19Nov00 Contact Week 2

     Monday I had a 0700 briefing which again went well. There isn't that much new stuff each time you fly, but you will be spending your time going over the block maneuvers over and over. The best thing is to chair fly. Create the whole flight in your head and picture everything. See the torquemeter in your head and see it move to the level you want it to go, etc . This will help you read the gauges quicker in the plane.  Make all the radio calls out loud. Don't just say them in your head nor whisper them. Try to find some distracters while you are practicing. Believe it or not, playing a video game such as a fighting game (Soul Calibur rules!) while reciting checklists or calling out radio procedures is great. You might even distract your friend by making him wonder what the hell you're doing, and finally beat him. Anyway, we flew up to area 2 this time because we just figured the weather was going to be better up there. We went over to the maintenance hangar and into an office in there, we looked over the maintenance log thing for the plane we were getting for that day and then I called and filed the flight plan (you just say three things). We did the usual preflight and I taxied to the run up area. The IP then called ground and asked to do an abort takeoff procedure. I taxied to the beginning of the runway this time and when cleared my on-wing accelerated as if taking off but then at 60 knots he pulled full beta and brakes and the plane stopped pretty damn quick. I then did my first take-off which was easy enough "Fuel Caps secure gear coming up." We climbed up to 5500 feet after turning 360 for area two and my on-wing showed me all the landmarks in the area. Again, I thought the area was tiny. There were clumps of clouds and everybody was gathering in the same clear areas. Our anti collision warning system (NACWS) was constantly going off and we came close to several aircraft a few times. Talk about an intense VFR scan. What sucked is that some aircraft didn't show up on our NACWS and vice versa. That's why you can't trust anything but your own eyes to keep you clear. After doing a bunch of clearing turns, we started some maneuvers. This time I did them all since my on wing demo'd them last time. They are the same maneuvers I mentioned last time except I also did the turn pattern which is just turning at different angles of bank (15, 30 and 45). After I finished doing two of each, my on wing showed me a spin which was fun as hell! I can't wait to do those on my own.  We then decided to go down to Evergreen and do some touch and go's. I called the 3 mile initial to the RDO (runway duty officer) "Evergreen RDO, 3E938, 3 mile initial, runway 01 north, dual, fam 2" I checked for proper interval and entered for the break. "938 crosswind break" Power to 300 ft lbs, intercom: "airspeed below 150" gear down, maintain altitude, slow to 100 kts, abeam the upwind numbers descend at 100 knots to 1100 MSL(800 AGL), power to 500-550 ft lbs. Intercom: "Harness locked, landing gear down and locked, brakes, parking brake off, brakes firm, instruments checked, landing lights on" At the 180 (abeam the touchdown point) power to 300 ft lbs, flaps down "938, 180 gear down and locked" Intercom: "Flaps, gear down, flaps down, landing checklist complete" roll 30 AOB descend at 90, look for 700ft (400AGL) at the 90 degree point, keep it rolling looking for 1200-1500 ft of straightaway, keep the nose down, 200 ft lbs, 5-10 feet off the ground pull nose up, power to idle and you're down. Keep the plane centered, power full forward (1315 ft lbs) engine spools up (takes a second or two then feels like a turbo kicked in) in a couple of seconds you pull back and you're off again. When we left I called "938 number one upwind, departure" And that's all there is to entering, landing, and departing from an OLF (out lying field). The T-34C is pretty easy to land even though I was trying to land it like an airliner. I would come down with nose up attitude and too much power. It worked out fine but its not how we are supposed to do it. You don't stall it onto the runway like you do (or at least I did) with Cessnas. I guess I wasn't supposed to feel the rudder shakers right as I was touching down. Oh well, at least my on wing never had to touch the controls. After that my bladder was about to explode and I have too much junk on in this plane to even think about using that piss suction bathroom gadget thing that's in the plane and lucky for me it was time to head back. We followed course rules back home which seemed straightforward enough although I had a hard time finding conecuh bridge (recovery checkpoint). Once on top of the bridge, "Pensacola approach, 3E938, conecuh bridge, with echo" I was given a new squawk and I kept on going on course rules to point delta since we were using runway 23. "Pensacola Approach, 3E938, have point delta in sight" "North tower, 3E938 point delta with echo" I then did the break just like I did at Evergreen and did my airliner style landing again. This is the first time I got to use beta and brakes on landing and for some reason it just felt really cool...especially the sound when full beta kicked in. I got off the runway, made the calls and parked it myself although I was told to make a 90 turn into the parking and not to lead it in next time. You just have to jam that right brake and swivel around it. Another thing about taxiing, when you turn, the only way to stop the turn is to try to turn the other way...you can't just neutralize the pedals it or it will keep turning.
     Tuesday I flew again at 0800 and we went out and did more of the same, this time in area 1. After doing the same high work, we went over to Saufley field for some "bounces." The thing that is different about Saufley is that it has a different entry point depending on what runway you are using and different altitudes depending on what runway NASP is using. The thing I learned this day about landings is to forget about trying to always set the 3/4 wing tip distance from the runway and instead look below to some landmark and always aim and fly for it on downwind. It helps a ton.  Everything else just went as it did the day before. 
     Wednesday I went back to area 2. We did high work again as usual and for some reason I still cannot do the approach turn stall well. I keep dumping the nose to almost 30 degrees nose down. It just falls that low. Screw relaxing pressure, I'm just going to hold it back next time and see if that works. I'm going to ask to do it more than once per flight this time. Anyway, after that we went over to Evergreen again and we started doing more touch and gos. I did 7 full flap and 2 no flap landings which I think are actually easier since you come down more like an airliner and since you're faster its easier to control. Anyway, for touch and gos you leave the landing gear down here, unlike the USAF which raises its gear every time. So I was heading home after my series of bounces and my IP told me he was hungry and wanted to fly back at 190 knots. I set the power at 1100 ft lbs and for a reason unbeknownst to me at the time, the plane would not accelerate past 140. I then goosed the power to 1315ft lbs. It would not go past 150 and there was a vibration and rattling sound that I was hearing. My IP had been telling me how the plane we had yesterday had such a good engine that we could go 200 with 1015 ft lbs but this one is stuck at 150 with 1315 ft lbs. He also was asking me if I felt the vibration and that weird sound. I confirmed that and said I didn't know what was wrong. He said to start troubleshooting and I looked at my instruments and reported everything normal. He said to look around and I started looking outside the plane to see if anything was wrong. I would have been really worried except that I kind of detected  in his voice and tone that it was something stupid I was doing. So after looking around the cockpit I finally looked over the the damn gear handle and just sat there and stared at it for a few seconds not believing that I forgot to put it up. I then told my IP I had found the problem and like an idiot I tried to raise the gear. My IP said there was an automatic gear lever lock actuated (his hand) and I immediately pulled the power back to slow below 120 before I raised the gear this time. You can lower the gear at 150, you can fly around with the gear down at 150, but you cannot raise the gear above 120. My bad. Anyway, I told my IP I felt like a total dumbass for going halfway home with the gear down. He told me not to worry because 98% of students do it before FAM 8. He told me that one guy actually told him the gear handle was broken when he tried to raise it at 150 (IP had his hands on it). When I got back I told the students there what happened and one of them said at least I didn't get the "What do they raise around here?" question. The same thing happened to him, and instead of being lead on by his IP like I was, his IP asked him what do they raise around here.....well being in a rural area, the student started naming off farm animals. After exhausting all choices, the IP finally just told him "gear" the student, still confused, said "deer?" And the IP then made it very clear hehe. I love hearing stories like that. I went with my IP to return the plane and asked him for a break since flying everyday really gets to be too much....at least for me and my friends. He wanted to fly me one more time before sending me to the basic instrument sims, but I guess my plea got to him so I started the sims on Thursday. I just needed some time to chair fly more and let the pattern and procedures sink in more. Flying everyday was just not letting it sink in. He said I am ahead of everybody, but its just not worth keeping up that pace. What's the rush? 
     I had my first basic instrument sim on Thursday and it went pretty well. I hated the sim because its just way too sensitive. But I finally figured out that flying with my fingers and leaving my feet off the pedals is the way to go. I also just tap the trim since they are over sensitive also. If you need to adjust rudder, just use the trim, not the pedals. You don't get the same feedback in this as you do in the real thing so its a lot harder to keep things smooth. All we did were constant angle of bank turns and constant speed climbs and descents. He gave me all 4s and told me to just do the same throughout the whole block and I would be fine. The next day I had to do standard and half standard rate turns, and constant rate climbs and descents which were exactly the same I did the say before, except with a different name. The other thing I did was the direct to tacan/VOR which was pretty simple as well. My finger flying got me all 4s on that one also. There are 2 more left for this block and 3 more after that in a second block. I will then have to do all of it in the back seat of the T-34 in 3 BI flights. Then its back the the regular front seat FAM flights. 

25Nov00 Contact Week 3