The road to my wings
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| Date | 09-07-2010 |
| Location |  |
| Message | (Friday 1725) Yesterday was a paperwork day. I was supposed to fly the nav pre-test and it got cancelled because the IP grounded himself and then in the evening I was supposed to fly a formation flight but it also got cancelled due to a grounded IP. So I used the time to get a bunch of paperwork done, mostly in connection with our graduation, which is approaching fast, and which I'm in charge of. Today on the other hand was a bit more productive. I had a formation sim this morning where I had to do low level double attack and then in the afternoon I finally did my nav pre-test. Both went well and that means that Monday morning I'll do my low level nav test. They already assigned me a target and a snapper. So I'll probably use a couple of hours at the map room tomorrow to do a good map. As you know, piss poor planning gives piss poor performance, so now that I know what my target is, I might aswell take the time to do some proper planning and route study during the weekend. My target is a high speed bend in a road. I'll plan my attack run in a way that I'll follow the road to the bend so that I pick it up way before I'm on top of it. When you've planned and flown a few nav missions you learn some good tricks of the trade and having good lead-in features to your target is one of them. It makes life much easier in the cockpit... Now it's almost time for the mess. Have a good weekend! /GEA |
| Date | 07-07-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2255) I got my third formation flight done today and it all went well except for the emergency handling, where I could have prioritized better. As you know, on every flight you get a simulated emergency of a kind. Some are more critical than others and most of the times there's no right or wrong way to handle them as long as you stick to the basic principles of military flying, which are Aviate, navigate and then communicate. What it basically means is that you maintain aircraft control and when you're completely satisfied with that, you start thinking about heading in the right direction and when that's done, you do the necessary communication with ATC or your wingman or formation leader. Anyway I did my first formation landing in the Hawk and it was actually not as hard as I had expected. Lead got slow at one point on the approach and that was actually pretty nasty. The plane gets really slobby and hard to control and it's not pleasant at all to feel the jet getting close to the stall limit. Then after we landed we were scheduled for another formation trip at 2000 but it got cancelled, once again because of some very nasty thunderstorms. The plan for tomorrow is to fly the low level nav pre-test and then probably do the test on Friday. I want to get it overwith as it's been a week since my last nav flight and I want to get the test done while everything is still relatively fresh in my head. /GEA |
| Date | 06-07-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 0030) My formation flight got ground aborted due to weather. We started up and taxied out in rain showers and then as we lined up on the runway we saw lightning strikes at the departure end of the runway so we decided to taxi back and shut down. The Hawk has a thing with the centerline tank, where it could explode if struck by lightning so we weren't going to take any chances. Then I had my one and only Hawk night flight at 2145. It was actually quite pleasant and not hugely different from day ops. We landed at about 2315 or so and I could feel I was quite tired by the end. We even did some aerobatics out in the area. They're always fun at night and it's quite a strange feeling in a loop or other vertical manoeuvers, where you point straight down at the ground and you just cannot see the ground and everything is just black ahead of you. It somehow makes your senses a bit sharper and you pay extra good attention to your cross check. Tomorrow I'll be doing the formation flight which I should have done today. The weather is crazy as always here, but should be good the rest of the week. Apparently when I was away in Denmark they had a category F2 Tornado about 100km North of here and it destroyed alot of property but fortunately nobody was injured. You gotta love this place... /GEA |
| Date | 05-07-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1050) Wednesday I flew another formation flight in the morning and it was actually the only formation flight that I ever didn't enjoy. I was leading and wasn't as sharp as I wanted to be. To make matters worse my ass, legs and back were hurting through the duration of the flight so it didn't help much. In formation flying it's extremely important to relax while you fly and I think that my problem was that I was a bit tensed during the flight. In the afternoon I flew my solo low level navigation mission and it was probably the most enjoyable flight that I've had to date. I had planned an awesome route with some low level over a river situated in a shallow valley. Then my target was a bridge on another river. After the low level part of it I went home and burned the rest of the fuel doing touch and gos, and my wife and kid were both standing at the departure end of the runway. Well, my wife was standing there and my kid quickly retreated to the car and covered his ears because he thought it was a bit too loud when daddy flew 20 feet over his head at full power... I flew to Denmark with my wife and kid Thursday in order for them to move back to our home, only to find out that the poeple who had been renting our place had made a big mess out of it and had not moved out as agreed. So we stood there with six big suitcases, a very tired little boy and nowhere to go...and our home looked like it had been used as a farm. We were devastated to see our home like that. Anyway, I got my authoritarian part of me out and gave them an ultimatum. They would get the rest of the day to move out, fix some of the things, and clean the whole place, and in the meantime we went to a hotel close by, on their expense of course. So Saturday we moved in and spent most of the day cleaning as it was still far from what normal people would define as "clean." Now the big battle starts to get them to pay for what they have destroyed. Fortunately they paid a deposit back when they moved in, so most of it should be covered. i just wish I could be there so that my wife and kid don't stand there with such a big task on their own. Today I have the day off in order to get over the trans-Atlantic jet lag. I have alot to do and I don't intend on wasting time, but I thought it was time to post something in here as it's been almost a week since I last wrote. This week we have night flying so tomorrow I start late but then I also fly at 2145 as the sun sets very late in the summertime here. With regards to flying, I now have the low level pre-test and test left, and then it's only the remainder of the formation phase and a couple of composite flights which can be used for anything except solo flights. That's it for now. I'll try to update again tomorrow. /GEA |
| Date | 29-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 2040) I flew a couple of trips today, both low level nav missions. They were both really good and I feel very comfortable down at low level going fast. My first target was an intersection between power lines and a road and my second target was a dam at the end of a lake. Then I "attacked" a bunch of targets of opportunity along the way at the instructor's discretion. At one point he gave me a simulated emergency which really put me off my timing so I flew at 520kt to make up for the time lost and get to the target on time. It's funny how slow things felt once I was back on time and back to 420kt. It felt as if the plane was at a standstill. One thing is sure: I'm going to bore myself to death on helos. I just can't imagine what it's going to be like flying at 80kt or so. Tomorrow I'm on the schedule for my second formation flight in the morning and then my low level navigation solo flight in the afternoon, so it should be yet another action packed day. My only solo flight left in the Hawk then would be the formation solo. I wish the Hawk course would last forever, but as they say, every good thing comes to an end. /GEA |
| Date | 28-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Monday 1220) I did my solo IF trip to Saskatoon this morning and I still have my "ticket." It went all fine and was actually lots of fun to go away, alone in the jet, fly to another airport, do an approach and come back and do a couple more here. Then after I had enough of IFR stuff i just cancelled IFR and continued visually in the pattern, did some touch and gos until my fuel started getting on the low side and then it was time to call it a flight. It's actually a good morale booster to fly IF away on your own, more than i thought it would be. That's it for now. Left on today's programme for me is the monthly egress training and then I'll go to the map room and start planning the route for my nav solo flight which is coming up soon. /GEA |
| Date | 27-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Sunday 2220) Today was a normal work day for the whole school and I was scheduled for two flights. My first one was supposed to be a formation flight but got cancelled due to a grounded instructor but the second one went as planned. It was another low level navigation mission and went really well. Lots of fun and man did I get those bombs on that target. So I spent the rest of my afternoon with that huge "low level nav smile." Tomorrow I was scheduled for the next nav mission but now it's been changed to IF10, which is the only solo instrument flight that you'll get to do as a student. I'll try to get it changed to a nav mission or so, but if they can't change it, then I'll just go to Saskatoon and back on my own. It should be really busy and lots of fun indeed. One thing I really enjoy in the low level nav missions is watching the Hawk shadow on the ground on sunny days like today. The shadow is really only about 300 feet away from you so it looks huge and it looks great scooching along the ground at such a high speed. You can even clearly see the aircraft's exhaust in the shadow. Now I better go to bed. I'm scheduled for the first wave tomorrow, meaning that I have to be at work at around 0545 so that I can start preparing for the flight. On a last note I want to mention what a great football game I witnessed today between Germany and England. I really believe that England would have won if they had been allowed that goal, which clearly was a goal. Not to underestimate the Germans in any way because they truly have a potent team with lots of enthusiasm and talent... /GEA |
| Date | 25-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Saturday 0100) I finally flew my first formation trip in the Hawk today. It wasn't much different than flying formation in the T6 except that it's much smoother and somewhat faster. My formation skills felt a bit rusty at first. After all, it's been a few months since I last flew any formation. Then after a few minutes I managed to relax and just did my thing. But I was pretty tensed during the take off. One thing I realized was how great the Hawk looks when you're flying close to it. It has such nice lines. However I must admit that low level navigation on the Hawk is more fun than formation flying...at least at this stage. Those nav maps take hours to plan and prepare but they're (almost?!) worth all the work. Tomorrow the base has the family day downtown in one of the parks so we'll be heading there. The weather seems like it's going to be nice. Today it was nice too, but maybe a tad too hot for flying. At 29C it gets a bit too hard in the cockpit. The jet even has terrible acceleration on the takeoff run and the wings produce much less lift and you can actually really feel a huge difference. Sunday is a flying day and I'm scheduled for my second form and my second nav flight so I should sleep well at night after a hard day's work like that. My form partner this time is LOD and next time it's my turn to be formation leader. Should be fun. /GEA |
| Date | 23-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Wednesday 2120) I finally had my first NAV mission today. It was absolutely fantastic! You can really feel that you're moving when you're down at 300 feet going over 400kt. I had some close calls with the birds but at that speed there's not much you can do. When you see a bird it's too late to do any turns to get away from it. At one point the IP told me to go full throttle for a few minutes in order to give myself a timing error so that I could correct it later on. We were doing around 550kt, which is close to the aircraft speed limit at low altitude of 575kt. Things happen so fast yet the plane is just so smooth and still so easy to fly. At full power we had a fuel flow of 87 pounds per minute. That's a pretty insane fuel burn when you think about it! Oh well, all that fun doesn't come cheap I guess. In the afternoon I had another NAV sim, the last one of the kind. All I have left now, with regards to NAV, is six flights, including a solo trip. That's gonna be a blast! /GEA |
| Date | 22-06-2010 |
| Location | |
| Message | (Tuesday 2100) Yesterday I got the second NAV sim done and today I was supposed to fly my first NAV mission but the weather crapped out just as we were supposed to brief. By the time we were supposed to step to our jet the weather had cleared again but then it was too late. So instead I did an IF sim in preparation for my first IF solo where I'll probably be going to Calgary, stay overnight and then fly back the next day. Most of the students pair up for this mission as that means that they get double the flight time that way and a "co-pilot" to help them along the way. IF in a fast jet alone is really hard work and without an autopilot it's actually quite a challenge, especially going new places with lots of traffic, so I decided to pair up with another student too. We'll probably go in the beginning of July or so. Yesterday we had an awesome thunderstorm in the evening. I took the van to do some storm chasing with my camera but I got there a tad too late so I didn't get any usable pictures. When it starts raining heavily and there are lightning strikes all the way around you and the wind shakes the car violently, it's time to pack up the camera equipment and drive for your life. They had warned about possible tornados and severe thunderstorms and they weren't far off. I felt so small and insignificant on that little gravel road surrounded by fields in every direction, as far as the eye could see. /GEA |
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