10Dec00

     Week 5 down and only two more weeks until Christmas break. The days are ticking for my solo and if I miss more than one day of flying, I won't be able to solo before I leave on the 22nd. That is of course unless they double pump me. I have enough flying once a day. Twice a day would be a bit too much.
     Monday I had my third BI flight which went well. I got a few excellents on that one. The only thing I screwed up was one small part of the penetration maneuver since we did it from 8,000 instead of 14,500. So things happened much much quicker than I was trained for. Nothing really exciting happened on this ride.
     Tuesday I had my warm up flight since I hadn't done a FAM in over two weeks. We went out to area one and I did pretty well. Saufley had its 900 foot entries in effect since NASP was using runway 01 and it was good to see how that worked. I finally did the approach turn stall correctly and instead of losing almost 1000 feet as I used to, I only lost about 100 or so. The trick is to keep holding back stick and use the ailerons and the rudder. Don't listen to the book. It says relax backpressure and use rudder only. If you relax at all, the nose will drop and rudder only isn't enough to level. After our bounces at Saufley, I forgot to raise the gear on upwind like before, but I was at least a step better in that when I noticed the airspeed stuck at 150 and the vibrations, I immediately looked at the landing gear handle and lowered my airspeed then raised the gear. Not good, but at least a step forward. One thing that I was told was that I needed to remember to switch frequencies at the proper times (such as clearing the pattern) and switching the NACWS setting between pattern and area modes. I also learned from this flight that I was pretty rusty on my course rules since I couldn't find point delta and this was the route I was most familiar with.
     Wednesday I got stuck with SDO (squadron duty officer) which meant I sat at the desk from 1300 to 2330 and answered the phone. I sucked, but at least it gave me time to study my EPs and I could relax.
     Thursday I had FAM 5 which I knew wasn't going to go well. I hadn't been eating or sleeping well and I was feeling weak and almost sick. My nose was running a bit, I had a headache, but my sinuses were clear and I was going dual so I didn't want to say anything. I did the NATOPS brief from memory for the first time and it actually went pretty well. After FAM 3 you are supposed to do the briefing in which you need to look at an outline an talk about all the items listed. You will do the same one for every FAM flight. Its no big deal. We got into the plane and I went through all the items with a bit more confidence than I did on Tuesday since now I remembered how to go through the checklists better. I still found myself thinking about things before I did them but that's because I was a bit under the weather. I took off and I don't really know what I did wrong, but the rudder shakers came on. My IP later told me I had pulled too hard but it felt like any other take off to me. It was probably a gust that tipped the AOA vane. Once I turned out on heading and started climbing, I was way behind the aircraft. I had a hard time keeping the airspeed correct and at that point I just didn't care. Once we got into the area and leveled off though, I caught up. He did a 60 degree angle of bank turn which for some reason made me sweat profusely. I quickly turned on the air and thought I couldn't possibly be dehydrated because I had been drinking a lot that morning. The air seemed to fix whatever the problem was. He then demonstrated a spin which was just as fun as the first one and we went on to do some high work. All my high work went fine and he then demo'd a HAPL and LAPL. Things happen really fast with a LAPL and its going to be pretty exciting when I have to do one. We then headed over to Evergreen and I did something I am really ashamed of. It happens to most students, but I have 120 hours and it should not be happening to me. Evergreen was landing on 28 and for some stupid reason I lined up for 18 and didn't even notice. I didn't check the heading indicator or anything. I don't even remember what I was thinking. I even called the 3 mile initial for 28 while heading south. How depressing. My IP called the RDO to disregard and he pointed out my mistake. Anyway, we finally got lined up correctly and I did my pattern and landings, both full flap and no flap. My IP did some demos of PPEL(P) and LAPL(P) which I don't have to learn until the next block, but its good to know. He coached me through one of the PPEL(P)s and it wasn't as bad as I thought. The high point of the flight was my landings. I can set that plane down without feeling a single bump. I just feel the wheel start spinning. Even the RDO commented. Having had such a bad time with the runway incident, this was a welcome change. On all the landings I had been calling "gear down, paddles checked" on final. The last landing, however, for some reason, I didn't look at the paddles. Well....the landing before that my IP had waved at them meaning to make the next one a wave off. I missed the waving paddles and landed anyway. Now I owe the petty officer a 6 pack of Michelob for missing him. I called number one upwind departing and this time I immediately raised my gear. I'm finally on the ball with that one. Heading back to Whiting, I didn't think of what runway I was landing again and started going for point delta which is where I am used to going. Since we were landing runway 14 we had to go to charlie. I'm making it an effort now to actually think about how I'm going to land. When we got back, we debriefed and he explained exactly what I needed to do to get 5s next time. I got two 5s for my landings, a couple of twos for those stupid errors I made, and the rest split between 3s and 4s. He said I was still ahead of things, but to keep it up and not to rest on my laurels. Um...ok. I didn't think I had any laurels to rest on. He said it was a good flight overall and gave me some pointers and I expect to follow them for FAM 6. He told me my time from "preflight checklist" to take off was too long at 22 minutes. He wants it under 20 minutes. His star onwing does it in 15. Next time I'll see how fast I can do it while still feeling safe.
     Friday I didn't get to fly because of weather and it was a nice day off. Those poor souls who had BI or RI flights still had to go up. They weren't too happy. FAM 6 is tomorrow and I'm finally flying with my onwing again. I haven't flown with him since FAM 4 which was like 3 weeks ago. Hopefully he'll think I've advanced somewhat.