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.