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.