Riddller

So I just talked to one of the higher-ups here at IFS and got some info which might be interesting to you future and current CSO/Navs wanting pilot slots. It was different enough that I felt justified in starting a new thread. This information is current as of 13 June 2007. 1: The first combined CSO/pilot class at IFS will be reporting at the end of the summer. They will all be in the same class and go through the same syllabus. All CSOs will eventually be coming here before UNT. 2: If a CSO student is great at navigating around but sucks at landings, the IFS people have no idea if they will wash them out or not. 3: If there is a CSO student who turns out to be the next Chuck Yaeger (sp?) and can fly circles around every other student (pilot OR CSO selectee) in the class, there will still be NO CROSSING THE STREAMS!!! A CSO/Nav student CANNOT get a pilot slot here, and a pilot student CANNOT get a Nav slot here. AFPC can still, of course, do whatever they want whenever they want... ----HOWEVER--- These first few classes of CSOs will have their records annotated that they completed IFS for BOTH pilot and navigator. This means that if you are a CSO/Nav who applies to the AD board later on in your career and gets selected, you do NOT have to come back to IFS. You can go straight to UPT. 4: If you are a current Nav planning on going to UPT, you WILL come to IFS first if your UPT start date is more than about 6-9 months away from now. Even if you already completed NIFT. 5: In another 6-9 months or so, from now, CSOs will go through a different syllabus from the pilots, one with fewer rides. These graduates will NOT have their records annotated that they completed IFS for both pilot and Nav. Therefore if they get picked up for UPT later, they will have to come back to IFS and complete the pilot syllabus before attending UPT. They are still inventing the wheel here, so this stuff may change, but this is the current plan. If you have any more questions about this stuff, post them while I'm still at IFS (until the end of June). We see the higher-ups at roll-call and what-not all the time, and they have no problem talking about their plans for this place with us. Hope this helps!!

Another fine day for flying!! My flight went good again, except for those stinkin' steep turns again!! I was fine a few weeks ago, and now they're back to crap!! Oh well, maybe next time. Also, this plane seems a bit more squirrelly when slipping it down for a landing than the -172 was... or maybe I just need to replace the nut that holds the stick! Had some more storms this afternoon, and they're talking about moving our brief time up to 0510 (ugggh!!) to get us done earlier in the afternoon to avoid this problem. The problem is the chow hall doesn't open until 0530. If they change it, they have to reschedule ALL the civilian employees working there. We'll see... Found out some fantastic news today... I have Netflix at home, but wasn't about to change the mailing address for it (some people do, but my wife would probably be miffed). Anyway, Netflix now has a ton of movies available via streaming video! FREE if you have a subscription already!! I don't want to sound like an add for them, but considering the CRAPPY selection of movies and T.V. channels here, I've been bored as hell every evening. This is seriously good news for me!! Later!

Wahoo!! Started flying again today. I was scheduled for the last flights of the day, but saw this morning that the weather was supposed to get crappy. We had a guy get sick, though, who was supposed to fly at around noon. I let the scheduler know that I was behind a number of other students in the syllabus AND the weather was supposed to be bad for my flight. So, I surreptitiously suggested (50 cent word!!) that he schedule me for a double turn. He did it, but the weather was too bad for my second go. I at least got to fly once though!! This flight went great as well. I had a blast and got to know my new IP. We shot the $hit a bit between touch-and-go's and generally had a good time. The new class checked in yesterday and had their first round of briefings/classes today. It looks like they're following the same pattern as my class did at the beginning. You can read the beginning of the blog for all that. Formal brief is still at 0610 every morning, and usually lasts until 0645-0700, with one or two students being called for stand-ups each morning. Usually it is one emergency procedure, and they let the 1st student take it until about halfway through. Then, if he's doing good, they will say, "OK, Lt Shmuckatelly, you can have a seat. Lt Bag-o-doughnuts, you have the aircraft. You may take over where Lt Shmuckatelly left off, or can change anything you want." If you're not doing so hot, they can either say, "Lt Shmuckatelly, remain standing, Lt Bag-o-doughnuts, you have the aircraft." or, "Sit down Lt Shmuckatelly. Lt Bag-o-doughnuts, you have the aircraft." After brief, if you're flying right away, you start briefing with your IP. If not, you mission-plan for your flight, sit it on other briefs, go to the gym, or go to the cockpit trainer room to chair-fly. They don't really keep track of you otherwise. Then, everybody is released when the last flight returns and are debriefing (you have to finish your debrief if you were on the last flight... obviously!!). We were done at 1530 today because of the weather. So, that's still life in the flight phase at IFS, not a big deal!! Post questions if you have them...3 (or so) weeks and counting!!

So we're supposed to start flying again tomorrow, we'll see. Most of the new class has made it in by now, a bunch of people in my class have been grabbing them and giving them the nickle tour. Friday was nice, we were done by 0800, so most went back to sleep. I went out and grabbed a pony keg and grilled out for dinner again, good times!! Then a bunch of us went out on the town. It was dead!! There were hardly any people in the bars, and it was pretty slim pickings for the guys looking to hook up. Oh well... Saturday was spent just chillin'. I did get permission to hand out a bunch of information to those wanting to study ahead of time... All this stuff will be given to you when you get here, but if you want to look at it now, feel free. The website is: www.jnav.com username is: doss password is: ifs Later!!

Yup, they've talked about that quite a bit! Doss is doing everything they can to salvage this. They've even talked about getting us new (and different) aircraft! They're really worried about having a repeat of the T-3 incidents, so they're being super-cautious. This is all be handled at the 2-3 star level from what we've been told.

Still no flying, but here's an update: There's 14 students left in the senior class. 10 of them are having their last flights waived and will be leaving tomorrow. The other 4 will roll back to my class to do their last few flights. They (DOSS) have 7 aircraft that have never had any problems. They're going to take those 7 aircraft and give them each 8-10 FCFs (Functional Checkflights). Assuming they all run good, they'll use them to start flying us again on Monday. This is still too few aircraft to get us out of here on time, so graduation will probably be pushed a week. They also took away our solo flights. They said we'll go up and "fly the solo flight, but you'll have an IP in the left seat." Wow. That's the military for you... So they're using up our time in the mornings with briefings, and want to start using the afternoons for flag-football or paintball. Fine with me! Later!

Very nice! There's a bunch of good people in your class, should be a good time! We've only got one girl in my class, and one in the previous class, so don't be surprised if your "..one of..." turns into just "...the one..."! See 'ya Sunday!

MOST of the people here are in the same boat as your friend. They might just have to study a bit harder to remember stuff that might not make sense to them when they learn it. It's much easier to remember stuff if you already have a point of reference. Tell them not to worry about it, and if the have any questions, ask them in class or ask the more experienced guys from their class or mine. Not a big deal, that's what this place is here for!!

No flying again. They say the soonest we'll start again is Friday, but it might not be until next week. So, I guess I'll wait to make another post until then. If it's past Wednesday and this is still the latest post, then that's why. We did lose another student today. Same as before, flying just didn't do it for him, so he said "No thanks". He's a great guy too, and everyone in the class wishes him the best of luck. Down to 26 now... And counting... The next class shows up on Sunday. A bunch of friends of mine are in that one too, so it should be interesting. They're supposed to have 30 students, so they'll be the new "biggest class ever". Later!

1: Yup, they show us civilian sectionals in academics, but you never actually use them when flying or flight planning. They hand out in-flight guides to everyone which has all the stuff you need, namely a print-off of a TPC chart with PFPS overlays of the working areas. If you don't know what all that means, don't worry about it. You just use it. They also have IFS-specific approach plates which tell you when to call who on what frequencies, and how to get everywhere. 2: Areas 1-6 are 10-17 DME off the PUB VOR/DME, 14 radials wide, to the south. There's more areas to the south of those, same radials, and like 17-23 DME and 23-28 DME (I think). Once again, don't worry about it, they give you everything you need when you get here. 3: IFS traffic normally uses the small runway while other traffic uses the larger one. Regardless, IFS traffic still has an upwind, crosswind, downwind, base, and final, they're just rounded. Deconfliction is accomplished the same way it is at any other airport, via the tower controllers. The tower does normally have split frequencies though. One for the south side (normally IFS traffic) and one for the north side (normally other traffic, but IFS traffic can be sent there too). when you come in for the initial, they just work you into the pattern. You only fly to the initial for your FIRST pattern of the flight. After that, you stay in the normal traffic pattern. This is assuming you fly out to a training area first, then back for pattern work. Half of the IFS aircraft do that, while the other half do pattern work first (everyone usually takes off one after the other, 5 times a day, usually 10 aircraft at a time). Halfway through the flight, those in the pattern go out to the traning areas, while those in the training areas come back for pattern work. If you do pattern work first, you go straight into a crosswind after takeoff, and do your thing for ~30 minutes. Coming back from the training area afterwards, you just fly to the initial for a full-stop. Anybody reading the preceding paragraph and not having the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about, DON'T WORRY! After one week at IFS it will make perfect sense to you. It's easy and it's not a big deal.

No idea! Sorry!

No flying again today. They're not sure when the engines will be fixed, seems to be a fuel control problem. So, we're all hanging out until then. We had some random briefs, then were done by 1400. They mentioned something to the effect of possibly extending our time here so we can finish, if and when they get the stuff fixed. It might be a few days, it might be a few weeks, until it's all taken care of. Oh well! Livin' the dream in the Dirty P!!

Didn't get to fly today. There were two separate engine failures during touch-and-go's (they pushed up power to takeoff and the engines died) this morning, so they grounded the fleet for the day. Oh well. We were done at 1230, had PT at 1500 (circuit training, then dodgeball), and now it's time to grill some burgers and tap the keg!! Later!

Had our first official casualty of the course today. He wasn't sure about doing the pilot thing in the first place, and after a few flights here, he found out it just wasn't his thing. I've got a lot of respect for him because he studied is butt off, did great on the tests and had no problems in the plane. He gave a 100% effort and figured out it just wasn't for him. He's on the road now, headed home, and his base is working to find him another job, no hard feelings. Down to 27... Had my third flight today. Everything went great again, had a blast. Finally got that sight-picture down for the steep turns, but need a touch more rudder control coming out of the stalls. We did a bunch of forward-slips into a landing, and another no-flap landing. Maybe I'm imagining things, but I'm a big guy with big feet, and I felt like my boot was catching on something while putting in that boot-full of rudder for the slips, preventing me from putting in full rudder. Oh well, I'll work on it... Flying again tomorrow, but with a different IP this time. They like you to have experience with at least one other IP, but if you get too many different IPs, they start looking at it as a disadvantage for the student. They want at least some continuity. My guy tomorrow is a former Marine too!! (civilan now) We joked that we could throw in the occasional "KILL!!!" after our radio calls! Went and bought a gas grill with some class money today. We'll leave it here so all you future classes can use it. We're gonna grab some beer and have the kitchen give us some burgers to burn tomorrow evening. Should be a good time! The weather's been great. Some rain, but a lot of sunshine otherwise, with morning temps around 45 and climbing to the mid 80's in the afternoon. This place ain't so bad at all!! As long as you study your stuff and are prepared to fly, everyone is pretty cool! For those of you soon to come here, don't expect people screaming at you and a lot of mickey-mouse B.S. They teach you what you need to know, and expect you to study it enough to remember it, that's it!! Seems reasonable, and I've definitely been in worse... Some more reccomendations: 1: If you can get a hold of a helmet bag, they're very nice to haul your books to the classroom and you're stuff to the plane. 2: If you want to bring your own headset, you can, they use the standard GA plug-ins. They have very nice Dave Clark headsets on the plane for you, though, so don't go buy a cheap headset before you come. If you have an ENC (Electronic Noise Cancellation) headset though, I would reccomend you bring that. I love mine!! 3: If you're a picky sleeper, bring a queen-size foam pad to put on top of the bed, and maybe your own pillows if you don't like the hotel-style ones. If you use their pillow cases, they'll change them out for you. 4: A lot of people brought contact-paper to "laminate" some of the charts and checklists. They like it, but I haven't seen the need. 5: I was able to print off new copies of the checklists and cut them down to fit in the "nice" plastic sleeves, and I like it. Supposedly if you spray hairspray on the paper pages first, the print won't transfer to the inside of the plastic sleeves. Neat trick! 6: Bring a camera. Take lots of pictures. If you want pictures while in-flight, do it on your first ride. That's your real freebie. All the rest of the flights you'll probably be too busy to ask the IP to take the controls while you make like a tourist. That's about it for now, I'll post more as I think of them! Later!

We were told classes starting Oct 1, '07 or later would be doing this. They also cut 10% off the flight time in UPT.

Sorry about not posting yesterday, I was beat and went to sleep early! The long weekend was nice, slept in a bunch and did some studying. People were allowed to leave the area as long as they were within 3 hours of Pueblo. Had my second flight yesterday, went great again. The sight picture of where to put the horizon when you're doing steep turns, slow flight, stalls, etc... is very different from the Cessna 172. Those with a PPL already will know what I'm talking about, for those with no flight experience, don't worry about it. I'm not flying today, so am spending my time studying some more. We had an interesting brief from the commander of 19AF yesterday. He owns 95% of the training in the AF, both flying and otherwise. Some interesting facts: 1: The number of T-38 slots at UPT will be going down in the next year or two, too many fighter pilots I guess. 2: They are no longer going to track-select for T-38's vs. T-1's at the end of T-6 training. They are going to do it in the MIDDLE of T-6 training now. This means the T-6 guys who will be going to T-38's will start doing more "fighter stuff", like large formation flying, and those going to T-1's will start doing more "heavy stuff" (I'm not really sure what that means), all while still flying T-6's. 3: They've had too many people who have done really well in T-6's ask to fly heavies. Typically, they want the "best pilots" (don't get me started) to fly fighters. If you're the #1 pilot, in the past they have almost always given you you're first choice when track-selecting, even if it was heavies. Now, they will still give you you're first choice, but only if your first choice is fighters. 4: For you Raptor-pilot wannabes, they will start taking students straight out of UPT soon. Starting the summer of '07 (I think) they will select 2 T-38 students from each UPT base, for a total of 8, and one T-38 FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot). They will send all 9 to Randolph for IFF (Intro to Fighter Fundamentals). Out of those 9, they will take the top 4 to fly the F-22. The other 5 will get to fly the F-15 and try for the Raptor later. 2 of the 4 will go fly the F-16 for a few months, and the other 2 will fly the F-15 for a few months. After they "get used to a 9-g airplane" while flying with an IP, they'll get sent to the F-22. All the F-22's are single seat, so they don't want to have a guy who's only flown the T-38 to hop into a $220 million aircraft by himself, which is the reason they're starting out with the F-16's and F-15's. After those 4 make it through, they will determine if all the future new F-22 pilots will go through the F-16 or the F-15. I would NOT want to be one of those four!! Every Col. and General in their ENTIRE chain of command will probably want DAILY progress reports on each of the four!! (This coming from the 2-star who briefed us) That's it from the Dirty-P for today!! (Dirty-P is a reference to Pueblo, for those of who who didn't get it)

Nope, not at all. There's a checklist you have to fill out and e-mail to IFS. In it, you say if you need them to supply you with the gear and the sizes. Not a big deal!

Not a problem! Thanks!

There's a guy here now who's 6'5". His head touches the canopy. If you meet the AF regs to be a pilot, you should be good to go. I'm 6'1", and I have my own headset with a battery pack for my lip-light on the top of my headset. It brushes the canopy sometimes, but is all right. The biggest thing is my back friggin' hurts after a 1.4 hour flight. Bring a small pillow for lumbar support if you think you'll need it. Weatherman, you should be OK. The 6'5" guy we have now was a former combat weatherman too! What is it with you guys?

Didn't fly on Friday, but I'm on the schedule Tuesday. Studied a bunch during the day, sat in on some briefs and debriefs, watched others pre-flight the aircraft, and helped some people learn their radio calls. The senior class had their solo party in the afternoon. They basically sat in their flight room drinking beer with their IPs and having funny stories told about them. Some of our class sat in on it (we were all invited, but most were busy, and we couldn't have any of their beer). A bunch of us went out to Red Lobster then saw Pirates 3. Fantastic!! I thought it was great... Then we came back and drank in our bar for a while before crashing. Slept in late this morning, very nice!! We have Monday off, so I'm relaxing for a few days... If anyone is interested, I've posted some pictures on the gallery here