The road to my wings
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| Date | 08-12-2009 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Tuesday 1250) My solo formation flight got cancelled due to weather. There's nothing wrong with the weather as such. The sun is shining and there's a clear blue sky everywhere except right on top of the runways, where there's a "cloud." The problem is that every time an aircraft takes off, it leaves a cloud of contrails behind it due to the extreme cold temperature so the visibility right over the airfield is pretty bad. At one point this morning they changed the program to a restricted one in the form of; "Only one take off and landing per mission" in order to minimize the "cloud" generated by the aircraft doing pattern operations. Another joy of prarie winters... I'm still on for tonight's IF flight and the instructor just came by and said that I should anticipate going to Swift Current, as it's an uncontrolled airfield and I haven't been to an uncontrolled airfield for a while. That's that for now. /GEA |
| Date | 08-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1005) Sunday we went to the base family party and my kid met Santa for the first time. He wasn't too comfortable with the whole thing so I used one of things that we'd learned at the officer academy, which is to lead by example. So I went over and sat on Santas lap to show my boy that he doesn't bite. He was still not convinced so we just sat next to him - together. Yesterday I was supposed to do two flights but I had to abort the first one as I wasn't feeling good at all. We went up for a formation flight and as we were doing the the g-awareness check I quickly found out that my g-tolerance was terrible for some reason. I might have been dehydrated or something but anyway, as the flight progressed I felt worse and worse. And approaching the end of the flight, we were doing some Double Attack and I called terminate, unzipped one of the jackets, took the mask off and the puke bag out. I felt better quite quickly but by then the trip was over so we flew back home. I opted to not fly for the rest of the day. Today it's back to business. I'm on for FM9A which is the first solo formation flight. Then tonight I'm on for a night IFR trip. However there are a few obstacles lurking. One of them is that the temperature is -33C with a wind chill of -39C, which is the limit of what we can fly in. Just a bit more of wind or a degree colder and we go into standby program. But as the day warms up, things should move into the right direction. /GEA |
| Date | 05-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 1515) Last night, shortly after I wrote I heard music next door. The Dane bar was open. I put my headphones on and put my own music on to try and distract myself. But who was I trying to fool? So I put my boots on and ran over next door. I mean where else do you get free Whiskey all night, music and good, mixed company. So I went there and planned a short, half hour visit. But then you always end up drunk, standing at the bar with the usual guys talking about flying. And then you look at your watch and realize it's 0300. Then you tell them that you're off but they insist to at least finish the conversation. And before you know it you look at the watch and it's 0415 and you're pretty wasted... I got my fair share of Vitamin G yesteday, having done two CH flights and as they encourage us to do at school - work hard and play hard. I had a flashback from the cross country trip. No, actually it was hamster who reminded me about when we were in Vegas and some "genious" came up with the idea to go try the roller coaster at the New York hotel in the middle of the night. I was reluctant because I wasn't feeling well after having eaten some Sea Food Chowder at some Irish Pub. But somehow I find myself strapped into this thing and can hear hamster going: "GEA, if you throw up on me, I'll fucking punch you in the face." I didn't wake up with any black eyes, so I guess I didn't throw up. Those were good times! Have a good weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 04-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 0005) It's been a good week for me considering that four of the five days had terrible weather. Today on the other hand, was fantastic except from the brutal temperature. It was so great to get up there and see that beautiful white landscape all over. The snow was so fresh, so clean and pure and it covered everything. Fields, frozen lakes, small roads, everything was just white. At one point I was coming in for a landing and there were about 8 aircraft in the pattern so you always have your eyes and ears wide open in order not to miss any conflicting traffic. In my peripherals I saw this plane going my way from beneath and I quickly looked to see that it was actually the shadow of a plane moving along this white field abeam my position. That's how white and smooth the snow was. At another point I was downwind in the pattern and I could see a T6 getting back from the area to join the pattern on base leg. We were on eachothers path and since aircraft established in the pattern have right of way, it was his duty to yield. I kept flying along and I don't know if he had seen me or not but if we collide I guess it doesn't really matter who had the right of way... So I flashed my wings a couple of times to make myself more visible and send a "get the hell out of my way" signal, and he did. During one of my last final turns for a touch and go I had this Hawk doing his final turn for the paralell runway so we were on final approach right next to eachother. We landed on our respective runway at practically the same time and then when we powered up and accelerated away he took off like a rocket. "Man I can't believe they pay me to do this stuff," I thought to myself. And in a few months they'll be paying me to do "that" stuff. Thank you, Danish tax payers. /GEA |
| Date | 04-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1610) This morning was a cold one. When I walked to school it was -27C without wind chill and -34C with the windchill according to our meteorologists. I got two X's done again today, both CH. First I did CH22 and then did the remainder of CH21A, which, as you know, is a solo. I'm pretty hammered after the flights. Two CH flights like that with a bunch of aerobatics at the end of the week sucks out whatever energy you have left in you. All the winter gear makes it hard even just to strap into the cockpit. And once you're strapped in you're pretty restricted. For instance, to (attempt to) move the stick with full deflection you have to press it hard against the side of your leg. When I had the first flight this morning, the sun was shining brightly but the temperature was still -25C. So as soon as I got the plane going I turned the cockpit temperature to full hot because by the time I got the canopy closed my fingers were so cold that they were completely numb. The gloves don't do much good at such brutal temperatures. Anyway, by the time we got airborne and out to the area it was pretty warm in the cockpit. Afterall you are getting the warm air from a jet engine which is running at around 750C so it's pretty effective indeed. Still I didn't even notice that it was getting warm. By the time I was half way through my aerobatics I was sweating like crazy. Oh well, the joys of winter. /GEA |
| Date | 03-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1900) When you get two X's done on a crappy day like today, you know that you finally have priority in Bandit flight. Very few missions were flown today, however I got an IF trip to Regina and afterwards I had my very last sim in the T6. So now I'm two X's closer to the end which means that I have 20 flights to go on the T6. It's almost impossible to get them done by Christmas but at least I'll need very little in the new year. I only have the pre-test and the test left in the IF section, but as you know there are no tests on 2B, only confirmation rides. So the plan is that I fly both of them tomorrow and then I'm done with Instrument Flying on the T6. All that's left then is Clearhood (CH) and Formation (FM) flying...basically all the fun stuff. That's that for now. Stay tuned! /GEA |
| Date | 03-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 0745) It's still dark outside but we've been at work since 0645 as we had a meeting this morning. The winter is slowly but surely settling in. One consequence of that is that we have to wear our bunny pants for flying today. We wear them every time the temperature for the next 24 hours is forecast to be below -20C and tonight it's forecast to be -24C so there's no way around it. The bunny pants make it hard to strap into the cockpit, let alone to work in there. The reason for wearing them isn't because it gets cold in the plane. It's because if you'd have to eject and the ground search and rescue team have a hard time finding you because of nasty weather, then you have a bigger chance of surviving out there while they're searching for you. One thing you also have to take into account is that in Europe you're never really far away from houses, farms or villages but out here in the praries you can have fields around you for many miles without any sign of civilization. And when it's really cold, especially when it's windy and there's deep snow, it's unbelievably hard to perform the most basic of tasks. Just walking from home to the base in the mornings is a struggle in the worst of conditions. It kept snowing yesterday so I never got my flights done. I'm on the sched for the remainder of my latest solo flight and CH22 today but as you know, it's very weather depending. /GEA |
| Date | 01-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1710) The weather didn't get better today and we got the "Cease flying" news at around 1530, so I didn't get to fly today. On the other hand, our Flight Commander called us in for a meeting with some good news and some bad news. The good news is that we HAVE to make the Hawk start date (February 22nd) which means that we'll get priority - great stuff! The bad news, which isn't that bad afterall, is that we should expect six day weeks, every week, and if the weather's good on weekends we'll be flying both Saturdays and Sundays, starting from this weekend. So now we know what to expect and we know that our start date won't get pushed back again. To be honest, when we got called in for the meeting, some of us were sure that it was about a new course date, but fortunately, we were wrong. /GEA |
| Date | 01-12-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1320) My flight with the base commander got cancelled due to a variety of things. First we had alot of snowfall last night so it took a couple of hours before they could clear the runways, then it was the low hanging clouds with icing in them which obstructed us in getting airborne. I'm still on the schedule for the remainder of yesterday's solo this afternoon. The weather is actually ok right now but I don't know if it'll stay this way. This morning I remembered about the trip from Vegas to Reno, when I was at cruising altitude and ATC calls me up and says: "Bandit 21, your traffic is a Dash-8 on your 12 o'clock, one thousand feet below you, opposite direction." So I'm looking for this Dash-8 in front of me and finally I see him. From the moment I saw him until he flew right below me it only took a couple of seconds. A thousand feet separation at that closure rate is really not that much. However it's still much better than when you're out in the area and another T6 zooms by, at a much closer distance, and you only just saw him because he blocked the sun... Just heard on the PA system that there's a snow shower with bad visibility so they went to a Standby programme. You gotta love the winter here... |
| Date | 30-11-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1935) I did CH21 early this afternoon and it was a rather demanding flight. First I did all the aerobatic sequences and after that it was time for my first vertical maneuvrs. First a Vetical 8, where you basically fly the figure 8 by doing half a loop, half a roll, a full loop, and then another half roll and half loop. After that it was time for the vertical roll. You enter the vertical roll at full blower and 280kt and pull 5g to get into the vertical. Then as soon as you get there, you unload the g and put on full aileron deflection to roll around the vertical axis. After the IP demonstrated one for me, he asked whether I had any questions. I replied "I have no idea what the hell just happened there..." The vertical roll is very overwhelming the first time you experience it. I did one myself and then a barrel roll afterwards. I flew us back home and then it was time for my solo flight. So I flew out in deteriorating weather, asked ATC for a cloud break up because of cloud cover, and when I got on top of the clouds I was between two layers, which weren't very far apart, so I didn't have enough space to do my aerobatics. So I decided to get a cloud break down and fly back to base for some pattern work. I did an AoA approach, an overhead break and a closed pattern for a PFL and then landed and saved the flight time for another flight. So tomorrow I have CH22 and the remainder of my solo CH21A. My IP tomorrow is the base commander, so I'm pretty anxious about it. Apart from the fact that he's a Colonel, he's also a very strict man and only a couple of students have flown with him before. On tomorrow's programme, among other things, is the maximum performance turn for the first time. It's a turn where you pull maximum sustained g. The way to do it is to find the right speed and then pull hard enough to put the aircraft right on the edge of stall, where it's giving you max lift. It's funny how different you fly on 2B than what we've done up until now. The T6 has a "stick shaker" which is a device that shakes the stick when you reach 15.5 AoA, warning you that you're approaching the critical AoA (18) and when you get shaker is normally the time when you would unload the g to get in the "safe" area of flight again. But in 2B, for instance in the maximum performance turn, you go to shaker, and then you pull even harder until you have 17 AoA - and keep it there. That's the way you fly a fighter to get the maximum performance out of it. It's exciting stuff and it teaches you alot about energy management and how to get the best out of any aircraft. So now I'll do some studying and then it's off to bed to be as rested as possible in order to withstand the g's tomorrow. One hairy moment that I had today was when I lined up on the runway and powered up to 30% on the brakes to check the engine before take off. The runway was icy and the plane started skidding, so I just released the brakes and did a rolling take off. Even worse was when I landed and the plane was skidding over the ice as I braked. The T6 has very high tire pressure, intentionally in order to reduce the chances of aqua-planing in deep water. It works really well but makes life a bit too "exciting" in icy conditions./GEA |
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