C-5 Qualified!

It only took 3 years and 4 months from the time the 337th Airlift Squadron decided to sponsor me for a pilot training slot, but I am finally a qualified C-5 pilot.  It marks the end of about 22 months of training, starting with Officer Training School in May of 2013.  Even though it is the end of training, you never stop learning- so now I will go home and fly operational missions and learn all about how to use this great plane to fill operational needs.

I started C-5 school in early December, and finished up last week.  The syllabus consists of both computer based and instructor based classes, 19 simulator flights followed by a checkride in the simuator, and finally four flights in the real plane followed by a checkride.

The academic classes and simulators are all taught by retired C-5 evaluator pilots, and were mostly enjoyable.  I say mostly because 8 hours a day of clicking through slides on a computer that are way beyond required "pilot level" knowledge isn't really that enjoyable.

The instructors for the flights in the real airplane were obviously Ar Force instructors.  The real plane flies pretty similar to the simulator with the exception of landing and taxiing.  Both, although challenging, were much easier in the airplane because you are able to sense movement much better.  I had a very difficult time landing the plane on the centerline in the sim, but was able to do it very well in the real plane.  Well enough that my evaluator marked my landings as"commendable" in my checkride.  Landing and taxiing are the only times you really realize that you are flying a big plane. You have to be very careful taxiing because of the plane's size.  It wasn't a problem here because the airfield is set up for C-5 operations, but at other airports you can hit stuff if you are not very careful.  The plane also requires some finesse to taxi because the aft set of main landing gear must be castered during a turn to essentially allow the plane to pivot around the forward set of main landing gear (the "middle" set of gear in the pictures).  Timing the castering and centering of the aft landing gear is important to a pretty turn. It is also tricky because you sit about 20 feet ahead of the nosewheel, so you have to drive past where to want to turn, and then start to turn.  Other than landing and taxiing though, you would not realize you had about 250 feet of plane behind you.  

The next step is to travel home and start my prog tour.  I will likely get 210 days of active duty orders so I have time to learn how everything operates and gain experience.