A day in the life... Part one.
Now that I'm actually doing real flying in the T-45, I thought I would do a write up on a normal day.
Our flight day starts the night before. Our schedule gets published around 1800, so at that time I start checking the website to see if it's out and what I'm doing the next day. Today it happened to be a brief at 1515 for my third Fam Flight (Fam flights are when we move to the front seat for real flying instead of just instrument work).
Trying to be healthy and productive, I get up around 0730 to take the dogs out and go to the gym for about an hour, then home for breakfast/lunch. Spend about an hour relaxing, then an hour studying spanish (I figure it's a useful language to know) then about an hour or two just reviewing random things for the flight. I leave the house at 1345 to make sure I get to the squadron an hour before my brief to set up the board.
Yes, every naval air station in existence has a Blue Angel at the gate.
Our half of the hangar.
Once inside, I set up my white board for the brief. Our call sign, crew, event, last event date and whether or not I'm opted for a warmup at the top of the board. Then, the three questions of the day. Today, they are:
EP: Swerve on Touchdown (rudder as required to counter the swerve, if flyaway airspeed available go around, if unable to go around abort, if blown tire suspected brakes release, anti skid switch off prior to braking, if airborne gear and flaps do not reposition)
NATOPS: T/F: after bleed valve is closed, engine should stabilize at 55% +/- 1% RPM at sea level (True)
SOP: cross country flight operations (too long to include here lol)
Then come any notes pertinent to the flight, special syllabus requirements, required maneuvers for the flight, and then NOTAMS.
My board today
On the computer I pull up weather, radar and satellite images, TFRs, BASH (bird strike risk) the canned briefing for this stage, and I'll type up the knee board card for ,use of and the IP. In addition to being a place to take notes in flight, the kneeboard card will have the pertinent fixed factors for the flight, including scheduled takeoff and land times, area were working, joker and bingo fuel levels, engine and performance minimums, and our plan of execution for today's mission.
Yesterday's kneeboard card
At around 1515, my IP for the day will find my room and start the brief. Well review my board, then go to the canned brief on the computer. We start with the normal items: human factors (is there anything going on in our lives which might make us unsafe to fly?), high risk maneuvers (what will be the riskier things we'll be doing today? How will we mitigate those risks? Today we're worried about recovering late from the vertical recovery, compressor stalls during stall recovery, and hard landings during the precautionary approaches), we'll review weather, TFRs, NOTAMS and BASH. We'll review the kneeboard card. We'll also review procedures for changing controls ("I have the controls" "you have the controls" "I have the controls").
Next we talk admin. How will we conduct the preflight inspection? Startup, taxi and Marshall procedures. Takeoff procedures, route of flight, working area, RTB procedures, landing, taxi, shut down, and post flight. We'll also discuss allowable slide times (can we depart late? How late?) Go/No Go criteria for weather or the jet, fallouts/spares (if the jet brakes, can we switch to another?) and weather/BASH procedures.
Next, conduct. In this we review the procedures for all of the individual maneuvers we expect to perform today. In my case, the interesting ones are:
Vertical Recovery: set 280kts level. 3G pull to 60 degrees nose up. As airspeed drops below 180kts, set power to MRT (military rated thrust) and push the nose over to 5-10 AOA (between 0 and 1 G) until the nose is below the horizon. As speed increases through 150kts, recover level.
A series of different stalls
Min radius turn: set 300kts level. Roll 70-80 degrees angle of bank, set MRT and pull to 17 AOA. Maintain 17 AOA and 300kts for 360 degrees of turn. Vary angle of bank to exchange altitude for airspeed to maintain speed. At 360 degrees of turn, roll the opposite direction and repeat.
Aileron roll
Barrel roll
Wing over
Precautionary approaches (the various methods of coming in to land when experiencing engine problems. It's worth noting these approaches are NOT meant to land dead stick, but rather to keep enough airspeed that if you lose the engine you can pull up, point away from the field, and eject).
Finally we brief the possible emergencies and who will do what to handle them. Ground emergencies, aborted takeoff, runway departure, system failures, bird strike, mid air collision, radio/ICS failure, loss of NAVAIDS or lost aircraft, inadvertent IMC, disorientation or vertigo, hypoxia, ejection, SAR, and divert fields.
Then he brief is done and we walk.
We'll go down to maintenance first and sign for the jet. We'll read the book looking for any gripes (problems with the jet) and ensure anything relevant to our flight has been fixed. We'll note the side number and where it's parked, then walk over to the paraloft and gear up. G-suit, harness, survival vest, gloves and helmet all on and strapped down before walking to the flight line.
To be continued after my flight...
