Just when I thought it couldnt get any better, I go and fly a flight like I did today!
I was scheduled to fly once today, and not even with a take off time until 1836 (6:36 pm). The sunset was supposed to be at 8:17, so if all went to plan, I would be touching down exactly one minute before "night". The day up until my flight was ok, with some time to study and even go back to my apartment to eat a nice lunch. I got back to the flight room at about 2:30 and just sat around and read up on some formation info in the mean time.
At 5:36 pm we were supposed to start briefing (me, my IP Captain Johnson, and the two guys I was flying against, Mike Twizzelman and his IP Captain Cox), but neither of our IP's were back from their previous flights. The scheduling really makes for some sporty briefings, cutting out alot of time from the turn times being so short. Anyhow, once our IP's show up we start briefing and since this is like the third formation flight we have flown all together it's pretty standard. We go over the important stuff and step to the jet about 10 minutes late.
Once we get out to the jet, we get everything up and running and taxi out to the EOR (End of Runway). This is where we check each other over and request clearance to take off. Since I am leading the formation on the take off, I request clearance and they give us a standby for weather. This is not good, considering we are just sitting there burning gas and wasting time. The weather was getting pretty crappy, with some pretty good thunderstorms building around the airport and in the areas we are going to. It had started raining on us, so we put the canopies down and waiting until they cleared us to take off.
Once we got that, we did an interval take off where lead goes and wing waits 10 seconds and then goes. This results in us having to rejoin on departure, and when there is weather, makes it pretty interesting. But, we rejoin and head out to one of the areas. Once we get established in the area, we start our profile.
From the time we take off, we spend the entire flight flying through and then around the thunderstorms. The wing work is kind of challenging, trying to keep out of the clouds and to plan what to do next to stay out of them. We complete that stuff, doing lazy eights, echelon turns, pitch outs, rejoins, and close trail. Once we get done with that, we start the fighting wing and extended trail stuff. Up until this point, I thought I had seen the best formation stuff, but wow, extended trail is friggin amazing! It's where you fly 500-1000 ft out and anywhere in a 30-45 degree cone around your lead. While you are keeping your position and maneuvering around this cone, the lead aircraft is doing barrel rolls, cloverleafs, loops, and like today, chasing the clouds. We had such an amazing time flying today!! I'm not sure if any of the next 5 flights I have remaining can top it. The area we flew around had a broken cloud deck all around the area, which made for some kick-ass cloud chasing flight. In the words of my IP, "If you are not having a blast flying in this, you should not be in this program" and he is totally right.
Once we got all the area work done, we start to head home and I am flying wing now. We have to fly through some weather, and just like on the way out, the lead's jet is barely visible! In and out, I see him, I dont.... It was nuts. Right about the time we are breaking out of the weather, the sun is just on the horizon right behind lead's jet as I look at him. It made this really cool orange haze with the silhouette of his jet black and the orange haze all around from the sun reflecting off the clouds we were flying through. I wish I could have had a camera up there today, or been able to find a picture to show what I'm talking about, cause I've never seen anything like it.
Definately, by far, the coolest day of flying I have ever had.
I was scheduled to fly once today, and not even with a take off time until 1836 (6:36 pm). The sunset was supposed to be at 8:17, so if all went to plan, I would be touching down exactly one minute before "night". The day up until my flight was ok, with some time to study and even go back to my apartment to eat a nice lunch. I got back to the flight room at about 2:30 and just sat around and read up on some formation info in the mean time.
At 5:36 pm we were supposed to start briefing (me, my IP Captain Johnson, and the two guys I was flying against, Mike Twizzelman and his IP Captain Cox), but neither of our IP's were back from their previous flights. The scheduling really makes for some sporty briefings, cutting out alot of time from the turn times being so short. Anyhow, once our IP's show up we start briefing and since this is like the third formation flight we have flown all together it's pretty standard. We go over the important stuff and step to the jet about 10 minutes late.
Once we get out to the jet, we get everything up and running and taxi out to the EOR (End of Runway). This is where we check each other over and request clearance to take off. Since I am leading the formation on the take off, I request clearance and they give us a standby for weather. This is not good, considering we are just sitting there burning gas and wasting time. The weather was getting pretty crappy, with some pretty good thunderstorms building around the airport and in the areas we are going to. It had started raining on us, so we put the canopies down and waiting until they cleared us to take off.
Once we got that, we did an interval take off where lead goes and wing waits 10 seconds and then goes. This results in us having to rejoin on departure, and when there is weather, makes it pretty interesting. But, we rejoin and head out to one of the areas. Once we get established in the area, we start our profile.
From the time we take off, we spend the entire flight flying through and then around the thunderstorms. The wing work is kind of challenging, trying to keep out of the clouds and to plan what to do next to stay out of them. We complete that stuff, doing lazy eights, echelon turns, pitch outs, rejoins, and close trail. Once we get done with that, we start the fighting wing and extended trail stuff. Up until this point, I thought I had seen the best formation stuff, but wow, extended trail is friggin amazing! It's where you fly 500-1000 ft out and anywhere in a 30-45 degree cone around your lead. While you are keeping your position and maneuvering around this cone, the lead aircraft is doing barrel rolls, cloverleafs, loops, and like today, chasing the clouds. We had such an amazing time flying today!! I'm not sure if any of the next 5 flights I have remaining can top it. The area we flew around had a broken cloud deck all around the area, which made for some kick-ass cloud chasing flight. In the words of my IP, "If you are not having a blast flying in this, you should not be in this program" and he is totally right.
Once we got all the area work done, we start to head home and I am flying wing now. We have to fly through some weather, and just like on the way out, the lead's jet is barely visible! In and out, I see him, I dont.... It was nuts. Right about the time we are breaking out of the weather, the sun is just on the horizon right behind lead's jet as I look at him. It made this really cool orange haze with the silhouette of his jet black and the orange haze all around from the sun reflecting off the clouds we were flying through. I wish I could have had a camera up there today, or been able to find a picture to show what I'm talking about, cause I've never seen anything like it.
Definately, by far, the coolest day of flying I have ever had.
It kind of looked like this, except with a Tweet instead of a T-38, more clouds all around us, alot less visibility, the sun a little bit lower on the horizon about to set, and the other jet about three times as close as this one. Like I said, it was awesome.
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