Learning to fly, but I aint got wings...

F-35 Construction

2009-07-19T17:09:00.000-07:00

Ever wanted to know how to build a fighter?

Trains of thought...

2009-07-14T15:56:00.000-07:00

After weeks of frantic preparation leading up to the carrier trials, I havent been flying a whole lot. Typically this time sitting around is typically wasted in short order. In one of my rare instances of using spare time productively I read two books: Freakonomics by Dubner & Levitt, and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

I read Freakonomics first as I had heard so much about it, and was ultimately disappointed. Basically it chronicles the studies of Steven Levitt, an economics professor at The University of Chicago, and runs through some of his more interesting findings. Among the chapters are discussions on the effect of abortion on the crime rate (it brings crime down), and the mathematical detection of cheating in sumo wrestling and other sports. The problem was that the book was 90% hype, 10% substance. I got the general impression that it was written to make money for the authors and to look good on the bookstore bookshelf rather than edify its readers.

Malcolm Gladwell's Blink on the other hand, was quite fascinating. He delves into the inner workings of the brain, specifically how many of our thoughts and actions are contolled by the subconcious. Of particular interest is his thesis that the best decisions are made by concentrating on small amounts of critical information, rather than considering all the facts.He writes about a war game, in which a retired Marine general playing the role of a low-tech rogue middle eastern dictator soundly defeated the Pentagons best and brightest. Gladwell (supported by the general in question Major General Paul van Riper) maintains that the Pentagon suffered because of information overload. Because of all the information technology avalaible to the Pentagons "blue" force, there decisions and movements were slowed down and hampered as a result of the leadership overanalyzing every single decision. MajGen van Riper on the other hand, used a loose command structure in which he pushed many of the critical decsions down to lower level commanders in his enemy "red" force. In the ensuing war game, the red force inflicts critical blows on the simulated Americans, including destroying an aircraft carrier.

All in all Blink is definitely a good read. It is a little thin on substance at times (to be expected of anything on the bestseller lists) but overall enjoyable with some interesting points.

CQ!

2009-06-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

After nearly eight months, an update is long due. I apologize to all family and friends for the delay. Te recap the last several months, I selected the "Strike" pipeline, which means that Ill ultimately end up flying either an F/A-18 (C , E or F), or an E/A-18G. Practically it means that Ive spent the last few months learning the very basics of being a fighter pilot. Training in the strike pipeline started out with learning how to fly in formation at night (acutally not as bad as it sounds). Then it progressed with the WEPS phase where I learned how to drop dummy practice bombs. Initially in order to learn the basics of bombing, we try to hit the target without any sort of aid. Basically we have a fixed sight on the aircraft heads-up-display, and try to line the sight up with the target at precisely 450 knots and 3000 feet above the ground. Its harder than it sounds, and I wasnt very good at it. I am eternally grateful to who ever developed laser- and GPS-guided bombs because Id hate to have been a WW-II pilot and have some poor soldier on the ground depending on my dive bombing skills.

After weps I learned started gearing up to land on the carrier for the first time. After two solid weeks of touch-and-gos at home field practicing carrier style landings, on June 8th I did the real thing. I took off solo from Cecil Airport outside of Jacksonville,FL and trailed an instructor out the the "boat". After two touch and gos through the landing area (or "LA" in aviator parlance) I trapped on board the CVN 77, USS George HW Bush the Navy's newest aircraft carrier.

The first trap itself felt a little like a car crash. It was much more violent than I expected. Me and my little 12000-lb airplane were hauled to a stop from 140 mph in about two seconds. The first cat shot was even more intense. In order to launch from a carrier, you taxi onto a steam catapult. A small fitting called a shuttle hooks onto your nose landing gear. An enlisted man on the flight deck tells you to run your engine to full power, then the catapult flings your airplane off the bow of the ship, accelerating you from 0 to 150mph in about a second and a half.

Its the ride of your life.

I have two phases of flight school left, air combat manuvering (ACM) or dogfighting, and some low-level bombing flights. Hopefully Ill be done in a month or so and off to fly the Hornet.

CLEAR THE SKIES!

2008-11-17T15:40:00.001-08:00

The Navy is letting me take a $25m dollar jet out for a spin tomorrow...

...by myself.

Rough Day...

2008-10-02T08:22:00.000-07:00

Ah the joys of flight school. After finishing the Radio Instrument phase I was benched for a month waiting for the next phase. Just yesterday I started the warm-up process. The day started at 5:30am. No big deal, it was a practice simulator session. Basically that means an ungraded 1.5 hrs in the T-45C simulator to help me get back into the swing of things. No grades means no pressure, and its always nice to practice flying with no pressure. About twenty minutes into the session, however, I accidentally bumped the "Emergency Off" button. The whole sim went dark, sound went off, and the seat moved down to the bottom of the sim. Yeah....I felt really stupid. I didn't even know the sim had an Emergency Off button. Fortunately, neither did the instructor. After the sim guys rebooted the machine (which took about 10 minutes) we finished without incident.

That afternoon I was scheduled for a backseat ride in the jet. The training rules state that if we are out of the cockpit for more than 30 days (I was at 28) there is a whole list of things we have to do. To avoid that, the squadron gives us backseat rides, so now I'm good for another 30 days. The trouble was, originally I was on the schedule for a flight beginning at about 3pm, then I was switched to one at noon - and no one told me. As luck would have it I ran into the other student in the flight who told me I was flying in the same formation flight as him, 20 minutes before we were supposed to start briefing. I ran home to get my flight gear, scarfed down a couple powerbars from the gas station (I hadn't eaten lunch yet), and got to the brief just in time.

This particular flight was in a stage called "Cruise Formation". I flew in the backseat of a jet with an instructor who lead the 2-plane section. The other student flew in the other jet, maintaining formation off of us. Cruise Forms comes after the student has been flying formation for a while. As the flights progress, the student gets practice going through more and more dynamic maneuvers, culminating in barrel rolls in formation. It looks like this:

Needless to say, this was not the flight to go on having skipped lunch. I never really got sick, but my stomach was letting me know the entire time that it was not enjoying this. The flight ended up with a tailchase, basically a mock dogfight where the student starts about 1000 ft behind us in trail. The instructor puts the plane through a series of maneuvers while the student works the angles and tries to keep up. I had been ridden on one of these before, but not with a Marine Harrier pilot who really enjoys smacking the T-45 around the sky. First he snapped hard right, so hard in fact that my helmet bounced off the canopy - Klonk - and then pulled. We hit 5.5Gs momentarily and even at 280 knots indicated we were on the edge of a stall. The whole aircraft buffeted. I would been having a blast, had it not been for the fact that my intestines were staging an all out mutiny. In the end though I was happy just to make it back to earth without puking, and without hitting the turkey vultures that whizzed by us as we approached the airfield at about 350 knots.

What a day.....

Tangent...

2008-09-22T11:05:00.000-07:00

Up to this point my blog has been limited to new on the flight school process. My posts have been few and far between mostly because I haven't been flying much. Difficulty managing the numbers of students, combined with the slowdown resulting from a crash in the training command last spring, have caused a tremendous backlog in training. To work on clearing the backlog, the squadron decided to consistently fly students in the latter half of the program because the skills they were learning are more critical and perishable, i.e. carrier quals, air combat maneuvering (ACM) etc. Those of us starting out don't really know anything yet, so we cant really forget much either. As a result, I have not been flying much. Currently I am waiting for the backlog to clear a little so I can start learning to fly from the front seat. All of this adds up to a lot of junior naval officers sitting in Kingsville with nothing to do. Right now I am essentially being payed to do absolutely nothing. This is a colossal waste of taxpayer resources, but that is a topic for another discussion.

This free time has been both a source of joy and frustration. On the one hand its given me nearly unlimited time to pursue interests, hobbies, read about what interests me. On the other it leaves me (along with all of my friends down here), directionless, without a clear purpose for each day, for weeks at a time. This is compounded by the fact that we live in a town of 25000 on the edge of the United States. Not the place most 20-somethings dream about living in.

But rather than leave month-long gaps in this web log, I thought I might share a number of the thoughts, ideas, and discoveries that have been flowing through my mind throughout the past few weeks and months. I tend to think a lot. And Ive had a lot of time to think. Hopefully some will gather value from some of these musings. And I hope some will spark discussion. If nothing else it will serve as a public journal to record a few of the multitude of stray ideas and trains of thought that swirl through my brain.

I just finished reading an intriguing book on the history of the CIA, called "Legacy of Ashes." It paints a picture of American foreign policy since WWII that is intriguing and appalling. Some of what is in the book is common knowledge, most of it was new to me. Throughout the cold war the CIA repeatedly meddled in the affairs of foreign governments, fixing elections, sponsoring military coups, even plotting assassinations - and all in the name combating the spread of communism. Some of the real gems include the overthrow of a moderate democratically-elected prime minister of Iran (because he confronted British oil companies that were cheating his country out of millions), as well as the installation and support of two of the 20th centuries most cruel dictators - Joseph Mobutu and Augusto Pinochet. It is staggering the effect that this organization has had, and continues to have, on world events. The overthrow of Iran's prime minister (Mohamed Mossadeq), and the installation of the shah helped to fuel the rise of radical Islam and Ayatollah Khomeni. In fact, the ayatollah was part of one of several groups that the CIA funded to help over throw Mossadeq. The funding and arming of rebel groups in Afghanistan put tremendous pressure on the Soviets, and contributed greatly to the collapse of the Soviet Union. But our subsequent abandonment of the groups we funded left a massive power vacuum - which was filled by a number of wealthy Saudis who moved into the country to buy power and influence over the Muslim mujaheddin. This was the beginning of al-Qaeda. I continue to get the sense that every immoral and unjust action that we ever took as a nation in order to combat our enemies (no matter how heinous they were) is coming back to haunt us.

Ah, it is all fascinating (and terrifying) stuff. And encouragingly, what I know of the conduct of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we are finally learning from some of our 20th century foreign policy missteps. Despite what is prevailing public opinion, I think we a starting to get it right. Unfortunately, it is costing us dearly, both in terms of dollars and lives, in the process. I pray that we continue to learn. I desperately want to be part of an American foreign policy machine dedicated to promoting peace, security and freedom throughout the world, and not the opposite.

Colorado!

2008-09-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

After a long summer of very little flying, the squadron let me go on a cross-country to finish up my remaining RI (Radio Intrument) stage flights. Basically it was very similar to what I did in primary, except that it was in a jet, and I flew from the backseat. In jet advanced they teach us to fly the instruments before learning how to takeoff and land. So the instructor (in the front seat) flies the the t/o and landings, while the student in the back navigates, works the radios, and flies the instrument approaches.

Navigating at 26000 ft is a challenge. For most of the flight this is what occupied my attention:

In the T-45C we have MFDs (multi-function displays) rather than conventional steam gauges. All the attitude/airspeed information is displayed on the right, navigation/GPS data on the left. If you look closely, you see we were at 26000 ft, doing 363 kts (417 mph) over the ground. The jet can go faster, but we were throttled back to save fuel.

Enroute we stopped at Lubbock Airport for gas:

And finally landed in northeast Denver at Rocky Mountain Metro airport:

On our way to Denver we got a pretty good view of the mountains.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I got to spend time in CO with my aunt & uncle, and grandparents who live nearby. It was a blessing too as I dont get to see them much. The only problem was that I only was there for one night because the Navy needed us back the next day. And with the exception of a few equipment failures (the microphone in my mask quit a couple of times) it was pretty good training as well.

After this comes the FAM stage, where I will learn to fly the jet from the front seat, including the Navy carrier-style landing pattern. Though Im told there will be a bit of a delay. So for now, its back to waiting...

Back in the saddle

2008-06-06T13:55:00.000-07:00

...in the ejection seat really, its only marginally more comfortable than riding a horse. After weeks of classroom learning and hours in the simulators, I finally got a chance to ride in the backseat of the jet Im learning to fly. In jet-land, when students learn how to fly in formation, they fly wing off of an instructor in another jet, rather than switching back and forth like we did in primary. I wrote about formation flying in primary back in December of last year. Even though I not far enough along in the program to start flying it myself, I got to hop in the backseat of the jet with the instructor flying lead. We took off by ourselves, with the student following a short while later. Heres a quick video of the takeoff.

We flew out to a specific set of coordinates in the sky. After catching up, the other guy preformed a manuver appropriatley called a "rendezvous" and joined up on us.

This is what formation flying looks like from the other guys persepctive:

After about an hour or so of the instructor in my plane leading the other student through a set of basic manuvers we headed back to base, got the the airport, and split up to practice carrier-style landings as separate airplanes. The instuctor flying my plane was an old hat, he was an E-2C pilot, now is a Commander in the Navy reserve who splits his time between flying for Delta and flying with us. To practice carrier landings on land, we have a carrier-sized box painted on the runway with a fresnel lens (we call it the "ball") located next to it. The "ball", a yellow light in between a row of green lights tells the pilot whether he is high or low on approach. If the yellow light is above the green line then you are high, if its below youre low. On the actual carrier, too high on the ball means you risk missing the landing altogether and have to go around to try again - too low you risk crashing into the back of the ship. Look for the ball as my instructor comes in to land. Frankly he makes this look easy, if you watch the next video he keeps the ball centered the whole pass, right down to touchdown. On the carrier this would have been a great pass. In reality, its incredibly difficult.

All in all the jet ride was a lot of fun. And I cant wait until I get all my simulator training out of the way and get to do this for real.

Centrifuge Face

2008-05-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ive started advanced flight training down in lovely Kingsville,TX. In between primary and advanced the blogging dropped off mostly becuase there wasnt anything new to write about. Right now Im learning all about the T-45C, the new jet Im going to be flying, although theres a lot of book learning and time in the simulators between now and my first flight. Sorry for the lag, there will be more to come soon. In the meantime, enjoy a shot of me at 7.5Gs

Next stop, Kingsville

2008-02-21T11:00:00.001-08:00

I just found out today, Im headed for Kingsville,TX for advanced flight training. In pictures, heres what this means. In Kingsville I will be flying the T-45C:

Which means that theres a comparatively small chance ill ultimately fly the E-2C:

And a much better chance that Ill end up in one of these:

Right now, I couldnt be happier.

CCX

2008-02-12T20:23:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I got to CCX (fly cross-country) down to Key West. Basically the idea with a cross country is that, instead of returning to Whiting Field after every training flight, you travel in one direction and keep going. My instructor and I flew visual navigation, and instrument flights in several legs on the way down to and back from Key West, FL with stops in Gainesville, Tampa and Tallahassee. Again it was a humbling experience.

Over the past couple of months I became proficient at flying the instruments, and handling the aircraft in low visibility, bad weather situations - but all in the vicinity of Pensacola and NAS North Whiting. "Going on the road" as we call it is totally different. On our last leg down to Key West, we were talking over the radios to "Miami Center", an air traffic control agency that controls IFR traffic in southern Florida. The airwaves were so crowded with traffic in and out of the Miami region we couldnt get a word in edgewise. Up high (15000 ft) with cold temperatures and clouds looming ahead of us, we were concerned about the potential for icing, and wanted to climb or deviate from our assigned course to avoid the clouds, but the radios were so crowded with constant chatter that we ended up just having to hold altitude and plow into them. At one point we popped out of the clouds and the windshield had iced over, enough that I couldnt see out the very front of the canopy. It scared the heck out of me, but ended up being a non-issue. It was a miniscule amount that melted right off once we were back in the clear, and the wings (the really critical part) didnt accumulate any ice.

Aside from that difficulty the last leg down to the Keys was pretty awesome, up at 15000 ft at "max blast" (full power), we were doing about 240 knots (270 mph) over the ground. For a while we had a solid cloud layer skidding by beneath us that was lit up by the setting sun. Usually up in the air, unlike on the ground, you have little visual reference to gauge just how fast you are actually traveling. Here, with the wisps of clouds flying by us at near 300mph, I really got a feel for just how fast I was hurtling through the sky - cool stuff.

All this brings up a new difficulty - with the cross-country over, I have very few flights left in primary. Soon Ill be selecting what I fly next, and it seems that God has blessed me with the flight grades to get whatever I want - jets, props or helos. Which brings to the forefront the very real possibility that I could one day be a fighter pilot. While far from any degree of certainty, no longer is it just a pipe dream. Am I prepared to deal with the moral dilemmas of dropping bombs, and possibly being responsible for the deaths of innocent people? Am I prepared to deal with six or eight month deployments, the strain that it would place on a family - or possibly even the reality that I wouldn't even be able to have a family for many years because of the demands of the job? These questions scare me, all the more because selection looms near. The one comfort I have is that God is bigger than this: bigger than my uncertainties, my flight grades, and, yes, even bigger than the Navy machine that decides my fate. I dont know if anyone reads these musings, but if you do, keep me in your prayers. Ill be back in a couple of weeks to let you know what happened.

flying the needles

2008-01-17T20:11:00.000-08:00

There are days I wonder why I joined the Navy, why I want to be a pilot, and how did I ever end up in Milton.

Today was not one of them.

Most instrument flights we sit in the back with a canvas bag covering the canopy so that the student flies only on reference to the instruments while the instructor monitors the flight from the front seat with an unobstructed view. About 30 min into todays flight the instructor decided I was doing well enough and let me take the bag off. We were flying approaches into NAS Pensacola which had us flying several miles out over the water at 1500 ft. If youve never flown over the water - its quite a sight. Also, most of the low level thermals that cause turbulence over land at low altitudes are gone, so it makes for a smoother ride.

Coming back into NAS Whiting, we flew racetrack patterns (called holding) over a pretty solid low cloud layer. One of the best parts of instrument flying is going from a cloudy day on the ground, and popping up through them into the sun on top. If you go high enough, its always a sunny day. Its so cool having puffy whitness everywhere you look, illuminated by a sun low in the sky, I wanted to quit flying the needles and just look outside. Ive had several of these moments - like when I was in a tailspin through a beautiful red cloud near sunset. Or on one of my formation flights, I glanced outside to see another formation 1000 ft below us maneuvering through several turns (just as we were) like some high-speed waltz in the sky. You want to just quit flying for a moment and watch...

Instrument Ground School

2007-12-16T13:25:00.000-08:00

This past week I started IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) ground school. Basically it consists of two weeks were the Navy tries to teach us everything we need to know about flying and navigating in bad weather. Above is a picture I took of what my bedroom floor looks like while I try to study. An incredible volume of knowledge is needed to be able to take off, fly into the clouds, navigate to a destination, approach and land safely without being able to see where you are going. Not only that, but the procedures for flight have to be closely regulated and monitored because of the massive volume of traffic in US airways. Its intimidating to start ground school because you realize just how much you dont know about flying. After the solo, you THINK you know how to fly. Now you realize, all you were doing was playing around at low altitude in good weather. Real pilots fly up high in all kinds of miserable weather conditions.

Flight school seems to be an endless cycle. First you realize how little you know about controlling an aircraft. Then, spurred on by a desire to prove yourself, you put your head down and learn massive amounts of material, pass the test/checkride and move on. Your confidence balloons as you master new skills in the air - only to be deflated all over again at the start of the next phase. I'm currently being re-humbled, for what certainly is not the last time.

In Formation

2007-12-04T19:07:00.000-08:00

This is hard ^^

No, I take that back. Its REALLY hard.

It is an entirely unnatural thing to try to make one airplane stay in one exact point in space relative to another. The airplane you are flying will buck and shake and generally do anything it can in order to get away from the other one (or at least thats what it feels like). Compounding this difficulty is the fact that when your aircraft successfully gets a little separation from the other, it isnt always obvious what to do to get it back into position. For example, you are flying wing, trying to hold position on the lead aircraft (the one on the left in the picture above) and lead is in a turn. Say you drift outside the turn and slightly away from lead, common sense tells you to angle in, to get closer. If you do that, you'll move in and also behind lead. To correct this you have to angle in and simultaneously increase power to keep from falling behind. Now you're back in position, but you're also going to fast. Once you've caught back up to lead, you have to take the power correction out to hold position. Inevitably at this point something else is wrong (you're too low, too high etc) and you have to input the correct combination of power, elevator and aileron to correct for the new error. Sound hard? It is. At to all this some choppy wind gusts, lead aircraft turning, speeding up, leveling off or lowering his landing gear and it gets more and more difficult. But when you get it, when you're mind starts comprehending the situation faster and faster, and you can correct and hold position with out consciously thinking - its a real rush...I'm not quite there yet :-)

If you have ever seen the Blue Angels fly, you know they make tight formation look easy. But they make formation look easy the way Yo-Yo Ma makes the cello look easy. Right now I'm still trying to hammer out a few notes.

Solo!

2007-10-26T11:07:00.000-07:00

Finally after a week of rain and bad weather, I passed the checkride and took the T-34C out, sans instructor, on my first solo. The more I think about it, the more I find it slightly ridiculous that the military entrusts me with a million-dollar airplane after all of 25 hrs in the front cockpit. Fair warning to all civilian pilots: STAY AWAY from southern Alabama. The skies are filled with student aviators with entirely too little experience flying airplanes with entirely too much power.
That said, I'm glad the Navy and the taxpayers let me do it. Theres a real peace at 8000 ft with nothing but you and the steady humm of a turboprop...

Post 0

2007-10-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

After moving from the energetic, buzzing metropolis of Austin,TX to the sleepy town of Milton,FL I find myself with long stretches of time with little to do. Ive traded the "Live Music Capitol of the World" for the "Canoe Capitol of Florida" (I didn't make that up its all over the road signs here). Ive left one of the most creative and interesting cities in the country for a small town near the Alabama/Florida border. Ive traded 6th street for Main St and live music joints for bingo parlors. How the heck did I end up here? Oh right - FLIGHT SCHOOL!

Recently Ive started Primary Flight Training here at NAS Whiting Field. Which, regrettably, is in the middle of nowhere. However, all the drawbacks of the location are outweighed by one thing - I get paid to fly.

Right now I'm in the contact phase (the very beginning) which focuses on teaching us to safely pilot the T-34C Turbomentor. It looks like an old WWII plane, and lends itself to daydreams of me being an old fighter ace. Daydreams which are inevitably shattered by the instructor in the rear cockpit pulling the throttle all the way off and saying "Simulated Engine Failure." Training right now is mostly about learning how to fly the military landing pattern and handling the aircraft in all kinds of system failures. On a typical 2 hour flight the instructor will make the engine "fail" or "catch on fire" 5 or 6 times. The instructor pilots (or IP's as we call them) love to try and fluster the students with constant simulated emergencies, all the while criticizing us from the rear cockpit as we try to simultaneously recall the emergency procedures (EPs) and keep from crashing. Its not a whole lot of fun, but after a couple more weeks of this Ill be able to solo. Which means Ill finally be able to kick the instructor out the back of MY airplane and take it where I want to.

Thats all for now, back to the books...