The road to my wings
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| Date | 19-05-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Wednesday 1720) I have a bunch of excess energy since I only had one mission today. I'll use it for studying tonight as I fell quite a bit behind with regards to where I would like to be. The wife is back home so things will hoefully get back on track before too long and I can concentrate on my flying again. By the looks of it I only have CH10A tomorrow. I was hoping to get the pre-test done tomorrow and the test done on Friday. But let's see. Things can change in the last minute. Ideally I would do the test at the end of a week instead of a Monday. Like that, everything would still be "fresh" in my memory and I would have a good continuation of flights. The snappers also seem to be in a better mood on Fridays than Mondays. I guess they're humans too. But I could be wrong... It's good that I didn't get my solo flight done as the weather over developed and now we have some pretty nasty thunderstorms. Lightning and heavy rain showers all over the place. It would have been a great learning experience for sure to come back to base in really crappy weather but it wouldn't have allowed me to practise and refine my advanced handling manoeuvres, which is more important at this stage. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 19-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1440) I got CH10 done this morning with the flight commander. It was a bit intimidating at first but once I strapped into the jet and started doing my stuff, I felt at home, and then it doesn't really matter who's in the back seat. I was supposed to fly CH10A too, which is a solo, but the winds were going out of wack and there were also alot of clouds out in the area this afternoon so we cancelled and saved it for tomorrow. CH10A is my last CH solo flight so it's important to go out to the area and practise all the advanced handling before the pre-test (CH11). The advanced handling needs quite alot of airspace so when there are too many clouds you end up using your energy on dodging clouds instead of getting your work done properly. The temperature is again at 30C today but should drop slightly the next couple of days and Saturday it should go down to 14C, which I actually look forward to. It's a bit too warm for those kind of flights. Now I'm heading downtown to pick up my little boy and see how the wife's doing. Hopefully she'll come home today. /GEA |
| Date | 18-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1930) I got my solo flight done this afternoon. The temperature was 30C and it was almost unbearable in the cockpit. Pulling g's doesn't make it any more comfortable. I must have been sitting a bit too high in the seat today and at one point I pulled over 7g with my back not straight because I was trying to bend forward to see all the HUD and now my back is aching a bit. Not the end of the world. Hopefully a good night's sleep will fix it. Sleep is quite a luxury these days however. Two demanding flights a day with quite a bit of preparation and studying in between and unfortunately the wife is in hospital again so it's hard being a single dad besides doing the fighter pilot training. I am pretty exhausted today but it won't be long before I put the little one to bed and I'll join right after I've done my preps for tonorrow. And from what I can hear, it's time for a bedtime story. Good night. /GEA |
| Date | 18-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1225) I'm busy as hell at the moment. Yesterday I finished off with a CH solo which was lots of fun indeed. At one point it almost got a bit too exciting. I was on the way back to base from the area flying at about 1000 feet at the speed of heat and I saw a seagull and only just managed to pull away. It went past my left intake and believe me, my eyes were wide open after that! This morning I had an IF trip to Saskatoon. It wasn't my best trip and I got a High Standard, which means that my so far perfect score on the Hawk is over. Not to worry, I'll hopefully get back on the the snake route tomorrow. In an hour's time I have another solo mission. I need to practise some of the advanced handling as the FCHT (Final clearhood test) is approaching fast and if te weather holds out, which it probably will, I'll have the test by the end of the week. That's it for now. I'm stepping out to the jet and going to have some fun. /GEA |
| Date | 16-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Sunday 1835) I've been really bad at updating this week, so sorry about that. I've been busy and we also had a bit of sickness in the family but things are under control now. I just came back from a flight. From now on we'll be flying every second Sunday to make sure we get done in time. The summer is finally here by the looks of it. We had over 25 degrees for quite a few days now and the forecast is looking 25-30C and lots of sunshine for the whole coming week so we should get a few X's done. I did CH8 today, which is a rather aggressive flight with lots of advanced handling and lots of g's. It went well and I learned a few new manoeuvers. From now on until the Final CH test there's no new stuff to be learned. So now it's just about practising and making things better. After CH9, which will take place tomorrow morning I have two consecutive solo flights so that should be lots of fun and plenty of stuff to practise and refine all the new work in order to have it all where I want it to be for the FCHT. Every time you have a solo flight you get briefed by an instructor so that they make sure that you have a good plan for your flight and that you don't do any sequences that you're not allowed to do. So last time my instructor's briefing was: "Don't do anything stupid, anything different, or anything too dangerous. Any questions? Good! Go have fun." Otherwise nothing new from Moose Jaw really. The other day I tried my neighbour's Porsche Cayman. Very different from my Mustang. Not as much power but obviously handles better and the sound is very different too. It goes to about 8000 RPM which sounds great and crisp but I must admit that the V8 in the Mustang just sounds awesome! I cannot quite decide which one I like best but I think it's the Mustang. I have a feeling that it'll get sold by the end of this week. It will be missed! /GEA |
| Date | 11-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 2015) I finally made some progress and got two X's done today. First the remainder of the instrument flight and then in the afternoon I got the solo flight done. It was even better than the first one. I don't think I ever enjoyed a solo flight as much as I enjoyed the one today. Just the simple facts that I know the aircraft a little better and thereby feel more comfortable with it and that I was feeling better today made life much better. I transited out to the area at low level below the cloud cover and when I got out there I looked for a hole in the clouds which I could climb to. So when I finally found one, I flew at about 500kt below the clouds and pulled up through the hole into the clear blue skies above. It was awesome up there. I did all the stuff I had planned on practising and also just played around with the clouds and pulled lots of g's just for the fun of it. It's tiring after a day with two flights, especially when one of them is a CH flight with lots of violent manoeuvring. Tomorrow morning I'm on for the next IF sim and then in the afternoon I have IF3. It's the last instrument flight in the training area. The next IF trips will take me to Swift Current, Saskatoon, Regina and Yorkton to practise some approaches at different airports. Should be fun. /GEA |
| Date | 11-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1000) Yesterday I had IF2 but I didn't complete the mission. It started off badly and things got worse. First I strapped in the jet, got it started and had to shut her down again because of a faulty fuel flow reading. Then when we finally got a spare and got airborne, the controllers were having problems with the radar so we were only allowed to do one approach. So today I'll be doing the remainder of the flight. This morning I had been scheduled for CH7A, which is a solo flight but foggy weather decided that I should stay grounded. I went down to OPS, got all my gear on and watched the other guys step to their aircraft with their instructors while I was waiting for the weather to clear up enough for student solo flying. They all started up and taxied away while my jet was still there on the ramp, looking sleek and very disappointed indeed. The weather has still not cleared up. The fog just turned into low level clouds. Now I'll do some more reading and then start preparing for the two upcoming flights this afternoon, which I'm pretty sure that I'll get done. /GEA |
| Date | 07-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 2235) Finally we had a break in the weather so I got a CH flight done today. There were quite a few new things and some of them were pretty advanced. Believe it or not, what I found hardest was the Split-S. The challenging part is to exit the manoeuver at exactly 330kt, which is the aircraft's corner velocity, or in other words, the velocity that gives you the best turn perfomance. In a dog fight you would want to fly as close to this speed as possible as you would be getting the best turning capability of the jet and in the end it could mean the difference between winning or dying. Tomorrow morning I have a practise sim and then Monday if the weather holds out, I have IF2 in the morning followed by CH7A in the afternoon, the latter being a solo flight. It's going to be hard to get some sleep this weekend with all the excitement... I'm really looking forward for the soccer world cup but by the looks of it, June is going to be a very busy month indeed so I hope that I won't be too busy to watch some of the games. Have a great weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 05-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1525) Another beautiful day in the praries. It snowed all night last night and all day today. Today we had a daily high of +2C and tonight it'll go down to -4C. It's not what you'd expect from May, but nothing here suprises me anymore. So there was no flying today except for the Snowbirds display team, which also has its annual accpetance show this Friday, where one of the Candian Forces Gerenals watches and approves their performance as "good to go" for the upcoming airshow season. By the looks of it, we'll have crap weather once again tomorrow, but you never really know these days. /GEA |
| Date | 04-05-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 2235) I had my third IF sim this morning and all went good. Later on I was supposed to fly IF2 but the weather deteriorated so we got no flying done in the afternoon. The weather is expected to be bad most of the week so we don't have too high hopes. Otherwise I'm on the schedule for CH7 and CH7A tomorrow, the second one being a solo flight once again. If only the weather would cooperate. Last Friday, two of my Italian friends graduated and got their wings on the Hawk. They also got their assignements. This Thursday they'll be going to Cold Lake and then when they get back home one will fly the Tornado ECR and the other the Typhoon, so both got their first priority fufilled. I'd do anything to fly a Tornado these days, let alone a Typhoon! Imagine going home after the training as a junior pilot on such an awesome aircraft. Oh well, I was really happy for them both. Now I'm off to bed. /GEA |
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