Hey, Lt Nonna, make this one a full stop. I'm going to hop out, and then take'r back up.

Its been almost a month since we've started flying.  As of Friday I had twelve flights under my belt. The thirteenth flight, per the syallabus, is a solo.  I was a little apprehensive at first of taking up a $5 million jet by myself.  The idea that they would let us do that so soon seemed a little crazy, especially considering at one point in the pattern you're at about 400 feet going about 230 knots, banked 75 degrees and pulling 2.5 g's on the turn to crosswind before you can climb to pattern altitude.  I guess they figure if things get bad enough there's always an ejection handle in between your legs you can pull if you need to get out, not that there's no risks associated with that option.

So anyway, a few people in the class had already soloed and on Friday afternoon it was my turn. The solo is basically two sorties in one. First, you go up with your instructor pilot and do a normal landing, a pattern breakout, an emergency landing pattern, a go around, and a no flap landing.  If that's good, you land and taxi back to chocks.  He hops out, the crew chief ties the rear cockpit down, you trade nametags with your IP (his nametag has wings on it, and you need wings to fly) and then you go for it.

The crew chiefs know when someone is doing an initial solo.  They also know that your buddies will be waiting for you so they can throw you into the dunk tank. Finally, they know if you make it back to the flight room without getting dunked, everyone owes you a case of beer.  Before closing the canopy and starting up its usually a good idea to coordinate with them to have a getaway truck waiting at the jet when you get back.  More on that later.

I started the plane up, taxied, took off and flew four patterns.  I pulled closed for the first two, which saves the time of flying all the way around the pattern.  On the third I took a lap and did the outside pattern, landed, requested closed, and did another closed pattern to a full stop.  I probably could've stayed up longer than 0.4 hours, but everything was going well and I didn't want to push my luck.  Keeping the flight short also caught my flightmates off guard.  When I landed I hopped out of the jet, got into getaway truck that was waiting, took off my harness and g-suit, and got dropped off at at a side door where I was able to sneak into the fight room.

Of course I wasn't getting away with that.  I was escorted outside to the dunk tank and promptly dunked.  See video here.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h54MjuSVuEA&feature=youtu.be

Got dunked....

The picture below is from last week.  It was after my buddy Paul's solo. 

Look, no one in the back seat!

Now that the initial solo is complete I begin a new block of training.  This block includes aerobatics, which should be fun.  I have also started instrument sims.  Basically in these we do the things we learned about during instrument academics, and will represent most of the flying I'll be doing when I move on to T-1's.  I'll likely have my mid-phase checkride before thanksgiving.  This is the first of four checkrides you have in Phase 2 (T-6's).  The next week and a half will be spent studying for that, in addition to preparing for contact flights and instrument sims.