Two more checkrides down...

It's been a long time since I updated my blog.  Since the last update I have completed the trans and nav phase of T-1's.  Also went cross country as part of the nav phase.  I think I'll write a separate post about that. Trans wasn't too bad.  The navigation phase, however, was challenging.  In that phase you have to pretty much fly places.  The hardest part though was the stuff you had to learn for the ground evaluation portion of that checkride. The volume of material that had to be known was large, and unlike in the T-6 program, you couldn't just study gouge- you had to actually read the source documents and had to have a good understanding of the application.  No longer could you just regurgitate stuff without knowing what it really means.  More on that later.

Transition-
I think when I last posted I was a flight or two away from my transition checkride.  That is where you are evaluated on how well you fly the T-1.  It involved a lot of pattern work (patterns and landings with no flap, 10 flap, 30 flap, and single engine).  It was fun to do closed pull ups and tactical overheads  (250 kts at home station, if you were feeling sporty)  in a business jet. Not something many people get to do.  For that checkride they pick where you go for pattern work.  I ended up wth Robert Gray AAF (Ft. Hood).  I had only been there once or twice before, so luckily that was NOATMed official business only on the day of my checkride so per the checkride ROEs, .my flying partner and I (the trans checkride was a two-student sortie- just like the daily rides) got to choose where we went.  We chose Dyess, since it has a nice long runway and good pattern ground references.  It also wasn't congested like other places people go for trans rides such as Midland, which is usually a clusterfuck with controllers that really make things more complicated than they have to be.  Neither the flying, nor ground part of that checkride was bad and I ended up doing real well.  My flying partner hooked for something minor, but no big deal.

Navigation-
In the nav phase we learn the bread and butter of what air mobility command pilots do- fly places.  Most of the flights in this phase are out and backs.  These are commonly referred to as "out and snacks" because we fly to an outbase, stop, get a crew car from the FBO and get food.  As a result, the locations of out and backs are usually chosen based on the food available in that city.  One of the best places was Lake Charles, LA.  There is an FBO at Chennault Int'l that for $1 will order you cajun food from a decent restaurant. I guess the cost of a few lunches is no big deal when you buy $4,000 worth of gas from them.  It's no surprise that that place is full of military aviators from all branches of service getting lunch.

The naviation phase also includes flying lots of instrument approaches.  We were also allowed to use the T-1's flight director and autopilot (for some phases of flight). Real nice to have.
Another cool part about the navigation phase was the low levels.  In these we flew 500' above the ground at 240kts along a specified route.  When flown properly (using the correct techniques if fix your timing you were late or early to turn points- of course it was easiest to just not get off timing in the first place) it was easy to hit the target within 5 seconds of the planned times. They were annoying to plan, schedule and deconflict but a couple of the routes were cool because they flew through mountains in Big Bend National Park.  The syllabus required three low levels.  I think I did four total, plus one on my checkride (which, weather permitting, is a requirement).

Student cross countries were also reinstated while we were in the nav phase. They had been eliminated some time ago to save money but I guess money became available, allowing us to take a jet for the weekend.  It is quite possible that the crew we assembled was the best ever.  It took some pressuring, but my buddy Glover and I were able to get ourselves on the scheduled with a FAIP who's a good dude and is fun to fly with.  We planned on going to Pensacola, FL the first night and New Orleans the second.  We stopped in at Chennault for crawfish etouffe  for dinner and then weather forced us to go to Little Rock, AR the first night.  It was hard to find a hotel room there because of the square dancing convention in town.  We ended up staying at the hotel where the convention was actually located and the lobby was full of old people wearing strange square dancing outfits.  I could't get through the lobby without having my hand shaken by 5 people if I had my flight suit on.  In Little Rock we met up with my T-6 flight commander who finished his time at Lauhglin, and was at Little Rock for C-130 school.  Little Rock was fun, but I would not want to live there.  The next day my flying partner Glover flew a VFR leg down to Pensacola.   While there, we went to be beach, which was really just the nasty intercostal waterway.  Of course being on the coast we also had a very good seafood dinner at a nice restaurant, and then hit the town.

Poking through the clouds on a VFR leg.

Good thing we have weather radar.  There were a lot of thunderstorms between Little Rock and Pensacola.

Pensacola, FL

Last week I had my navigation checkride.  This isn't the hardest checkride in UPT from a standpoint of pass rate, but it is by far the hardest in terms of the amount of knowledge you have to know and the amount of planning that has to go into it.  The nav checkride is essentially an out-and-back with a check pilot (by yourself, no student flying partner).  You are required to do a low level (of VFR leg if weather does not permit a low level), drop in to an airport for an approach enroute to an outbase where you do a few more approaches and then full stop.  You have a number of sampling items such as different types of approaches, a hold, single engine work, and so on.  In my opinion the flying was the easy part of that checkride.  The hard part is all the publications you have to be intimately familiar with for your ground evaluation.  No longer is reading a study guide enough.  And, in the event you don't know the answer to something, you should at least know what chapter/section of the document it comes from.  I can count eight publications that the "general knowledge" that you are expected to know can come from that deal with general flight rules, instrument flight rules, visual flight rules, T-1 specific training rules and procedures, Laughlin AFB specific procedures, AETC specific procedures and so on.  As usual, I was overprepared for the ground evaluation portion of the checkride, but the extra time put in preparing is far better than not knowing what you're talking about during the ground eval.  This is especially true since in T-1's the ground eval is before the flight (unlike T-6's) so its important to make a good first impression. Anyway, my checkride went favorably despite drawing a hard profile (both of sampling items and the low level route I got).

Now that nav is over I have moved on to air mobility fundamentals (AMF, or mission fam) phase of training, which consists entirely of formation flying.  I had my first form flight yesterday, which was a trip to the MOA, and then on to Austin for lunch, and then another MOA sortie on the back half.   We do not fly nearly as close as in T-6's (more like 500 feet- which is still close- but up to 10 feet during contact- which simulates air to air refueling), but the T-1 is significantly less maneuverable.  This takes some getting used to, which I found out when I had to breakout during a turning rejoin where in the T-6 I would have lag rolled or performed a high yo-yo.  Can't do that in a T-1 because you can't go upside down.  The first block of AMF consists of MOA work, while the second block consists of formation low level air drops and aerial refueling.

Anyway, I'm down to 9 more flights, 2 sims and a checkride left.  I'll try to post more often as I near the end of UPT!