The road to my wings
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| Date | 24-03-2009 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Tuesday 1355) I was supposed to have IF3* sim today but the instructor decided we should skip it over and go directly to IF4S. So there was alot of new stuff and he made sure to "keep my bucket full" by giving me new tasks before I even finished the ones I was doing. It went good and he snaked me for it. Next on today's programme is a couple of lessons of IFP. This Thursday we have the last prog test in the subjecta and on Tuesday we have the final exam in the subject. By now we're almost experts in planning IFR trips but it's just so easy to make a small fuck up which screws up the rest of your planning. The instructor's here, so I better get off this computer. /GEA |
| Date | 20-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1740) Time for tonight's grad dinner soon. The weather keeps getting better. One good thing about the weather here in the praries is that it's sunny very often. The snow is melting fast, too fast perhaps. I hope that my basement doesn't get flooded... I bought a Hawk RC model which should be here in a week or so. It's a used model with retractable gear and full flying stab like the real one. I will modify it to make it look like the Hawk CT155 that we use here at NFTC. After that it'll be time for the paint scheme. The scheme itself is all blue as you know but it's going to be a challenge to paint all the roundels, markings and NFTC logos. Why the hell did the Canadians have to have that cannabis plant on their flag?? It's going to be so complicated to paint, not to mention that I have to paint six of them and the NATO logo. Grrrr... Anyway, our SNR (Senior National Representative), who is our Danish boss here at the base, was down to give us some updates on what's going to happen with us while we're here at NFTC. We have been recoursed which means that we are no longer part of 0808 but are now 0902. What it means in practise is that we are only 2 weeks behind our new finishing date. It seems like we're going to be in Canada for just over two years in all. He also told us what factors he'll use when he has to decide who of us gets that 6th place. All in all it was good to hear what he had to say. /GEA |
| Date | 19-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 2015) The F18's came over today! Three of them, just after school and they were awesome. They did a few touch and go's and then landed and we got permission to go in and see them up close. It's a nice jet and as you may have guessed: I wouldn't mind flying the Hornet... I took quite alot of pictures and will upload them later on tonight. Just click on "New images" in the gallery to see them. Tomorrow there are four Canadians graduating from the Hawk flight. They flew the Hawk at the same period as the five Danes who graduated about a month ago. However the Danes were pushed forward because they had to make the course end-date so the Canadian students were made second priority. I'll be attending their Grad tomorrow, among other things to show my respect to them for stepping aside for the Danes, even though it wasn't their decision but the the school's decision. In a year's time or so it'll hopefully be my turn to get my wings and be ready to move on to the next step, whatever it may be. I'll have a great carreer no matter what I get to fly, but damn I wanna fly jets. I've done so much to get this far and I don't want the jet-dream to end so close to the goal. Only time will tell. By the way, for those reading: Thanks for all the emails in the past two days. I appreciate it, really! Thank you! /GEA |
| Date | 18-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 1850) I feel slightly better after yesterday's blow. After school I went to the end of the runway today and took some pictures of the aircraft flying over. You have to do whatever it takes to motivate yourself, and for me, something simple like that, does the job. I'll upload the pictures after I'm done writing in here. I didn't mention the whole story about the bad news yesterday. There are really alot of factors playing in and many variables which can change by the time it's our turn to get converted to the F16 but there's a good chance that they don't. One of the factors is that the fighter squadrons are pretty full of pilots while they're screaming for pilots in both helicopter and transport squadrons. Also there are rumors that they'll be drastically reducing the F16 fleet in the near future. Anyway, no more of that crap. It's just so depressing. The word is that tomorrow a CF18 will be be visiting Moose Jaw to do some flying and then we get to go and see it close up. Apparantly they're doing it to keep the Canadian students motivated. Fine by me! It was supposed to be there today but got cancelled for some reason. I'll take my camera with me. They're very "anal" about taking pictures on the base but fortunately I'm the coloumn writer for Bandit flight in the base magazine "The Prarie Flyer" so I'll try to get permission to take pictures "for an article" for the base magazine. /GEA |
| Date | 17-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 1530) We got a briefing from the guy (Tactical Air Command, Denmark) in charge of our training who is in Canada at the moment. He told us about what to expect in regards to our future, both with pilot training and the carreer after it. It was basically all bad news. Things look really bad ahead and the only thing he was certain of was that we're here now and that we're gonna be here for the duration of the course. After that, things are very unclear. Among other things they're discussing whether we should fly helicopters after finishing our training here in Canada. Things, especially economy, are bad back home and they seem to be worst in the fighter society. All we can do is do our best here on the course and hope for the best but the rest is out of our hands. We can't do anything about it but it bothers me alot none the less. I feel like crap but hopefully I'll get over it by tomorrow. /GEA |
| Date | 16-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1430) The week started off good with a sim and it seems like I'll be having another one tomorrow and as you know it's always good to be busy and active. Today's sim was IF3S and it went nicely. The instructor gave me a few twizzles along the way which is basically mental calculations for airspeed or climb/descent changes...while doing turns to headings of course. It's all good fun and it's a great way to help you learn and pratise cross-check technique. I also tried the local departure for the first time, where you intercept a radial outbound, intercept the 9NM DME arc to arc left and then intercept another radial outbound. On the way home I flew an ILS approach. The cloud base was at 600 feet AGL and the visibility was 2 miles so it could have been worse. The good thing is that I'm back on the snake track which I'll do my best to maintain. /GEA |
| Date | 13-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Friday 1345) Just got out of today's sim. It was a really good trip, probably one of my best ones, but for some reason I only got a A-HS grade. Not to worry, I'll do my best to get snakes in the future and try to beat my own record again, but it won't be easy to get 18 snakes in a row. Today's St. Patrick's day, which is basically another reason to get drunk at the mess tonight. Also, the new class have their welcome party which is where you would go to see others get drunk way beyond the point of what's considered as fun. Perhaps if they puke at the welcome party they won't puke in the plane when the time arrives for them to fly. If only it was that simple. Having mentioned the new class and flying, only God knows when they'll get in the air, but eventually they'll do so too... All that's left for me today is a gym session and then the above mentioned. I have a practise sim on Sunday which I'll probably use on instrument flying as I can be sure that my next sim will be IF. Have a nice weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 12-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Thursday 1930) Most of us Danes have been relatively busy this week. Mostly with sims and IFP thoery lessons. Some of us (not myself) are on for two sims tomorrow. Myself I only had two sims this week and it seems like I'm having the last Clearhood sim tomorrow, which is CH8*. CH9 would be the solo check "in real life" so there's no point in going on with Clearhood simming before we actually hit the flight line. But we'll be moving on with the IF sims. Instrument sims are good training even though it's still a big difference from the real deal. On yesterday's sim I did the usual departure, air work and then did the recovery at Regina International airport where I did four overhead breaks. It was quite interesting to see how things work out when you're at a new airport with a new pattern altitude and no "usual" ground features to align yourself with. With regards to weather. A couple of days ago we had a windchill of -49C in the morning hours but hopefully it'll only get warmer from now on. The course ahead of us (0805) have done alot of flying lately, including during the weekends, so their finishing date is approaching rapidly, meaning that we'll get to fly before too long. I think that mid April is a very realistic guess. Only time will tell... /GEA |
| Date | 09-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1315) Another sim and another snake. I don't think I've described the grades yet so I guess it's about time. So here's how it goes, from bad to good: Failed: F Marginal: M Achieved, low standard: A-LS Achieved: A Achieved, high standard: A-HS Standard exceeded: S, also known as "snake" It's freakin cold out there today so we're on a restricted programme since the windchill is below -39C at some places. I'm really sick and tired of this looong winter now and can't wait for the temperature to warm up and stay warm. What's amazing is how quickly it can change. Lats time I went home for lunch and it was about +5C, sunshine and clear blue skies. By the time I got out after lunch, the wind had picked up, we had overcast and the temperature had dropped by about 10 to 15C. I had my monthly seat-check renewed today and made a big mess out of it. I did a couple of screw ups but I suppose that's why we do it every month so that when we're in the plane we don't screw it up. /GEA |
| Date | 07-03-2009 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 1850) We had our house warming yesterday and had a great time. About 25 people were squeezed into our little house. There was plenty of booze, snacks and everyone got pretty liquored. After the part we headed off to the Dane bar which is actually our next door neighbour's basement and partied on and drank until most of them wanted to go down town, when I decided to go home. This morning we cleaned up and we're basically back to normal now. Tomorrow morning I have a practise sim and Monday it's back to business with CH6* sim on my programme. Our IFP block three prog test is approaching and to be honest it' the test that I fear most out of all the ones we had as it's mostly about the rules and regulations of IFR flying. I'll do my best to prepare and hope to stay above the usual 95% mark, preferably the upper region of it... Now it's dinner time. Stay tuned for more action from Moose Jaw /GEA |
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