Why I haven't Updated This in a While, How I Ended Up in Key West Without My Squadron Knowing About It and Other Stories

I'd like to apologize for not updating this anytime in the past month or so, but I've been pretty busy.

Following my solo I went straight back into the "House of Pain," otherwise known as the Sim Building. It was a grueling couple weeks of instrument sims and flights, but somehow I made it through. It took a lot of hard work and there were also a couple of nice weekends spent in New Orleans over Mardi Gras that helped ease the pressure.

Finishing instruments, I went into the formation flying phase. After a few rough sims, I was ready for the plane. Unfortunately I went Med-Down with a nasty head cold and pretty much stopped everything except the Sims. However, I was still slated to fly down to the Key West Formation Detachment for the very last two instrument flights (last two... for now). A Det is something every squadron at some point does, they send a bunch of planes and personnel from the home base to some destination that either has better training facilities or in the case of KW and Las Cruces, better weather.

Two days before I was supposed to leave, I thought I was feeling better (well, at least I thought I was well enough to fly). The next day I took a turn for the worse. Early that morning I told the Officer on Duty the situation and he told me that I should still head down to Key West on a transport flight leaving that night. The flight doc was flying down too and would be able to make me Med-Up once I started feeling better.

The problem was that I still needed see a doctor that day to confirm that I was, in fact, sick. This doctor decided that I needed to get a CT scan of my face to determine if my sinus passages were clear. The appointment for that was at 1:30pm and the transport to KW left at noon. Naturally I gave up on my dream of flying formation in the tropics during Spring Break. However as I was driving to the hospital (after spending the rest of the morning sitting on the couch watching day time movies and not packing), a buddy of mine called. He told me that the transport had been delayed until 4pm and that according to the Officer on Duty I was "good to go" if I could make it.

Luckily the CT scan didn't take more than a half hour of my time and the flight had been delayed again 'till 5. I quickly changed, laundered, packed, cleaned up the house and got over to the base in time to the make the flight. My first clue that something was amis was that the lieutenant in charge of the flight was very confused when I appeared and had to write my name on the bottom of the printed passenger manifest. Of course I told him that the I'd heard from the duty officer that I was supposed to be on the flight and away we went.

My next clue came later that night as we drove down to Duval St. (I volunteered to be the DD 'till I got well again) to get some dinner and check out the town a little. It was a call from a friend back in Meridian who was confused to see that I was scheduled for duty the next day... in Meridian. I called the duty desk and talked to the Duty Officer who said he'd fix the mistake and not to worry about it. The only problem was that the same thing happened the next night.

I later found out that word had never been passed from the duty desk to the schedules officer and even though I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, I was one of the few who thought that. Luckily, it all worked out and after a few more days of being sick in Key West which was finally fixed by a round of serious antibiotics, I was back in the air knocking out syllabus flights and feeling great to be flying over water once again. Then again, the whole confusion thing and the headaches it probably caused the guys in schedules might explain the obnoxious amount of duty I've been standing since I got back.

There's nothing like being able to look out from up in a sky of blue through a layer of puffy white clouds over an endless ocean of blue. Our working area was huge, extending from about 20 miles south of Key West to the border of Cuban airspace. Yup, that's right, if we flew South of the 24th Parallel, the Cubans would launch fighters after us. Not only that but at least a few times a day we heard the U.S. Air Force interrogating "Unknown Riders" or unknown contacts in the vicinity, which was amusing because sometimes, due to someone's lack of coordination, they were actually tracking us.

The whole experience was great and I was really sad to leave. The flying really built up my confidence and it was pretty incredible to be able to fly about 10' from another jet, doing maneuvers and travelling at around 250kts. By the time my solo rolled around, I was starting up the jet almost entirely by memory and feel. I was also, for the most part, getting really good grades and comments from the instructors. Additionally, once I was well again, I was able to enjoy the night life with the guys on the one night a week we got off (as we flew 6 days a week) and enjoyed the excellent restaurants and fresh seafood the other 6 nights. It was Spring Break and there were lots of college kids hanging out at the bars and clubs. It was kind of a kick to be able to talk to a group of them and say things like "oh, which college do I go to? Well, no I'm actually down here for work." The weather was pretty great too.

Anyway, I flew back in the jet on March 19th and passed my Instrument Rating check-ride. That's right, I'm an Instrument Rated Pilot! As far as the Navy and I assume the FAA is concerned, I'm qualified to fly under instrument conditions. This means that I can do everything that your airline pilot does but in a smaller, faster jet while strapped into a much tinier cockpit with fewer instruments and completely alone.

Right now, I'm still in the formation syllabus doing "cruise forms" which basically means that I'm flying with more separation from lead but also doing more dynamic maneuvers at a higher airspeed. In fact, we even do barrel rolls in formation. It's pretty cool to be completely upside down next to another airplane. We do it in the "column position" as well which places me right below my lead's tailpipe and even though there's about double the separation, it's cool because you feel like you're flying the "slot" position in the Blue Angels staring up at the bottom of another jet.

By far, the coolest thing that I've done in flight school, so far, has been the Tail Chase (no pun intended?). It's the last thing we do in the area before heading back to the landing pattern. Lead breaks away from me and then I follow keeping myself about 1000' in trail. Lead then does all kinds of maneuver and I do my best to stay with him. It's one of the first times I've really, truly felt like a fighter pilot. This is mainly because the instructors I've flown with have been treating the Tail Chase as sort of a precurser to learning how to dogfight. In fact on the first one, the instructor even turned on the gunsight, so I could actually pretend to take shots at my lead (who was the skipper of the squadron). Of course lead easily could have lost me or reversed on me, but it was pretty fun not only to pretend but to be pulling almost 6 Gs in close proximity to an airplane that I'm actively chasing. It's exactly what you do in any dogfighting video game, but about a thousand times more fun. The view is incredible and there's something about having your gun sight (or velocity vector/whatever) on an actual airplane that is just incredibly awesome. I also got pretty good comments and grades for that too.

I have my check coming up and hopefully it'll go well. I'm still digging out from a hole that I'm in, grade-wise, but hopefully it'll all work out.

This is me doing the second half of a barrel roll... yes, I'm over-controlling a little and I get a little spit-out, but I think it looks pretty cool... sorry, no rockin' soundtrack: