Officer School and UPT Journal/Blog

Air Force Officer School/Flight School Journal/OTS Blog/UPT Blog

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Another C-130 UPT Journal

9:44 PM -- More Academics --

Continuing academics the last few weeks, plenty of time to watch baseball. Have had one test so far, on the engine and prop, with another tomorrow on the electrical system and our version of an FMS. We have great gouge for all the tests so they are pretty cake.

I've also had 3 "sims" so far...sims in quotes since the first two were just in front of totally dead cockpits, with all the switches but no power. Just a boring way for us to go through the checklists. The last one, I had today at 0600 (gross) was a little cooler, it had power and all the guages and dials worked (look at them steam guages fly!), but no visibility, or you could just say really foggy. It reminded me of the tweet sim actually. The sims have helped to kind of get a handle on everything and the airplane is slowly starting to come together for me. Can't wait to fly, only about 20 more sims to go!

posted by Austin @ 9:44 PM

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

1:16 AM -- Back in the saddle --

Little Rock, Arkansas. Not too shabby, especially after Del Rio. Same kind of program as UPT. We are starting with academics and then will move on to sims and finally the flight line. Academics have been pretty cool so far, looking at the prop and engine. We also got the boldface and ops limits. Boldface isn't that bad but the ops limits involve a hundred or so numbers and will be a bear to tackle. The sims come in 3 forms. There is a switch-ology trainer that is pretty much designed to teach you the checklist flow. Then you move onto a CPT, or cockpit procedure trainer, where the dials and guages actually move and you can practice emergency procedures. Finally we have the mother of all sims, the WST (I think...too many acronyms lately), which is a full motion level D sim that looks like it costs more than life. It is pretty sweet, you can even practice night vision in it.

Speaking of night vision sims, I will be doing a couple since I am doing a new "Mobility Pilot Development" program which involves not only learning the co-pilot duties, but left seat flying stuff as well. It takes about a month longer and will eventually be what everyone does. Right now I am in a small group trying it out before it goes AMC wide in december or so. Another month or so and I hit the flight line.

posted by Austin @ 1:16 AM

Monday, October 11, 2004