen flow to the cockpit's standby mask, and there is another knob right next to it that does something else...

It was pretty damn funny and scared the crap out of the people sitting in the back.

Had our first academics test today. It was on the electrical system and I think the whole class got 100%. Let's just say the instructors are extremely helpful when it comes to the review session as well as if you have any questions during the test...Next few days is more systems academics.

 
4:56 PM -- Systems --

Also had my first experience with squadron PT this morning...OTS flashback. The 86th (T-1 squadron) has a weekly workout session with station drills and running which basically kicked my butt, and will continue to kick it for the next 6 months. I probably need it though, I'm not quite as spry as I was coming out of OTS that's for sure.

Anyway academics rolls on, had more CRM, more systems to come and possibly our first sim next week.

 
5:46 PM -- T-1 Day-1 --

We then went over to another building and got our T-1 pubs. Again, this was a lot different than tweets. In tweets they sat us down in a room and went through each publication one by one, making sure we had all the right stuff in the right order. For T-1's there wasn't anyone in the room when we showed up and all our pubs were sitting in individual piles for us to sort through. There was a sheet for us to sign off when WE were sure we had everything and that was that. Definitely a "bigger boy" program.

After that we had our first systems class which was AWESOME. We were all "oooh"ing and "ahhhh"ing the avionics and the new systems....all extremely badass. It was kind of an overview system so I will go into more detail as we go into more in our classes. Very guchi stuff though.

All in all T-1's are going to be pretty sweet. Some guys are still disappointed but I think as soon as they get in the jet they will be stoked.

Final note, we played a little bit with the flight computer and avionics in our time off today and I ended up knowing quite a bit about it already from playing games like flight sim 2004! A few planes I downloaded off the internet had full working FMS's that were identical to this one, so it should be pretty helpful. Man that was a nerdy sentence. Sorry, won't happen again.

 
4:10 PM -- Track Select --

After the ceremony there was about 2 minutes of "Yay Us!" and then we were all whisked away to our new squadrons. Within 5 minutes we were sitting in a briefing room watching a motivational heavy flick, then we met our new commander who seems pretty nice. We then went to our new flightroom and filled out a little paperwork for 10 minutes then they told us to go home. T-1's baby!

The drill now is basically 3 weeks of academics and then we get to fly again. Can't wait to rotate 15 degrees and climb into the weather at 300ft...going to be badass. And bear with me, I'm basically a newbie again and will have no clue what I am talking about for the next month or so like I did at the start of tweets. Beer time.

 
3:36 PM -- Nada --

 
8:23 PM -- Waiting game --

We got our patch so here she goes:

Crap and if you don't know what track is it is when all the active duty guys find out wether they are going to t-38's for fighters, t-1's for heavies, t-44's for c-130's or UH-1's for choppers. It is based on class ranking which jets you get, so the best people usually go 38's, etc. Not sure if I've ever explained that before but it is all running together so sorry if I'm repeating myself repeating myself.

 
5:52 PM -- Good, bad, and ugly. --

As for the bad, well if you felt a great disturbance in the force at earlier this week, it was the screams of about 11 UPT students getting put back on formal release. Yup after a taste of the good life it's back to the 12 hour day. I can't say we didn't deserve it, as ever since we got off formal release no one seemed to be studying and people were screwing up flights and standups big-time. A couple of us were actually surprised it took so long to be put back on. Anyway, hopefully with some good flights tomorrow we MAY get off...not keeping my hopes up though.

So now I have a week to kill before track, will probably spend a lot of it being RSU bitch (working in the tower since somebody has to do it, why not the guys with nothing to do...)

Anyway happy day...92.4 hours of turbine time in the books! B.E.A.eutiful.

 
6:26 PM -- Typical form ride --

Radios are unique in formation in that you have to send #2 to a new frequency and then check them in before talking. (Example: "2 go channel 6", they reply with "2", then you switch to 6 and say "Thud 91 check" they say "2", where Thud 91 is the whole flights callsign) So for ground ops you are checking in 2 on the radio a couple of times as you switch from clearance to ground to tower.

So there you are holding short and you are cleared to take off. 1 lines up a little to the left or right of the centerline and 2 is a little back and about 10 feet away. You both takeoff together with 2 in fingertip (close as heck basically...what you probably think of as formation)We go to the area normally and then go into the maneuvers.

We do straight ahead and turning rejoins, where 2 first drops back and then has to rejoin to fingertip as quickly as possible. Echelon turns are turns along the same horizontal plane in that you are staring right through the top of your canopy at the bottom of #1. We do break outs and practice lost wingman which are ways to get away from lead as quick as possible, with PLW being if you lose him in the weather. Wing work is when lead basically does big lazy eights, going from 220 to 120 knots and up to 90 degrees of bank. #2 has to stay in position on the wing. Close trail is the same stuff by lead with #2 right behind and under lead (like the refueling position) After all this we do extended trail which is keeping lead about 500ft away about 45 degrees off his tail. Lead does big honking lazy eights up to 120 degrees of bank and #2 has to stay in position. They are a lot of fun, it's a lot like dogfighting basically. You can pull a ton of g's too, I pulled 6 doing it today on my solo.

After all that you change lead and do the same for your buddy. Then it's back home and up initial where #1 salutes off #2, goes into the break and then you are two planes flying separate again. Tons o' fun.

 
6:07 PM -- Form solo...3 rides left --

Other than that it was a pretty good day, going to double turn tomorrow if the weather allows it (it won't.) and then check Thursday. All reality will probably check on Friday.

 
8:05 PM -- Hunger update --

 
6:46 PM -- Form solo tomorrow --

Other news the party was your classic office party where everyone makes a fool of themselves (I did a really good job of this) Let's just say I woke up the next day with writing all over my arms and entirely covered in flour (Antiqued to you jackass fans). Not good...but a fun night and I didn't get TOO many dirty looks for the IP's so I guess they were as bad as I was!

Last thing I was really ticked today to see I got 12 out of 68 wrong on my formation standards quiz! Second worst in the flight!!! Extremely ticked actually, I thought I had only missed 3-4. Going through the wrong answers we found out I had only missed 9 but that's still WAY too many. IP's were actually a little pissed about the scores over all and we got a little pre-contact flashback when they let us know about it. I could of sworn I knew those standards...anyway all is good now and I am corrected back to 100%. Bleh. Will write tomorrow if I am still alive!