The road to my wings
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| Date | 06-10-2009 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Tuesday 1320) The weather cooperated, this morning at least, so it's great that I was scheduled for the first wave. It was so nice to get back up there and do some formation flying. I flew with a Danish IP and the Italian student flew with a Hungarian IP, so we were four Europeans in a couple of Canadian planes. We reviewed a couple of reversals in Echelon position and then stepped it up to 60 degrees of bank. New work was flat turns, fighting wing formation and fluid manoeuvring. The last mentioned is awesome fun. Lead simply flies around and you follow him to maintain about 750 feet of seperation. So lead did some turns and a couple of loops and I just adjusted my pursuit between lead-, pure- and lag-pursuit in order to maintain the appropriate distance. In fluid manoeuvring you leave the power setting at 90% so your pursuit adjustment is the only way to stay in position. Awesome fun, by the way! Tomorrow I'm on the sched for the next FM9. The next flight after that is FM9A which is a solo formation flight. I just can't wait! Let's just hope the weather gets better soon... /GEA |
| Date | 05-10-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 2110) I had my second 2B sim today, this one being the first IF sim where I did high approaches and STAR's. High approaches are only done by military high performance aircraft where the jet comes in almost over the airfield at about 20,000 feet and does an instrument transition in the form of a rather steep dive and then transition to a normal instrument approach procedure. STAR is a standard terminal arrival, where busy airports require you to fly a published standard route towards the airport in order to minimize traffic conflicts and ATC workload. This week I'll hopefully fly to Calgary and do a real STAR before heading off on the cross country next week, where we'll be landing at some busy airports for sure. Tomorrow morning I finally start the flying part of 2B, where I'll be doing my first formation flight, this time with an Italian friend of mine from Cobra flight, on my wing. Should be fun. My only doubt is the weather, which has been really crappy for quite a while now. The forecats is good but let's see if it actually turns out ok. /GEA |
| Date | 03-10-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 1335) Thursday night some of the Canadians on the course took me out for wings, beer and ice cream. It was a good evening. Yesterday was a rather uneventful day. I gave myself a practise sim and then in the evening it was time for not less than three parties. First, our course had the selection party, where the Canadians were told what they're going to fly after the course is done. Most got what they wanted but there were a few disappointments too. After the selection party it was time for a the Big 2 welcome party for the new course, of which six of the students are Danish. They all seemed to survive the hard treatment. Then we went back to the mess for the German Octoberfest. It was awesome, actually better than last year. The food was great and they had, of course, imported German beer. We got pretty wasted and I stayed until 0100 or so. So as to how I feel now that I'm 30? Just like I did the day before when I was 29 I guess. The last few nights I've been dreaming about flying the Hawk. I'm really going to enjoy 2B but I really look forward to flying that Hawk. /GEA |
| Date | 01-10-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1350) I know it's Thursday when my little boy wakes up at 0630 to see the garbage truck. It comes in the neighbourhood every Thursday and my son always remembers to wake up early so that he can look out the window. I don't know why he's so fascinated by it. We had the yearly dinghy drill this morning, which was about to expire. All went well and the next dinghy drill will be for the Hawk, not the Harvard. Other than that I'm enjoying my last day in the twenties today. That's right, tomorrow I go round a sharp corner and there's no turning back. I don't really celebrate birthdays normally as it just means you got a year older and have a year less to live. Another way to look at it is that I made it to a new mark and many people weren't so fortunate to live so long. So that's another reason to be thankful, I guess. That's it for now. /GEA |
| Date | 30-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1730) I had my CH sim today. He asked me if I wanted to repeat any of the stuff from 2A as it's been quite a while since I finished the CH phase. I decided to go directly to the new stuff so we got alot done. The new stuff in this sim were PFL's from the traffic pattern and AoA approaches. Normally when we fly a PFL we always fly to high key first, but now we learn how to go directly to one of the other keys. What it means is that if your engine quits almost anywhere in the traffic pattern, you have enough energy to make it to the runway. That's one of the reasons why we fly so fast (220kt) in the traffic pattern. The other thing was AoA approach. Once you start flying the fast jets, you don't do your approaches at a certain speed but at a certain Angle Of Attack. The aircraft will always react the same at the same AoA and that's why you will always fly down at the same AoA. Speed will vary quite alot depending on configuration, fuel and weapon load among other things, so it's important to always fly the approach at the same AoA. That allows you to fly as slow as possible without ever getting in any danger zone in regards to stall proximity. If all goes "ideally" with my course I will fly to Calgary and back next week and then on the 16th of October, the plan is that Hamster and myself go on our cross country out West. I really hope they stick to that plan. The cross country is one of the best parts of the course so I really look forward to that! Tomorrow we have the yearly dinghy drills as it expires this week and it's important to have it done before flying over water, which we'll be doing on our cross country... /GEA |
| Date | 29-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1540) Finally some news - and good news too! I'm on the schedule for a sim tomorrow meaning that I'm starting Phase 2B without the dreaded waiting time! That's just awesome. The weather today's been really crappy with very strong and gusty wind once again so not much flying has been done. It's the time of the year where there are all kinds of obstacles in the way of flying. High winds, migratory birds, low clouds, icing in clouds and then later on when the winter's here we'll have those days where it's simply too cold to fly. The tentative plan for me is that I can finish 2B by November 30th which is my start date for Phase 3 and the Hawk. The only problem is that it's also the start date for the rest of the Danish students, some of which still need about 30 flights from 2A. But as I've mentioned earlier I'm cool with waiting a bit before starting the Hawk course. Right now I just want to get done with the Harvard so then I can just start concentrating on the Hawk when the time comes. I did some reading in the Harvard manual as to what I'll be doing in 2B and it looks like alot of fun. Now is when we really start to fly it as a fighter as opposed to what we've been doing so far. 2B is going to involve alot of G's, maximum performance turns and lots of new manoevrs, not to mention advanced formation flying. I'll keep you updated. /GEA |
| Date | 28-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1235) Nothing new from here. Normally, no news is good news but I really hope to see my name on the schedule again soon. The summer seems to be over. This weekend was cold and extremely windy and this morning we only had a few degrees above freezing. One thing I like about the cool air is that for some reason, jet fuel seems to smell better than in warm air. Maybe I should get out and away from the base a bit more often... Well, in a couple of weeks time we'll be going to Toronto for a few days. /GEA |
| Date | 24-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 2135) I can't help thinking about how long it'll be before I get in the air again. I must admit that ending 2A with formation flying was just the best way to end the course. It's funny how you feel like a complete retard the first time that you do formation flying. You really think that you're never going to learn it. Then as you start getting the hang of it, you increase the angle of bank by just 15 degrees and once again you feel completely hopeless. Then you get the hang of that and have a great flight like the one I had on the test and you feel invincible. It's such a confidence builder. Navigation flying was great fun, and so were the aerobatics in the CH part. Not to mention when you do a good approach in real IMC - but nothing even comes close to formation flying. It's so simple, yet so complex and it's one of those things that you either can or cannot do. When I land after a good formation flight I feel the fighter pilot flame burning inside. It brings back those same strange feelings from when I was a kid after having watched Top Gun or other movies of the kind. It's been a big struggle to get this far but I don't regret it for one second. What an adventure it has been so far! By the way, I just noticed that this blog has had over 100,000 hits. Thanks for the interest. /GEA |
| Date | 24-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1440) The last two days have basically gone by with administrative work. Yesterday my course director said that my SNR (Danish boss) had spoken to her and gave her the "go" for me starting the next course. That means two things. The first, which I almost had taken for granted is that I'm going on 2B and then phase 3 on the Hawk for sure and the other thing is that I don't have to wait for the other Danes to finish their course before I can start on mine. It was good news indeed! Then I went down to the flight room and the scheduler came out and mentioned that I have "low priority" meaning that I might have to wait "a little while" before I start on the next course. Yeah, I've heard that one before! Anyway, I'll go up to my boss and tell him about it and hope that he'll prompt them to prioritize me higher. We'll just wait and see. The wind is at over 30kt today, right accross the runway which means it's outside the aircraft's cross wind limit, so the whole fleet has been grounded all day except for early this morning. We have about 30 degrees C again today so it's still very hot. You have to enjoy it while it lasts here, because suddenly the shit hits the fan and it's -30C. Grrr. By the way, thanks to all of you who've written emails, messages etc. to congratulate me. I appreciate it. Every time I get surprized at how many actually read this blog. Thank you! /GEA |
| Date | 22-09-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1200) I did my test this morning and it went well. Another reptile in the box and that means I'm done with the course! It also means that I've snaked all of my tests and that I stand a good chance of finishing as number 1 in class - but because of the few bad flights that I've had, it all depends on how well the other guys do on the rest of their course and especially their tests. Anyway, it doesn't really matter that much at this point. I'm just happy that I completed the course and that I did well. Now I can relax for a bit but hopefully not for too long. Some of us Danes are still quite a way behind with regards to X count and I hope that I won't have to wait for them finishing the course before I can start the next one. Ideally I start the next course right away and then they just put me on hold between the Harvard and the Hawk. Even better would be that I start on both courses without any wait but I think that's a bit unrealistic. I'll let you know what happens as it happens. In any case, it's time for celebration tonight. /GEA |
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