The road to my wings
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| Date | 05-03-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Thursday 2005) Tomorrow we have the first test in Hawk AOI's and tomorrow week we'll have the final AOI test. I'm starting to get the hang of things but it's still rather challenging to shift gear when you've been at idle for so long, doing very little every day and then suddenly have to learn everything there is to know about an aircraft in nine days. The Hawk is so much different than the Harvard. I used to think that the T6 was complicated but compared to this it was pretty straight forward. For instance, the airframe "don't exceed" speed limit was 316kt or Mach 0.57 on the T6, whichever occurs first. On the Hawk, the same limit is 575kt at low altitude. Then as you climb higher, if you fly at 575kt, your Mach number will rise until you reach M0.9 which becomes your new speed limit. As you climb further and maintain M0.9, your indicated airspeed will fall and when you reach 500kt, maintaining M0.9, the 500kt becomes your new speed limit, until, at higher alititude, the new limiter becomes Mach 1.2 which is then kept until the aircraft service ceiling of 48,000 feet. That's just the airframe speed limt, then there are a bunch of G-limits, engine temperature & RPM limits etc. Not to mention that flaps at different settings and the landing gear have their own speed and g limits. And the crosswind component limits obviously vary depengin on whether you're flying a "clean" aircraft or if you have external tanks or weapons, if you use the drag chute on landing and if you're flying single or in formation. If you think the ejection seat is just a handle that you pull; well, think again! You'd be surprised as to how much relevant (from a pilot's prespective) information there is to know. And those are just the limitations. Then of course, the normal and emergency operating procedures, performance charts and just knowing how to use all the functions in the cockpit is a big job. The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know. It's a humbling experience to work on something so complex. I better stick my head back in the books. /GEA |
| Date | 02-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1020) I'm doing some more CBT's, this time about hydraulic systems, flight controls and more engine stuff. It's pretty dry reading. I had a talk with one of the sim instructors who flew the BAC Lightning for the RAF back in the days. It's a pretty impressive aircraft. I had never talked to a Lightning pilot before so it was interesting to hear about the plane from a pilot's point of view. It was designed in the late 40's, believe it or not, and had a thrust to weight ratio of over 1:1. I had always imagined it as a speed devil that was terrible at turning, somewhat like the F104, but he said it actually was a wonder to fly, especially at subsonic turns. He said you would take it to light buffet and keep it there and it would give you great turn performance and "talk to you." He once had it up at Mach 1.6 - in a climb! It had a climb rate of 60,000 feet per minute! The British were always way ahead of time design-wise. The Llightning was a pure British design and had a perfomance similar to the F15, just 20 years earlier. Same with the Concorde which is a 50's design and is still unparalleled today. The only complaint he had about the aircraft was the cockpit layout, which like the Hawk's, wasn't very logic from a pilot's point of view. Back to CBT's. /GEA |
| Date | 02-03-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 2025) First day at school, or more precisely, the Hawk course. Most of the morning hours were spent doing CBT's (computer based training) where we learned about the aircraft's CWS (Caution / Warning System), fuel system, engine system and electrical system. It's like a big jigsaw puzzle where nothing makes sense at all at first, but once you start learning stuff it's like putting the pieces together and you start to get an impression of "the big picture." Alot of the stuff is very interesting even though most of it is rather complicated. Then in the afternoon, our ground school instructor gave us a review and answered the questions that we had piled up during the morning hours. The aircraft is a British design and very often British engineers don't have the pilot in mind when they design a cockpit and it clearly shows in the Hawk. Some of the stuff is unlogic and some of the switches are placed in ackward places. None the less, I'm still very excited about getting to the front seat of a jet for the first time. I won't rule out the possibility of shedding a tear the first time I take off in the Hawk. Ground school takes eight days to complete and on the 9th day we have the final AOI exam. AOI stands for Aircraft Operation Instructions which is basically the handbook or manual of the aircraft. It has all the components, systems, normal operating procedures, emrgency operating procedures and performance of the aircraft. It's a big handful and alot of it has to be learned by heart but we're used to that by now. Believe it or not I've been in the Airforce for over five years already. Time really flies by when you're having fun! It's hard work getting into the systems and procedures of a new aircraft but it's all well worth it. At the end of the day, all aircraft basically fly the same way: The pointy end of the aircraft goes forward, if you pull the stick back the houses get smaller and if you push it forward they get bigger. If you push the throttle forward you burn more fuel - and in some instances you get to go fast, which is the case with the Hawk. I can't wait! /GEA |
| Date | 26-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1345) I finished the T6 model and it's ready to fly! I put on a few more pictures on the build thread on RCG and also a video clip of the lights and retracts working. You can see them all here: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1167618&page=5 To be honest this model is probably one of the biggest accomplishments that I've done to date. I built it from scratch. All I had was an A4 size 3-view drawing and a bunch of pictures that I had taken of the plane. It really feels like I've made somthing out of nothing. Now I just hope that it flies as good as it looks, which I'm pretty sure it will. Tonight the course after us in Bandit flight have their solo party at 1700 so I'll go and see the students trying to roast their instructors and then getting roasted by their instructors. On Monday we finally start ground school. Today I was reading through the fuel and engine systems of the Hawk. Whooaa, what a puzzle. But we're going to have enough time to learn it at least, as they don't expect us to be flying it for about two months from now. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 25-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2240) Thinking back about the cross country I had brings back a few things in particular. One of them was this restaurant in Portland that we dined at. The restaurant is called Jake's Crawfish and is 118 years old! The food was nothing less than fabulous. I personally like seafood alot and this was some of the best seafood that I've had. But it wasn't only the food. The whole restaurant was something special. Even the uniforms of the staff there made you think that they were butlers working for some very rich person. It's also funny to think about the way the school just says: "Here, grab this high performance plane and go fly wherever you want for three days." The best part of it probably was the fact that it wasn't part of the course. I didn't have to worry about how well I'm performing and wondering whether I'll get a good grade or not. Sometimes you get lucky I guess. /GEA |
| Date | 23-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1825) The Hawk course is approaching and in the meantime the fighter replacement debate continues back home in Denmark. The minister of defence decided to withdraw from his position as member of parliament and we now have a new minister of defence. The new minister of defence couldn't possibly be as good as the one we had. Many agree that he's arguably the best minister of defence that Denmark's ever had. He always put the soldier in first priority and worked from there. We all felt that he was a man that could be trusted and that he really did what was best for us. Every time a slodier lost his life during a mission, you could clearly see the deep sorrow that the minister felt. It's going to be interesting to see what will happen with the decision to replace the F16. There are three competing aircraft now that the Typhoon pulled out a couple of years back. The Swedish Gripen, the F35 JSF from Lockheed Martin and the new F/A-18E/F Super Hornet from Boeing. To be completely honest I prefere the F18 out of the three contestants. Perhaps it's because it's a furthur development of the classic F18 which I "grew up with." The members of parliament, of the two big parties at least, want to get the decision done by this summer. Whatever it'll be, it'll be exciting! Now I'm going back to the T6 model so maybe I can finish it by the end of this week, which is very realitsic indeed. /GEA |
| Date | 22-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1025) I'm back home and today's my day off as I can only work seven consecutive days. I got alot of pictures and video clips from the trip but unfortunately I have no gallery to upload the pictures to at the moment. However, I plan on making a video just like last time and then post the link here. Like that you'll get both the pictures, the videos and some good music at the same time. Portland was a very nice city. Really clean city, friendly people and a bigger city than I had expected too. From there we flew to Glacier Park in Montana which is surrounded by the Rockies. A really beautiful place but we could tell that we were getting closer to home as the temperature was getting colder. From there we flew back home to Moose Jaw. When the controller at the base asked me for my intentions I just said that we'll cancel IFR and return for the Overhead break. After all the IFR flying you really want to "fly" the plane a bit. So we did that and since we had to fly through the training area on the way to the base I did a few rolls, loops and pulled some g's. It was great. We had all kind of charts and books with us in the cockpit so I just made sure to keep it at positive g all the time which meant that all those lose articles in the cockpit stayed in place. /GEA |
| Date | 21-02-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Saturday 1930) Just landed at Portland, Oregon. Yesterday we went out and what a night we had. Seattle is a really cool place. First we got off the metro and were trying to figure out where to go to get some dinner, so we asked a cop in his car and he went "well, don't go that way, that's the gangster area..." so after a bit of chatting he tiold us to jump in the car and he drove us to a nice restaurant with live music. It was funny getting out of the car, where the back seat is surrounded by a metal cage. People were looking at us and wondering what we had been up to... There we met a couple from Seattle and they took us to a really great Irish pub where we stayed until we headed back. This morning we visited the Museum of flight which was outstanding and then flew South to Santa Rosa, California. We grabbed a quick bite and flew North again towards Portland and that's where we are now. It was neat doing the visual approach here to this huge airport at night. Now it's on to the hotel, get a shower, get some food and then a beer. Tomorrow we have to leave early as we have to be back ion Moose Jaw by 1730 and we'll lose two hours due to the time zones on the way. I'm outta here! /GEA |
| Date | 20-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1740) I'm at the Boeing field in Seattle right now. This afternoon we flew out of Moose Jaw in snow and on to Spokane, Washington state. Then we had a quick bite, did the planning and flew on to Seattle. It's always been a dream of mine to come here. Unfortunately the Boeing museum of flight closed at 1700 but it'll be open tomorrow at 1000. So we'll get up early, do all the planning (don't know where to yet...) and then be at the museum at the opening time. The FBO here even lent us their car and gave us free admission tickets to the museum. I can't wait, especially to see the Concorde up close. I also hope to get a glimpse of the new 787 but I'm not counting on it. That's it for now. We're off to the hotel and Seattle night life. Have a great weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 19-02-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 2140) Thursday night is normally wings night with the boys where we go downtown and eat chicken wings until the chickens start protesting. Today was a bit of a sad one thuogh as it was the last night with Colin and Mike. They're the ones I normally go with on Thursdays. Colin has left the Air Force and will be moving to Saskatoon next week where he'll be in the mining business making lots of money. Mike will start his multi-engine course on Monday in Portage, which is about four hours away from here. It's funny how almost all the Canadians from our course have disappeared. Most of them are doing the helo or multi course and that just leaves Hamster and Ben who started the Hawk course after the Christmas holidays. We (the five remaining Danes) will join them in a weeks time. While I was away for wings tonight, the flight commander called and mentioned that they had found an instructor to go with me on the cross country tomorrow. I still don't know what time we'll depart but it takes quite a bit of preparation for a trip like that so I assume it'll be afternoon at the earliest. Let's see if the weather will cooperate. /GEA |
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