Eat, Sleep, Study, Fly, Rinse and Repeat

As the title suggests, my life has been pretty hectic over the past couple of weeks. In fact I can't believe it's already been over two weeks since my first flight.

Although I should have expected this, it was still a shock to be scheduled for and fly every weather-permitting day from my first flight on. However, because of my luck, out of all 13 of us in my class, I am the furthest ahead. I have completed all my "Familiarization Flights" and the morning of my flight home, I found myself back in the Simulator room. Although it's great to be moving ahead, this more-than-brisk pace has left me with the least amount of time to study.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, but until recently I've had little time to do anything except eat, sleep, study and fly. This is contrasted to my roommate who told me that although he'd been going to Yoga class almost ever Monday, Wednesday and Friday in order to relax from school, he skipped the last one because, he just didn't feel the need. With all his free time, he was simply relaxed enough. .... great.


This is what the Flight Line looks at 6:50 in the morning... there's no camera distortion, the sky really was this deep purple color, yes, it was pretty trippy. I took it during my preflight for Fam. Flight #4:

The other problem I have so far isn't really a problem... it's more of a state of constant distraction while I'm in the airplane. I joke that I'm like a happy squirrel sitting in the front of the plane. I'm always looking around in fascination. There's just so much that is cool to look at from 8,000' or wherever we are, it's kind of hard to stay focused on getting my procedures from where they were crammed into my brain the night before through my hands and onto the necessary controls.

That being said, I'm doing well and every flight has been an improvement. I have at least 15 or so landings in the T-34C. Even though I've had only 4 flights I've gotten so many landings because one of the main exercises we do is fly the landing pattern and perform multiple touch-and-go landings. Touch-and-goes (or "bounces" in our slang) are when you fly the landing pattern like you normally would at the end of a flight and touch down as normal, but right when all wheels are on the deck and power is at idle, you jam the throttle to the firewall (remember the expression "Balls to the Wall"? That's where it's from). That in and of itself is pretty thrilling because normally we're only allowed to use up to about 3/4 of the throttle's range to prolong the engine's life.

However, during a Touch-and-Go (and a few other maneuvers) we get to experience all 550 of the T-34C's horses. It's very intense because you've spent the past couple minutes focusing all your energy on getting the perfect landing and then there is this ridiculous pause as you throw the "Power Control Lever" (PCL for short, which is like a throttle) to the stops. The pause lasts for maybe a quarter of a second and then it's followed by this very high-pitched, very fast and very powerful whirring noise. I'd say it's between a whine and a scream. About a quarter second after that noise is over, there's this great acceleration, like the aircraft is being sucked forward and then off the deck. From touchdown to liftoff again, it's a period of maybe 3-5 seconds and then you're up in the air climbing at 80 knots, raising the flaps, pulling back the power, climbing, turning and getting ready to do it again.

So far I've had a couple other really great moments (not counting the aerobatics, for which I was just a passenger). One was when I was flying back to the airport following a strict set of rules which, in essence, create a series of roads in the sky that separate the scores of planes taking off and landing at NAS Corpus Christi every day. The controller got on the radio and told me to follow a plane ahead of me back to the airport. I got it in sight and started to home in when my instructor told me to "get on his 6." If I didn't feel like a World War II aviator already with my strap-on parachute and my single-engine propellor plane, I did at that moment. Without thinking I got right on this guy's tail and even got a little altitude on him... until my instructor called out "watch your altitude." That brought me back to reality, but had I really been thinking I would've shouted out a Top Gun quote with "But sir, I've got Tone!"

The other one was a little less dramatic, my instructor told me to find a hole in a broken cloud layer as we were climbing up to altitude. It was one of the few times I've been able to maneuver the aircraft outside of a precisely prescribed maneuver. It was a dim and overcast day as I flew the plane into this one small spot of blue above and to the right of me. As I came out into the brilliant sunshine, into this awesome world of white-cotton candy, a pillar of cloud appeared in front of me which I dodged with ease. It was incredible to rise above such a dreary day into the bright white light and suddenly have the ground be replaced with the wide rolling hills and valleys of this soft light and ephemeral country formed by the cloud tops.

As I climbed higher above my pillowy floor, I had to rein in my imagination and get back to work. As great as this all is, it's worth and will amount to nothing if I'm not learning what I have to learn to keep myself in the air, alive and safe through any condition and any emergency that I may face.