The road to my wings
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| Date | 31-03-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Wednesday 1725) It's funny to think how low your SA (Situational Awareness) goes when you have your first flight on a new airframe. Especially when you come from another one where you've gained a certain amount of proficiency. I had over 150 hours on the T6 so at the end I was pretty comfortable with the aircraft but I remember the first time I flew it I basically felt the same way I felt today. Aircraft control is good and I know the procedures and doing everything right but no friggin idea of what's going on around me. Then the SA just increases on every mission and at a certain point (CH6 is the solo check) someone is crazy enough to let you fly solo on the jet! I had also almost forgotten how tired you get after a mission. It didn't help that I had a sim shortly after the flight either... One thing that really surprised me today was how quickly that thing burns fuel. In the T6 we took off with 1000 lb of fuel whereas in the Hawk with the centerline tank (which is the most common configuration) we have 3600 lb, yet it gets consumed so quickly. I guess it's the price for all the fun. It takes some strict discipline to keep a keen eye on that fuel guague. Tomorrow morning I have the next mission, also at 0915. I look forward to it but I gotta do some more reading tonight. Sometimes reading the theory is one thing, but personally I really get the understanding of it once I've tried it in practise and then read it again. Then it starts to make sense for me. This weekend is a long weekend due to Easter, so Friday morning we plan on driving to Calgary, which is about a 7½ hour drive, staying there for the night and then Saturday we drive up to Jasper, which is in the Rocky mountains. The drive from Calgary to Jasper is about 4 hours but we plan on using the whole day on it as it's really beautiful scenery all the way. Then Easter Sunday we drive to Edmonton and plan on shopping at one of the world's biggest shopping malls and then Monday drive the rest of the way home, which should take about 8 hours. And Tuesday it's back to business! /GEA |
| Date | 31-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1210) Just a quick update to tell you that I had my first flight in the Hawk. It was pretty sweet. The HUD is really nice and makes life so easy. The jet flies really good. You can feel that it just wants to go fast. It's so nice and sleak. One thing that surpsised me is how sensitive it is on the controls. The IP let me do all the ground handling, I took off, did the climb and level off out to the area and then I did slow flight, practised a few stalls and did a loop and then got us back home. On the way home I just flew below the Harvard training areas at about 450kt. You can feel that you're moving fast when you're down relatively low. Did a straight in approach, a full pattern and a few closed patterns to practise some landings. The jet is easy to fly but I found it challenging to land. The weather was clear blue sky in a million but there was a nasty crosswind. I was pulling the throttle to idle a bit too early and had a tendency to flare the jet, as I'm always used to doing. You don't actually flare the Hawk so I have to get used to that feeling of going fast towards the ground. Now I have CH2S which gets me ready for the next flight, which will probably be tomorrow. Later! /GEA |
| Date | 31-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1920) It finally looks like tomorrow's gonna be the day! I'm on the schedule for the first wave at 0900. The scheduler said that I may just be a back-up depeding on the bird situation but by the looks of it, I'll fly. As you know, Spring and Autumn are the two seasons where we get all the darn migratory birds through the area. If there are too many birds (aka. Heavy migratory bird programme) then they won't send any low level navigation missions due to the high risk of bird strikes. As far as I remember, "Heavy migratory birds" is defined as more than 20 big flocks of birds can be seen at any one time. And with big flocks I mean huge flocks of birds such as Canadian Geese, which you really don't want to encounter when going at 400 knots just 200 feet off the deck. My instructor for the moment will be a Luftwaffe Tornado pilot so it should be fun flying with him. I like the German pilots in general evn though they have a funny accent. They're pretty good at what they do and the Germans have such an amzing aviation history dating back from WWI. Anyway, I'll update you as soon as I've flown the jet tomorrow. After the flight I have another sim so it should be a good and busy day. The weather forecast is very promising, so fingers crossed! /GEA |
| Date | 28-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 1945) The weather was nice and relatively warm today so I took the opportunity to take my kid out to the playground without having to worry too much about him turning into an ice block. He had lots of fun and afterwards we washed my car together but he obviously got soaked and turned into an ice block anyway... Tomorrow morning I have my first official practise sim. I plane on taking a practise box or two every weekend just like I did on the Harvard for the first few months. At the same time there's always alot of reading to be done when you're new on an airframe so there's still alot of work to be done before I can start feeling comfortable. The same counts for the red pages and the check lists. I know them but in order to keep them current it's important that I go through them every day or else they quickly start to slide away from my memory. None of us Danes are on Monday's flying program which isn't surprizing after a few days with very bad weather, however, I'm sure we'll all fly this week. /GEA |
| Date | 27-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 2215) Just got back from the mess and I thought it's a good time to give you an update on the situation. The past couple of days the weather was terrible so basically there were no Hawk missions flown. Hopefully I'll get the first flight on Monday. The flight commander talked to us today and told us that we'll be first priority in the flight in order to finish the course on time. For a year and a half I dreamt of and looked forward to being part of Dragon flight, upstairs with the jet jocks. Now that I'm there, it's with mixed feelings. It's hard to be surrounded by people who either are fighter pilots or are going to be fighter pilots - and then there's myself and my two Danish mates who are going helos. I have to say that I have a very hard time letting go and my heart was ripped out of my chest to say the least. One thing I like about Dragon flight is the diversity and the "international" feeling. There are German, British, Singaporian, Italian, Hungarian and of course Canadian IP's and students, so there are all kind of languages being spoken. There are alot of French Canadians and it seems like the English speaking ones are the minority in the flight. I hope that I start flying soon so that it can keep me busy and not let me think too much about all the other crap that's going on at the moment. But having to complete 74 X's in about 80 working days means that we're going to have to fly once a day, every day to complete the course in time, starting right away. /GEA |
| Date | 25-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2105) Just a quick update. I finished and uploaded the video from my second cross country trip in the T6. You can find it by going to the main page of my website, press key "F5" and then click on the Picture gallery icon, and you'll see that the picture gallery is now a video gallery - at least until I find a solution for a good and reliable picture gallery, but it is very low on my priority list at the moment. Good night! /GEA |
| Date | 24-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1320) More news about the F16 replcement, not that it has too much relevance to me anymore, but I still take great interest in the subject which I have been following so closely for so long. The politicians were supposed to decide which fighter to buy by the end of March but it's now official that the decision won't be taken until they feel they're ready to decide and have all the necessary information to base their decision upon. Now that the JSF is no longer the unconditional favorite and since the Air Force is looking at a multi engine jet like the F18 Super Hornet due to the new missions over Greenland and the Arctic, I can see the Typhoon getting back in the competition, which would be great news. On the light side of things, one of the Harvard sim instructors came over and said that he had heard about us going helos and said: "Flying helos is like doing it with a fat chick." So I promptly asked: "How so?" and he quickly replied: "It may be alot of fun doing it but you don't go tell your friends that you do it." /GEA |
| Date | 24-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1305) The friggin winter is back. It's snowing quite badly right now and tonight is forecasted to -14C with a windchill of -25C. The Candians don't worry too much about it. All they say is "don't worry, it's not -30C at least." My sim today got cancelled for some reason, probably because of the terrible weather. What normally happens when we get a day like today, the whole flying programme simply gets shifted to the next day. So my best hope is that I fly on Friday, otherwise it seems like there's going to be flying Sunday too. The good thing about the Hawks is that they have fixed most of the problems that they had last year with the engines, so yesterday, for example, there were seven jets on the flightline which is actually more than I even thought we had. What's left on today's programme is a briefing about engine limitaions, called LPT, standing for Low Pressure Turbine, which is basically a new limitation as a consequence of the engine problems that I mentioned earlier. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 23-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1635) I had my last two CPT's today and tomorrow I'm on for the first CH sim. After that, the next item on the list will be the first flight in the real thing! Both sims went good today and I could feel a huge improvement from the first one to the second and even more so from the second to the third. It's funny how quickly you get the feel of the plane and how quickly you get used to the HUD and the other instruments. The real aircraft will be somewhat different of course and I really look forward to getting my hands on it. I think there's a good chance that it'll happen on Thursday. Hopefully I'll let you know how the Hawk handles by the end of the week... /GEA |
| Date | 23-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1955) I had my first (official) Hawk sim today, also known as CPT1 (Cockpit procedure trainer) and tomorrow I have 2 and 3. I must admit that it was hard to stay focused in there and for the first time (ever, probably) I used the check list to assist me through the checks. It all went well. I went through all the checks, taxied out, got airborne, flew to the area and did a bit of slow flying, airspeed changes, tried to fly the bird in different configurations etc. and then flew back for a straight in approach. Unfortunately the HUD wasn't working properly so the instructor reset the sim when I was on final approach and put me back on the ground where I did the rest of the shutdown checks. With the next two sims tomorrow, then there's only one sim left (CH1S) before flying the actual plane, which I think will be Wednesday or Thursday, most probably Thursday. In the mean time I'm trying to get used to the thought of flying helicopters. It's not easy and I do have a hard time letting go of something I'm so passionate about. However I think it's going to be great fun flying the Jet ranger and then the Balckhawk in the States. After that it'll be the Fennec back home in Denmark, probably followed by the EH101 Merlin. One thing I'm happy about is that at least I've tried flying the F16 and I'll get 60 hours or so on the Hawk, from the front seat, including some solo flights. This evening, my boy and I went flying the T6 model. Now the centre of gravity is where it should be and almost all the settings are the way I want them - and it's a real joy to fly! Probably one of the best flying models that I've had, actually! And in the evening, around sunset, it just looks awesome with the lights on. That's that for now. /GEA |
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