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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...