... among other altitudes.
I haven't spoken much about primary to this point, because up until my first solo, it seemed like they only wanted me to fly once every other week. Well, after that, I got slammed through triple-time, and boy has it been a hell of a ride!
Aero:
So, aero is the phase that I'm told makes or breaks jet dreams. A lot of people apparently get there, and realize either they're no good at it, or their stomachs just can't handle it, and there go dreams of hornets... and me?
Spaz can frickin aero! On my first Aero flight, I was warned ahead of time that a lot of students come into stick shaker (Stall warning) at the top of maneuvers, and tend to freak out about that. Well, knife-fighting 109s here has taught me to view stall warnings not as a caution but as a performance indicator. If she's not shuddering, you're not being aggressive enough. "So there I was..." 14,000' up, and the IP demo'd his loop. It was okay. We finished off about 30 degrees off heading, 20 knots fast, and maybe 500' low. He was a KC-10 guy. My turn. Up at the top of the loop, we're right on speed, and I feel the stick shaker. Good, we're pulling nicely. Come out of the bottom EXACTLY on heading, airspeed and altitude. A PERFECT maneuver. He gave me the "good job" but I wrote it off to beginners luck. Turns out, I really do have a knack for this! Every subsequent maneuver was nearly perfect, on the very first flight!
Well, my third flight got REALLY fun. The weather was closing in, and we couldn't go to our usual training area. So, rather than wait a day for clearer skies, we decided to go somewhere weird. (My one big negative I've found is that the squadron seems no to care about quality training, as long as they can get the advancing X...) Well, the block we get sent into, we're given EXACTLY 3,000', and not just for administrative reasons. The approach path for the international airport is right above us, and the F-35 was doing something right below us. And the FTI says our vertical maneuvers are supposed to take EXACTLY 3,000'. My IP expressed a little concern, but since I'd been doing well, he decided to chance it. The one thing he says before my opening loop is "Try to make this one a little tighter than usual". "No problem" says I, "Gs coming on, now, now, now..." and up we go. Coming out of the bottom I hear a groggy "What the %$#@" from the back. "How many feet is a loop supposed to take?!" he says. "3,000'" says I. "That was 1,800!!!" he says. "Sir, you told me to make it tight..." and we DID come out exactly on airspeed, heading and altitude!
All went well, and I finished the phase with strong grades, on into instruments.
This is about the time I regret complaining about never being scheduled in contacts. Every. Single. Day. I didn't get more than the minimum one day off per week. On the three-day weekend, I flew doubles Friday and Sunday, flight planning Saturday and Tuesday.
Then, last Thursday... I check the unofficial schedule in the morning (Schedules come out around 1600 the night before, every day, but there's an unofficial draft you can look at around 1000). Nothing crazy, a PRT on Friday, and two local area flights. So, I text the IP I'm flying with to ask where he'd like me to plan our flights to. He tells me to get in touch with another IP's student. The short version here is, I can't even find out WHO this other guy is until the official schedule is out that night. And when it does, I about layed a brick. So much for local area, I'm going cross country! Scramble to get a hold of this guy, to no avail, and finally get my IP to tell me what's happening around 2000. Looks like I'm going to Columbus OH for the weekend! Well, there's no time to plan for it that night, as I don't have ANY of the pubs I would need. I just show up the next morning at [Time omitted for crew day reasons], and SCRAMBLE to throw together a flight plan. Now, I make a GLORIOUS plan, following airways, using VORs and training routes, complete with a great jet log and fuel plan. I show up to the brief, my IP takes one look at it and goes "Nah, we're just gonna FMS direct-to". ALL of that time wasted. The flights up to Ohio were uneventful, except when we had a 747 vectored about 1000' under us (We were up at FL280) and he jumped on the center frequency saying "You guys aren't supposed to be up here!". I guess it's not every day you see a single-engine turboprop at 28,000 feet...
Until we come back. Now, taking off from Columbus, we noted a bit of binding in the rudders. Nothing too bad, and it magically cleared up shortly after takeoff. We continued to monitor it throughout the flight, and since it didn't reappear, we continued on down to Huntsville. Preflight was fine. Taxiing out was fine. Runup, fine, rotation, fine. "Two positive rates, gear. Above 110, flaps". And then I go to add a little more right rudder. I can't move the pedal at all. I tell the IP in the back, who has about 200lbs on me, and with all of his weight, he can't budge the pedal an inch. Awe hell. We request an immediate turn to downwind, and clearance to land. We say we don't need an emergency call, but they scramble the firetrucks anyway. It was a bit dicey coming in without rudder, but winds were thankfully, right down the pipe. We get the plane put away and start trying to figure out how to get home. There's not a single rental car available in the whole city. After a few hours of searching, we luck out, and it turns out the FBO keeps a couple of rentals for emergencies, and gives us one. We make the LONG drive down to Pensacola, exhausted. It just so happens when we meet the duty van, the Skipper is in it, having been picked up in Mobile after getting red chord on a tire. I start spinning my sob story of exhaustion, hoping he'll let me get out of my double sims the next day, since we're getting in so late. Nope. Since we'll be finished checking the plane back in JUST about 13 hours before my sim, (Even though it's WELL past midnight), I can't call crew-rest. I'm on.
Show up for those sims, and they're, expectedly, rough. And of course, double events the next day too, a forms class (Even though I'm not done with instruments yet!) and a flight. Well, I have a couple of hours on the schedule between the class and the flight to get dinner, unwind, and mentally prepare myself. Or so I think. Literally as I walk out of class, I get a call from the FDO. They want me to fly. Right. Now. So away I go... And what a flight!
We went out to Mobile to do a few ILS and VOR approaches, nothing exciting, and as we're headed to NPA for some PARs, I hear what I thought was the scarriest call of my life. "All aircraft, radio silence, Navy 097, say intent and souls on board". I knew that's not a phrase you hear when things are okay. They try calling 097 two more times, and suddenly, the next call is to us. "Red Knight 024, tune [Can't recall the frequency] fly 170, and relay a message". I've got the plane, the IP takes the comms, trying to get a hold of them. I hear a VERY broken response "097 is near the beachline. Squaking 7700. No VHF. No cabin lights (It was about 2100 at this point, pitch black out). Intermittent power loss." That's the last we heard, but ATC had them on radar. They gave me a new series of vectors, I complied, thinking they were getting us out of the way of this emergency. "Red Knight 024, helicopter should be at your 12 o'clock, 6 miles." Oh hell, WE'RE the SAR asset for now! And then I learned that I was wrong earlier. Truly the scariest call I've heard came in. "Red Knight 024, radar contact with the helicopter lost. Your 11 O'Clock, 2 miles." My heart sank. I looked up and all I saw was black water... And then, about 2 miles ahead, on the beach, I see two brief flashes of a strobe light. I'm in the back, so I give the IP up front the controls to get us in closer. He cant see anything, but I give him instructions to circle over what i think was the spot. One turn. Nothing. Two turns. Nothing. Three... red and green! The position lights come on, VERY faint (I could barely see them at first, and we were only about 1,000 feet above them). I tell him I've got them in sight, and we relay to ATC. They want an exact fix, and the IP still can see them, so I talk him out, into a turn, and put us immidiately overhead to mark for ATC. As we're relaying it back we get a very broken transmission on guard "Red Knight 024, 097. We see you overhead. We're down safe, please relay to Lucky Base we're all okay". We send that on to ATC to make the call, and ask if there's anything else they need, and if they want us on station. They say no, proceed with your flight, and as we head for NPA for our approaches, we see a 60 coming down the coast to the site.
That was this last weekend and last night. Lets see what's in store today!
-"Spaz"
