Not Searching for Something, Anymore.

This blog was born almost three years ago. I began it for many reasons. The most important of which was it gave me a place to gather my thoughts, talk about what I'd done that day or how I'd felt, and was sort of like a best friend in that I could open up as much as I wanted on a daily basis and it was always there to listen.

For the longest time I was searching for something, something that I guess in its simplest form could be referred to as love. Although I thought I knew what it was, I wasn't sure what it truly felt like or how or even if I would find it.

This blog has helped carry me through lengthy periods of lonliness, during which I was entirely uncertain on whether I'd spend my future romantically or in solitude. There were also periods where I questioned what I was doing in life, and whether I'd be happy doing it for many years. Eventually this blog followed me through some major decisions, and detailed the changes I went through as a result.

As I see it, the original major purposes for this blog are no longer factors. I no longer have the urge to sit down at my computer and babble on for pages and pages. Now, I yearn to pick up the phone, or flip on the webcam and bust open a chat window, and talk to an actual genuine human being about all I would have babbled about in this blog and more.

For those who have used this blog as a learning tool as they go through the process of joining or living out their lives in the USAF, I apologize for preventing you from continuing to do so. I do invite you however to contact me via any of the methods to the right with any questions you may have although I currently am only just under halfway through the JSUNT program, including future aspects of the program or USAF that I will eventually discover. As time passes I'll always be glad to entertain queries about life in the Air Force and as a Navigator in particular.

Six months ago, I made a decision to begin a relationship with someone I felt was a perfect match for me. On the date of this post, I realized a lifelong dream of proposing to someone whom I loved; someone I knew loved me equally in return. The final portion of that dream is of course that individual's affirmative response, and as it turned out that happened in real life as well.

I've rarely used names in this blog, but for once I'd like the world to know how special Cheryl is, and how happy I am that we'll be spending our lives together. Never have I been more sure of anything.

Following my JSUNT graduation in February, sometime between then and the end of spring will be the official ceremony, taking place in Orlando, Florida, for reasons obvious to most.

I know not what else to say, other than I wish all of you luck in finding that special someone if you haven't already, and congratulations if you're as lucky as I.

Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure.

This is Matthew P. Wilson, signing off.

Maybe the Longest Gap Ever?

I really must apologize to those who are used to more regular postings. Things are just different now. I'll update what's happened in Nav school the last couple weeks in this post, and the one following this one will be announcing a change of sorts in this site.

So we started SN a couple weeks ago. I would have posted more regularly about it except for the fact that the academics were just dull and boring. Several hours a day staring at powerpoint slides learning about stuff that would be much easier to learn hands on. Eventually we got some time in a Computer Based Training (CBT) class to play around with the radar, but due to the sims being full we didn't get the hands on training with taking radar fixes and what not that most classes do, putting us at a disadvantage going into the first sim having never actually seen the radar in action.

The first sim went somewhat well, although I was certainly out of my comfort zone when it came to being on top of things all the time. There was a lot of stuff added in with both the Radar and the INS making an appearance in our checklists and general procedures, and I certainly was a lot busier. I scored pretty well given it was the first sim, although as usual I felt I could have done better. This was especially true when it came to our first flight.

They ended up sending us on a different routing than we'd planned due to a Military Operations Area going active in our path, so we had to literally navigate on the fly towards points we hadn't prepped for. In reality this is exactly the type of stuff we'll be doing in the Real World(tm) but we'll have much more advance equipment to help us and will be doing less by hand. I also randomly got assigned lead on the way out, so I was the one in control of turning the jet all the way to the turnpoint. In the midst of trying to figure out how to take radar fixes on the much weaker scope in the jet in comparison with the sim, I managed to not kill enough of the drift continuously and we wandered at least 10 miles north of course on the way out to the turnpoint. Eventually I corrected the error with a big correction back to the turnpoint, and ended up hitting it almost exactly, and rolling out within a mile of the return course. Luckily for me after passing the lead to someone else they immediately made a correction 12 degrees in the wrong direction, sending us somewhere around 20 miles off course to help everyone forget about my gaffe previously. Highlight of the mission for me was not missing a single altitude call, which is a 4 that is always difficult to get. That and a perfect EP quiz and flight and fuel plan left me with a pretty good feeling coming out, and I ended up with 1 more 4 than I did 3's, which was better than I expected for my first flight.

We have another four or five flights and another five or six sims however, so I still have a lot of work to do and a lot of major mistakes to not make between now and the scarf drop. The final academic hiccup was hurdled today with the SN academic test. It was 40 questions which is many more than usual, but in my opinion that helped because missing one wouldn't drop your percentage as much as previously. As it turned out my studying all the review questions continuously during the academic classes paid off, as I managed my 3rd 100 of the course. Those go along with my four minus 1 grades, so I'll need to ace the next one to even out my average at something like 98 point something. There are people that have been acing their way through for the most part, but hopefully that's good enough for somewhere in the upper middle or whatnot. It's the flights and sims that I feel will be the point where I gain ground, so I'll just have to make sure to prepare as much as I have been for those. It is a damn good feeling getting 100 though, you know that you didn't lose ground to anyone in the rankings, and better yet you gained ground or increased the gap on a whole lot of people.

The girlfriend is making an appearance tomorrow night for the weekend, the last time I will see her before she returns to Germany until Christmas or so, a five month gap. It won't be easy, but we knew that in advance.

As aforementioned, significant changes announced in the next post, probably Sunday or Monday.

FN in a Nutshell.
 
Ok so I really should never get this far behind again.  Man is it a daunting task to try to catch up.  This post will basically sum up the last few weeks of FN so if you're interested in Nav school read on, if not skip to the next one.

When last I talked a bunch about it I'd just had my first full tasking sim.  T2401 or T2FAIR01 as many people call it is the first sim during which you have to do basically everything at once.  To that point you've done departures and arrivals, and you've done some enroute nav, and in separate computer ground missions you've done all the chart and log work, but 2401 is the first time you put it all together and do a full mission.  It certainly wasn't easy, but I managed to get through the whole thing with eight 4's out of a possible twenty with the rest 3's.  Felt pretty good about it, 2's abounded on various other gradesheets.

After that came our 3rd and 4th flights in the jet, which were basically the same as the second but on different routes.  I actually got to fly three of the four routes during FN, so I won't have to worry about being totally clueless when it comes to hitting some of those routes in other phases.  The third flight was actually pretty significant as I was S9, which meant I was in charge for the entire return portion of the mission.  After the turnpoint S5 called over the radio asking if I was ready for the lead, and as usual me saying "Roger I have the lead" was quite a neato feeling.  A few minutes later I ordered a turn and a 50 ton jet immediately obeyed.  Not that I'm power tripping or anything but you know how guys are with their toys.  Sadly on this one I realized how important comms are, as I missed just one thousand to level call out of about thirty comms we had to make , and that dropped me from a 4 to a 3 in that category.  Overall on that one got ten 4's out of 19 possible.  On the fourth flight which was the one immediately prior to the checkflight I blew all previous scoresheets away by scoring sixteen 4's out of a possible 19, basically having a near perfect flight.  I was well into the swing of things by then, and was even having time to look out the window and enjoy the view from six miles up.

Then came the check flight.  Between the check flight and the check sim, that is a huge chunk of the grading for this phase.  I started off bad missing an EP, and continued bad by being outside the 4 margin of error on my fuel.  I then missed two altitude calls enroute, and I guess the added stress was having an effect.  At one point I glanced at my gradesheet when he was leaning over and grading a fix, and all I saw were several 3's at the top.  Not at all what I was hoping to receive on the flight.  As it was afterwards, it turned out the first seven scores were 3's, but later in the debrief I pointed out an error in the computer gradesheet and had one changed to a 4.  The good news was all the rest of the scores were 4's, giving me 13 out of 19.  The most exciting thing about it was I passed, as failing a checkride of any type is always really bad news.  I'd hoped for a few more 4's, but I couldn't complain all that loudly.  My first check of any kind of nav school was over, but throughout my career they'll always be marked as times of increased stress.

Then came our 5th sim out of 7, with the last eventually being the checkride.  On this one I managed during the spin to mismeasure a distance by over 120 miles.  We use the dividers to measure distances but they only span about 200, so for more than that you usually span out about 60 or 120 and then "walk" them down the courseline and add it all up to get the total.  Well I spanned 120 and then counted 102 or so beyond that, but just forgot to add in the original 120, so I had 102 instead of 222 for the ground distance on that line.  Word to the wise always use your plotter to double check all your distances, it only takes about 30 seconds total and is accurate enough that you'll spot these gross errors.  The good news is I recovered to have perfect comms in the sim, and overall ended up with an outstanding sixteen 4's out of 20 my best on a sim to that point.

Up next was the 6th sim, which is used to make sure we're ready for the checksim.  Pretty uneventful sim in general, with the only highlight being someone in my four person group busting the EP quiz and thus fairing the ride before it even started, never a good idea.  One of my only mistakes must have been fat fingering my NCS present position for where we took off, because the first time I plotted it on the chart it was off by like three degrees of longitude, so it wasn't even on the map.  Other than that I had another outstanding sim, and scored my highest to that point with seventeen 4's out of 20.

Then came everyone's greatest fear, the checksim.  Checkflights are somewhat stressful, as everything you're doing is being looked at under a microscope, but the routes are really straight line out and back, and the pilot's fly the departure and approach so you're really not responsible for all that much.  In the sim, a totally different story.  You make all the calls, you run the departure and approach, and you're doing all the log and chart work along the way.  Because of the exactness they can control of things such as wind, in the sim you are only allowed a corridor of ten miles either side of centerline.  If your max deviation is more than 10 miles, even 10.1, you have faired the ride and will have to reperform it the next day.  Worse yet is we spin thte day before, so you'll actually spin for a new one the next day, and then check the day after that, when you normally would have had two days off.  Sucks to be those guys.  Going into our spin we knew that three people from A section had bombed it and would be respinning the same day as us, so we were all really trying to not be that guy.

Our spin was dead silent for the entire 100 minutes, as we all tried to figure out what horrible error we had made prior to timing running out.  There were some major issues with some people, from misplotting a point by a full degree of latitude or longitude, to putting all the true courses under mag and converting the wrong way, to highlighting the wrong high elevation point even though Mt Whitney as the highest in the continental US (climbed it previously) was near centerline, to miscalculating fuel by a thousand pounds, to having a total time off by over 10 minutes... There really was a laundry list of stuff that everyone did wrong.  It's just the added stress of knowing every single thing is important I guess.  Interestingly enough the hit on my chart that dropped me down to a 3 was that I didn't draw my concentric circles around my emergency airfields with a template, and instead did them freehand.  Nowhere does it say a template is a requirement in our training manual, but apparently that's the way we were taught.  That's one of those mistakes you only make once I guess, although I really don't feel it even matters.  Even more so, that it certainly doesn't matter enough to drop me to a 3, the same score many people who had horrible misplots got.  My flight plan and fuel plan were error free though, which is always possible but amazing hard to achieve at times.  You always think you were fine, but being off by just .2 on the fuel or +-2 on many of the flight plan sections like drift instantly drops you out of the 4 range.

The checksim itself was definitely the first time I began noticing the effect stress was having on me.  I made some really REALLY stupid mistakes near the beginning as I was trying to work into my comfort zone.  Unfortunately our route when compared with A sections was much more complicated, with an almost immediate step up altitude at departure, and an arc for an approach instead of a straight in.  Very early on I forgot to switch frequencies and called Tower again instead of Departure to report my altitude once safely airborne.  Upon switching to Departure I was then so flustered about jacking that up that my call was "Gator 03 level with you at 318.6" which was the frequency rather than the altitude, which would have made a whole lot more sense.  Enroute was pretty uneventful, my only hit was putting the wrong times on my unscheduled alter points on the chart, although they were fine on the log.  Coming back down though I was so focused on my point to point calculations to get to the Initial Approach Fix (IAF) because that is what I'd screwed up the day prior that I totally blew right through the altitude calls as we came down to the 3,000 altitude from 33,000.  It takes several minutes to get down there, and if you get focused on something else on the way down it's easy to end up missing that instrument in your scan.  From what I heard though nearly everyone missed those calls.

Coming out I felt relatively good about how I'd score, because I was basically positive I didn't bust corridor, miss the IAF by more than 3 miles, or do any of the other things people usually end up busting the ride for.  I knew I'd probably take a hit for crew coordination for the missed calls and jacked up frequencies, but those were the only errors I could come up with.  As it was I was later surprised with a couple more including those concentric circles and miswritten times on the unscheduled alter, but amazingly enough those were my only three hits.  I scored seventeen 4's out of 20, tying my highest score ever, and I'd done it on the most important sim of all thus far.  My scoresheet for FN is now complete, and strung across the bottom of the page is an Excellent on every line.  Better yet in the entire phase combined I only received four 2's, with those all coming on early rides.  Then came 77 3's, which is a whole lot, but thankfully the number of 4's was much higher at 134.  Not quite twice as many 3's as 4's, but that's somewhat deceiving, as in the two events that are most heavily weighed I received 30 4's and 9 3's. 

These last couple days I've been feeling pretty damn good about my progress in nav school thus far.  I basically got through the entire FN phase without screwing anything major up.  My gradesheet is pretty close to spotless thanks to my strong performance of late, and I did very well on the two events that will count the most towards class ranking.  On academic tests I've still never missed more than one, which should place me relatively decently in that category as well.  There's a whole lot of red ink on our flight room board at the moment, with basically a lot of names of people who either got a 2 on something when a 3 was required on these later rdies, or are on the Commander Awareness Program for Officership or Academic purposes, or various other negative things.  Thus far I've avoided having my name on the board for anything other than having to pay a quarter for a couple gradesheet errors.  We've had Thursday and Friday off, so I'm on the 3rd day of a 4 day weekend, and thus finally able to relax and catch up on this blog.

My goals for the first few months of nav school have been relatively simple.  Rank high enough in the class by the end of Systems Navigation (SN the next phase that will be six weeks long) that I won't have to go the EWO track, something I've decided is definitely not a good fit for me.  My other was to not screw anything up in a big way.  Thus far I've achieved both of those goals.  In the next week or two they're going to pull us aside and go over our folders and let us know where we stand in the class, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the situation is.  One thing I keep forgetting that is actually quite important is of the top few people in the class, some of them might go EWO after SN, and thus they won't be competing for the same slots I will.

We're down to 32 nav student sin our class due to people rolling and dropping out.  After SN in about six weeks we'll lose the EWO's, something like 5-6 of them putting us at 27.  After Global Navigation (GN) we'll lose the Navy guys, who were never competing with us anyway, which means 9 more drop off putting us at 18.  If anyone else rolls which is likely between now and the end, the number will be even smaller.  From what I've heard, by the end of SN the rankings are pretty tough to sway in any real direction, as the people on top tend to stay there unless they choke on something huge.  It's a lot easier to fall down in a hurry than climb up basically, so I'm ecstatic that the initial tough phase has gone so well.

Interestingly enough, there was another side effect of performing well lately.  Yesterday I was stopping by the flight office to check the board and my flight commander told me to come in and close the door, which caused instant fear to ripple through my brain.  As it turned out it was for a "coronation" of sorts.  Our initial section leader had been removed from the position a few weeks prior, for reasons I'm not really sure.  They then passed the job over to a guy who was A section's leader before rolling into our class, so he already knew the duties.  Apparently he bombed the checksim the first time around, and I'm not sure how the second time went, all I know is that I guess my cc thought he didn't need extra duties slowing him down.  He actually has a wife and family so I can totally understand that, I have no idea how I'd get through nav school while trying to juggle all that at home.

So there you have it, yours truly is now the B section leader.  It's a double edged sword really.  It's a spotlight, which means good things when it comes to ranking and visibility in front of the flight commander which will eventually count in the grand scheme of things.  Unfortunately, it will also be an even bigger spotlight if I screw anything up.  It is now infintesimally more important that I'm on time to everything, and don't do anything stupid.  And basically if anyone else does anything stupid then it falls on me to take the blame and eventually solve the problem.  I'm excited that my cc has faith in me, but I'm wondering which edge of the double edged sword will be sharpest.

So there you have it, the last few weeks in a nutshell.  Expect another post soon about the workings on the social side of my life outside the squadron.  Things are good.  Really good.

Erm...
 
Okay so I'm still a bit behind.  A bit meaning truckloads.  Well here's the story.  This morning we have the spin for our checksim, the most important graded event thus far in nav school.  Tomorrow we have the actual checksim.  That by itself is worth something like 25% of the graded measures of this phase.  The check flight was worth 25%, the rest of the graded measures combined (about 15 or something) are worth 25%, and the academic tests are worth 25%.  On top of all that comes a flight commander ranking which you can't really plan on, but those are the hard numbers.
 
So anyway, after tomorrow, I'll be done with the Fundamentals of Navigation (FN) phase completely, apparently the hardest phase in Nav school.
 
We then have Thursday and Friday off, and I'll be using at least part of that four day weekend to update this blog.  A truckload of mushy stuff, and a huge recap of the nav school events of late.

Still Alive, and Loving It.
 
Okay so we'll be catching up with posts over the next few days.  She left today, sadly, but will probably be making a return soon on various upcoming weekends so not all is lost.
 
Since the last post I've had three flights and another difficult sim, so there will be plenty to chat about.
 
That and all the gross couple stuff we did I'm sure you're just dying to hear.
 
I'll actually try to split it up into Nav stuff and couple stuff in different posts for the various audiences' viewing pleasure.  Stay tuned.

Go Figure, Plans Change.

So not much happened this four day weekend, other than getting news on Sunday that my girlfriend had swindled me into thinking otherwise and in fact would be arriving Tuesday night at midnight and staying for a full eight days before leaving to visit her family in Florida.

So yeah, we had the hardest sim so far and did some other stuff, but with flights tomorrow and the next day and a girlfriend to spend time with, I'm not going to be posting much. Hopefully will have time for a blurb now and then about gross couple stuff.

Being Graded On Wing Flapping ...

Okay so when last I left you I was hyperventilating or something in between flight attempts. As it was the flight the next day when exceptionally well given the circumstances. Again we got a lightning within five warning early in the checklists, and again we sat on the runway for an hour. Unfortunately this time I had an instructor who had one student to focus on instead of two, so he just grilled me on various EPs and questions about the equipment while we waited. Fun stuff. It started off pretty bad as I'd volunteered to go get the lunches for someone else since they had never been and I had done it multiple times. Apparently this is a cardinal sin, as my instructor was waiting for me with a precanned "don't ever be stupid again" response when I boarded the plane. Better yet, when he opened his lunch his was minus a sandwich, causing him to throw the whole bag at the console and belt out various swear words in disgust. Always promising to have this going on right before he starts filling out your gradesheet.

As it was it was a pretty close to flawless flight with few mistakes. I could even tell at times he was trying to distract me with various tasks so that I would miss a clearance or altitude call, but I was wise to his tricks. Due to continuous weather as usual we only took the route out to point Bravo and made that the turnpoint, cramming a bunch of fixes and DR's in between. Eventually I came out with fifteen 4's out of a possible nineteen, which I was perfectly happy with. There was no rest for the weary though as we immediately had to get back for a horribly long test review that was a complete waste of my time. Nothing like 5am-6pm workdays with the last three hours being utterly pointless. I'm sure it helped some people who hadn't bothered studying or are just complete idiots in general but I would much rather have been able to talk to the girlfriend before she went to sleep with some of the time and used the rest to focus on what I actually felt I needed to study. As it was I ended up missing 1 on the actual test, due to as usual just a hiccup on the road to perfection, no real reason I should have missed the question I did. So my test scores are -1, -1, -1, -0, -0, -1 overall, although obviously the later ones are weighed more than the earlier ones. I can't complain that loudly except that I'm only somewhat in the upper middle of the pack, due to the number of people who have aced more tests than I have. I can only hope my flight and sim performance betters theirs.

Although I guess one thing I haven't mentioned is that Nav school has finally started taking its toll on some. The other section had their first DOR a couple days ago, a word most people shudder at. A "Drop On Request" in layman's terms means someone quit. For whatever reason, whether they couldn't cut it, or didn't want to cut it, they end up working a casual job in the squadron in BDUs until they bounce somewhere else in the Air Force into another job to fulfill their four year commitment. Most of us would never even ponder the option, but you'd be amazed how some people will talk an exorbitant amount of trash throughout the process of coming here about how great a navigator they will be, and then suddenly change their minds about what they're capable of, or what they want to do. I'm not talking about anyone in specific either, I've seen it happen on various levels in various classes.

Other than the DOR, we've had a couple people roll back for various reasons, and I personally feel at least a few more will soon follow. We've also had some test failures, which is never a good thing, and means you're talking to the Flight Commander for all the wrong reasons. Fail three and you find your way out of Nav school, but even less than that means you're finding your way to the bottom of the stack, and you'll get what's left when it comes to the drop.

Although we've taken the major academic test of the phase, we still have three flights as well as I believe four sims to go, and those are all major graded events. Seems like at least every other day we do some four hour event during which our every move is graded, I do feel a bit of pressure at times. A lot of what we do is timed, so you don't really have time to stop and say "crap what am I doing" without costing yourself huge overall. We lucked out in that we had a major sim prep Thursday afternoon and don't have the actual sim until Tuesday, so I'll have plenty of time to do some major prep work this weekend.

Next week's schedule is actually pretty crammed even though it's short. Tuesday I drew the noon sim instead of the 6am thank goodness, but we also fly both Thursday AND Friday. I actually find myself really looking forward to the flights, which I see as a really good thing. Although out in the force I hear you only fly 20-40 hours a month, I'm sure that's when I'll be happiest.

Finally crossing into July means the gf will be arriving in just a few short weeks, which is definitely promising. As usual nothing is for sure with leave and the military until pretty close to the actual date, but here's hoping.

Weather Cancellation.

Apparently a term I will learn to become quite familiar with. Nonstop thunderstorms in the area had us get all the way to about 5 seconds prior to starting engines in the checklist, then we had to hold for lightning within 5 miles for about an hour or so, then eventually we were cancelled. A full brief session, flight planning spin, and a couple more hours of prep, wasted on a no grade. Our show time was 11:30, and we just got back at 5:30. At least I got a flight lunch out of it.

The real party is that we now are hitching a ride with another class, half of us in each plane, so we don't fall behind the other half of our section whose morning flight went fine. That means 5:55am showtime. Hopefully this means the rest of our schedule won't get backed up, but nothing like a full day of flight and then having to come back for a test review for a couple hours, and then have to study for the major academic exam of the phase the next day on Wednesday. This should be fun.

Spread Your Wings, and Prepare to Fly.

The day I'd been waiting for since I entered the AF finally came on Friday. "Gator eight six alpha, cleared for takeoff runway one four left..." Eventually on my resume I'll have some block about having 1,000 or even 2,000 or 3,000 flight hours in various aircraft, but as of now that number stands at 2.9. There were really three favorite moments for me for that first flight. The first was as usual, just plugging in to the radio and hearing everyone's voices crackling over my headset, from the pilot to the guy in the seat next to me. It's like they have a channel into your brain, so you can hear them clearly even over the noise of the engines and whatever else. That and you can hear yourself, which isn't something you're used to hearing at a higher volume. One of the things we do in an early checklist is do a mic check through the plane, and you basically hear "I3 loud and clear, S10 loud and clear, S9 loud and clear" all the way up to the front to the pilots. The instructors are referred to by I, the students take up the positions S1-S12. S1 is "lead" which means a lot of the tasking falls on his shoulders, which can be either a good or bad thing. Generally S1 is responsible for navigating the departure and approach, S5 takes the outbound enroute leg, and S9 the inbound. I was S10 Friday, but since all we did was three different departures and approaches, we all ended up lead for one of the legs.

My second favorite moment came somewhere around level off at FL230 (Flight Level at 23,000 basically) when I got a chance to look out the window. Out there on the wing, high above the clouds, was the insignia that is on most Air Force aircraft. It was a pretty neat feeling to realize that I was in fact in a plane, thousands of feet in the air, and I was going to get to do this for a job, and even get paid. Basically it's like being accepted onto a team that's the world's best, and everyone loves being the best.

The third moment was during the changeover from the third departure to the third approach, when S9 came on the headset and said "S10 you have the lead." "Roger S10 has the lead" was my immediate response, and I was then in control of a piece of machinery that weighs about fifty tons inflight. All I had to say was "Pilot, Lead, Left 350" and the plane would immediately bank in that direction. Altitude changes, radio calls, turns, it was all great fun. It's a little more pressure to be the one in charge, as a whole lot of people are watching you screw up if you manage to. So far so good though, only a couple of the leads had us going off into the boonies requiring the pilots to make a turn on their own to stay within the corridor given to us by ATC.

Criticism is for the most part immediate on the plane. If you're not lead all the altitude and turn calls have to be communicated to your instructor before lead makes them, so your instructor knows you would have done the same or even what you would have done differently. For example for the 1000 to level off call, we have to point at our altimeter at 1500 to level off. At times though you'll be absorbed in a calculation and you'll hear lead come over the radio with the 1,000 to L/O, and immediately think "well crap" and try not to miss the next one. Even worse is the pilot coming over the radio if you're lead and saying "we're turning to x heading because we're getting way right/left of course."

Each position also has a number of additional duties, mostly referring to an emergency egress situation, but also some referring to flight preparation. I managed to draw being the lunch guy, so I was dropped off at the flight kitchen to pick up all the food we'd ordered when we arrived and signed in in the morning. I was quite impressed, $1.40 got me a chicken patty sandwich, chips, apple, pudding, jello, gum, a Snickers, a Nutri-Grain bar, orange juice, and a beverage of our choosing. And believe it or not that was the SMALL lunch, the larger one for a buck more apparently got people two sandwiches and various other things. I might spring for that on Monday for our second flight and just save the extra stuff and eat it later. During the full flights which we start Monday there is a lot more downtime, as you're up for 3-4 hours and have a lot of time between checkpoints assuming you're not crazily off course. We managed to not have anyone barf, although I must admit during all the step down altitudes on the approaches I was feelin pretty crappy. I'm gonna try wearing the wristbands that apply pressure inbetween those two major veins that I used to wear for reading in cars or riding boats on scuba trips, and that should eliminate that problem. Interestingly enough climb outs, and even turbulence had no effect. For the first two approaches we just buzzed the airfield, and it was literally an immediate improvement in the way I was feeling as soon as we did.

I did get a 2 for mission prep, largely because I hadn't cluttered up my chart with much of anything, figuring after the first flight I would know what I needed and what I didn't. And I was right, I know what needs to be added, and what some people have on theirs that is a total waste of time and a visual mess. The rest were 3's with the sole 4 coming from acing the EP quiz. Speaking of which we had the full Emergency Procedure test Thursday, and I managed to ace it extending my streak of acing tests to a whopping two. The party never stops though, on Wednesday we have our FN test, which covers all of the academics learned during this phase. That will require a lot of legwork to prep for.

I continue to try to get into a more regular updating schedule, and this week is going to be a much more ideal schedule for that among other things. We have our 2nd Flight Monday as I mentioned, but I drew the noon show time rather than the 6:30am, so that'll be nice. Probably won't be back until after dinner, luckily they give us all that food on the plane. Tusday we just have some CRM (Crew Resource Management) work in the morning, then after lunch a test review and a briefing by the 563rd about why we should go EWO. I'm pretty much sold on the other side of the house, but shoudl at least be educational. Wednesday morning is the FN academic test, but we'll be home by lunch. Assuming we don't fail the test that means we don't have to come in until 1pm Thursday, where we'll be spinning (doing all the calculations) for our fourth sim which although it has the identifier T2401 has been nicknamed Twenty FAIR O One because of the amount of problems usually ran into apparently. Basically it's the first time we'll be lead for an entire flight from departure to arrival, so juggling comms as well as all the log work should be interesting. The great news in that respect though is we get both Friday AND Monday off for the Fourth of July weekend, so we'll end up with several days to prep for the sim the following Tuesday. It's about time we've gotten some love from the scheduling department, we'd been getting the real shaft in prior weeks.

So yeah, less frequent updates have hopefully been made up for my lengthier ones, although I'm going to continue to try and update more often. I know I was desperate to read a nav journal before I came here and there basically wasn't any, so I'm doing what I can to help out everyone else.

Oh and since she much prefers it when I mention her in posts, last night in honor of my girlfriend I went to see The Notebook. I generally prefer drama and action, and she gernally prefers romance and comedy, so I actually saw one of each to broaden my horizons a bit. This was actually an excellent movie for its genre, and gets a solid 5.5 M's. The difference between 5 and 6 was that I ALMOST cried, but managed to choke back a few. Quite a touching love story, and enough to make you miss someone a whole lot. To cheer myself up I hopped over to Dogeball next door, which I'd heard from multiple sources was the funniest movie of the year by far. Yeah, 2 M's. It was as usual more of a "stupid funny" than "funny funny" as I call it, and I really wasn't too impressed. The most interesting part of the movie was trying to figure out how old Marsha Brady is at this point, and whether the Brady Bunch was on in the 70s or 80s. Luckily I continue my streak of hopping to crappy movies and not having to be really sad that I actually paid to see them, and paying for those that are actually worth my time.

So yeah, three weeks from yesterday and we'll (most likely) get to have dinner together or something assuming getting plane tickets and whatnot goes smoothly. Not really sure how I'll feel during or after the 12 hours or so we'll get to say hi. Something tells me I'll never take her for granted at any point when we're finally together, that's for sure.

I've Been Trying...

To fit updating into my schedule for this entire week, but haven't been able to get around to it. The people over at scheduling apparently have it in for us, as we've gotten shafted in quite a variety of ways that have kept me quite busy. When last I left you I'd just finished my first sim, and was about to begin my first CGM the next day. Well since then I've had two more sims, and two CGMs. The third sim was an especially interesting surprise as we found out about it on Thursday, and it was Friday 3rd period. So while you all were enjoying your Friday night I was working until quite late. The good news is I'm progressing quite well in the sims. On the second and third I basically had zero communication errors, earning 4's in all the related categories. This was my area of weakness in the beginning, and the scripts I've been working out and extensive preparation has been paying off. Unfortunately just when you think you have everything down, they add more stuff into the mix, and you have about ten more things you need to think about at once at various times during the flight. It seems like the trick to being a great nav is to have the big picture in your head, with the list of all the things you're going to need to do, and somehow manage to do them all at once without skipping anything or making a mistake. Human error is just one of those things though, and sometimes you can't even explain what causes it.

It's kind of sad actually the reason I have time to blog is I got up prior to 6am today in order to fit a run in before class, and instead was woken up by horrendous thunder as according to weather bug rain is pouring down at a rate of two inches an hour outside. They definitely are keeping us busy, if you're not prepping for whatever CGM or Sim or Flight is coming up, then you're having to memorize Emergency Procedures (EPs) or draw up charts for future missions. We haven't really run into anything essentially hard, it's just a lot of busy work to be done simultaneously and keeping it all straight and knowing what needs to be done next and when is a bit tricky.

Unfortunately I received my first 2's on my gradesheet over the last two events. In my third sim two of the new categories that were being graded were things we hadn't covered very well in class, so they basically just demo'd them and gave us 2's which is somewhat irritating because I probably could have at least attempted it and had a chance at a 3. My 2 yesterday on the CGM was out of pure retardness, and basically forgetting to circle a couple of the points I'd plotted on the chart. All my log work was fine, but aesthetics apparently cost me. I'm still ahead of the curve grades wise, I seem to get plenty of 4's on all the events, but the 2's are quite annoying. We had our planning session for our last CGM yesterday, and I managed to only have one mistake, which was one more than the previous day. So instead of three 4s for the planning sections I'll probably get a 3 or something, and have to pick up the slack during the actual mission. Our first flight is still looming on Friday, with the EP test Thursday. Other than that it's a somewhat less stressful week than last week when a whole lot was hitting us at once, including two third period sims in three days.

On other fronts, it's now less than a month until my girlfriend will make an appearance, at least temporarily. Due to all her leave being rejected she's only going to be able to fly into the states to see me for a day, then fly to Florida to see her family for a day, then immediately fly up to Ohio for her technical training. The hope is during some of the weekends during that training she'll be able to bounce down here, but nothing is ever a sure thing with the military. So after it'll have been over three months since I've seen her when she arrives, we'll get to spend a short number of hours together, then maybe a random assortment of days over the next few weeks, and then after that she's back to Germany and I'm back to training by myself until most likely literally Christmas. It's not really the wait until July that's been bothing me, it's the wait that's looming between August and December, which will be a lot longer.

When asked the other day how my relationship was going my response without really thinking was "It is what it can be, and it isn't what it should be." Reflecting upon that statement after I said it was kind of depressing, but I guess that's the way it goes. It's not like we didn't know what we were getting in to, no one said it would be easy. Thank god for webcams, at least we are able to see each other on a daily basis, or the difficulty level would increase.

It's weird how there's not enough hours in the day sometimes.

Siiiiiiiiiimulators.

Well for the first time here at Nav school, I can say I've been busy. Due to Friday being a day off for the national day of mourning, our schedule got compressed this week and we've been doing a whole lot at once. On Monday afternoon we had our first sim prep, which consisted of going over three departures and arrivals that we would be flying "in the box" the next morning. Did I mention the 6:30am in your seats in the briefing room start time. So I went over to one of the guys' place around 5pm on Monday and started planning, and was pretty obsessive about having everything set up in a way that would make it easier for me to run all the comms on top of doing everything else, basically scripting stuff out and going over how the comm pattern would flow. I then went home at like 10pm but wasn't satisfied, so I inputted everything I had written into my computer and added color in a way that would make sense, such as different colors for communications inside and outside the plane to ATC. I finally hit the sack aroune 2am, and could feel it around 5am the next morning when I woke up. I think I was nervous though, because it was pretty easy to wake up, kind of when you know you have something important that day.

It was our first graded event for FN of around 15, and it really couldn't have gone much better than it did I think. I made the classic mistakes of trying to talk to ATC with my interphone still switched to pilot or vice versa, and blew through a checkpoint that was basically designed to be within a minute after takeoff when you're doing 80 other things at once, although on the actal departure plate (the sheet with the route drawn on it and a truckload of information to go with it) it looked much further away. Basically your classic errors of someone's first sim ever. We actually ended up doing two as the instructors demo'd the first one, but by the end of the second one I was feeling pretty comfortable in my position. That's a lot to say given I was sitting in front of a few hundred knobs and switches that I saw as foreign objects a couple weeks prior.

The reason I've been busy is we got out of the sim at noon or so yesterday, then after lunch immediately had a class prepping for our second sim which will basically be the same thing, running through departures and approaches, although these are more difficult. The bummer is today although our report time isn't til 11:45, we immediately go into a four hour CGM (Computer Ground Mission) planning session. During these you're basically handed a list of points and a weather sheet and draw up the entire chart and do the entire flight plan and fuel plan, in a timed session of 100 minutes. You don't have a lot of time to be making mistakes and having to start all over, so being efficient is the key. It's listed in a four hour block which probably includes being briefed on what the route will be like and then debriefing on how we did, with our gradesheets being added to immediately afterward. Our summary sheets in our grade folders will eventually show every grade we got in FN, and I'll explain a bit about how those work.

A 4 is an "Excellent" and means you basically did a great job, and were within tolerances even smaller than necessary. A 3 is a "good" or Sat, basically meaning you did what was required and were within the required tolerances on everything. A 2 is "limited proficiency" or Fair I believe, basically meaning you either dorked it up, or required outside help in the Sim, or were outside tolerances on your calculations. A 1 is apparently RARELY seen, and pretty much requires being totally unprepared and having no clue what you're doing. For the most part on the first Sim everyone got 2s and 3s, with 2s being what was required as this point, as it's expected that we'll need a lot of help to get us going and remind us what we're forgetting to do. Starting with later sims a 3 will be required to pass, and that will be the standard on everything until the end of nav school.

So yeah, after our four hour CGM this afternoon, we will then have a short break and immediately have to go over to the Sim for which the briefing will start at 1700 and we'll be in the box by 1800, and not get out until at least 2200. That means home around 11 or midnight or something probably, with my brain pretty nicely fried.

And in case you thought the rest of the week would be easy, the following morning we actually perform the CGM based on our flight plan, altering our route and trying to stay on course along the way and whatnot. That afternoon we have the planning session for our 2nd CGM, which is Friday morning. Friday afternoon we plan for our 3rd CGM and well, then I guess we have a couple days off for the weekend or something. :)

Would love to babble more but gotta get on over to the squadron for the festivities.

Waiver Approved.

That's pretty much the news of the last few days, and one hell of a weight off my shoulders. Better yet it's good through May 2006, so that's a long time before I'll even have to hassle with it again. No worries about having to find another job, and no worries about getting rolled back. I should be with my class to stay barring unusual circumstances. This next week is going to be a good test for a lot of people, we have our first few sims as well as some computer ground missions, everything is getting a lot more in depth in a hurry. Tomorrow morning we have our checklist class in the mock up instrument room that lets you run through everything that you'll find on your panel for the sims and flights. Last Friday we had our most involved ground mission yet, for which we had to do the entire chart, flight plan, and fuel plan on our own at home before coming in to class. I was pretty close with the numbers and am very satisfied with how I've progressed thus far. Ecah time they add something new I catch on pretty quickly, and spend most of the repetition time making sure everything else is engrained in my brain. Sadly we still aren't really getting a feel of what day to day life as a nav will be like, because after this phase we learn about systems to replace most of the by hand procedures, and beyond nav school we won't be doing the majority of the radio and comm work we do here. I won't be complaining if it just keeps getting easier though.

So it's lookin like December drop and February graduation are much closer to being set in stone. But boy is that a long time away. In other random news we had our 4th monthiversary as we've dubbed them a few days ago and it's now just a little over a month until we see each other when she stops by here on the way to training. Then it'll be the weekend warrior strategy after that probably, we'll see how it goes. It certainly feels like it has been a while apart, and I guess it has.

What The, A Week?

Strange seems like I just posted. Been pretty busy, we're finally getting into some of the meat of nav school, and it's finally requiring a higher level of understanding than previously. These last few days have been spent doing ground missions, which is essentially the first step towards the eventual simulators and flights laid out in the same manner. Yesterday was actually a good gauge of how everyone was doing, as we we had to complete a full flight and fuel plan, and he timed us so we could see how close to the required 50 minutes that we would be given for the real graded version we were. Some were done in a half hour or so, and some weren't even done with the first section by the end. I hear various rumors about people in both section who are starting to reconsider their career specialty, but apparently that's only natural at this stage of the game. This is one of the hardest aspects of JSUNT, as you're forced to learn a whole lot all at once. My problem is just the random errors that are always associated with doing like a thousand calculations total for each flight plan. This sometimes requires redoing extra sections or replotting points on the chart, but in reality this just gives me extra practice. I've become pretty proficient at what we're doing, and am catching on relatively fast to the new twist they add each day or new topic they work into the flight plan.

We ended up getting Friday off due to the national day of mourning for Ronald Reagan, but apparently that actually won't be all that helpful because instead of learning what will be required for our first sim and then having all weekend to prepare the required charts and departure and approach briefings, we'll learn that Monday afternoon and have to have it done by bright and early Tuesday morning. I think that'll be one of my least favorite taskings early on, as poring over departure and approach plates isn't my favorite thing to do, and briefing about them going into extensive detail like we're required to do here sounds pretty lame. The good news is in the "Real AF"(tm) it's a much different story and the pilot plays just as big a part as the nav. The pilot also handles all the radio communication with ATC, which we're responsible for here in the simulators, although not the flights.

It really seems like they try to give us as much of the load as possible, and then as the course proceeds teach us about instruments or computers that will basically eliminate a lot of the work by hand that we've been forced to do early on. It really seems like it will get easier, not harder, as long as you focus on learning each new thing that comes your way.

Amazingly enough still no news on my waiver, although the guy at flight medicine is able to see that the recommendation is forwarded, for some reason he wasn't able to see the tab they showed me down at Brooks where it would show whether it was a recommendation to approve or reject. My Flight Commander was trying again yesterday, so we'll if that works any better. Apparently it did actually go up to AETC though, and they're telling me this probably fantasy story that the real deal with the final result will come back within a few days. The good news is I found out it could come back any time before my first flight and I won't get rolled, contrary to what I earlier thought about it needing to be in 15 days prior. It just means more paperwork for my squadron as they have to put together a medical delay package anyway just in case. So hopefully with a lot of phone calls things will move right along.

Plenty of rain these last few days, which got them to cancel the Squadron Run this morning that was supposed to be a 7:15 showtime (boohoo) this allowed a few extra hours of sleep so I could stay up and watch the Lakers OT win last night and call her to wake her up, which made for a pretty nice evening. I really have been slacking on the exercise thing though, every week I try to start fresh on Monday, and something like walking outside into pouring rain shuts down the running idea. It does seem like we get an extraordinary amount of rain for a place as desert like as Texas. It's still like 85 when it's raining though, that's what's funny.

All About a Form 24, As If You Care What That Is...

That's pretty much all we've been learning the last few days. Essentially it's the flight log that a nav uses on every flight he goes on, which is pretty much the only written record of where the plane went and when. It's also used to keep track of where the plane is located while you're out there, as well as to calculate how much fuel you have left, and whether you have enough for a detour or whatnot. As usual we proceeded through it at a snails pace, literally a five hour block of class today just covering the front side of the log, which although it involves plenty of calcuations, seems extremely straightforward once you know what you're doing. Monday we have our first "ground mission" in class, where you basically are given info like you would on a real flight, and have to do all the ground planning stages planning out your route, courses, adjustments for winds, fuel requirements, and total distance and time and whatnot. You basically need to come within 1 or 2 degrees or 1-2 miles or 1-2 minutes for the most part, so it's not an exact science. Apparently a week from Tuesday we have most likely our first sim, which will require all of this and a whole lot more, which we're going to get hit with starting tomorrow as we cover the rest of the pages of the log, and then next week when we go more in depth into the radios and what's required of us during departures and approaches.

The appointment went both good and bad, bad because the measurement that is going to be critical in my waiver package is twice as bad as it was before, but good in that the doctor confirmed that my job isn't affected by it and thus the waiver will hopefully be approved. It was supposedly going to be in the system this afternoon after a committee down at Brooks bet this morning to haggle it out and come up with an official recommendation to AETC, after which AETC will have the final say although apparently they almost always go along with the Aerospace Medicine Consultation recommendation from Brooks. Of course flight medicine here hasn't e-mailed me, so they'll probably get around to that tomorrow, if not I'll most likely have to call them myself assuming my flight commander hasn't already moved things along and gotten an answer. Again it won't be the "official" answer but hopefully it will be enough to keep me from being rolled if it's positive.

Okay tip of the day is for those who have joined the latest fad of putting music on your blog. There's a reason I don't do this. Whatever song it is, you had better hope that the first 30 seconds or so is the most amazing piece of music on Earth. Because anytime anyone clicks on any aspect of your page, such as an archive or a comment section to leave a comment, or back to the main page, it starts over. So in reality they aren't hearing this song you think is great, they're hearing what usually becomes a tremendously annoying opening after about five clicks. Besides which they usually don't have volume adjustments built in, so they drown out whatever music the reader is currently listening to. So do us a favor and plug music in your page, we'll go download it or something, but don't bore and deafen us.

Updated the pictures for JSUNT 05-05 as well, e-mail/IM me for the link if you don't have it already.

Pretty Lines on Pretty Maps, er Charts...

Plenty of that today as we started learning about the various procedures to plot routes on a chart, including compensating for turn radius and adjusting for variation and a bunch of stuff that really seems pretty basic. Literally a five hour block of instruction to fill out only a partial flight plan, based on a simple route of like five checkpoints. Some people seemed to have various problems, such as continuously forgetting to convert true north to magnetic north or vice versa, which anyone who knows a minor amount of geography will realize are not the same thing.

He keeps telling us that in the next few days we'll be receiving more information than any other time during nav schol, and I'm really hoping the next week or two are actually challenging. As it is currently it's becoming more like a chore to crawl along at a snail's pace. All for one and one for all, or something.

So tomorrow is the big medical appointment down at Brooks, where they'll probably set in motion the approve/deny action on the waiver. Whether I can get the waiver turned around in about 10 days is another story. Two bridges to cross, and then home free. Theoretically.

In other news, yesterday's temperature reached 107, with a heat index of 114. Guess I won't be running in the afternoons anymore.

Oversized Instruments...

Are pretty funny lookin really. We used a bunch of them in class over the last few days, learning all about the knobs and switches and instruments and what they do and whatnot. A couple really long four hour blocks, going over some of the major stuff that we're going to be doing during the sims and flights.

I've found that 2+2+2+2 does not equal eight, as over the last few days I've grabbed random naps here and there and not really gotten any solid sleep. That should change this weekend though, as we've got three days off for Memorial day that I'll be sleeping through most of.

The webcam has started performing better, it's pretty close to real time with enough frames per second that you can almost read lips. It certainly does wonders for morale in comparison with never seeing her at all.

One Hundred.

Finally, a result I am satisfied with. Alas, that is just one test of many that I will take during nav school. It's a good stepping stone to the future though. It was the hardest test thus far by a longshot, and the fact I'm getting better rather than worse is a good sign.

Today was the first day of the FN phase, or Fundamentals of Navigation. It's the longest phase, and it's the hardest phase. The instructor said according to statistics 93% of people who flunk out of Nav school don't pass this phase. I'm really not worried though, it's just building on what we already know. The hard part is finally performing in the simulators and then eventually on the flights, and doing one's job under pressure. I'm actually looking forward to it.

The biggest bird in the world must have flown past my car today, because when I came out of class I had like a three inch wide streak from my roof all the way down the driver's side door to the side sill and onto the pavement. We're talking it must have been baseball sized. It was that kind of day let me tell you. It had been a while since I washed the car tho, so I gave it a good shine.

The 24 season finale was not as good as past season's, I was disappointed. The episodes leading up to it were much more suspenseful I thought. Really not the closure I was looking for.

Not much else interesting, but didn't want that ugly post down below to stay up top too long. Might as well hit it, so I'm not quite so tired if she calls me to wake me up to webcam chat on her lunch break. No one said it would be easy...

A Nightmare...

Is a really uncool thing. Like, really.

This one was really strange. I'm going to have to say that never was I more of a believer in the paranormal than at the end of this dream. Granted then I woke up to reality, but still. I'm going to warn you, stop reading here if you are those types who will have nightmares of your own just hearing about it. You've been warned.

WARNING.

Again. You probably do not want to read any further. This is one of those curiosity killed the cat type things. I'm not going to put anything else in this post so don't bother trying to skim past it. Then again maybe it's just me that finds this type of dream scary, you might be totally unaffected by it. But you've been warned.

.
.
.

It takes place in my old house, in the living room area when you first walk in for the most part. Initially I'm there by myself, except the room has changed dramatically. There are walls partitioning off the various areas, into basically a maze. It seems much bigger, as I'm able to basically get lost in there. It's dark and nighttime, and there's a horrible sense of doom for some reason running through my brain. All I want to do in the dream is go to my room and go to sleep, but something won't let me. Something, or someone. I tell my mom about it the next day, and she says boy that's really weird and we go on about our business. But that night, it happens again. Except this time, worse. The feeling this time is that I'm being chased, and whatever is chasing me through the maze is catching up. I discover that the walls however don't extend all the way to the ceiling, so at one point I'm able to climb up and look around and see the layout and that the some sort of focus is on one area of the room, so for some reason I need to get there. It's over by the china cabinet near where our Christmas tree is every year, and I'm able to climb down into this one section of the maze that was closed off from everything else. Lying there in sort of a halo of light although there is no visisble light source are two large books, that look like they might be photo albums, or who knows what. We're talking eighteen inches or so square, and quite heavy. It is then that I wake up from the second night's dream (all this still in my single dream from tonight in reality) and decide trying to sleep again is a bad idea. I wander down the hallway and look down the entry passage to the living room from the dream. All looks normal really, so I go out and turn on the lights to the room located close to the hallway by the kitchen. I take a few steps into the room, and that's when the lights turn off. I IMMEDIATELY spin around, and there is noone by the switch, so I breathe about a half sigh of relief, before I notice that the switches are turned off, flipped back into the downward position. I slowly take the few steps back to the light switches and turn them on again. I take a few steps backwards, and literally watch as the switches slowly move downward, and eventually shut off again. I am now quite freaked out about the whole thing, so I go wake up my mom. My dad for some reason is not present in the dream, nor any siblings, and I didn't seem to notice so that was apparently normal. She's annoyed I woke her up in the middle of the night but does as all mom's have to when their children have nightmares and comes to investigate the situation. At this point I'm trying to tell myself I'm still dreaming or might have been hallucinating, so I'm telling her about what happened as we walk out to the living room. She turns on the lights, and we walk out into the room. We both watch and the switches slowly lower, and shut off again, leaving us in darkness. This is where my cat starts freaking out. He comes running into the room, and is just hissing and spitting and looking more freaky than I've ever seen my cat, just a horribly evil look on his face. Now see here's the thing. My cat died a few years ago. In the dream I'm also aware of this. He was buried in the backyard. So as I take a step or two toward it, I'm aware that it can't possibly be my cat, except it is. At this point the cat literally in English in a nightmarish voice says "MATTY" and then leaps at me. Those who know me know that's a name I hate and would prefer no one ever use, but I'm not sure how that all factors in. Somehow my cat has grown a set of teeth with a bigger mouth span than a human's, so it's able to completely wrap around my forearm. I start flinging my forearm around rapidly, trying to get it off, without success. I run over to the front door that opens up into the living room and entryway, and opening it up, hurl my arm with such force the cat loses its grip and flies outside. I then slam the door and lock it, and just as I do something hits the door with such force that it could only be very large, and very heavy. It's as if the cat immediately lept back to try to get in, but the cat couldn't possibly cause such a force. My mom and I look at each other through the darkness, and suddenly the only thought going through each of our heads is whether all the doors and windows are locked. I always used to sleep with my window open at home, because otherwise I'd wake up sneezing every morning due to dust or allergies, and in the dream I can't remember whether or not I closed it that night. My mom and I sort of stare at each other wondering what we should do, and she goes over to try to turn the lights on one more time. Again, the switches slowly lower and turn off, but not before I happen to glance towards the china cabinet, and see lying on the ground two large books. While my mom goes to get the phone to dial 911, I slowly start to move towards the books, as if drawn to them by an unknown force. I hear as if very far away my mom yelling that the 1 button won't work and the line is dead, as I pick the books up.

Unfortunately, in real life, that's when something woke me up before 6am this morning. Not sure what it was, either. Usually I'm a pretty heavy sleeper, so it must have been some sort of sound, but I have no idea what it was. I really felt like I was about to get some resolution in the dream as to what was going on had I stayed in the dream a few seconds longer. Opening the books seemed like it was going to tell me something, and it was like something or someone in the room was trying to communicate with me. I was so freaked out upon initially waking up that I considering calling my parents and waking them up at like 3 something in the morning their time just to tell them to check the living room for anything strange and test the switches. I literally was a total believer in paranormal happenings at the end of the dream, because all my rationality and logic could not explain the light switches, nor the cat, nor the books being both in my dream and reality. Something, or someone, was in that room with me.

Another Phase Comes to a Close...

IN as they call it is now over other than the test Monday. More of the same, not a whole lot to share. Lots of by hand calculating, conversions, plotting, ratios, working with charts (not maps mind you, apparently that's a swear word around here) and various other tasks. Spent all day today reviewing, then reviewing what we reviewed, then reviewing what we should review on our own again before Monday. Insanely boring. This test should be my best shot at 100 so far, as it's mostly problems, and the only way you miss those is by careless mistakes. We'll see what happens.

Big ol party goin on in the quad, celebrating another classes drop night. One of the guys here actually bought a bus, one of those short ones that seats like 10. Literally a yellow school bus. I dunno how legal that is, but he has it decked out with a massive audio system, and has it parked out there just blasting music, pretty good stuff. Finally been getting some beautiful weather, so it has been close to 90 daily and around the 70s at night. Makes for good nighttime running, although I've slacked for a couple days due to a weird sleeping schedule. I've talked to the gf at least once a day via the webcam, which really does wonders for morale. I've always been a morning person anyway, so getting up early to talk during her lunch break works out fine.

Oh and my appointment for my waiver got moved up to June 2nd instead of the 17th, which is now before the June 10th cutoff for me having to be off DNIF status and able to fly. So that's one problem handled, but I'd still have to get the waiver approved and turned around fast enough that it is back here within like a week instead of months like some of them take. So it's still an unknown factor, but it's no longer a sure thing that I'll be rolled. It would be great if I didn't, but I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

Wind, Oh How You Give Me A Job.

Believe it or not, I've actually had fun during the last two days of class. They've entirely consisted of CBT or Computer Based Training which is of course my preferred method of learning, and better yet we've been learning how to do a truckload of calculating, something I've always been good at and picked up quickly. On Monday we learned about 30 different kinds of conversions that we can do with our little whiz wheels, all of which made total sense to me. I breezed through all the quizzes at the end of the sections, rarely making a mistake other than a random careless one due to the speed at which I was working. My plan on the test is to do the entire test twice without looking at my answers from the first time the second time through, that way odds of a careless mistake are miniscule, and who knows if I can manage to get the other half of the test that isn't problem solving down pat I might end up with my first 100. From the sound of the other section a couple days ahead of us it supposedly gets much harder sometime in the next couple days, but I'm not impressed thus far. I'm really happy about the way things are going though, and feeling confident about the rest of the course. This is supposedly the time people start getting weeded out, and I can already see that happening in some respects, but it's going to have to get a lot more challenging before I'm worried about being in that boat.

Unfortunately still no news about whether I'll get rolled back, which would really be disappointing. They're already spoon feeding us it seems like, and I wouldn't really gain anything from doing nothing for six weeks. All it would do is delay my career some more, although I'll still get paid in the meantime. I like the situation I'm in, and I tend to be resistant to change at times. Guess I'll have to work at that.

We finally got my webcam working through my multiple firewalls, so my girlfriend was able to see me for a brief minute or two before I had to zip off to class after lunch while she was volunteering near one of the computer labs there. She seemed quite pleased, and I'm more than a bit bitter that vice versa still isn't possible because she's still waiting on the password to be able to log in to her new internet. It's been like two months that we've been waiting on this, and it really would help a lot to be able to see each other on a regular basis, even through a computer.

Managed to get off my ass and go running tonight, and also managed it Sunday, so trying to get into the every other day thing again before I attempt to take it even further in a few weeks. Quite a bit out of shape, just a three miler leaves me pretty breathless.

And in other random news, two rather strange hits to this blog have come from someone connecting through www.house.gov and www.doj.gov. That's right, the House of Representatives and Department of Justice's websites. Wonder what they found to be so interesting. Guess that's why I don't discuss politics. :)

A Trojan Tragedy and a Television Travesty...

Woah gettin all creative with the blog titles. Okay let's see what's been the happenins.

Finished API in JSUNT, took the test on Friday, and managed to miss one that I really shouldn't have missed. So thus far I've missed one on all three tests, putting me somewhere in the middle of the pack most likely. The good news I've been waiting for is that we're finally starting the IN phase or Introduction to Navigation, during which we finally start crunching numbers, spinning the whiz wheels, and working problems for more than half of the eventual test for that phase. This is what I excel at, and what I feel will be a great place to catch up.

The bad news is I found out Friday unless I get my appointment moved up, I'll definitely be rolling back to another class after being put on medical hold. I find out Monday most likely if they're able to bump me up somehow, if not I'll probably be chilling out for three weeks doing nothing again. It'll be a bit depressing to leave the group of people I've hung with for my entire Air Force career thus far, but I guess that's what happens whenever you PCS to a new base, so I might as well get used to it. More about that on Monday or Tuesday when I find out what the deal is.

We'll cover next American Idol, which yes I must admit I've been watching these last few weeks. Actually not watching since I have no TV, but I've been downloading the episodes. AI is particularly annoying about their commercials, especially during the results show when it takes them an hour just to let you know who got eliminated. And speaking of which, I really have to comment on what a travesty it was. Latoya London's version of "Rain on my Parade" is easily in my top three songs from the show during all the seasons combined, and easily the best of this season. I haven't a clue how she got the boot, and it's quite sad. Nothing against the other three, but she was top dog. Prior to her belting out that one my favorite had been Diana, and I guess we'll have to see if my original choice ends up holding up. I'm actually glad I already knew she was rejected before I watched the show, or I probably would have been floored. America gets 1 out of 7 M's for screwing that one up.

On a more positive note, this weekend's fare was the epic Troy. I went in expecting a Gladiator style action flick, and I got all that and more. Peole I know had given it medicore ratings, and so I was expecting some decent stunts and action, but I totally disagree. The panoramas of this one are amazing; the CGI is top notch. They obviously used truckloads and truckloads of extras, but on some scenes in particular you can't even tell whether it's just a TON (or actually several tons) of them or they've actually been backed up by CGI for the most part. I must draw particular attention to the hand to hand combat scene between Hector and Achilles, basically one of the climaxes of the film. The choreography of the battle is superb, and puts together a fabulous sequence. You can see the actors' faces for basically the entirety, which means they must have spent a hell of a lot of time practicing, because it is entirely believable and very powerful. We all know I love dramas, and this one is way up there. Some plot elements don't make much sense, such as an entire battle between armies shutting down for a battle midway through between two major characters, as if the other thousands of people would just pause the bloodshed and watch and then continue, or as in the case of the movie call it quits for the day. Other than that though, great drama, some great acting by some power players, a very believable Achilles by Brad Pitt who must have put on 20 pounds of solid muscle for the movie and looked it, and an equally impressive soundtrack that wasn't overbearing except when it was supposed to be, which is something you don't always see. A solid 6 out of 7 M's for this one, first time in a while I've seen that quality in the theater. And to think it's only the beginning of the summer season...

More Space, Fewer Problems...

The comp was down for a while over the last couple days as I made some changes to the hardware. The new sound card arrived as well as another 250gb drive which will allow me to use the previous solely for backups for the most part, to avoid any further fiascos with lost data. Unfortunately with my new case to remove or add screws to the far side of the drives requires taking off the backside of the case, which in turn requires detaching the motherboard from basically everything, since it's screwed directly into the back wall of the case. This had been something I was planning to do along the way anyway, in order to redo some of the wiring in that area and hide most of it behind the motherboard. The result is a much cleaner looking viewable side, with the focus being on the light show rather than the mess of cables. Somehow I managed to put it all back together and power it up and have everything work on the first try, something that usually doesn't happen. I'm up to 620GB total, which should last me quite some time. These adjustments pretty much finished off the interior, the only remaining hardware item missing is the video card, which I should be adding within a month or two upon its release. Backed up the main data drive onto the old 250gb that had the lost data issue, so barring the whole apartment burning down (knock on wood) I'll be safe from random drive failures in the future.

The last few days of JSUNT have been pretty uneventful, just various classes for API which we finally finished up today so we can take the test tomorrow morning. Most of it was about weather, with some pretty basic stuff about airplane instruments and so forth as well. Not a whole lot we didn't already know, other than going a bit more in depth into weather than we had previously in NIFT, and going over some of the instruments that will be in our panel that we hadn't seen previously. Following the test we move on to the next phase of Introduction to Navigation or IN as everyone calls it, where we'll get more into the nitty gritty of the nav logs and what we'll be doing on a regular basis.

I also found out I'll have to go to Brooks for an examination to accompany my waiver package before they confirm/deny it. Doing some research through their website showed that of the 162 or so AF personnel in the database with substandard depth perception, all but four were given waivers, and of those four none were solely due to the depth perception problem. So other than a few more hoops to jump through I'm not all that worried about the final result. As usual worst comes to worst I'd get rolled back a class, which just means more sitting around.

Today's "Idiot" Award...

Shoutout to the person residing in the Santa Ynez apartments at UCSB connecting through SY196132.resnet.ucsb.edu.

They decided to be slick and sign me up for various e-mail listings such as a Russian bride mailing list, and were unfortunately too stupid to realize that in the confirmation e-mail that would be sent to me to confirm it was in fact me who made the request (which it obviously wasn't and is why they send confirmation e-mails in the first place) it would say "Request was made on Wed May 12 05:50:57 2004 (Moscow time) from IP-address 128.111.196.132" Go figure, that's the same IP that's been screwing around with the GuestMap whose posts I just deleted there as well.

So I was kind enough to send the network admin at SB an e-mail informing them of the various things that person has been doing. Unfortunately I'm not able to see when their connection actually gets shut off, I can only hope they give me some more ammo to use in case it doesn't happen shortly.

Nothing more satisfying than putting idiots in their place.

Feel free to post more on the GuestMap those of you who do actually have brains, always nice to see where people have ended up or are currently located.

More later, class is calling.

Woah, Blogger Went Nuts.

Totally new format to the page, interesting new interface, major changes from the previous. So far I think I like the changes, interesting that right on the main page it says my blog has 541 posts. Given it's been up for over 2.5 years I'm averaging a little more than one every other day. I've got about 50 more pages of 2003 to go through and edit, which should go pretty quick since I was in training most of the time, then I'll zip through this year and finally be done with the Word doc of the whole thing. Edited for spelling and grammar, chronological, and very, very long. Also just about done with siphoning out all the Air Force related posts through OTS, for those curious about the process and so forth arriving at the page and not wanting to sift through all the "other stuff." E-mail or IM is a good way to acquire either file, although I can't imagine why you'd want the first unless you're well, really bored?

Didn't accomplish much this weekend, but caught up on sleep so that was good. Tomorrow we have a 0700 call time at the BX parking lot and no one knows why. Rumors of initiation of some sort but I'm guessing we're being voluntold to do something. Then unfortunately it's a full day of classes, about more stuff we already know for the most part because of NIFT. We have yet another test this Friday though, so I'll have to be digesting it all as it comes. I hear this one is a lot harder, who knows maybe making it more difficult will help me ace it. Yeah, that makes sense.

Did I mention how cool wearing flight suits all day is? The idea of having to wear blues or BDUs now, or worse yet being in corporate america in a nice shirt and tie, really makes me want to upchuck.

Survival, Sort Of...

Man, falling a bit behind here. Luckily my section has a flex day today so I have nothing to do but stuff like make my bed and fold clothes and post blogs.

We'll start with the nav school stuff as it's pretty brief. On Monday we headed into the altitude chamber for a spin, and that was good times. Initially one of my ears was giving me issues, probably as a result of the cold over the weekend. Eventually though after some prodding there was a satisfying pressure release (pop) and I had no problems for the rest of the journey up to 35,000 feet. Got some sweet pictures of myself in the helmet and oxygen mask, looking like a fighter pilot extraordinaire or something. There were all sorts of demonstrations that took place while we were in there, including a night vision one where we got to see what happens when we go on and off of oxygen and try to focus on text and colors. The funny part was the hypoxia demonstration, where one half of us then the other took off our masks at 25000 or so and then waited the three to five minutes for hypoxia to set in. Some people felt symptoms almost immediately and had to get right back on oxygen, but I ended up barely feeling anything for quite a while. A bit warmer and more dizzy than usual, and apparently I had some nice cyanosis (blue lips/fingernails) goin, but other than that I was still able to do math problems and whatnot even late in the period. You can definitely tell the difference when you put the mask back on though... Then it was the other side's turn and we got our chance to laugh at them and their symptoms. One of the typical ones is euphoria, so people suddenly get very smiley and giggly which is funny to watch.

Eventually we returned to earth and got ready for the second portion of the chamber, the rapid decompression or "rapid D" as they called it. Basically they put us in a separate smaller chamber at sea level and took the main one up to 16,000 or so, and then basically opened the door which caused the whole thing to equalize at around 10,000. They ran us through the steps of gangloading the regulator and putting on the "quick-don" as it's called, but then gave us some long boring information with the phrase "a rapid D could happen at any TIME" being the buzz word, after which the technician outside initiated it, which basically scares the bejeezus out of you because it sounds like a mild explosion that you're totally not expecting. We all got on oxygen in a hurry without any problems though, so I came out of the whole experience pretty confident with the equipment that I'll probably very rarely ever use.

The next day was spent entirely on survival, most of which was pretty boring, only because we'll have to go over this much more in depth when we go to Fairchild for land and Pensacola for water, and this was just a brief runthrough in case something happens to one of our T-43s. It's not like landing somewhere in west Texas would require living off the land for a month and instead we'd probably be found within the hour, but hey. We then had a test immediately the next day which was yesterday, and I managed to miss one again. Interestingly enough there was one almost half the class missed that I got right, but it might get thrown out which means there will be a lot of 100s, and I'll be stuck with having missed one yet again. It's amazing how long it has been since I've aced any kind of test. Well they only get harder, so I guess if I keep up the minus one pattern and everyone else drops, I'll be doing ok.

Still gotta blab a bit about the weekend, probably tomorrow. We start Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API) tomorrow, so I hear it's a lot of memorization of regulations and whatnot, and the test is pretty tough. I've become my section's photographer, so I've got a site up with the guy from the other section with tons of pictures from the last few weeks, and it will be updated throughout the course. IM me if you want the link.

Birthdays in the Military...

I guess you have to get used to this sort of thing.

Massive brownie points to the one person outside my family and relationship who called me today to wish me a happy birthday without me having to tell them beforehand. I guess I haven't been doing as good a job keeping in touch with people as I thought, alas.

I spent the day sitting through classes, then did a bunch of loads of laundry, then sat around studying for another test tomorrow and waiting for the phone to ring, which it basically didn't. More later, didn't want to clutter up the pretty little May 4th on this post.

It happens.

All Sorts of Airtrains...

That's what I used to call them as a kid, pointing up at the sky, not knowing I was off by a bit. Okay so I've actually had somewhat of a life the past few days but that just means more for you to read today. Fear not, oh ye who are bored. Strangely I randomly clicked on my guestbook wondering why its been months since I got an e-mail saying someone had signed, and lo and behold there were a bunch of posts I hadn't read! I guess maybe that e-mail got shuffled to junk or something, who knows. Nice to see that those whom I slave away for to satisfy at least a few minutes of boredom every once in a while take the time to say hi. Keep hittin it up, repeat posters are extra special.

I'll update all the JSUNT related stuff today at least, got about a half hour before I gotta hit the shower and head in later than usually today for the altitude chamber. So last I left you was Thursday, the day of our first test. Well to get that out of the way I missed one. I really don't have an excuse for it either. I actually sat there for about 10 min staring at it, and eventually just went with what my first instinct had been, as they tell you to do, and it was the other one. So not exactly starting off on the perfect foot, although I'm better off than some. Bunch of 100s though, so I'm already not where I'd like to be. Optimstically however, the stuff I really excell at is the navigation and mathematics related to it and whatnot, so looking forward to getting into the sections that are apparently much more difficult so the pack can thin out a bit. We got our results right afterward which was nice, no waiting overnight or anything like that. We then had the rest of the morning off until we came back at noon for some of the emergency training for the T-43. They had one of those slides down from where the stairway normally is inflated, and we all got to take turns jumping off and doing what you always wanted to do when you read the safety card in a commercial airliner (at least if you're that bored) with some people getting interesting results. A lot of landing on people's asses instead of feet, it's sort of a strange feeling. Most slides you just sit at the top of and push yourself til gravity takes you, this one you actually have to jump out and away from the plane and land on it already movin pretty quick. Fun stuff. Then we got to put on the hood from the oversuit thing whatever it is that you'd wear in case of toxic smoke or gas or whatever which made it pretty tough to breath, when you were breathing you were fogging up the mask, usually there's an oxygen pack on the back that cycles it through the mask but this was just for practice. So then we went down the slide again, which was funny because you couldn't tell who was who so the people who really ate it escaped the usual torment. Then we went over to the other side and practiced exiting over the wing via a rope and sliding down the slats. I dunno about you but when I sit commercially over the wing I always look out the window and want to go play on it, so these opportunities were quite neat. Oh I forgot, prior to all this they showed us how to put on the oversuits or whatever they're called in class, and I was called on to volunteer to demonstrate... You're supposed to be able to do it in a minute, and I ended up only being able to get one boot in that fast... Alas that's why they train us, by the end of the class I had it down. Had someone snag some pics of it, they're "one size fits all" so that made some people's appearance pretty hilarious.

After all this we headed over to the pool at the OClub, where they'd set up a 20 man raft for us to have fun with. First we put on our life preserver things and you know how they always say on the airline "pull the red tabs" and you wonder how cool that would be to inflate something like that? Yeah it's pretty cool. We only got to do one because we had to practice manually blowing up the other side, but the side that we pulled was suddenly smooshed against our face, making it look like we had huge yellow cheeks. Quite hysterical especially once we got in the water. Off to the other end of the pool we went and eventually people jumped in/were pushed and we all got into a "life chain" basically linking arms or holding on in a circle or whatnot. Some people did their best to drown me but failed, not quite figuring out that if you just sink down low so that most of your weight is underwater you can float without even having to kick. We then made our way towards the raft, and practiced getting in. It's actually not as easy as you'd think, the sides are about two feet tall, so without the ramp on the side you'd have some problems. They had the first two people get on either side of the ramp, and basically you'd yank yourself up to where you could extend your elbows to them, and they'd just grab you and hurl you into the raft. I was one of the last in, and I basically got launched onto my head, so people found that to be pretty funny. We ended up with about 26 guys in a 20 person raft, so we were quite cozy. Then we worked with the various aspects of the raft, including the hot pink canopy that ended up making it about 100 degrees on the inside. I should mention we did all this in our full flight suits, which was quite a strange feeling when you're used to just swimming in bathing suits. Eventually we finished that aspect of training and were cut loose for the day, all in all a very fun day as training goes. When we're sitting in the classroom for hours at a time I'm sure I'll wish there was something else we could learn in the pool.

Friday was Command Day, which was not as cool as I was expecting, but still very cool. It was the briefings that sort of dragged it down, basically they had every airframe that had a representative there give like a 10-15 min schpeal on it. Unfortunately the majority of it was just the bios and stats of the airframe that most of us already knew, and not as much about life as a navigator on each of them. Some were more informative than others, but basically no matter what they're talking about if you're sitting in the same seat from 0700 to 1230 with a few short breaks, you're going to get bored. I spent some of the time text messaging the girlfriend, I think she could tell I was desperate for alternative forms of entertainment. Part of the problem was I had gotten sick that day, and by the middle of the day felt like a train wreck. I went home and took a nap, not being able to participate in some of the classified briefings because my security clearance hadn't been completed or something, but I can't say I missed out on much based on what other people said, just more of the same "we'll have the new WJERLSKJS2348923 next year, which will be state of the art" which doesn't mean a whole lot to us at this point. Waking up when my alarm went off I literally felt pretty horrible and wouldn't have gotten up for much of anything, with one of the things being worth it the fact that all the airframes were sitting out on the flightline waiting for me to go take a look. I snagged my camera and headed out there, nose imitating a faucet and all.

It was my first time seeing the vast majority of the planes, and I got to climb all over them, up into the cockpits, back around the main section, basically see everything there was to see. The only one I didn't get up inside was the B52, but I've actually seen one of those at an airshow and seen a lot of video of the inside so I wasn't bothered too much, given the line was like an hour long. It's also actually one of the few aircraft that based on what I've been pondering over the last few weeks is on my not preferred list when it comes to what I get on the way out of here. Honestly though, being in anything would be pretty awesome, just focusing on earning the wings at this point. The only other planes I'm not tremendously interested in are the RC135 and E3, both of which have large crews and focus more on the intelligence side of things, the former gathering signals information with a team of linguists and whatnot in the back, the latter being what AWACS uses to control battlespace, mostly by flying in circles or "orbits" as they refer to them as. Above them in order of preference is the KC-135, which does pretty much all the tanker work in the Air Force. They're pretty massive planes, but the briefer really made it seem like the nav's role really isn't that important, it was basically some lieutenant who knows his job is probably the easiest there is, and wasn't afraid to let us know. This leads me to think they'll probably phase the nav out of that airframe first, and the others might have better long term potential. The bases these along with the B52 are located at aren't ideal, and the mission just doesn't interest me as much as some others. What that leaves is the C-130, HC-130, EC-130, AC-130, and MC-130. Basically that won't mean a whole lot to most of you, but they're all variations of the same aircraft with the C-130 "Slick" being the base model. The HC refuels helicopters, the EC focuses on electronic warfare, the AC is the gunship that recorded most of those videos in Afghanistan of stuff getting blown up, and the MC has three varities all of which focus on special ops, one focuses on refueling while the other two drop guys off and pick them up, lots of low level in the dark stuff. I'd probably be satisfied on any of the varieties, so other than the bases they're located at, there probably won't be much to distinguish them for a while.

When it comes to the concept of EWO, I'm really not feeling the vibe at this point, although again I haven't had much to go by thus far. Just doesn't seem like as good a fit for me, and two of the five airframes that come out of there being the B52 and R-135 aren't on my desperate to get lists, so right now I'm leaning towards staying in the 562d. Took a load of pictures, including a bunch of the pair of F-15Es that were also there, my first time seeing them in person. For a long time that was my dream, but in hindsight given the whole depth perception waiver being passed through as we speak, I might have gotten rolled out of there anyway, I'm guessing it would be near to impossible to get a backseat slot there with that problem. It just goes to show, the world isn't over when you get the news at OTS, you might end up enjoying the job over here better anyway.

My spot in each of the 130s looked pretty comfy, nice fur covered chair or whatever it is, like those car seats that are oh so nice. I'm right up there on the upper level with the cockpit crew, so I'd be able to see out the windows, which isn't the case in some of the other varieties of airframe. So we'll see how things pan out. The good news is the C-130 base model is the airframe handed out to somewhere around half of each class, so if nothing else that should be available when the time comes.

Alas I have an appointment with the altitude chamber this morning, gonna get to put on one of those nifty looking helmets and oxygen masks you see in top gun and all fighter aircraft for the first time. Definitely gonna have to snag some pics. Had fun this weekend too, more later.