This past weekend I climbed into an F/A-18D Hornet for the first time. From Friday to Sunday I completed five flights. The loss of my weekend was well worth the opportunity to "go on the road," as the say here, because I got to explore a part of the country I had hitherto only read about.
Friday morning my instructor and I manned up the jet to fly out to Scottsdale, AZ and the to Albuquerque, NM. We had five flights to do, so we started by flying north to Fresno, and then southeast to spend that night in Scottsdale. The first flight is mostly an introduction, so we took time to explore the aircraft capabilities offshore. Part of that is demonstrating turn rates, acceleration, and climb capabilities (all of which are important to know and use when fighting). There, for the first time in my life, I broke the sound barrier. It was actually much smoother than I expected--no more than a slight bump passing Mach 1.0, and then again decelerating. Since it has been six and a half months since I've aircrewed a jet, I experienced a little nausea during the maneuvers and some difficulty counteracting the G forces. I was also a bit nervous. But all went according to plan and I didn't actually get airsick, so all was well. We flew directly over Los Angeles and got to see the entire city from the west hills to Irvine and Burbank, then passed over the inland desert. My attention for most of the rest of that flight was held by the Sierra Nevada in the distance, floating and snowcapped.
We spent about two hours on deck in Fresno, refueling with pizza and Gatorade, and then got on the way to Scottsdale. Our original intention was to fly over the Grand Canyon, but since the sun was westering and we wanted to make it to Scottsdale while it was still light, we decided to scrap that plan and turn to our destination. Having seen it twice from the air (once in a commercial jet), I still have a hard time comprehending just how barren the Southwest is. Our visibility from the jet was unlimited, and nowhere did I see anything but brown, bare, rugged desert. Occasionally a dry lakebed would emphasize the essential lifelessness of the place. It was beautiful, though. It was a place of immense and magnificent solitude. As an interesting bit of trivia is that the Space Shuttle uses one of the dry lakebeds as a place to land - it essentially extends from the end of the normal runway for another three or four miles.
The land becomes more mountainous in the Phoenix area. Small ranges or single mountains grow at random from an otherwise flat desert. Phoenix airspace has become very busy, and my instructor demonstrated the Air-to-Air radar for me by locking up "shooting" other aircraft. We got Scottsdale airfield in sight just as the sun set, and performed a 7.5 G break over the field - far more Gs than I had previously pulled in any jet. That is, incidentally, the maximun for the F/A-18. It was a very exciting, high-performance maneuver and it was a suitable end to an exciting (almost overwhelming day).
The next morning we took departed the Phoenix area to the north. This time we had plenty of daylight, beautiful weather, and were going to see the Grand Canyon if we could. On our way there we passed both Sedona, with its incredibly red gorges and rocks, and Flagstaff mountain, which stands as a solitary snow-capped beacon over the desert. With the canyon in sight, Air Traffic Control (ATC) asked us if we wanted the "canyon tour," then (unusually) cleared us to deviate right or left as necessary to see the whole thing. Probably only those reading this who have actually visited the Grand Canyon can understand how awesome an experience it is. The terrain around it is 6,600 feet above sea level (and incidentally, was lightly dusted with snow). The Canyon walls themselves plunged alarmingly into a seemingly infinite set of alternate gorges and peaks. It was very colorful, but the most distinct element was simply how vertical the rock formations were. Spires and ridges of stone reared thousands of feet nearly straight up in the air. At the bottom of the canyon was no valley; the Colorado river wound through what was purely a trough of stone. The whole edifice covered hundreds of miles of desert. There are literally no words to adequately describe it, but it was good to fly lazily mere thousands of feet over the canyon and drink in its majesty.
Once we were sufficienly overwhelmed, we called ATC and told them we were heading to Albuquerque. We had a lot of fuel left, so we cruised pretty quickly over there. The Albuquerque airport sits at 5,355 feet above sea level (higher than Denver), and the air is thin enough that the jet takes a lot longer to slow down before landing and a lot longer to stop once touched down, which was interesting and just a bit hairy. We met my instructor's mother at the terminal, and decided to see the sights of the city. Albuquerque sits on the high desert, with mountains (Sandia peak) towering to the east. There is a famous tram that runs to the top (really more a gondola), which claims to be the longest in the world. We decided to go up, check out the view, and have lunch. It was an amazing ride - the west slopes of the mountain are bare and vertical, with stunted little firs growing trained by the constant wind. Toward the top, three and four feet of ice were plastered horizontally on the boughs. At the top itself, the temperature was 16 degrees fahrenheit. I never knew the southwest could get so cold! Furthermore, the altitude up there is 10,300 feet above sea level. To give you some perspective on how high that really is, in naval aircraft we are required to be wearing oxygen masks above 10,000 feet in order to prevent hypoxia, or dangerous oxygen depletion. The three of us sat up there in the restaurant and drank down tea and coffee to stay warm, and admired the 100-mile views out to other mountain ranges. Around us sat skiiers and snowboarders who ride the tram up and ski down the east slopes of the mountain, which is serviced by three lifts and has long, beautiful, powdery runs--which is something else I didn't know was in the southwest. The desert sunset from the top of the that mountain was an incredible spectacle. When our ticket finally got called to ride down, we froze in the now four degree air and forty mile-an-hour wind blast until the tram arrived, wondering if we'd ever been colder in our collective lives. I certainly hadn't.
That night we flew back to North Island Naval Air Station, which is on the island of Coronado in San Diego. Technically still on cross country, it was nice to sleep in my own bed again. Flying at night is peaceful, because the radios are quiet and the spread lights look very peaceful from above. After our ordeal on the mountain top and our tour of the Grand Canyon, we welcomed the relatively stress-free flight back home. The next morning (Sunday morning), we drove back to the jet and took off for the extremely short trip back to Miramar. Fortunately, we had fuel and time so we went back out over the water to maneuver the jet again, and I got to fly up to 48,000 feet and see the curvature of the earth along the horizon, then unloaded (put the jet into 0-G flight) and pushed the airspeed up to 1.38 Mach. My instructor practiced some Air Combat maneuvering at high Gs (which has left my legs quite sore), and we returned to the field in time to debrief and get home for the Super Bowl.
Now, back on the ground, I am tired. My body needs to get used to flying again - the pressure changes, the G forces, the mental strain of operating systems and talking on the radio. But it was definitely fun--I still revel in the fact I am flying in a plane that can accidentally break the speed of sound if the pilot isn't paying attention, and I welcome the opportunity to see new places. It is good to be here again.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Saturday, December 9, 2006
Driving the Pacific Coast Highway
I write this just having returned from Centrifuge training at NAS Lemoore, and it turns out to be a tale worth telling - in fact, it is the first really interesting thing I have done in the past five months. My orders out of Pensacola directed me to report to NAS Lemoore on my way to Miramar, which is a nice little detour north of San Diego to the Fresno area. Centrifuge training has been a requirement since 1998 or so for tactical aircrew, and is designed to accustom new pilots and WSOs (I'm a WSO) to the dynamic "G" forces they will endure while flying high-performance fighter and attack aircraft. These aircraft are designed to turn very quickly through the air in order to either gain an advantage over another aircraft in a dogfight, or run away from an attacking enemy. These aircraft turn so quickly, in fact, that their crew are subjected to several times the force of gravity (a multiple of the force of gravity is called a "G," so that one G is the force of gravity; two Gs are twice the force of gravity, etc.). Since the human body is designed to operate perfectly under the influence of only one G, the effect of excessive Gs is to cause blood to pool in the lower extremities (away from the head) causing in extreme cases a total loss of consciousness. Obviously, a loss of consciousness on the part of the aircrew renders their jet ineffective in a fight, and may cause the jet to crash for lack of human control. To combat the effect of Gs, naval aviators are exposed to these G forces in a giant centrifuge, where they learn to flex certain muscles and control their breathing in order to stay conscious during this type of flying. The F/A-18 - my future jet - can be flown up to 7.5 Gs.
I left San Diego on the 6th of December. Lemoore is located roughly a third of the way up the length of California, forty miles south of Fresno. With careful attention to timing so as to avoid the worst traffic in the Los Angeles area, I drove the "straight" route up I-5. That freeway is huge - at least eight lanes wide from San Diego to well north of LA. It hugs the coast for a while, affording sporadic views of the Pacific, but turns inland in LA and slows down. I fought traffic for a while before reaching the Santa Monica mountains north of the city, which are beautiful, barren, and high: the freeway climbs to over 4000 feet of elevation between rugged ridges before dropping suddenly off into the San Joachin valley, between the coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada. When I say "drop suddenly," I mean it. Around a bend in the road I suddenly saw the valley floor far below me, spread out to the horizon and covered with a pall of smog.
The San Joachin valley is much like Eastern Washington. It is an irrigated desert and filled with huge crop fields and huge stockyards. Coming up on the latter you notice a foul stench several miles before you actually get to the compound. Lemoore itself smells the same way, including the tap water, which is...unpleasant. The freeways are so straight here that there is an actual vanishing point in front of the car - the road literally proceeds for hundreds of miles without changing direction at all. The towns themselves are small and provincial; apparently one has to go to Fresno (which has a university) in order to find a bar that stays open past midnight. Last night I went to a party in Lemoore where the chief entertainment was a bonfire made from throwing together all the beer case boxes and pizza boxes left over, dousing it with two gallons of gasoline, then lighting it. In relating this, I don't mean to reflect poorly on the partygoers. As far as I'm concerned, they are make the best of their situation. But there is literally nothing else to do in Lemoore.
The centrifuge itself was painful. There were seven other aviators in my class. We completed our run through the centrifuge one at a time, and got to see videos of each other struggling against the increased G forces on our bodies. I blacked out twice, though I didn't lose consciousness. It is strange to experience your field of vision draw inward to a mere point of focus, and then have everything turn slowly black...and even stranger to find that, after straining to flex the large lower body muscles, your vision comes rushing back. All that flexing, however, has its price. I am still very sore, and the effect of blood pooling in my lower extremities has left little red welts across my waist and legs. This is normal. The Centrifuge run was fun in the sense that a certain camaraderie developed amongst the members of the class - we laughed at each other a fair amount, especially watching the funny faces we made fighting to keep from passing out. It was a short day; we were out by noon. I took the rest of the day off.
The drive back was certainly the most memorable part of the trip. Having heard much about the beauty of the California coast, I proposed to drive from Lemoore to the coast via California Highway 41, then down the Pacific Coast Highway. I will say at the outset that it is the most beautiful drive I have ever done. Highway 41 cuts southwest across the valley floor and through the coastal mountains, which start as a series of barren rolling hills that gradually become more fertile as one gets closer to the coast. About halfway to the ocean occasional vineyards appear straddling ridges off to the left and the right, the terrain gets more rugged, and trees begin to appear. Amazingly, many were still wearing autumn colors, so I was paid back richly for all I missed in Pensacola. At higher elevations there are numerous sharp curves and switchbacks that required me to slow the car significantly. Every so often the road would crest a hill and the land would fall in humps and mountains and ranches and rivers as far as the eye could see. Storm clouds scudded thickly and quickly across the sky, laying their shadows fitfully on the ground. Several times I drove through localized rainstorms, and there was often a view of a rainbow. I paused at a rest stop shortly before reaching the coast, and when I got out of the car I was struck by a delicious, cold, wild scent. After that I drove with the windows open.
I reached the coast at a small town called Morrow Bay. Though I turned south on California Highway 1, which runs down the coast, I had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for a sight of the Pacific. I passed many small surf towns characterized largely by an absence of chain restaurants, near-uniformly white buildings, and waving palm trees. The ocean was always to my left, its breakers throwing up visible foam in the sunlight. The road would intermittently detour through wet fields, from which the fragrance of cilantro and would seep into my car. This continued for many miles, broken only by the larger town of Santa Barbara, which appeared first as sporadic houses clinging to the hills over the sea and grew into a large beachside city. Afterwards, the highway wound through mountains again before rejoining the coast at Point Mugu.
The terrain was steeper now, and there were more houses. There were also surfers dotting the water off the beaches. The evidence of unbelievable wealth appeared...I saw my first Ferrarri south of Point Mugu, my first Aston Martin north of Santa Monica, my first Bugatti in Santa Monica itself, and I would later pass a Lamborghini and a Lotus dealership while driving into Los Angeles itself. There were probably more beautiful cars than I remember, but I was distracted by the scenery. The sun was setting now amid the storm clouds, lighting up the water and diffusing in the spray of the surf. At times the road would climb very high, affording a panoramic view of the coast and the water, then it would dive down to beach level. I don't need to explain how expensive and impressive the houses were. What amazed me was the apparent lack of crowding. Even in Santa Monica itself there were pleasant clumps of buildings that enhanced the scenery instead of obscuring it. And the diversity of trees and flowers was beyond my appreciation. Palm trees were the most recognizable, but there were others equally impressive - strange bright kinds of firs, beautiful tall trees with white bark, and an astonishing array of colored shrubs. The sun finally set as I drove under the Santa Monica pier and entered the huge metropolis surrounding Los Angeles.
There I paid for my beautiful drive. I found the Pacific Coast Highway, which had intended to follow until it rejoined I-5 north of San Diego, disintegrated into a series of boulevards chopped up by traffic lights. I finally gave up that plan and found a way to the interstate - after the wide wild roads I had driven earlier, the city seemed crushing and frustrating. As if to emphasize the change, the rain began to fall in earnest, and continued all the way back to San Diego.
I am still recovering in awe from that drive. I have little more to say, except that I check in to my unit at Miramar tomorrow, and there isn't room to be nervous at all - not after today. It feels like all the relaxation I needed to get ready for the next phase in my training--learning to fly the Hornet--was provided by that single trip. I'm going to love living here.
I left San Diego on the 6th of December. Lemoore is located roughly a third of the way up the length of California, forty miles south of Fresno. With careful attention to timing so as to avoid the worst traffic in the Los Angeles area, I drove the "straight" route up I-5. That freeway is huge - at least eight lanes wide from San Diego to well north of LA. It hugs the coast for a while, affording sporadic views of the Pacific, but turns inland in LA and slows down. I fought traffic for a while before reaching the Santa Monica mountains north of the city, which are beautiful, barren, and high: the freeway climbs to over 4000 feet of elevation between rugged ridges before dropping suddenly off into the San Joachin valley, between the coastal mountains and the Sierra Nevada. When I say "drop suddenly," I mean it. Around a bend in the road I suddenly saw the valley floor far below me, spread out to the horizon and covered with a pall of smog.
The San Joachin valley is much like Eastern Washington. It is an irrigated desert and filled with huge crop fields and huge stockyards. Coming up on the latter you notice a foul stench several miles before you actually get to the compound. Lemoore itself smells the same way, including the tap water, which is...unpleasant. The freeways are so straight here that there is an actual vanishing point in front of the car - the road literally proceeds for hundreds of miles without changing direction at all. The towns themselves are small and provincial; apparently one has to go to Fresno (which has a university) in order to find a bar that stays open past midnight. Last night I went to a party in Lemoore where the chief entertainment was a bonfire made from throwing together all the beer case boxes and pizza boxes left over, dousing it with two gallons of gasoline, then lighting it. In relating this, I don't mean to reflect poorly on the partygoers. As far as I'm concerned, they are make the best of their situation. But there is literally nothing else to do in Lemoore.
The centrifuge itself was painful. There were seven other aviators in my class. We completed our run through the centrifuge one at a time, and got to see videos of each other struggling against the increased G forces on our bodies. I blacked out twice, though I didn't lose consciousness. It is strange to experience your field of vision draw inward to a mere point of focus, and then have everything turn slowly black...and even stranger to find that, after straining to flex the large lower body muscles, your vision comes rushing back. All that flexing, however, has its price. I am still very sore, and the effect of blood pooling in my lower extremities has left little red welts across my waist and legs. This is normal. The Centrifuge run was fun in the sense that a certain camaraderie developed amongst the members of the class - we laughed at each other a fair amount, especially watching the funny faces we made fighting to keep from passing out. It was a short day; we were out by noon. I took the rest of the day off.
The drive back was certainly the most memorable part of the trip. Having heard much about the beauty of the California coast, I proposed to drive from Lemoore to the coast via California Highway 41, then down the Pacific Coast Highway. I will say at the outset that it is the most beautiful drive I have ever done. Highway 41 cuts southwest across the valley floor and through the coastal mountains, which start as a series of barren rolling hills that gradually become more fertile as one gets closer to the coast. About halfway to the ocean occasional vineyards appear straddling ridges off to the left and the right, the terrain gets more rugged, and trees begin to appear. Amazingly, many were still wearing autumn colors, so I was paid back richly for all I missed in Pensacola. At higher elevations there are numerous sharp curves and switchbacks that required me to slow the car significantly. Every so often the road would crest a hill and the land would fall in humps and mountains and ranches and rivers as far as the eye could see. Storm clouds scudded thickly and quickly across the sky, laying their shadows fitfully on the ground. Several times I drove through localized rainstorms, and there was often a view of a rainbow. I paused at a rest stop shortly before reaching the coast, and when I got out of the car I was struck by a delicious, cold, wild scent. After that I drove with the windows open.
I reached the coast at a small town called Morrow Bay. Though I turned south on California Highway 1, which runs down the coast, I had to wait fifteen or twenty minutes for a sight of the Pacific. I passed many small surf towns characterized largely by an absence of chain restaurants, near-uniformly white buildings, and waving palm trees. The ocean was always to my left, its breakers throwing up visible foam in the sunlight. The road would intermittently detour through wet fields, from which the fragrance of cilantro and would seep into my car. This continued for many miles, broken only by the larger town of Santa Barbara, which appeared first as sporadic houses clinging to the hills over the sea and grew into a large beachside city. Afterwards, the highway wound through mountains again before rejoining the coast at Point Mugu.
The terrain was steeper now, and there were more houses. There were also surfers dotting the water off the beaches. The evidence of unbelievable wealth appeared...I saw my first Ferrarri south of Point Mugu, my first Aston Martin north of Santa Monica, my first Bugatti in Santa Monica itself, and I would later pass a Lamborghini and a Lotus dealership while driving into Los Angeles itself. There were probably more beautiful cars than I remember, but I was distracted by the scenery. The sun was setting now amid the storm clouds, lighting up the water and diffusing in the spray of the surf. At times the road would climb very high, affording a panoramic view of the coast and the water, then it would dive down to beach level. I don't need to explain how expensive and impressive the houses were. What amazed me was the apparent lack of crowding. Even in Santa Monica itself there were pleasant clumps of buildings that enhanced the scenery instead of obscuring it. And the diversity of trees and flowers was beyond my appreciation. Palm trees were the most recognizable, but there were others equally impressive - strange bright kinds of firs, beautiful tall trees with white bark, and an astonishing array of colored shrubs. The sun finally set as I drove under the Santa Monica pier and entered the huge metropolis surrounding Los Angeles.
There I paid for my beautiful drive. I found the Pacific Coast Highway, which had intended to follow until it rejoined I-5 north of San Diego, disintegrated into a series of boulevards chopped up by traffic lights. I finally gave up that plan and found a way to the interstate - after the wide wild roads I had driven earlier, the city seemed crushing and frustrating. As if to emphasize the change, the rain began to fall in earnest, and continued all the way back to San Diego.
I am still recovering in awe from that drive. I have little more to say, except that I check in to my unit at Miramar tomorrow, and there isn't room to be nervous at all - not after today. It feels like all the relaxation I needed to get ready for the next phase in my training--learning to fly the Hornet--was provided by that single trip. I'm going to love living here.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Wings of Gold
I did it. I earned my Wings today. I capitalize it because it is such a big deal to me: it has been my goal for the last 18 months. I am the Marine Corps’ newest Naval Flight Officer / Weapons System Officer. I completed two flights today, and shortly thereafter I was doused with champagne and ice water to celebrate. The Flight School Adventure is over. What makes this even more memorable is that I winged with a classmate who was also in my company at TBS. He crewed the other aircraft - since our last events are BFM, or "dogfighting" events, we always go up in pairs - and though I got the best of him in our engagements today, neither of us would have made it this far without workign together. Tomorrow another classmate gets winged, and we are looking forward to celebrating together this Friday after the ceremony.
Perhaps I should back up. When I transitioned from the T-39 to the T-2, I my remaining events comprised three different kinds of flights. FAM flights came first, designed (through a simple air navigation mission) to give me the time to get comfortable in the new cockpit and aircraft. WEPS flights are low-level air-to-ground flights meant to provide practice operating as a section, or as two aircraft in one flight. For the rest of my career, almost every single flight will have at least two aircraft in it. The third kind of flight is BFM, which stands for "Basic Fighter Maneuvering." These are the most fun. We depart the airfield as a section, head out over the water, fight each other until we get low on gas, then come home. Today I completed my final BFM flight first, then flew my final WEPS flight. Experiencing both kinds of missions made for a fitting wrap-up.
The T-2 is perhaps the ugliest aircraft ever built, at least when sitting on the ground. In the air it seems much more aerodynamic. It is also, literally, a vintage aircraft. It was designed in 1957, and the last modification we have was probably completed in the late ‘60s. We still fly it with genuine ‘60s flight instruments, too…no computers here, whcih can be frustrating. For example, the instrument which shows our aircraft heading and navigational information actually drifts over time, and requires constant correction off an old-fashioned wet compass. Every 10 minutes of flying—less if there has been any kind of maneuvering—we must readjust our navigation displays. It is ironic that this instrument is so unreliable, considering how important it is to fly the right heading, especially when a) flying in very busy airspace (so you don’t hit another aircraft), b)flying in clouds (when you can’t see) and c) when flying an approach (so you actually find the runway). Another crazy feature of the T-2 is the Electrical Disconnect Switch. Since the T-2 was designed as a pilot trainer, somebody thought it would be a good idea to enable the Instructor (presumably in the back seat) to simulate a total electrical power failure. So they installed a switch that actually shuts off the generators and the battery - so it doesn't so much simulate an Electrical failure so much as cause one. Then, of course, you become an emergency aircraft with no way of navigating or communicating…and oh by the way your engines may fail without the electrical spark plugs, which means you either have to airstart one of them or eject. Brilliant.
Idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, the T-2 is a pretty perky little jet. We routinely pull up to 6 Gs during turns and Aerobatics, and it low over the ground it flies really well. During WEPS flights hug every curve of a road at close to 400 mph, then execute a high-performance pull, roll inverted, dive in at our “target” to deliver weapons, then pull hard up and away again. It is fun, dynamic, and physically draining - imagine trying to keep your head up looking around and your arms moving around a cockpit when they weigh five times more than usual! Yet BFM flights are the most fun, not only because you are fighting a buddy, but also because you continually operate the aircraft in high-G, high-performance flight. You might pitch up to arc over the top of your opponent or slice around in a max-performance turn to get behind him, or (if you're in trouble) you might “unload the jet” (go to zero-G flight) so as to accelerate quickly. In this kind of flying, the only instrument you watch is the altimeter, because you are upside down as much as you are right side up, and the only thing that matters is not hitting the ground. It is extremely exciting flying. It is what I signed up to do. But before I could get there, I had to complete the obligatory aviation simulations.
T-2 Simulator Events are pretty low-key. The instructors are all former military pilots who work for Lockheed and have a contract with the Navy. Some of them have fought as long ago as Korea , and many have ejected at least once from their aircraft. One of my instructors flew the now-obsolete F-8 Crusader, now distinguished as the last American fighter jet designed with guns as its primary weapon system. It was fast, though, and my instructor told me that a peer of his was flying around at Mach 2.4 when the wind blast sheared his canopy right off the aircraft. Desperately trying to slow his jet down, the pilot was pulling the throttles to idle and putting out the speed brakes when the wind pulled his upper ejection handle out from the top of the seat, and ejected him at Mach 1.7. He was hopelessly out of position and slammed by wind traveling over 1,000 mph, which caused his knees to break so badly that his feet were slapping against his helmet visor while he parachuted down. The pilot lived to fly jets again, though my instructor had this comment: “that man does not walk like you or me anymore.”
Despite the sea stories, sim events are graded and can be stressful. My last sim was with an instructor who I had flown before. Though he is widely regarded as one of the nicest instructors around – in the lingo of flight school, a “Santa Clause” - I have always peformed poorly with him. He wasn't mean to me or anything, but for some reason I never, not once, had a good flight with him. Remarkably, he only failed me once. At my Intermediate Graduation, where I graduated first in my class, he pulled me aside afterward to ask incredulously, “How, out of all of these students, did you graduate first?” Anyway, when he walked into the T-2 student lounge to pick me up for my final sim, he stopped in his tracks, looked at me appraisingly with a funny little smile and said, “So we meet again.” Fortunately, I had a fairly decent event (though certainly not my best), and afterward he handed me my gradesheet, saying, “Well, you’re free of me forever.” We had a good laugh about that.
One little side adventure I had during this phase was a trip to Washington, DC. This took place during my three FAM flights. It is nice to do them "cross country," because not only do I get experience flying outside of Pensacola (which I am very familiar with, but I can travel to cool places for the weekend. The flights themselves are pretty low-key, too: I am only responsible for basic navigation, a skill I have been working on since the first phase of training. Friday we flew to NAS Oceana (at Virginia Beach), and then my student partner and I rented a car to drive to D.C. We had a good timeI spent an entire afternoon in the National Gallery, saw a bunch of old friends, and generally relived the days of TBS when I visited DC every weekend. Sunday morning we drove back to Oceana and took the two quick flights home. Travel is one of the benefits of Aviation.
And now, this upcoming Friday, I will officially receive the Wings of Gold. I am near the end of my time in Pensacola , and that makes me just a little sad. I have grown to love it – everything from the beautiful white beaches to the friendly dumpy dive bars has made this an interesting and entertaining cultural experience. I will leave some good friends behind as I move on, but that’s part of a military life – and it isn’t really new. My old room-mate John has gone to California ahead of me, though not to San Diego, and another old room-mate will shortly move from Jacksonville to Whidbey Island, and yet a third has deployed to Iraq. I was nervous when I first moved down here - I only really know one of the guys I would be living with, and practically no one else in the greater Pensacola area. But shortly after moving in, my other room-mate approached me in a bar and said, "I don’t know how to say this, but I really wasn't sure if living with you was going to work out or not. I didn’t really get along with you at Notre Dame. I’m pretty surprised it has gone so smoothly so far.” I guess that sounds like a mean thing to say, but I had felt the same way. And now I have many good friends from this Pensacola experience.
But enough reflecting. Tonight it is time to celebrate my newly-earned Wings of Gold.
Perhaps I should back up. When I transitioned from the T-39 to the T-2, I my remaining events comprised three different kinds of flights. FAM flights came first, designed (through a simple air navigation mission) to give me the time to get comfortable in the new cockpit and aircraft. WEPS flights are low-level air-to-ground flights meant to provide practice operating as a section, or as two aircraft in one flight. For the rest of my career, almost every single flight will have at least two aircraft in it. The third kind of flight is BFM, which stands for "Basic Fighter Maneuvering." These are the most fun. We depart the airfield as a section, head out over the water, fight each other until we get low on gas, then come home. Today I completed my final BFM flight first, then flew my final WEPS flight. Experiencing both kinds of missions made for a fitting wrap-up.
The T-2 is perhaps the ugliest aircraft ever built, at least when sitting on the ground. In the air it seems much more aerodynamic. It is also, literally, a vintage aircraft. It was designed in 1957, and the last modification we have was probably completed in the late ‘60s. We still fly it with genuine ‘60s flight instruments, too…no computers here, whcih can be frustrating. For example, the instrument which shows our aircraft heading and navigational information actually drifts over time, and requires constant correction off an old-fashioned wet compass. Every 10 minutes of flying—less if there has been any kind of maneuvering—we must readjust our navigation displays. It is ironic that this instrument is so unreliable, considering how important it is to fly the right heading, especially when a) flying in very busy airspace (so you don’t hit another aircraft), b)flying in clouds (when you can’t see) and c) when flying an approach (so you actually find the runway). Another crazy feature of the T-2 is the Electrical Disconnect Switch. Since the T-2 was designed as a pilot trainer, somebody thought it would be a good idea to enable the Instructor (presumably in the back seat) to simulate a total electrical power failure. So they installed a switch that actually shuts off the generators and the battery - so it doesn't so much simulate an Electrical failure so much as cause one. Then, of course, you become an emergency aircraft with no way of navigating or communicating…and oh by the way your engines may fail without the electrical spark plugs, which means you either have to airstart one of them or eject. Brilliant.
Idiosyncrasies notwithstanding, the T-2 is a pretty perky little jet. We routinely pull up to 6 Gs during turns and Aerobatics, and it low over the ground it flies really well. During WEPS flights hug every curve of a road at close to 400 mph, then execute a high-performance pull, roll inverted, dive in at our “target” to deliver weapons, then pull hard up and away again. It is fun, dynamic, and physically draining - imagine trying to keep your head up looking around and your arms moving around a cockpit when they weigh five times more than usual! Yet BFM flights are the most fun, not only because you are fighting a buddy, but also because you continually operate the aircraft in high-G, high-performance flight. You might pitch up to arc over the top of your opponent or slice around in a max-performance turn to get behind him, or (if you're in trouble) you might “unload the jet” (go to zero-G flight) so as to accelerate quickly. In this kind of flying, the only instrument you watch is the altimeter, because you are upside down as much as you are right side up, and the only thing that matters is not hitting the ground. It is extremely exciting flying. It is what I signed up to do. But before I could get there, I had to complete the obligatory aviation simulations.
T-2 Simulator Events are pretty low-key. The instructors are all former military pilots who work for Lockheed and have a contract with the Navy. Some of them have fought as long ago as Korea , and many have ejected at least once from their aircraft. One of my instructors flew the now-obsolete F-8 Crusader, now distinguished as the last American fighter jet designed with guns as its primary weapon system. It was fast, though, and my instructor told me that a peer of his was flying around at Mach 2.4 when the wind blast sheared his canopy right off the aircraft. Desperately trying to slow his jet down, the pilot was pulling the throttles to idle and putting out the speed brakes when the wind pulled his upper ejection handle out from the top of the seat, and ejected him at Mach 1.7. He was hopelessly out of position and slammed by wind traveling over 1,000 mph, which caused his knees to break so badly that his feet were slapping against his helmet visor while he parachuted down. The pilot lived to fly jets again, though my instructor had this comment: “that man does not walk like you or me anymore.”
Despite the sea stories, sim events are graded and can be stressful. My last sim was with an instructor who I had flown before. Though he is widely regarded as one of the nicest instructors around – in the lingo of flight school, a “Santa Clause” - I have always peformed poorly with him. He wasn't mean to me or anything, but for some reason I never, not once, had a good flight with him. Remarkably, he only failed me once. At my Intermediate Graduation, where I graduated first in my class, he pulled me aside afterward to ask incredulously, “How, out of all of these students, did you graduate first?” Anyway, when he walked into the T-2 student lounge to pick me up for my final sim, he stopped in his tracks, looked at me appraisingly with a funny little smile and said, “So we meet again.” Fortunately, I had a fairly decent event (though certainly not my best), and afterward he handed me my gradesheet, saying, “Well, you’re free of me forever.” We had a good laugh about that.
One little side adventure I had during this phase was a trip to Washington, DC. This took place during my three FAM flights. It is nice to do them "cross country," because not only do I get experience flying outside of Pensacola (which I am very familiar with, but I can travel to cool places for the weekend. The flights themselves are pretty low-key, too: I am only responsible for basic navigation, a skill I have been working on since the first phase of training. Friday we flew to NAS Oceana (at Virginia Beach), and then my student partner and I rented a car to drive to D.C. We had a good timeI spent an entire afternoon in the National Gallery, saw a bunch of old friends, and generally relived the days of TBS when I visited DC every weekend. Sunday morning we drove back to Oceana and took the two quick flights home. Travel is one of the benefits of Aviation.
And now, this upcoming Friday, I will officially receive the Wings of Gold. I am near the end of my time in Pensacola , and that makes me just a little sad. I have grown to love it – everything from the beautiful white beaches to the friendly dumpy dive bars has made this an interesting and entertaining cultural experience. I will leave some good friends behind as I move on, but that’s part of a military life – and it isn’t really new. My old room-mate John has gone to California ahead of me, though not to San Diego, and another old room-mate will shortly move from Jacksonville to Whidbey Island, and yet a third has deployed to Iraq. I was nervous when I first moved down here - I only really know one of the guys I would be living with, and practically no one else in the greater Pensacola area. But shortly after moving in, my other room-mate approached me in a bar and said, "I don’t know how to say this, but I really wasn't sure if living with you was going to work out or not. I didn’t really get along with you at Notre Dame. I’m pretty surprised it has gone so smoothly so far.” I guess that sounds like a mean thing to say, but I had felt the same way. And now I have many good friends from this Pensacola experience.
But enough reflecting. Tonight it is time to celebrate my newly-earned Wings of Gold.
Monday, March 27, 2006
The Key West Experience / Pensacola Reflections
Last February, my training squadron went on a detachment down to Naval Air Station Key West. We did this for two reasons: to give us a break from flying around Pensacola ; and to get a lot of flights done, since February weather is generally very good down there and we are on vacation from our domestic personal lives. Since we all lived together (two to a room) in a dormitory-like setting, we were easily available to fly, but that also contributed to significantly collegiate atmosphere. Combine that with the social opportunities of Key West itself, and well, things got pretty exciting. It was a good trip.
Flying/training in Key West is an eye-opener. We worked with Air Traffic Control agencies that weren't used to our missions or expectations, and we flew unfamiliar routes. The pilots and instructors from Pensacola flew in that area so long that they pretty much had all routes and airfields memorized. As a student, it is easy to rely on their obvious but unshared knowledge—you feel that if you get lost or get in trouble, your instructor or pilot will know what to do. This all came crashing down in Key West . For the first time, I found that my pilot and instructor were often as clueless as I was. Well, maybe not that clueless, but you get the idea. At first it was scary, especially since during my first event I almost had a mid-air collision and later actually hit a bird. On subsequent flights, however, I began to feel more like a contributing member of the aircrew, instead of simply a student being tested.
For all that, however, flying wasn't the most "dangerous" part of Key West . The island is the self-proclaimed poster-child of American tropical hedonism. Filled with upscale shops jostling cheek-by-jowl with tawdry souvenir joints selling racy or off-color T-Shirts, and liberally sprinkled with bars and clubs, the actual town of Key West can be a lot of fun. It is quite small, too, so my friends and I ran into our instructors partying as often as we ran into our classmates, and pretty much everywhere. It was like a huge playground. Many stories and legends emerged from the two weeks we spent there—students spending upwards of $800 at bars in one night, students getting in fights and being picked up by (and tended by) shady middle-aged guys, students getting lost and spending the night on the beaches. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was not involved in any stories, since I spent only four days there. But it sounded like good times.
In addition to the social scene, the island and city of Key West themselves are pretty amazing. US Highway 1 runs all the way down the keys, often on bridges that span more than seven miles of water. Flying approaches around the airfield yielded beautiful sights of white sand beaches and turquoise water and green-sprinkled islands bustling gently with small towns and buildings. It was all very relaxing, even while trying to land an aircraft. Like most young people, I joined the military to see exotic places, and I think Key West qualified.
Unfortunately, as my squadron took off to Key West for a flying "vacation," my room-mate left to go to Iraq. Flight school is often an insular world (a "bubble") due to the concentration requred in each flight, and when we have time off we usually spend it relaxing and not thinking about military issues. We don't (at least, I don't) spend much time thinking about what our military is doing and where I might be sent. So it is sobering to say goodbye to my room-mate. On one level, he trades in the luxury of America (and things like trips to Key West) for a more rigorous life within the American military effort in that country, but he also is going to do the job he signed up for. Many of my friends from TBS and college have been to Iraq or Afghanistan already, and are either there for the second time or preparing to go back. That's where my job is. With them. And while I certainly believe that it sucks over there, and that it's dangerous, I want to be there.
But I have at least another year of training before I am even able to go. Pensacola, meanwhile, continues to treat me well. I have been able to spend a lot of time at the beach, running, reading and studying. Even during chilly winter months, the beach provides solitude and beauty, especially during sunrise and sunset. The nights are beautiful and clear. Though I hear a lot of my peers complaining about Pensacola and its dumpy buildings, poorly designed roads, and lack of nightlife, I am very fond of it. I have grown to love Gulf Coast style seafood,the beach lifestyle, the friendly people, and the inexpensive living. There are few other places in the world where you can waterski in October and go swimming in the ocean in early March. I shall be sorry to leave.
Flying/training in Key West is an eye-opener. We worked with Air Traffic Control agencies that weren't used to our missions or expectations, and we flew unfamiliar routes. The pilots and instructors from Pensacola flew in that area so long that they pretty much had all routes and airfields memorized. As a student, it is easy to rely on their obvious but unshared knowledge—you feel that if you get lost or get in trouble, your instructor or pilot will know what to do. This all came crashing down in Key West . For the first time, I found that my pilot and instructor were often as clueless as I was. Well, maybe not that clueless, but you get the idea. At first it was scary, especially since during my first event I almost had a mid-air collision and later actually hit a bird. On subsequent flights, however, I began to feel more like a contributing member of the aircrew, instead of simply a student being tested.
For all that, however, flying wasn't the most "dangerous" part of Key West . The island is the self-proclaimed poster-child of American tropical hedonism. Filled with upscale shops jostling cheek-by-jowl with tawdry souvenir joints selling racy or off-color T-Shirts, and liberally sprinkled with bars and clubs, the actual town of Key West can be a lot of fun. It is quite small, too, so my friends and I ran into our instructors partying as often as we ran into our classmates, and pretty much everywhere. It was like a huge playground. Many stories and legends emerged from the two weeks we spent there—students spending upwards of $800 at bars in one night, students getting in fights and being picked up by (and tended by) shady middle-aged guys, students getting lost and spending the night on the beaches. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was not involved in any stories, since I spent only four days there. But it sounded like good times.
In addition to the social scene, the island and city of Key West themselves are pretty amazing. US Highway 1 runs all the way down the keys, often on bridges that span more than seven miles of water. Flying approaches around the airfield yielded beautiful sights of white sand beaches and turquoise water and green-sprinkled islands bustling gently with small towns and buildings. It was all very relaxing, even while trying to land an aircraft. Like most young people, I joined the military to see exotic places, and I think Key West qualified.
Unfortunately, as my squadron took off to Key West for a flying "vacation," my room-mate left to go to Iraq. Flight school is often an insular world (a "bubble") due to the concentration requred in each flight, and when we have time off we usually spend it relaxing and not thinking about military issues. We don't (at least, I don't) spend much time thinking about what our military is doing and where I might be sent. So it is sobering to say goodbye to my room-mate. On one level, he trades in the luxury of America (and things like trips to Key West) for a more rigorous life within the American military effort in that country, but he also is going to do the job he signed up for. Many of my friends from TBS and college have been to Iraq or Afghanistan already, and are either there for the second time or preparing to go back. That's where my job is. With them. And while I certainly believe that it sucks over there, and that it's dangerous, I want to be there.
But I have at least another year of training before I am even able to go. Pensacola, meanwhile, continues to treat me well. I have been able to spend a lot of time at the beach, running, reading and studying. Even during chilly winter months, the beach provides solitude and beauty, especially during sunrise and sunset. The nights are beautiful and clear. Though I hear a lot of my peers complaining about Pensacola and its dumpy buildings, poorly designed roads, and lack of nightlife, I am very fond of it. I have grown to love Gulf Coast style seafood,the beach lifestyle, the friendly people, and the inexpensive living. There are few other places in the world where you can waterski in October and go swimming in the ocean in early March. I shall be sorry to leave.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Grief
I am currently struggling through the first flying portion of Advanced Training. The stakes are higher here, since each student is destined for tactical aircraft. These aircraft operate in the most dynamic, threatening environment--they fight other aircraft and deliver ordnance through anti-aircraft systems. Consequently, the training is a bit more stringent. This usually takes the form of many long hours in the Simulators on my own, honing my navigation and weapons skills so I can perform them with greater precision and speed. The stress imposed on students has prompted us to to make many ironic statements regarding "glamor of naval aviation." But flying is still fun, if dangerous. Recently, in fact, our Squadron was brutally reminded about how dangerous this job is. We suffered a serious, fatal mishap we suffered last Tuesday, on January 10 2006.
That day, Rocket 512 (the call sign of the flight) reported over the radio that they entered their low-level training route around 11 AM. They were never heard from again. After two days of waiting and searching, the wreckage of the aircraft was found in Northern Georgia. Of the four aviators aboard, there were no survivors. An investigation into the cause of the mishap is pending.
There was a memorial Mass this morning for the pilot. We do not use active-duty navy pilots; we use contract pilots employed by the Lockheed-Martin corporation, all of whom have a military aviation background. The chapel was full. I reflected there on how close we are in the squadron as a group. Though I personally knew both students and the instructor who died, I was neither friends nor even very familiar with any of them. The students were several classes ahead of me; I had only flown with the instructor once. Yet their absence is tangible. They no longer participate in the stories or jokes we exchange in the Ready Room, they no longer offer unsolicited advice to other students (as is the wont of all aviators), they will never again laugh at or make an ironic crack about the "glamor of naval aviation." The instructor, particularly, I remember as being funny, friendly and sincere about teaching. He was enjoyable to fly with and made his students better at what they did. He was never cruel, difficult, or petty in the cockpit (as others were). He was an great asset to our squadron.
Perhaps more tragically, he left behind a wife and child. This is also true of one of the students; the other was recently engaged. Of course, this kind of risk was theirs to take and they took it without any illusion - as we all do. Military necessity requires us to ply our trade in dangerous regimes of flight, often at high speeds and low altitudes. Knowing this, we take especial care to identify risks and mitigate them. This is doubly true in a training command, because of "there is no glory in dying in a white [training] aircraft." All of us officers in the command realize there is nothing to do except grieve, reflect, pick up, and continue with our mission. In fact, I will be doing just that tomorrow.
For this reason (in spite of the loss), things continue more or less as normal. No doubt as I immerse myself again in the task of flying, the grief will recede. But hopefully not the memory of these four aviators. There is a quotation on the wall of our Squadron bar says talks about how any aviator's death is every aviator's responsibility; perhaps if they had exchanged one more story about a hazard or they had invested a little more time in training they'd still be among us. That quote in turn reminds me of John Donne's famous meditation:
That day, Rocket 512 (the call sign of the flight) reported over the radio that they entered their low-level training route around 11 AM. They were never heard from again. After two days of waiting and searching, the wreckage of the aircraft was found in Northern Georgia. Of the four aviators aboard, there were no survivors. An investigation into the cause of the mishap is pending.
There was a memorial Mass this morning for the pilot. We do not use active-duty navy pilots; we use contract pilots employed by the Lockheed-Martin corporation, all of whom have a military aviation background. The chapel was full. I reflected there on how close we are in the squadron as a group. Though I personally knew both students and the instructor who died, I was neither friends nor even very familiar with any of them. The students were several classes ahead of me; I had only flown with the instructor once. Yet their absence is tangible. They no longer participate in the stories or jokes we exchange in the Ready Room, they no longer offer unsolicited advice to other students (as is the wont of all aviators), they will never again laugh at or make an ironic crack about the "glamor of naval aviation." The instructor, particularly, I remember as being funny, friendly and sincere about teaching. He was enjoyable to fly with and made his students better at what they did. He was never cruel, difficult, or petty in the cockpit (as others were). He was an great asset to our squadron.
Perhaps more tragically, he left behind a wife and child. This is also true of one of the students; the other was recently engaged. Of course, this kind of risk was theirs to take and they took it without any illusion - as we all do. Military necessity requires us to ply our trade in dangerous regimes of flight, often at high speeds and low altitudes. Knowing this, we take especial care to identify risks and mitigate them. This is doubly true in a training command, because of "there is no glory in dying in a white [training] aircraft." All of us officers in the command realize there is nothing to do except grieve, reflect, pick up, and continue with our mission. In fact, I will be doing just that tomorrow.
For this reason (in spite of the loss), things continue more or less as normal. No doubt as I immerse myself again in the task of flying, the grief will recede. But hopefully not the memory of these four aviators. There is a quotation on the wall of our Squadron bar says talks about how any aviator's death is every aviator's responsibility; perhaps if they had exchanged one more story about a hazard or they had invested a little more time in training they'd still be among us. That quote in turn reminds me of John Donne's famous meditation:
"No man is an island, entire of itself / every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main / if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were / any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind / and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls / it tolls for thee."The grief I feel is real, despite not knowing any of the dead aviators very well. Their death reminds me of my own mortality, especially at the hand of flying; it is the loss of experience, from which I could benefit. Most importantly, they were comrades whose support I miss, even if I only received it tangentially. Moving on feels good, because grief hurts. But every so often I hear of an aviation mishap, and my mind returns to this one. I hope it makes me wiser.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
The glamour of flight and the onset of autumn
After a long hiatus, I finally feel like I have something to write you about. Recently flight school acquired a new dimension when I began our set of visual navigation flights. Visual Navigation (VNAV) is, as the name implies, navigation solely by external reference points: bridges, road intersections, prominent buildings, and the like. And it is very exciting flying.
First of all, because I am navigating visually, I get to look outside the aircraft for most of the flight. This is a remarkable difference from Instrument Navigation, where I spent most of my time in the air concentrating on the navigation instruments, my kneeboard, and my slide rule. Admittedly, that training is necessary, because it is the bread-and-butter of airborne navigation, but it was really nothing more than a glorified desk job - my desk just happened to be the rear cockpit of an airplane. Being able to (or supposed to!) look around from the air restores the glamour of Aviation: from above, you really feel godlike.
Second of all, in order to be able to clearly see references on the ground, I need to fly lower. Flying low is fun because you seem to be going faster and you feel more connected to the ground - you aren't simply all alone at 28,000 feet. Flying low is stressful, because there are towers and large buildings that can pass close beneath you, but that only heightens the experience.
Finally, in VNAVs, the maneuvers are downright exhilarating. Gone are boring 30-degree-angle-of-bank turns from Instrument Navigation. Marking on top of a navigational checkpoint involves a 3-G, nearly 90-degree-angle-of-bank steep turn and a quick acceleration to the new airspeed. If I need to check a reference underneath the plane, I can order a "wing-flash," which is when the pilot dips one wing alarmingly in order for me to get a view of the ground directly beneath us out of the side of the canopy. But what is especially exciting is the target run, when we acquire our "target" by raising the nose and rolling the plane so that it (and the rest of the ground) appear in the upper portion of the canopy so we can comfortably see it. This is flying - this is what I imagined when I embarked on an aviation career.
Of course, preparing VNAVs are equally difficult and time-consuming as preparing INAV (instrument) flights. There is a lot of paperwork: charts to draw and prepare, procedures to practice, and briefing items to memorize. So I am keeping busy. I am not too busy, however, to mark the passage of summer. I am entering the golden days of Pensacola - when the humidity and accompanying violent thunderstorms fade leaving clear and beautiful weather. The deep, choking foliage seems faded, too--enervated, perhaps, by the heavy heat and powerful sunlight of summer. It has become pleasant to run outside, the summer tourist swarm has left the beaches, and the ocean is still warm and still. It won't start getting cold for at least another two months. Until then, I will focus on waterskiing, beachgoing, and barbecues.
I count myself very lucky to be here now. It sometimes seems like an accident that I ended up in Aviation, and equally so that I live in Pensacola. As I write this, the late summer sun streams through my window, and I can't help but marvel at how good things seem at times. Pensacola may be a small town, it may be aggressively "deep south" in character, and it may be dumpy and poor, but it certainly has its own beauty. My perception of it, of course, includes the flying, the tight group of peers I fly and live with, and my experiences in the city itself--but I am happy here. Though I hope eventually to be posted to San Diego (which is famously beautiful), I can't get very excited about it when in the midst of a beautiful September afternoon in Pensacola.
First of all, because I am navigating visually, I get to look outside the aircraft for most of the flight. This is a remarkable difference from Instrument Navigation, where I spent most of my time in the air concentrating on the navigation instruments, my kneeboard, and my slide rule. Admittedly, that training is necessary, because it is the bread-and-butter of airborne navigation, but it was really nothing more than a glorified desk job - my desk just happened to be the rear cockpit of an airplane. Being able to (or supposed to!) look around from the air restores the glamour of Aviation: from above, you really feel godlike.
Second of all, in order to be able to clearly see references on the ground, I need to fly lower. Flying low is fun because you seem to be going faster and you feel more connected to the ground - you aren't simply all alone at 28,000 feet. Flying low is stressful, because there are towers and large buildings that can pass close beneath you, but that only heightens the experience.
Finally, in VNAVs, the maneuvers are downright exhilarating. Gone are boring 30-degree-angle-of-bank turns from Instrument Navigation. Marking on top of a navigational checkpoint involves a 3-G, nearly 90-degree-angle-of-bank steep turn and a quick acceleration to the new airspeed. If I need to check a reference underneath the plane, I can order a "wing-flash," which is when the pilot dips one wing alarmingly in order for me to get a view of the ground directly beneath us out of the side of the canopy. But what is especially exciting is the target run, when we acquire our "target" by raising the nose and rolling the plane so that it (and the rest of the ground) appear in the upper portion of the canopy so we can comfortably see it. This is flying - this is what I imagined when I embarked on an aviation career.
Of course, preparing VNAVs are equally difficult and time-consuming as preparing INAV (instrument) flights. There is a lot of paperwork: charts to draw and prepare, procedures to practice, and briefing items to memorize. So I am keeping busy. I am not too busy, however, to mark the passage of summer. I am entering the golden days of Pensacola - when the humidity and accompanying violent thunderstorms fade leaving clear and beautiful weather. The deep, choking foliage seems faded, too--enervated, perhaps, by the heavy heat and powerful sunlight of summer. It has become pleasant to run outside, the summer tourist swarm has left the beaches, and the ocean is still warm and still. It won't start getting cold for at least another two months. Until then, I will focus on waterskiing, beachgoing, and barbecues.
I count myself very lucky to be here now. It sometimes seems like an accident that I ended up in Aviation, and equally so that I live in Pensacola. As I write this, the late summer sun streams through my window, and I can't help but marvel at how good things seem at times. Pensacola may be a small town, it may be aggressively "deep south" in character, and it may be dumpy and poor, but it certainly has its own beauty. My perception of it, of course, includes the flying, the tight group of peers I fly and live with, and my experiences in the city itself--but I am happy here. Though I hope eventually to be posted to San Diego (which is famously beautiful), I can't get very excited about it when in the midst of a beautiful September afternoon in Pensacola.
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
The Adventure of Dennis
It feels like a long time since I last wrote, and I miss it. Writing my experiences in this on-going journal is enjoyable and cathartic. Recently, however, I have been occupied with memorization and studying such that I had little time to reflect upon and re-write my adventures into something that sounded like an exciting life. Then Hurricane Dennis hit Pensacola. And though this kind of weather probably seems far away to most of you (it always did to me), it is a very big deal here.
I didn't really pay attention to the path of Dennis (reported in the news) as it traveled up through the Caribbean past Haiti and Jamaica. When it closed in on Cuba, the hurricane watchers here at Naval Air Station Pensacola decided to cancel activities last Friday and fly the planes out to a safer location. As our collective eyes turned toward the storm, it aimed toward us much as Ivan did last November, and we were told to evacuate. There were all hands meetings Thursday afternoon and Friday morning to officially secure the Naval Air Station and evacuate all personnel by Saturday morning at six.
I left Pensacola on Friday morning under clear, beautiful skies. I was headed to Chapel Hill, NC, to take refuge with a high school friend of mine there. I drove past long lines at the few gas stations that still had fuel. The superstores (Wal-mart, Target, etc) had posted large signs listing products they were out of (plywood, lumber, fresh water, and so on). The radio stations were broadcasting National Weather Center flood warnings, potential evacuation orders, and hurricane advisories. This all stood in stark contrast to the absolutely pristine weather throughout the Southeast United States that day. It all seemed very ironic.
For those of you under the impression that western States are big, and eastern ones are small (as I used to be), let me be the first to disabuse you. Twelve hours I drove that day, all of it on the freeways and none of it in traffic. However, my friend made me very welcome, and the evactuaion felt more like a vacation. Essentially, I spent a carefree weekend checking out the college hangouts of UNC Chapel Hill. The only dose of reality I had was my morning telephone call to my class leader, letting him know I was alive, and periodic visits to the Weather Channel. I have to admit, it looked pretty menacing for most of Saturday and Sunday. Dennis followed the same path as Ivan, and predictions continued to place Pensacola right in the middle or just to the east of the middle of his projected path. East of the eye is the most dangerous place to be in a hurricane. The earth's rotation, called the "Corialis Force," imparts a counterclockwise motion to air around a low pressure area, which means that to the east of the hurricane, the wind is blowing off the ocean and has greater force than wind coming off the land (on the western side of the eye).
We were lucky, though. Dennis moved northward and came ashore right at Pensacola Beach, to the east of the city - the best possible scenario. There was minimal damage.The Navy Base was largely unaffected. I got the call to come back on Monday morning, and by the early afternoon I was on my way. Power had largely been restored to the Pensacola area by 11 PM as I drove in (though there continues to be a gasoline shortage), and at nearly every intersection there were state troopers and workmen repairing traffic lights, signposts, and power lines.
So the adventure ended well. I am impressed by the people of Pensacola and its environs. Everybody I met was more than willing to help with evacuation and hurricane preparedness, and most were calm and proactive about getting out. I had vague ideas of mass panic and desperate shortages at the onset of a hurricane, but Pensacola had prepared well (though, to be fair, it has significant previous experience) and the repairmen have worked straight shifts since Monday afternoon to restore power, put the traffic grid back together, and direct the return of evacuees.
I have just finished putting my apartment back together - pulling televisions out of closets, replacing the valuables that I carried with me, and resetting all the clocks. I have a test soon, and the next phase of flights is imminent, but such things are far from my mind. As I write this, Tropical Storm Emily is spinning north out of the Atlantic toward the Caribbean. Here we go again...
I didn't really pay attention to the path of Dennis (reported in the news) as it traveled up through the Caribbean past Haiti and Jamaica. When it closed in on Cuba, the hurricane watchers here at Naval Air Station Pensacola decided to cancel activities last Friday and fly the planes out to a safer location. As our collective eyes turned toward the storm, it aimed toward us much as Ivan did last November, and we were told to evacuate. There were all hands meetings Thursday afternoon and Friday morning to officially secure the Naval Air Station and evacuate all personnel by Saturday morning at six.
I left Pensacola on Friday morning under clear, beautiful skies. I was headed to Chapel Hill, NC, to take refuge with a high school friend of mine there. I drove past long lines at the few gas stations that still had fuel. The superstores (Wal-mart, Target, etc) had posted large signs listing products they were out of (plywood, lumber, fresh water, and so on). The radio stations were broadcasting National Weather Center flood warnings, potential evacuation orders, and hurricane advisories. This all stood in stark contrast to the absolutely pristine weather throughout the Southeast United States that day. It all seemed very ironic.
For those of you under the impression that western States are big, and eastern ones are small (as I used to be), let me be the first to disabuse you. Twelve hours I drove that day, all of it on the freeways and none of it in traffic. However, my friend made me very welcome, and the evactuaion felt more like a vacation. Essentially, I spent a carefree weekend checking out the college hangouts of UNC Chapel Hill. The only dose of reality I had was my morning telephone call to my class leader, letting him know I was alive, and periodic visits to the Weather Channel. I have to admit, it looked pretty menacing for most of Saturday and Sunday. Dennis followed the same path as Ivan, and predictions continued to place Pensacola right in the middle or just to the east of the middle of his projected path. East of the eye is the most dangerous place to be in a hurricane. The earth's rotation, called the "Corialis Force," imparts a counterclockwise motion to air around a low pressure area, which means that to the east of the hurricane, the wind is blowing off the ocean and has greater force than wind coming off the land (on the western side of the eye).
We were lucky, though. Dennis moved northward and came ashore right at Pensacola Beach, to the east of the city - the best possible scenario. There was minimal damage.The Navy Base was largely unaffected. I got the call to come back on Monday morning, and by the early afternoon I was on my way. Power had largely been restored to the Pensacola area by 11 PM as I drove in (though there continues to be a gasoline shortage), and at nearly every intersection there were state troopers and workmen repairing traffic lights, signposts, and power lines.
So the adventure ended well. I am impressed by the people of Pensacola and its environs. Everybody I met was more than willing to help with evacuation and hurricane preparedness, and most were calm and proactive about getting out. I had vague ideas of mass panic and desperate shortages at the onset of a hurricane, but Pensacola had prepared well (though, to be fair, it has significant previous experience) and the repairmen have worked straight shifts since Monday afternoon to restore power, put the traffic grid back together, and direct the return of evacuees.
I have just finished putting my apartment back together - pulling televisions out of closets, replacing the valuables that I carried with me, and resetting all the clocks. I have a test soon, and the next phase of flights is imminent, but such things are far from my mind. As I write this, Tropical Storm Emily is spinning north out of the Atlantic toward the Caribbean. Here we go again...
Friday, June 10, 2005
First Flights and Fast Times
Well, I can say I have officially flown an airplane now. I have taken off, flown to a different airfield, conducted appropriate aerial maneuvers along the way (like spinning out the airplane), and successfully landed, many times. The great adventure is well begun indeed.
It isn't really all that glamourous, actually. Well, it is, but that glamour is coupled with long hours of work before, during, and after my time at the cockpit. Each flight is a specific event on the syllabus here, and requires that the student be familiar with and demonstrate specific material. In this regard each flight is like a test. The "material" consists of sets of procedures for flying the aircraft, Emergency Procedures in case something goes wrong, and general knowledge of aircraft systems. This knowledge is what the student is graded on, not the actual flying of the aircraft. This is different, of course, than pilot training - there the student is graded very much on how he or she flies the aircraft. But for us backseater types, planning and knowledge are priorities.
So these past several weeks I have been studying hard, memorizing procedures step by step. It is stressful work - before each flight the instructor spends about an hour and a half with the student, examining him or her to see if they know what they are supposed to know for that flight. Instructors can grill a student on anything specific to that particular flight, or any material they choose covered in previous flights. It is much like having an oral examination, actually (though I'm embarrassed to say that I have to study harder in flight school than I ever did in college) - except when you fail, you receive a "pink sheet," which is a disciplinary file that usually leads to the student being reviewed by a board of instructors, and more often than not kicked out of the program. But - and not to sound cliche or anything - it is all worth it to be in the air.
I won't bore you with too many reflections or details on flying. It is remarkably peaceful in the air, and since we wear two sets of hearing protection the aircraft itself is quiet. When you are not desperately struggling with the controls to the (often) obscenity-filled exhortations of your instructors, the view is wonderful. The small windows of commercial airliners just don't do it justice. Underneath the professionalism and discipline of the aviation community lies a genuine joy of flying - something I have to remind myself of during difficult briefs. And the ride quickly becomes exciting (though in a good way) when you put the aircraft into a spin or flip upside down. Unlike some of my peers, I have had no problem so far with airsickness - I dare say I am having more fun with it than they are.
I have completed my flights fairly quickly. I had two on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and I was supposed to have my last today, but the approaching Tropical Storm sent enough clouds that we couldn't complete our event (which required good visibility). Cancellations are nothing new: it is warm and moist enough around here that we often contend with afternoon thunderstorms. We (the students) joke often, in fact, that much of the glamour of flying is actually sitting in a ready room waiting for a break in the weather. That is what I did Monday and Wednesday.
In retrospect, I guess flight school is different than I expected. I don't think I had many expectations in the first place, but I am both surprised at the extent to which I enjoy flying and the interminable waiting and studying that goes in to it. That's why, I guess, flight school is regarded as difficult - in fact, that's the only thing that isn't surprising. But I'd rather be doing something interesting and hard than boring and easy, so I guess I can't complain.
It isn't really all that glamourous, actually. Well, it is, but that glamour is coupled with long hours of work before, during, and after my time at the cockpit. Each flight is a specific event on the syllabus here, and requires that the student be familiar with and demonstrate specific material. In this regard each flight is like a test. The "material" consists of sets of procedures for flying the aircraft, Emergency Procedures in case something goes wrong, and general knowledge of aircraft systems. This knowledge is what the student is graded on, not the actual flying of the aircraft. This is different, of course, than pilot training - there the student is graded very much on how he or she flies the aircraft. But for us backseater types, planning and knowledge are priorities.
So these past several weeks I have been studying hard, memorizing procedures step by step. It is stressful work - before each flight the instructor spends about an hour and a half with the student, examining him or her to see if they know what they are supposed to know for that flight. Instructors can grill a student on anything specific to that particular flight, or any material they choose covered in previous flights. It is much like having an oral examination, actually (though I'm embarrassed to say that I have to study harder in flight school than I ever did in college) - except when you fail, you receive a "pink sheet," which is a disciplinary file that usually leads to the student being reviewed by a board of instructors, and more often than not kicked out of the program. But - and not to sound cliche or anything - it is all worth it to be in the air.
I won't bore you with too many reflections or details on flying. It is remarkably peaceful in the air, and since we wear two sets of hearing protection the aircraft itself is quiet. When you are not desperately struggling with the controls to the (often) obscenity-filled exhortations of your instructors, the view is wonderful. The small windows of commercial airliners just don't do it justice. Underneath the professionalism and discipline of the aviation community lies a genuine joy of flying - something I have to remind myself of during difficult briefs. And the ride quickly becomes exciting (though in a good way) when you put the aircraft into a spin or flip upside down. Unlike some of my peers, I have had no problem so far with airsickness - I dare say I am having more fun with it than they are.
I have completed my flights fairly quickly. I had two on Tuesday, one on Thursday, and I was supposed to have my last today, but the approaching Tropical Storm sent enough clouds that we couldn't complete our event (which required good visibility). Cancellations are nothing new: it is warm and moist enough around here that we often contend with afternoon thunderstorms. We (the students) joke often, in fact, that much of the glamour of flying is actually sitting in a ready room waiting for a break in the weather. That is what I did Monday and Wednesday.
In retrospect, I guess flight school is different than I expected. I don't think I had many expectations in the first place, but I am both surprised at the extent to which I enjoy flying and the interminable waiting and studying that goes in to it. That's why, I guess, flight school is regarded as difficult - in fact, that's the only thing that isn't surprising. But I'd rather be doing something interesting and hard than boring and easy, so I guess I can't complain.
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Closing in on Aviation
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.
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.
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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