So, I'm back. I had some friends who wanted a better idea of what it was like at UPT, and the blogs they found out there just weren't doing it, so now I'll blog UPT as well!

I'm in class 09-05 at Vance AFB. Today was our "official" start date, so now I'm in Phase 1, academics. We're supposed to be done with Phase 1 on 10 March, then we'll move to the flightline and start flying the T-6 in Phase 2. The end of Phase 2 is scheduled for 22 July, and the end of Phase 3 (and winging) on 12 Feb 09.

First, I was on casual status here for almost 2 months, and let me just say, casual duty here is MONEY! Mon-Wed-Fri we show up at 0800 in PT gear at the OSS, sit in the office watching T.V. and B.S.'ing for an hour, go to the gym for two hours, then go home. Tu-Th we're on "telephone standby", meaning we don't come in at all. It doesn't get much better!

So today was almost exactly like the first day at IFS. We had to show up in Service Dress (for the class picture) at 0800 where we then received briefings from the Wing and Squadron commanders (the OG/CC gave us his spiel yesterday). Same stuff: "Welcome to Vance, you're lucky to be here, don't F-it up." You'd be surprised at some of the stories they had about the dumb stuff previous students have done to screw up their time here! Mostly alcohol related. We also had briefings from Wing Safety, SARC (sexual assault stuff), and the Mission Support Group commander. Lunch was pizza with the class ahead of us, they gave us some gouge and the VADD cell-phone (Vance Against Drunk Driving: the junior class has to have someone with the phone every evening in case any drunk officers need a ride home). We were done by 1600.

I seem to be in a pretty cool, if older, class. We've got 4 Captains and 2 1st Lt's and another 4 or 5 of us with prior-E experience! Included in all that are 3 C-130 Navs and one F-15 WSO, so a bunch of military flight time too! We've also got 6 Navy Ensigns in our class, but no Marines, which I guess is unusual, and we also don't have any women in my flight, which is also unusual I'm told. Our first get-together was a bar-b-que at my place last Friday, which was a blast. I'd just finished making my kegerator and got the pool-table leveled, so good times were had by all! We've been told numerous times that more your class hangs together, the better everyone does, so I think we're off to a good start!

Uniform for academics is blues every day until everyone gets 3 consecutive boldface/OPS limits test perfect, then it'll be into flight suits for the rest of the time. T-6 Driver .com has those tests if you're interested in seeing what one looks like.

So that's all I can think of at the moment, if you have any specific questions, feel free to post a comment!