Hey everyone! UPT officially started for us this past Wednesday and it sure has been busy since then. Of course the first day was filled with welcome briefs from several people including our flight commander, Capt. Hinson, who will soon be heading to Beale, AFB to fly the U-2, and some Valdosta Policemen who gave us some extremely valuable information to ensure that we don't end up meeting them somewhere along Bemiss road. That afternoon we had our first of many Computer Aided Instruction classes. The CAI's will be our primary means of getting information we need to know for the tests, in addition to our LSI instructors who are civilian contractors hired to teach us the basics of T-6 flying before we actually set foot inside the aircraft. On Thursday we had our first LSI instructional session which proved to be incredibly helpful and much more enjoyable than the CAI's in learning the T-6 systems. We also had a walk around inspection of the T-6 which allowed us to locate many of the systems we have been learning about on the actual aircraft, and gave us our first real, up-close look at the airplane we are now becoming so familiar with. The T-6 itself is an incredible airplane with sophisticated avionics, an entirely glass primary cockpit display and a great emergency backup system allowing us to deal with almost any type of emergency we may encounter. Friday was filled with CAI labs where we learned the basics of the multi-function displays and other avionics in the cockpit. Next week will again be filled with CAI labs, however on Tuesday we will finally be able to set foot in the UTD simulators where we will begin learning the "switchology" required to strap in and operate the T-6. Keep looking for more updates as things pick up speed!

Thank god today is over! If I had an annunciator light on my brain it would be flashing "maint" right now...I do have a few things to mention that have happened over the past few days though. Monday was a day full of CAI labs, from bright and early in the morning to late in the afternoon we were sitting in front of those computer screens cramming as much info into our little brains as we could regarding the finer points of the T-6 systems. Tuesday morning began with a great 5:30am morning pool session, swimming laps at the base indoor pool and having the cloud flood the inside of the building every time the door to the outside was opened due to the fact that it was 41 degrees outside! We spent most of Tuesday morning reviewing systems with our LSI instructor and then for the remainder of the afternoon we were in the sims. While we were in the sims we spent a great deal of time going over how to actually use the systems we had been learning about in class and just familiarizing ourselves with the cockpit, flight controls and avionics inside the T-6. Today we had a simulated formal brief with a few members of the current F-Flight, and they gave us some great inside info as to how being on the flight line really works, what we can expect and who to watch out for! lol...we spent the remainder of the day studying for our first exam which went incredibly well, 9 of 14 people getting 100% and the class average being a 98.3%, one of the best our LSI instructor had said he's seen since they've had pilot training here at Moody! Lastly, we passed our first of 3 boldface exams today, so we're shooting for 2 tomorrow and 3 early next week and will hopefully be in flight suits by weds, so we're all keeping our fingers crossed! Now i's off to Systems 2 and Aerospace Physiology for some redneck parasailing!

What a week! Well, we finished on a strong note at least. We finally selected a class patch which is a take on the cover of the Grateful Dead Greatest Hits album with some changes to make it personalized for our class. Our Friday patch is a pic of Lloyd Christmas sitting in a T-6 with the quote "Always running at a really incredible rate" underneath it symbolizing all the mandatory PT sessions we've been attending and one of the guys in our class who happens to look a lot like Lloyd...lol. We're still in good shape as far as boldface goes and we expect to be in flight suits by Tuesday. Systems 2 is also going well, however we have about half the time to cram in the same amount of info as Systems 1...it's amazing how quickly we're going through the study material. At aerospace phys. Next week we're going to be studying about our bodies, what effects high G's will have on our bodies, the effects of hypoxia and low oxygen environments (we're going to the chamber!) ejection and egress training and finally training for our parachute landing fall (PLF) by way of being towed under canopy to 150 feet from the back of a pickup and then released to attempt a safe landing...should be fun! But first, our Systems 2 Test on Tues..