TWEET COMPLETE!

Well, despite today's best efforts to doom me completing my last checkride, I succeeded! I am now officially Tweet Complete! (ok, so I'm not counting that we have to finish weather academics...but still)

It starts with me sleeping through my alarm, or shutting it off somehow, and waking up 30 minutes late. This isn't so bad, except I give myself 45 minutes from alarm to when I have to walk out the door. I was a tad rushed this morning, to say the least.

We were on the schedule to have one of our last weather classes from 0800-1000 this morning, but they decide we aren't close enough to needing to be done, and not only do they not have a classroom for us, there are no available instructors. In the mean time, class 08-02 (the class finishing in about 6 weeks) is in the middle of their weather class with an instructor and a classroom. We were not happy. We ended up sitting around till 0900 when they got out and got our 2 hour class crammed into an hour. This was fine with me because Mike and I were supposed to be at check section to brief at 1130. If the class went the whole 2 hours, it would have given us about 5 minutes to gather all our checkride stuff and get there. In the end, I guess it worked out, it was just a pain in the butt.

Ok, so, with the academics class done for the day, Mike and I can concentrate on getting ready for the checkride, but oh wait, the network goes down. Not only this, but the weather decides to take a dump on us and we go Stop Launch. So not only can we not get the weather, notams, ops notes, etc for the brief, we dont even have an instrument status that we need to be able to take off. God really didnt want us checking today. We finally get the weather and notams and head to check section at 1130, and our IP's tell us, "Well, we aren't going to brief with no status, so we'll let you know." Greaaaaaaat. We head back to the room and wait. About 45 minutes later we finally get a break in the weather and are able to fly. We get our flight times switched around with a couple people and head to our brief. All is fine, a little rushed, but nothing out of the ordinary. We step to the jet and find out the areas arent going to be very good. Jeeez... What else can go wrong. Oh yea, and we have to take off on an instrument departure, kind of non-standard, and arrive on our Simutaneous Instrument Approach, pretty non-standard. Not to mention I haven't flown formation, let alone any flight, under these conditions in a long time. Guess I get to see how much I remember.

We step to the jet, get all strapped in, and taxi out with our clearance. Not too bad. We get lined up, and with a couple small communication gliches between Mike and I, we are ready to go. Take off and departure are actually pretty smooth, minus the turbulence. The clearance we requested was for the Sheppard 1 Areas, but I get told all of them are full, so I (as Lead) have to coordinate for other clearances. We end up getting an area in the Sheppard 2 Areas, which are just in a different part of Oklahoma, and there are only 2 usable areas out of 5. Super. As I look out in front of the flight, I take a guess at which will be able to use, and this is where we finally get our first break. I choose area 13, and end up lucking out, seeing as this is the only area that we actually get some, and I mean SOME, ground references. Needless to say, up to this point was a pain.

Next, we get into the area and start our work. I am leading out so I give Mike some wingwork, echelon turns, a pitch out and rejoin, a break out, and some close trail. At this point, Mike's IP saying "Wild 2 is good" (we are Wild Flight), meaning he is done with the current maneuver (an echelon turn), but my IP says he thinks he is ready for the position change. I didn't think that was right, but I asked my IP again and he says the same thing. This means I do not get to give Mike any extended trail maneuvers, which is the most fun stuff of formation. Oh well. We do the position change and he starts leading me on my work. Wingwork, echelon turns, break out, pitch out, rejoin, close trail, and extended trail. Awesome, I've had better flights, but not bad for a weekend off and in and out of the weather, with turbulence. We start heading to the back of the area, and I am expecting to do some checks to prepare to come home, when Mike sends me fighting wing. This wasn't briefed, and we weren't supposed to need to do this position, but I go. Little did I know, Mike was up in his jet trying to re-orient himself within the area and figure out where we were. Since I was flying on his wing, I hadn't paid much attention to the area, seeing as this is his responsibility. Later I find out in the debrief that he flew our formation about a half a mile out of the back of the area. Not good. I'll get to more of that in a minute.

He finally figures out where he is and leads us home, through the weather and through an instrument approach. We are able to land in sequence and taxi back to the chocks, get out, and head into the flight room. We have about 20 minutes until we have to report back to check section so the IP's can fill in the gradesheet, and the entire time, Mike is looking pretty pissed off. All he says to me is "I don't know" when I ask him how his flight went. We report to check section and go through our respective debriefs, mine going pretty well. I get my EP (emergency procedure) done, and get through some GK (general knowledge) pretty fast because I knew everything he asked right away. I end up passing my final Tweet checkride with only 6 downgrades! This is pretty good, considering there are about 3 times as many gradeable items than a normal checkride. I head back to the flight room.

Once Mike gets done with his, he gets back and is pretty pissed. I guess when he went out of the area, his IP busted him for the flight. He now has to go through an IPC, which is like a makeup checkride, except if you bust that, you are in big doo-doo. We talk for a bit about the flight and he just tells me he got really spacially disoriented after the extended trail and just couldnt figure out where we were. This was very unusual for Mike, and definately the first time it's happened when I've flown with him. Of course it HAD to happen on the final Tweet checkride. Dang. He's scheduled to fly the IPC tomorrow, and hopefully he passes.

Well, that sums up my final checkride in the Tweet, and hopefully my final flight ever in that jet! Although, if it turns out I FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot), I'd either go to the T-6 Texan II, or the T-38. The rest of the day I spend hanging out in the flight room, and my Flight Commander tells me not to leave until he gets back. So I go to the bookstore and pick up my T-38 publications, checklist, in flight guide, and cockpit poster and put them in my car. I go and visit with Greg and Mike over in D Flight, and hang out with the Italians in the flight room for a bit. Once the Flight Commander, Captain Molari, gets back from his flight, he has a couple guys grab me and tells everyone there is a new tradition in H Flight! The first person or people (formation) to complete from the flight gets thrown in the same tank of water that we got thrown in during our solos! Oh man, and the whole point was that we wouldn't know about it and be able to bring a dry set of clothes or anything! HAHA, since there wasnt anywhere to run, I give in and take all the stuff out of my pockets and get led out to the tank. YES! The tank was empty! WOOHOO! haha, all that was left was an inch of water on the bottom, and about an inch of mold on top of that. Thank goodness! But Captain Molari doesn't stop there. He has a couple guys go get some trash cans (empty) and fill them up with water. He calls me to attention outside and proceeds to order the guys to one at a time throw a bucket of water at me. HAHA, I guess that's the new H Flight tradition!

Well, that sums up my day...the good and the bad. I am now one weather academic test from being Tweet Complete, but in all fairness, I'm done. No more "Flying Dog Whistle" for me!!! I'm gonna miss that jet...........maybe.