I have reached another milestone in training - I am ready for my first flight! I should be flying on Tuesday or Wednesday, and while on paper I am "prepared," I feel far too nervous and excited to fly than is probably wise or safe. But that is what instructors are for, right? I have to brag a bit - the aircraft we will be flying in is the Lockheed (Beechcraft) T-6A Texan II: a single-engine, turboprop, mono-wing, high-performance aerobatic trainer. What that means is that my aircraft was designed train pilots in aerobatic maneuvering...so part of our training will include things like loops, aileron rolls, split-s's, wingovers, and all sorts of sexy moves from WWII dogfighting and Top Gun (though no 4-G inverted dives with a MiG). It has a glass cockpit, which means the gauges aren't actually "gauges" per se, as in dials with needles that indicate information. They are glass computer displays that project an image of a gauge like your computer monitor. This means that some system is actually processing the information shown on the gauges and then projecting it to the pilot in an easier-to-read format - the assumption being that said system is more accurate than the conventional gauges were in the first place. The real advantage is that all-important displays (like aircraft attitude) won't "tumble" or get out of alignment...ever (even during dynamic manoevering!). It does make me kind of nervous, though, that the old gauges were prone to doing that in the first place! But far and away the coolest thing about the T-6A is that it is equipped with a zero-zero ejection seat, so the aircrew can get out in a hurry if something goes drastically wrong. "Zero-zero" means that even sitting on the tarmac, at zero knots airspeed and zero feet off the deck, this seat can still save my life, by firing me up high enough with its rocket motor (330 ft) that my parachute can safely inflate and land me on the deck.
But getting here has occupied much of my time these past few weeks. Ground school was much different from API, because it is merely an introduction to the materials we are requred to study, it isn't actually a "lecture" course. They call it "big boy school" - you are told what to know, then tested, but the material itself isn't really taught. You must learn it by yourself. First we were tested on weather knowledge, then T-6A systems (hydraulics, propulsion, electronics, avionics), and finally the actual, word-of-the-most-high-naval-aviation-authorites-sanctioned, T-6A operations manual. That was five tests in three weeks.
After that we had a week of simulator events, where you get in a flight simulator and you operate the aircraft from the cockpit. These events are treated like actual flights, and you are being graded each time on how much material you know about the aircraft and how to operate it (there are certain items that we focus on specifically in each event). For example, the first event is just to see if you are familiar enough with the many pages of checklists and the necessary radio calls to operate the aircraft safely. The second event tests all that again, but adds some emergencies in - a fire warning on the ground, a fire warning in flight, an engine failure in flight, and requires you to be familiar with the emergency landing procedure. There were only three of these events, but with all the information you have to know for each one, each one is like studying for a final. But they are fun - I got to "eject" from one simulation, and I got to "fly" in all three, which dispite the lack of visual graphics outside the cockpit, was pretty cool.
Today I had my first period of instruction in the actual aircraft. It was an introduction - showing me how to preflight the plane itself, how to prepare for an actual flight (getting weather and field updates), and how to strap in, get in and get out the aircraft itself. It was a long day, but at least I know that I am about to start flying - which is why I'm down here for in the first place.
Unfortunately, however, all this work means I have lost some free time. I go the beach rarely now, though the temperature has climbed into the high 90s and 100s several times. And except for the rare concert or something I don't get away from my texts much. But since Memorial Day weekend is coming up, I am hoping for a relaxing three day weekend...and yes, more studying.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Sunday, May 1, 2005
Survival, a Wedding, and Reflections
Recently I graduated from API, which is the six-week academic indoctrination before Flight School. The acronym API, in fact, means "Aviation Preflight Indoctrination." It is heavily academic, and instructs students in the basics of aviation: how planes stay in the air, how engines work, how weather affects flying, basic navigation, and the like. Over the first four weeks, in fact, we have six tests, and failure could mean being dropped from the program. However, the final two weeks consist of survival training, and I have spent them parasailing and simulating ejections. I also took a road trip last weekend to Louisiana to help a good friend celebrate his wedding.
I learned early this past week that ejection is rather common in Military aviation, or at least more common than I thought. Apparently 1 in 5 military aviators eject, due no doubt to the relative age of our fighter and attack jets (25-40 years) and the extreme flight regimes we put them through. Because of this, two weeks are spent teaching us the ins-and-outs of parachuting and ejection, covering ejection at high altitude, parachute malfunctions (!), and ejection over land or sea.
First, we completed a parachute simulator event. It consists of a special virtual reality helmet that presents us with the sights of descending in a parachute while we hang in the harness. Via the helmet visuals, we are presented with common parachute malfunctions and are taught how to correct them - for example, if we have twisted paracords, we have to separate our rear risers (the rear straps connected to our harness) with our arms and bicycle kick to straighten everything out. If we do it right, the simulation reflects our success. It can be kind of funny to listen to students handle their particular problem ("Uh, I don't seem to have a parachute at all." "No, actually yours hasn't inflated. How do you correct for that again?"), but it is good training nonetheless.
Later, we got to go "redneck parasailing," which is basically parasailing behind a pickup truck in a field. Ironically, we do it in Alabama. We are attached to our parachute, then towed several hundred feet up into the air, and are released so we can practice landing correctly. Ideally, we land on the balls of our feet, then control our fall in such a way as to spread the force of hte impact on the side of our legs and spine, instead of absorbing it all with our feet and knees. It is basically a funny-looking controlled fall. The parasailing is of course very exilarating, but the landing was daunting - especially since the ground seemed to approach very quickly for all that I was wearing a parachute and all. I ended up hitting my head on the ground, but that was more embarrassing than anything else, and such scrapes were typical. Nobody got really hurt.
This weekend, a good friend of mine from TBS got married to his longstanding girlfriend in Bunkie, Louisiana. I drove the five hours out in my non-ejection seat car on Friday afternoon, and arrived in time for the rehearsal dinner. The wedding was Saturday, and was followed by a great reception. All the stereotypes about the "friendly and hospitable people of the south" are quite true - rarely have I met such friendly, happy, healthy-looking, and beautiful people as the two families I partied with. And I mean "party." They were eager to chat, unashamed to dance, and very disposed to drink. After the reception, we moved to the bar underneath the hotel we were staying at. This was a good idea until a drunkard attacked my friends sister, which nearly started a full-on, broken-bottle, 15-20 person bar brawl. Fortunately, the cops arrived before any punches were thrown, and the night turned out dramatic rather than painful. But even that was memorable and fun. The hometown crowd joked that we out-of-towners were getting exposed to a "real Louisiana wedding."
I remember well at TBS the great attachment I developed to the specific place of Quantico, Virginia and Washington, DC. For some reason, I tend to associate memories with places. One of the great themes in Catholic Philosophy (at least that I have studied) is that the world we live in nurtures us in faith and understanding. At Notre Dame I discovered what this meant by the rich beauty I found in the campus there, a result of both nature, such as sunsets over the dome, crisp golden autumn days, and new-fallen snow, and human investment, such as the striking and beautiful architecture of the campus and the careful land-scaping. In a way, my memories of events and people are localized in specific places, and I am surprised and lucky that I have found all those places beautiful. In fact, it is often the place itself that strikes me most positively during times of struggle, such as the hard schoolwork of Notre Dame or the tough physical training at TBS.
This all came back to me rather forcefully this weekend because almost every single Louisiana resident I met asked me if this was my first time in their state. They also asked (with more interest) whether I liked it there. I answered, truthfully, yes: there was no honest answer after meeting such lively people this weekend. But there are other attractions, too. I can personally confirm many Louisiana stereotypes: on the road to Bunkie, I counted only three other cars (that takes into account both directions of traffic); after about 30 minutes of driving on the road to Bunkie, I could hardly see out of my windshield for the vast number of bugs that were splattered across it; and I played a rather hectic game of slalom with the random possoms and turtles foolishly crossing the road from one side of the swamp to the other. It was all overwhelmingly "redneck." Yet there is a remarkable beauty as well - only in the field at TBS have I seen so many stars, or seen them so clearly, for example. And the people make a big difference to my perception of the place.
It is easy for me especially to fall into the Pathetic Fallacy when thinking and writing about these places. In my memory they are closely associated with emotions, which I end up associating in turn with the place itself. There is a kind of thick heaviness about the south now, that lingers in the humid air and manifiests in the choking, overgrown boughs. It lends a kind of carefree anonymity, as if each day bore no witness to the last, as if each event were cloaked or hidden or reduced by the solitude and density. By contrast, it seemed to emphasize the human events. I know what Evelyn Waugh meant when he spoke of Oxford: "It was this cloistral hush which gave our laugher its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamor." It is admittedly a far cry from the clearness and freshness of the northwest - but it can be seductive.
I get the strong sense that the trials and opportunities of my military lifestyle - particularly in seeing different areas of the country - is necessary to my continued growth and maturity. My discoveries about places, with their rich complexity of landscape and people, are central to my experience. Spending time on the military base with my nose buried in a textbook temporarily removed me from this kind of activity. But it was going on all the time, I think - I noticed suddenly the rare glory of Pensacola evenings on the beach; it carried all the impact of a conversion. In that sense my brief weekend break between API and Primary was just the vacation I needed.
I learned early this past week that ejection is rather common in Military aviation, or at least more common than I thought. Apparently 1 in 5 military aviators eject, due no doubt to the relative age of our fighter and attack jets (25-40 years) and the extreme flight regimes we put them through. Because of this, two weeks are spent teaching us the ins-and-outs of parachuting and ejection, covering ejection at high altitude, parachute malfunctions (!), and ejection over land or sea.
First, we completed a parachute simulator event. It consists of a special virtual reality helmet that presents us with the sights of descending in a parachute while we hang in the harness. Via the helmet visuals, we are presented with common parachute malfunctions and are taught how to correct them - for example, if we have twisted paracords, we have to separate our rear risers (the rear straps connected to our harness) with our arms and bicycle kick to straighten everything out. If we do it right, the simulation reflects our success. It can be kind of funny to listen to students handle their particular problem ("Uh, I don't seem to have a parachute at all." "No, actually yours hasn't inflated. How do you correct for that again?"), but it is good training nonetheless.
Later, we got to go "redneck parasailing," which is basically parasailing behind a pickup truck in a field. Ironically, we do it in Alabama. We are attached to our parachute, then towed several hundred feet up into the air, and are released so we can practice landing correctly. Ideally, we land on the balls of our feet, then control our fall in such a way as to spread the force of hte impact on the side of our legs and spine, instead of absorbing it all with our feet and knees. It is basically a funny-looking controlled fall. The parasailing is of course very exilarating, but the landing was daunting - especially since the ground seemed to approach very quickly for all that I was wearing a parachute and all. I ended up hitting my head on the ground, but that was more embarrassing than anything else, and such scrapes were typical. Nobody got really hurt.
This weekend, a good friend of mine from TBS got married to his longstanding girlfriend in Bunkie, Louisiana. I drove the five hours out in my non-ejection seat car on Friday afternoon, and arrived in time for the rehearsal dinner. The wedding was Saturday, and was followed by a great reception. All the stereotypes about the "friendly and hospitable people of the south" are quite true - rarely have I met such friendly, happy, healthy-looking, and beautiful people as the two families I partied with. And I mean "party." They were eager to chat, unashamed to dance, and very disposed to drink. After the reception, we moved to the bar underneath the hotel we were staying at. This was a good idea until a drunkard attacked my friends sister, which nearly started a full-on, broken-bottle, 15-20 person bar brawl. Fortunately, the cops arrived before any punches were thrown, and the night turned out dramatic rather than painful. But even that was memorable and fun. The hometown crowd joked that we out-of-towners were getting exposed to a "real Louisiana wedding."
I remember well at TBS the great attachment I developed to the specific place of Quantico, Virginia and Washington, DC. For some reason, I tend to associate memories with places. One of the great themes in Catholic Philosophy (at least that I have studied) is that the world we live in nurtures us in faith and understanding. At Notre Dame I discovered what this meant by the rich beauty I found in the campus there, a result of both nature, such as sunsets over the dome, crisp golden autumn days, and new-fallen snow, and human investment, such as the striking and beautiful architecture of the campus and the careful land-scaping. In a way, my memories of events and people are localized in specific places, and I am surprised and lucky that I have found all those places beautiful. In fact, it is often the place itself that strikes me most positively during times of struggle, such as the hard schoolwork of Notre Dame or the tough physical training at TBS.
This all came back to me rather forcefully this weekend because almost every single Louisiana resident I met asked me if this was my first time in their state. They also asked (with more interest) whether I liked it there. I answered, truthfully, yes: there was no honest answer after meeting such lively people this weekend. But there are other attractions, too. I can personally confirm many Louisiana stereotypes: on the road to Bunkie, I counted only three other cars (that takes into account both directions of traffic); after about 30 minutes of driving on the road to Bunkie, I could hardly see out of my windshield for the vast number of bugs that were splattered across it; and I played a rather hectic game of slalom with the random possoms and turtles foolishly crossing the road from one side of the swamp to the other. It was all overwhelmingly "redneck." Yet there is a remarkable beauty as well - only in the field at TBS have I seen so many stars, or seen them so clearly, for example. And the people make a big difference to my perception of the place.
It is easy for me especially to fall into the Pathetic Fallacy when thinking and writing about these places. In my memory they are closely associated with emotions, which I end up associating in turn with the place itself. There is a kind of thick heaviness about the south now, that lingers in the humid air and manifiests in the choking, overgrown boughs. It lends a kind of carefree anonymity, as if each day bore no witness to the last, as if each event were cloaked or hidden or reduced by the solitude and density. By contrast, it seemed to emphasize the human events. I know what Evelyn Waugh meant when he spoke of Oxford: "It was this cloistral hush which gave our laugher its resonance, and carried it still, joyously, over the intervening clamor." It is admittedly a far cry from the clearness and freshness of the northwest - but it can be seductive.
I get the strong sense that the trials and opportunities of my military lifestyle - particularly in seeing different areas of the country - is necessary to my continued growth and maturity. My discoveries about places, with their rich complexity of landscape and people, are central to my experience. Spending time on the military base with my nose buried in a textbook temporarily removed me from this kind of activity. But it was going on all the time, I think - I noticed suddenly the rare glory of Pensacola evenings on the beach; it carried all the impact of a conversion. In that sense my brief weekend break between API and Primary was just the vacation I needed.
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