And There Was Much Arm-Twisting

My excuse for not updating is that my roommate's dog chewed through the power cable on my laptop. I have two perfectly good dead batteries sitting around. Waiting for the replacement to make it's journey through the mail. Using her computer to do this now.

Have completed the initial stage of training. Passed my checkride and soloed several times. Did several aerobatic flights. Quite fun. Loops, barrel rolls, etc. Took a weather class, did well on that test. I'll be starting formation flight tomorrow. Actually heading out to study with my forms partner (wingman) here shortly.

Seriously considering ordering the NFL Sunday Ticket so I can watch the Seahawks games. Gonna be a big hassle, and slightly more expensive, but worth it I'm sure. I'll hate myself if I don't. =P Not too much else new. Just plugging along. Love ya'll.

A day off? Wierd..

Took the safe for solo test today. Turned out to be 20 questions, and easier than I thought. Have the whole day to do laundry and study. Going boating with a bunch of friends this weekend. Should be fun. Doing basic instrument flights now. I was supposed to do them after the sims, but scheduling screwed up and put me back into contact flights. For BI's I sit in the back seat with the hood up and fly off the instruments. Little lower stress than fllights from the front seat. Anyway, not too much to say.

Oh yeah, it's official now. Ben's a celebrity. Sweet.

Little flying update

So, not flying today. I got all the way out to the runup, was ready to taxi for takeoff when the word on the weather came down, so we taxied back to the line and hung it up. This is good news though. It means lots of time for me to study today. Yay. First things first, I'm going to take a nap. Studied til 12:00 pm last night and had to get up at 4:30 am to make my 6:15 brief for the flight, so a few more hours oughta help.

Flown twice so far. It moves fast. Have to think faster. The plane is pretty responsive. Yanks and banks pretty well. Military flying is a hoot. Not very Top Gunnish, though. Checklists, procedures, rules, more rules, secondary rules, auxiliary rules, you get the idea. I have checklists for my checklists. Not kidding. Anyway, nap time.

Happy birthday to me

Check this out. Ben sent me a unit t-shirt (which is in the laundry) and this sweet AK-47 bayonette with "Infidel Brother" engraved on it in English and Arabic. Pretty sweet birthday present. I think I already know what he's getting. ;-)

Cry me a @#$%in' river...

Check out the headline on this article...

Taking A Second To Breathe

Thursday night. 1o:04pm, I should be sleeping, but thought I'd drop a quick lil note here before bed. Let me just start by saying......WOW! Flight training is a LOT of work. I didn't expect it to be easy, but let me tell ya; if this wasn't something you loved doin, right about now would be the point a person would have to start lining up a new job. Those that I've talked to will remember my beautiful lacadaisical schedule from a couple weeks ago. Wake up 9ish, call in to let 'em know I'm alive and congratulations, you're done for the day. Hah. This is a sample of my schedule for the last two weeks. Sunday through Friday.

0515 - Wake up
0700 - First class on (Aircraft systems, course rules (airspace stuff), etc.)
0930 - Second class for the morning
1100 - 1300 - Studying for a today's sim ride / test
...a word about sim rides. The Navy employs roughly 40ish McDonald Douglas (I think...or Raytheon, something like that) civilian contractors. Almost all are retired pilots with many years experience. They know their stuff. So we have a syllabus. Each sim ride has specific procedures we need to know COLD. You screw up, make a fool of yourself and it's bad news. So anyway, back to the schedule.
1300 - 1430 - Sim ride for the day
1430 - 1700ish - Back in the sims with a buddy learning the new procedures for tomorrow's sim ride.
1700ish - bed - Food, blogging, and of course...more studying. Then wakin up and doin the same thing all over again.

This is pretty accurate. No exaggeration or anything. I could probably get away with fewer hours, but not if I want to place highly in my class. Hmm...tryin to think if there's anything else interesting. This won't be my schedule for the entire time I'm here. It will change once I get into the air to a certain degree. Flights will replace sims, but the word is they only come 3 or 4 a week. I better throw a picture or two in here so it's not all blah text. Talk to ya later.

P.S. I couldn't find any other interesting pictures, so I figure'd I'd put this one up as a Public Service Announcement. This, boys and girls, is my friend Derrick. I know...he looks dumb, but that's the point. Derrick, by conventional standards is a very intelligent young man. He has a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering, and performed well enough in air force pilot training to earn a spot flying F-16's - one of the most coveted planes out there. I've gone through the trouble of establishing his bona fides simply to provide a little context for the stupid look on his face and the torrent of blood flowing from that nasty gash on his head. Our hero was "walking" into his apartment after an evening out on the town in beautiful Del Rio, TX (I think). Derrick being a big guy, bout 6' 5", his girlfriend apparently thought it would be a good plan to run up behind him, leap into the air and get to enjoying a non-consensual piggy-back ride. As I'm sure you've already guessed, Derrick went *timber*...right onto the sidewalk. Under normal circumstances, I'm sure he'd be more upset than he appears in this picture, but...well, you know...he was in a *cheerful* mood. So, I guess this was supposed to be a public service announcement, wasn't it. Hmm, well. I think it's clear that the lesson to be learned here is don't let people run and jump on your back when you're not prepared for it. A noteworthy lesson for us all.

Studying

Promised I'd post tonight, but haven't finished studying and I need to be up in about 6 hours, so I'm afraid it'll have to wait til tomorrow. Back to the books. =(

Goodbye life

That's right, everyone wave goodbye to Rob's life. A mugger named pilot training came by and murdered the heck out of it. If I'm not in a sim, in a class, doing computer-based training or flying...I'm studying for one of them. Finishing up first week. Test tomorrow. Imagine trying to learn how every part of your car works, where they all are and how they work together and then imagine your car is an airplane -- in a week. It sucks. Anyway, here's a couple pics. I have to start studying. =P Holler if ya want more.