Joels UPT Journal



Hey everyone! We made it!! Well, to Columbus at least. The past few weeks in Valdosta have been great just
relaxing, going out almost every night and just enjoying our time off...Now that we're in Columbus I can
honestly say that I miss Valdosta and wish I could go back! I guess it's just one of those deals where you don't
really realize what you had until you don't have it, or in this case you aren't there anymore. Here the town is
small, there's not much to do and they are lacking in your typical stores that you become accustomed to. The
closest large college is about 40 minutes away so there aren't many young people around aside from the ones
we see every day at work (read: girls), but fortunately we only have to be here for a little more than 6 months.
Mike and I have found a great apartment however which makes being here a little better, and have spent the
past few days getting things set up. We've finished the inprocessing on base and are now just waiting for our
class date, which is going to be starting on the 28th of June.
I must say however that since we have been here everyone on base has been extremely helpful, organized
and expeditious with helping us get settled in and our paperwork squared away making it a reasonably
painless transition. New pics are coming and we'll be sure to keep everyone updated to our progress once we
actually begin class. Phase 3, here we come....
24 Jun 06
29 Jun 06
Well, today was our first official day! Everyone in the flight seems to be really cool, giving us new guys the
rundown as to how things work around here at Columbus. Mike and I along with a few of the other Moody guys
went to a party on track select night at one of the guys houses and had a great time getting to know
everyone... As far as the flying goes, I think the T-1 is going to be an absolute blast. We had a chance to get
in the jet today after going through some life support training and it was pretty cool sitting there, looking
around the cockpit knowing we were getting ready to fly this thing. The difference in the T-38 vs. the T-1
training is already apparent, the guys who went T-38's already through some of their systems classes and LSI
sessions with even more this afternoon, when we were out at 1500 and had time to go grab lunch off
base...apparently the "Lunch and Back" is a well known fact around the T-1 squadron, where on most nav
rides when you head to your out base, well, after a few hours of flying and briefing you're hungry so you eat!!
(We get made fun of quite a bit by the '38 guys for this, but it's only because they're jealous..haha) We also
received our mountain of pubs not to include any FLIP, charts or plates that we'll be using, so I can already tell
there is going to be a whole lot of studying involved, however we have a better idea of what we need to study
to be successful, so I think that brings down the stress level al bit. Well, speaking of studying I think I'm going
to start to take a look at some of this stuff for tomorrow so I can relax a bit over the 4th of July weekend we
have coming up. I think we're probably going to hang around and head up to the lake..we've spent enough
money lately to buy a small country so no major trips this weekend. Take a look at the new pics and keep
reading for more updates from T-1 school!!
Okokokokokokokokokok....I know I haven't updated this thing in weeks...I"M SORRY!!! lol...anyway, hope
everyone is doing well! Where to begin! Well, we started academics about 2 weeks ago, but because of
holidays and long weekends, this will be our first full week of classes. We are very quickly finding out that the
T-1 is a very system intensive airplane- where we only had 2 systems tests in the T-6, we now have 6 systems
tests in the T-1 in addition to all of the others. In addition to academics we have also begun our first
simulators, the first of which were in front of simple cardboard cutouts of the panel to get down some of the
switchology of the T-1, and tomorrow we have our second sim which will be in the full-up visual simulator,
similar to the OFT's for the T-6.
I think the airplane is also going to take some getting used to to fly..as they say we dont fly the airplane
anymore, we "manage" it. This means using effective crew coordination to get the airplane off the ground
which can be a little more complex than when you were able to do everything yourself at your own pace. Now
you must rely on someone else which means that you have both better studied the night before!!
It hasn't been all work and no play either! Last weekend we took a trip up to Memphis to hang out on Beale
Street..good times to be had as anyone who has been there knows. This weekend we are also planning a trip
to Destin, FL to go and hang out at the beach..a welcome change from the Mississippi heat and humidity. I
don't mind the town as much as I did when we first got here either, although keeping in mind that it's only 6
months definitely has helped! (let's keep our fingers crossed).
Well, so far things have been going well and I'll try and do a bit better job at keeping everyone updated! Also
check out another site that one of the Columbus guys set up here for 07-04 back when they started in Tweets,
and now he's in my T-1 class so that is another good place to check out our progress. Also, for anyone who
wants to come to graduation, keep the 3rd week of January free on their calendars and come see 07-04 pin
on their wings!!
11 July 06
Hey everyone! I know it's been a little while since my last post but honestly, there's not much that has
happened that's new and exciting in the past week or so regarding our progress. So far everyone has been
doing very well on all of our academic tests with the most number of questions anyone has missed on any
given test being 1. We just took our 4th academic test and have two more to go, although the last test will be
taken once we've already hit the flightline. Simulators have also been progressing smoothly for everyone. THe
sims are quite the event however. If we have the morning sim our showtime at the LSI office is 445 in the
morning, if we have the late sim of the day we begin at 5 and usually go until 9-930...that's right, most of our
sims are going to be 4-5 hours long! The reason for this of course is that as one person sits as copilot, it is
necessary for us to switch out halfway through the mission and act as the other crew member, so this makes
for a long day in "the box" as they call it. We've been through 3 simulators now with 2 more to go before we hit
the flightline, one of those sims being a basic EP sim, so hopefully that will go well, as the EP sims always
seem to be more of a challenge than the others. The biggest mistake we make in an EP sim is to rush through
the problem as though it is a time critical situation, despite the fact that very few emergencies require an
immediate response. For those situations we have what we call "boldface" where we have the procedures
memorized to be able to perform the steps quickly. As long as most situations are dealt with in a timely and
correct manner, everything is usually fine.
This week is more of the same with academics and tests, where the following week will be the first week on the
flightline, so things will get much more busy and interesting then. These few weeks of academics have been
quite relaxing and kind of nice, most of our weekends recently being spent in Florida, Memphis, New Orleans
soon and hopefully many more weekends to come in Florida. Keep reading to find out how the flightline is
going to treat us!!
23 July 06
Well, finally after 6 long weeks of academics we finally hit the flight line tomorrow. Fortunately for us, this week
is a night week in the squadron, very similar to how it was back in T-6's. The people who are a bit farther along
in the T-1 program need to get their night hours in the airplane, so the entire schedule is pushed later on into
the day...essentially this means that we get to sleep in a little this week!! This is going to be a nice treat for us
as for the next few weeks we are going to have 0530 shows or so, which means that we actually need to be
there working on the formal brief for the day about a half hour prior...this along with the fact that Mike and I live
about 20 mins from base is going to make for some very early mornings. Oh well, such is life!!! Lately things
have been just kind of dragging along as most of us are quite tired of burying our noses in the Dash 1 without
actually getting to fly the airplane- it will be great to finally start doing some flying. Mike and I have also been
paired up together to fly throughout the transition phase of T-1's, and it just so happens that our instructor
who we are going to fly our first 2 flights with is a friend of ours from college who was a few years ahead of us.
Watch out everyone....3 guys from Embry RIddle in one Air Force plane....scary thought.....anyway, thats
about all for now. This weekend was kind of quiet, most of it just spent studying and hanging around, going to
Starkville last night with some friends. We'll let everyone know how those first flights go..our first is scheduled
for this Wednesday.
30 July 06
Wow....so I remember what it's like to suck in an airplane again!!! Haha. Well after almost 3 months of not
flying at all I dont think our ride went too bad, but we certainly have a lot to learn! See, this is the thing- we're
flying a business jet, a Beech 400A, an airplane that any large company or individual with way too much
money could buy to transport themselves thousands of miles to their favorite island destination. We are taking
the same jet, putting a few student pilots in it, taking off and flying steep turns, stalls and unusual attitudes in
the MOA, then going to beat up the pattern at an airport 30-45 mins away for a few hours every day- not
exaclty what the designers of the airplane had in mind when they built the plane. This being said, it's not
exaclty the most responsive, forgiving airplane in the world, and actually takes quite a bit of muscle to move
around the sky. It is however, a whole lot of fun and great to be cruising around at 20,000 feet flying into lots
of different airports, playing with all the toys in the airplane and learning how the pro's do it. All of this has
been made even better since our instructor for the past 3 flights has been one of our good friends we knew
back in college. When he found out we were flying at Columbus he requested to be our instructor for our first
couple of flights...kinda cool huh??
So the flying is going well and I'm looking forward to begin going to some cool places in this thing for our lunch
and backs. The General Knowledge they expect us to know about the airplane is insane...of course it is a
much more complex airplane than the T-6 was, so it is expected that there is more to learn. We will slowly
begin to apply more of what we learn into our everyday flying and before we know it we'll be flying AR Tracks
and formation low levels and be UPT complete!!! Ok, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but we'll be
there in a few months. Oh well, back to studying...oh wait, screw that, it's friday!
04 Aug 06
Well, another week down and a new one is just beginning. Last week dragged as we only flew twice- not
exactly the best situation when we're trying to learn and retain everything they're trying to teach us int eh
airplane, but our copilot ride made up for the lack of flying. In the T-1 program most of the time we sit in the left
seat which is the pilots seat, however they want us to become familiar with the duties of both crew positions, so
we have these flights where we act as copilots and the instructor acts as the primary pilot. They tell us to show
up with a plan of where we would like to go using out primary transition bases, but what usually ends up
happening is the instructor will trash the plan that you made and chose to go somewhere else...in our case
that somewhere else was Gulfport Mississippi. We flew to Gulfport Friday and beat up the pattern at the
international airport for a little while taking some time to check out the coast (it was great to see the beach
again) and see how that area is recovering from Katrina...definately still quite a few houses with the "FEMA
Blue" tarps on the roofs. Next week will be pretty busy as Mike and I will be on the schedule for 4 days- kind of
a nice change of pace from what the past 2 weeks were like. Academics are going well too- we're now in the en
route navigation portion of the class. The Nav phase of training takes up the bulk of T-1 training and is the
part where we finally get to do our lunch and backs and get into a bit more cross country flying. A few more
weeks until transition check and then it will be into nav. Things are moving along and we're all looking forward
to the long labor day weekend coming up soon..I think Naples, Florida is in store for us that weekend. New pics
are up as well of our Gulfport flight.
13 Aug 06