The road to my wings
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| Date | 03-05-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Monday 1655) This weekend it snowed (yes, that's right!) almost all the time and when it didn't snow, it rained. But finally today we had a break in the weather and a beautiful day indeed. So what that meant for me was that I did the remainder of my solo check and got my first solo flight done in the Hawk. It was awesome to say the least. It was rather windy and the winds were getting closer to the student solo limits so I wasn't sure if they would send me or not, but the wind stayed within the limits so it was all good. Took off, went out to the area and climbed to about 26,000 feet and did a dive with about 20 degrees nose down to see how fast the plane could go. I only got it up to about Mach 0.91 and it's in that region where the ailerons work the other way round on the Hawk. That's right, if you push the stick to the left, the jet will roll to the right. I had read about it in the manual but it still surprized me a bit. After a few seconds you get used to the aircraft rolling the opposite way that you want it to. After that I did some cloud chasing and had lots of fun pulling g's around the clouds, flying inverted over the tops and on knife edge through the holes. So much fun! Then I did some aerobatics and slow flight and I headed home for some pattern work, which is always good practise in cross wind conditions like today. And that's that! My first solo flight in a fast jet. Try wiping the smile off my face... /GEA |
| Date | 30-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1630) I finally made it back to work today and had an IF sim. It wasn't my best performance to date but it went ok. The weather is still crappy and nobody got airborne today. According to our small calculations, if we fly one mission per working day from now on, we'll make the graduation date exactly on time. So from now on we simply have to get an X done every day, considering that there are also bad weather days, sick days etc. Then of course, there are also days where you get more than one mission done in a day. Now it's time for the weekend. The wife will be going out with some friends so I'll be home with the little guy tonight instead of going to the mess and getting hammered. Have a great weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 28-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1640) I'm still sick as a dog and was in bed all day. The weather was actually better than anticipated so there was quite alot of flying going on. It's funny how annoying those aircraft can be when you live a few hundred meters from the base and listen to them going all day long, especially when you're trying to rest. I'll see how I feel tomorrow and if things are better I'll go to work and perhaps try to get a sim done but in any case I don't think I'm gonna be fit for flying. As they say, it's better to be down here wishing you were up there than being up there wishing you were down here. /GEA |
| Date | 27-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1940) This morning everything was looking good, yes, even the weather. My check pilot, a German F4 Phantom driver briefed me and we went up for the solo check. The flight was going really well but on the way home from the area I felt worse and worse up to the point where I asked to abort the flight. I even pulled out my puke bag and put it to its use. We landed and I was still not feeling well at all. So I went home for some lunch only to discover that my wife and kid had been vomiting all morning and were feeling like crap too. So I went to see the doc and he did't even catogorize it as air sickness. It was probably something we ate or a virus that we had caught. I still feel really dizzy and I'm pretty sure that I'd have to stay grounded for at least tomorrow. It's so annoying. I was turned on, the conditions were right and everything was going really well. But it was the right decision to abort the flight. You just don't take any chances when it comes to flying - especially with ejection seat aircraft. So as soon as I'm back in the game and the conditions are right again, I'll fly the remainder of the flight, which is basically just pattern work. He just needs to see some landings and he'll be more than happy to send me solo. Unfortunately the weather forecast looks really bad for the rest of the week. In a way it's good as it gives me time to get well instead of putting pressure on myself to do the rest of the flight. /GEA |
| Date | 26-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 0825) The weather is once again crappy and it's actually darker now than it was when I walked here this morning, so no solo check today either. Yesterday we had a bit of snow, believe it or not and they're forecasting the same stuff for today. So I'll just spend most of my day studying and maybe take a practise sim just to stay up to date. /GEA |
| Date | 23-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1500) As expected, the weather didn't clear up and there's no flying this Sunday so I won't solo this week. So I put myself on the schedule for the usual practise sim on Sunday now that we're not flying. The weather looks good for the coming week so hopefully I'll get some X's done. /GEA |
| Date | 23-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 0905) Just a quick update to mention that I most probably won't go solo today. The weather has been awesome all week, with beautiful sunshine and over 22C every day. Today, however it's pretty dark and they're forecasting thunderstorms later on in the day. Out to the West the sky is just black. So unless the weather changes drastically within the next hour or so, it won't happen today. Talk about bad timing. /GEA |
| Date | 22-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 2045) This afternoon I had my last sim before the solo check and I'm on tomorrow's schedule for the solo check at 1125 and then the solo flight at 1340 if all goes according to plan. This morning we also had a bit more ground school about air to air tactics and some IF stuff preparing us for our IF written exam in order to get our IF "ticket." The ticket is basically your license to fly in IMC (Instrument meteorolgical conditions) meaning that you've qualified yourself to fly in bad weather. Yesterday afternoon, my boy and I visited some Canadian friends of ours and they have a little sausage dog. My kid chased the poor thing for about half an hour constantly shouting "sit!" to it. Eventually the dog got so tired that it did sit down and my kid was so proud that it had finally "obeyed" his command... That's it for now. Next time I write will hopefully be after my first solo in the Hawk. /GEA |
| Date | 21-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1655) I got my first instrument flight in the Hawk done this morning. I found it pretty challenging at first. The hardest part when you haven't done IF for a long time is to switch your brain into thinking instrument mode. And sometimes that switch is hard to find. Having to do it in a new aircraft with a new set of tools doesn't make it easier either. Anyway all in all it was a good flight and the IP said he saw a great improvement throughout the duration of the flight which is what it's all about really. Yesterday when I was strapping into the plane I hit my elbow on the canopy rail and it's actually still hurting. I didn't even consider seeing the doc because he might consider grounding me for something so minor. Whoever came up with the name "funny bone" with regards to that bone on the elbow was a real idiot, that's a fact. I really don't know what's funny about hitting your elbow and swearing about it for the next ten minutes. One thing I don't like about flying IF in the Hawk is that the IF kit is far less pilot friendly than the one we had in the T6. One nice feature is obviously the HUD which makes your basic cross check easy but you have to look "far" to find the other stuff. One other thing I don't like is that it doesn't feel like you're flying a Hawk. It feels just like any other aircraft so at one point I simply looked over my shoulder to see those high performance sleek wings and that put the smile back on my face. At the end of the flight after I had done a couple of TACAN approaches I asked the IP if I could do a couple of visual touch and go's. So I did a closed pattern and it was nice to feel the g-suit inflate and remind me that I was actually flying. The g-suit starts inflating at 2g and the more you pull, the more it inflates. So I made sure to go to about 3g's in the closed. After those I landed and used aerodynamic braking by keeping the nose pointed up at about 10 degrees. It's a pretty effecient way of slowing the plane down without using the brakes. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for the Emergency sim, which will basically be a simulator with a bunch of emergencies, anything from engine start up malfunctions to engine failures leading to a forced landing, also known as dead stick. Tonight we're having hot dogs with the other Danes (left overs from the Viking party) and then we plan on watching a movie with LOD and his girlfriend. It's a Danish comedy called "Adams Æbler" and none of us have seen it for a while so we look forward to it. After that I'll take a good look at the Red Pages for a few hours... /GEA |
| Date | 20-04-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1520) I had CH5 this morning. Really enjoyable but busy flight. Everything is coming along nicely. Tomorrow I'm on for IF1. Then all that's left before the solo check is the last CH sim, which is basically a sim with a bunch of emergencies so they're sure that you'll handle an emergency properly if it should happen on your first solo. We had some ground school about flight physiology this afternoon where they re-taught us the AGSM (Anti G Straining Manoeuvrs). I got an email from the guy in charge of me and unfortunately my request to get transferred to the Challenger didn't go through. My wife wasn't too impressed to say the least... I'll be heading home in half an hour and prepare for tomorrow's flight. /GEA |
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