Flying, Weather, Solos, my own In Flight Emergency, Contact Checkride, Instruments, Cross Country

Seeing as it's been about five weeks since I last wrote, it's about time I got all caught up. I've decided to write now, at 2130 (930 pm) on a Tuesday night because I'm pretty good at procrastinating the planning I should be doing for the rest of this week. When I get home from a 12 hour day from the "office" however, I really just want to sit back and relax for a bit, which usually ends up kicking me in the butt later seeing as I always have to stay up late and finish planning for my next flights and sims. The sad thing is, I know exactly what I should be doing, but decide to do other stuff anyway. Haha, I think it's pretty funny when I actually choose to wash my dirty dishes or do my laundry instead of sit down and study. In the end though, I am able to get my stuff done, just with alot less sleep and alot more stress. You'd think I'd learn.....ANYWAY, on to the new stuff:

After that initial flight in the T-38C, my flight really hit a road block with the weather. We actually had to fly way further into the instrument phase (instrument flying, approaches at other airports, under the cover in the rear cockpit rather than looking outside in the front cockpit) than the IP's wanted to, going as far as getting a waiver signed by the wing commander to let us continue without the pre-requisites that were required from the contact (basic visual flying, aerobatics, and landings) phase. We'd get one contact flight per week basically, for about three weeks in a row. Finally the weather started clearing up and we were able to get back on track, which put us only about 10 days behind the schedule.

Once the weather cleared up and we were able to double turn (fly twice a day) each day, we really started cooking with gas! We flew our ways into our initial solos about two weeks ago, which is the absolute most amazing thing I have ever done! Getting in the Tweet solo was one thing, but going 500 knots in afterburner doing aerobatics and pulling 6Gz is a totally different game! I solo'd the T-38C on July 17, 2007 for the first time! Mike was able to get out of his flight's Stand Up EP in order to do "Class Historian" duties, aka bringing his camera out and getting proof me and a couple other dudes went solo! Here are a few of the pictures he got while we got ready to fly:

Me walking out to my jet, tail #378

Checking the fuel and O2 quantities

Preflight inspection of the aircraft, checking the left main landing gear

Starting the #2 engine

All ready to taxi out to the runway...off I go!

Along with these really great pictures, I was able to record my HUD tape (video of our flight from what is shown on the Head's Up Display (HUD)) and save it to a digital file to keep. I'd like to post it, but it is "Classified" property and if I got caught posting it on the web I'd get in some trouble with the Air Force... So I guess I'll keep it for my personal "training" purposed only...

Going solo in this jet is awesome. It can't be said any better than that. Flying out to the area and doing all kinds of aerobatics by yourself without an IP pestering you in the back seat is the greatest feeling in the world! When I went out there for the first solo, and each solo after that, I got to fly Cloverleafs, Loops, Immelmanns, Lazy 8s, Chandelle's, Split S's, Cuban 8s, Barrel Rolls, and Aileron Rolls. Coming back to the pattern I get to fly as many overhead patterns and landings as I can till I am getting low on fuel, getting about 5-8 landings every sortie. It's a great time and I can't wait to do it again. We get 5 solos in the contact phase before our checkride, and another 4 solos after that.

Over the next 4 solos I had three normal ones, and then my second to last solo before my checkride I had quite an interesting day. It was Monday (of course, on a Monday this would happen) of last week and I was scheduled to go solo twice (the BEST Monday ever!). On my first attempt to fly, I actually get a broken jet (sort of), where after I started the engines, my number 2 generator drops offline. I have to do all sorts of crazy things to get it back, at the instruction of the maintenance crew chief, like bump up the power, reset it, hold your tongue out, close one eye.... But eventually it resets and is good to go. As soon as that is fixed, I get a PFL (pilot fault list) warning in the MFD (center screen where all the information is displayed) saying my MDP (onboard computer) had an internal failure while it booted up. I have to go into the checklist for this one, and basically, like any other computer problem in the world, it tells me to turn it off, then turn it back on. This works like a champ and clears the problem, but now I have to wait even longer for the computer to align itself during the boot sequence. These two problems set me back about 25 minutes of when I was supposed to take off, and I'm really cutting my sortie short. Eventually I get taxied out to the runway and now I have to sit and wait for clearance to take off because it took me so long to get out there. After waiting for 10 minutes with the engines running, already burning down almost 600-800 pounds of fuel, I decide I'm not going to be able to make it back in time for when I'm supposed to be back in the chocks. Great, I get to abort my solo flight before ever taking off. I have to taxi back to the chocks and try again later that day. I wasn't very happy to say the least.

Well I guess somebody really didnt want me to fly last Monday. I wait around for a bit until my next takeoff time, and actually go to try and fly solo again. As I approach the jet I've been assigned, I start setting myself up in the cockpit and getting things ready when the crew chief comes over and tells me I cannot take that jet, it's broken. Come on! Needless to say, they assign me a new jet and I get through all my ground ops and get both engines started with no problems. I even get clearance to take off when I get out to the runway! Maybe I AM going to fly! Well, here's where the real fun starts. As I takeoff, I notice a little loss of thrust out of my left engine, but seeing as I was about to rotate to lift off, I decide to take off. My first clue to something wasn't right is it took me about 5000 feet to takeoff, instead of the normal 3000 feet. Interesting. Anyway, I lift off, slowly but surely, and clean up the aircraft (gear and flaps up). Once I reach 220 knots, I retard the throttles back to Minimum Afterburner like usual, and then pull the left one back to Mil Power and then the right one back to Mil Power (Mil Power is 100% without Afterburner). This is when I notice, ok, I have a problem with my left engine. My first indication is that my EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) on my left engine is about 300 degrees Celsius lower than normal for this power setting. Then I notice my Nozzle is still open at 35% open, where it should be between 0-20% for the power setting. I definately have a loss of thrust in the left engine, but I continue the climb and perform a scan of my cockpit to make sure everything else is normal. After determining that this is my only problem, with my left nozzle stuck open resulting in a low EGT and loss of thrust, I try to work the throttle back and forth to see if it helps. No dice, the nozzle stays open and the EGT stays low. Ok, so there I was, solo, already having to abort one flight that morning and now having an In Flight Emergency on my other flight. Like I said, somebody did not want me to fly that day.

Well, I end up getting in contact with the appropriate air traffic controller as I normally do, and declare an emergency to request immediate return to land from a straight in on the biggest runway. What's great about this program is we practice this exact type of emergency (engine problem on takeoff) every time we fly with an IP, so I'm pretty comfortable in knowing what to do. I perform a couple of emergency checklists, talk to the SOF (supervisor of flying) and tell him what I am planning on doing. He asks a couple of questions about what is going on, and after hearing my explanation, he confirms I have a good plan. Eventually I get back into the pattern as normal, and burn down a little gas since I was so heavyweight and since my engine wasn't overheating, just low EGT. After about 6-8 minutes in the pattern I breakout and re-enter from the entry point for a precautionary single engine straight in to the longest runway. Everything goes as normal (as normal as an IFE is...) and I even got an "EXTD" (Excellent Touchdown) on my landing. I taxi clear of the runway at the taxiway, sit there for a second making sure everything was ok with the jet at the time, then I shut down on the taxiway as the fire crew are approaching, I pop the canopy, unhook my parachute and climb out, performing an "emergency ground egress". The fire crew and maintenance personnel that met me out there take a look at the jet, pin the gear, and tow it back to maintenance, and I get a ride back with the Flight Safety people.

Cool! I just had my first solo emergency, took care of it, and actually did everything (mostly) that even an IP would do! I had to fill out some paperwork about the "Unusual Occurance" and write up the jet with maintenance, but other than that everything was pretty easy. As I debriefed my flight with some of the Commanders and IPs, I learned a couple of things that I could have done better, but overall, they were all happy with my actions and said I handled it great. A couple of things I could have done was actually land immediately instead of burning down gas (I blame the runway controller, as it was his idea to burn down gas after hearing my deal, but in the end, I am the aircraft commander so it was up to me.), I should have taxied all the way to the end of the runway instead of turning off early (I wanted to get out haha), and I should have waited for the stairs to get out of the aircraft instead of jumping out (I guess an IP had a minor emergency a few months ago and decided to jump out when he really didnt need to, and ended up breaking his arm on the way down.). Other than those three things, I did pretty much exactly what I was supposed to. I definately learned more from that 0.5 hour flight than I would have from a normal 1.2 hour flight out to the area and in the pattern!

Well, after that happened, I had a normal solo on Tuesday, finally, and finished up my contact flying that Wednesday. That led me right into my Contact Checkride on last Thursday. I passed! It was an absolute PERFECT flight, my best yet, right up until I got back to the pattern for my landings. The checkride is exactly the same as a normal Dual flight, you do a simulated EP pattern on takeoff (these are how we know what to do in emergencies like mine), go to the area and do some aerobatics and practice stalls, and then come back for more landings. Well, for some reason that Thursday, I decide to change everything I normally do in my landings and really mess them up. I was flaring high, reducing the power early, getting slow on final, all sorts of bad stuff. I thought for sure I was going to bust. The IP had me fly a couple extra at the end, and then finally put it down for a full stop. I was pretty upset with myself, and really thought I was going to bust my first checkride. I guess my IP was having a good day though, seeing as he passed me with 7 downgrades. I got 6 of those for my landings. Otherwise, he said, it was close if not right at an "Outstanding" checkride. Crap. Oh well, a pass is a pass. He rails me pretty hard about what I did wrong, and even goes and talks to the IP I flew my last two flights with to ask if that had been what I always did. My IP tells him that's not how any of my previous landings were, and I think that really helped his decision not to bust me. Anyway, I passed, thankfully. On to Instruments!

And here is where I finish up my post. We jumped head first back into instruments after the Contact Checkride was complete. I have double turned a flight and a sim every day this week, and will again tomorrow. This is rough considering we have to plan a different plan for each. We also are planning our first "Out and Back" for this Thursday, and our Cross Country to Eglin AFB, FL on Friday for the weekend. Talk about massive planning! My flights and sims are going really well, for some reason I am "above average" in the instrument flying and I enjoy the change from contact. It's not as exciting but I must say, this is more of the real world stuff we will be doing day to day. The planning isnt that fun at all, but it's got to be done and we are really looking forward to getting out to FL this weekend and spending some time on the beach!

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying your summer! It's nice and hot here everyday, reaching the high 90s consistantly each day. I guess I've spent enough time writing in here and should really get back to studying and preparing my flights for tomorrow, ugh. Hope you enjoy the rest of your week! Until next time....