and...so...here we go again!

Finally I have returned!! I know it's been way too long, and even last time I posted I was updating from before that...which means I now have even more to update! But fear not, I have some free time (which means about 10 minutes or so) and I'm going to crank through what I can.

Now, when we last left our valiant, dashing young hero he was smiling confidently while riding out to his jet. The second picture in the last post is me finishing up my pre-taxi checks. And thank you to those who have pointed out that I am outside of regs by having my visor up with the engine running, but I was in the process of clearing the sweat out of my eyes at that point! That cockpit is a greenhouse with the canopy closed. You think it's hot out here in MS (and it is!), just try closing yourself into a glass cockpit! The third picture is me taxiing out from the chocks past my crew chief giving the classic pilot "all is well" signal. And finally, the last picture is me chilling out in the dunk tank after successfully completing my ride...or did I?

Obviously, I completed the ride successfully enough to be alive to write this (that's a good thing), but I did run into a little hiccup. Hence the 'emergency' portion of the title of my previous post. So, here's the story. My flight was going well, I'd even say awesome! I was really enjoying it and had about 4 landings and 5 patterns under my belt and I was really feeling good! It was quite a confidence building ride as I'd had so much trouble with the pattern in the past. But then, about 23 minutes into the flight and planning on only a couple more landings, I did another touch-and-go just like normal. Then, as I was climbing out on departure end and about to turn crosswind I heard a call over the radio:

"Departure leg, check gear". As soon as I heard that my heart skipped a beat! I knew exactly what I'd done without even looking. I quickly pulled the power back but at that point the airspeed was just passing 150 knots already. As a gut reaction I reached over in the same motion and pulled up the gear. However, but the time they finally got sucked up in the jet, the airspeed had hit 160 knots. Our max airspeed for the gear and flaps is 150 knots, so sure enough, I'd oversped the gear...I then talked with tower for another couple of minutes and had another scare that the main gear doors had not closed before I realized I was only getting that indication because the power was still back. So, tower organized for me to climb to the high pattern and got a chase ship to follow me up there.

I was really mad at myself this whole time for doing that (I know better!) but I didn't let it get in the way of completing the mission safely. So the chase ship caught up to me and we stayed on sunfish frequency while I slowed back down and then lowered the gear with the chase ship watching. After getting the correct indications in the cockpit with visual confirmation from the chase ship, we surmised that the gear were down and locked and the flaps had accuated as well. About this time tower called me up and declared the situation an emergency as well (especially since I was solo) and I was directed to VFR entry. This whole time the chase ship (with an IP and student) followed me down to 700' and then we followed the pattern all the way to a straight-in where I landed and he executed a low approach above me. Someone has pictures of that from the ground since the whole class had been listening in to this whole thing and were ready for us to fly by. I need to get ahold of those!

So I pulled off the runway into the runup area where I was met by a fire truck and fire responders in full gear who motioned for me to shut down the engine. With a possible gear problem we don't taxi back without pinning the gear first and that requires maintenance coming out. So I got out of the jet fully humbled by experience so far and was met by a major in the safety truck. We got back to the squadron where two more guys jumped in to make sure I didn't avoid the dunking. I then had to go and write up the overspeed and turn everything in for that before going back to get my solo dunking. I had let Maj Sanders (who I know from Lighthouse) know when I was soloing and he was able to make it and saw the whole thing! He was laughing away and let me know that he wasn't going to let me forget this anytime soon! (I also found out later that there were a couple of angry looking officers who were originally waiting for me until he started talking to them and I guess vouched for me so I never heard from them; if that's the case, I'm very grateful for that as well)

So, I even emberassed myself in front of a guest...but it was still a great day overall! My flight commander took it really well and even joked that we should just sign off my formation solo at the same time! So, in the end I still completed the ride, although it was graded 'unsat' and then I pushed on from there. After I passed my very next ride I was completely off of 'probation'. So, if I was going to fail a ride, that was the one to do it on, really! And, it's definately not a mistake I should be making again anytime soon! I got debriefed later by the checkpilot who was sitting the RSU and communicating with me the whole time through the emergency. He actually said that he was impressed with how I handled the whole thing and that I did everything well and exactly right (except for the first mistake, of course). So, at least after I messed up I was able to fix it in a decent manner!

And that just about sums up my first solo. Since then the last week and a half have been just ridiculously busy with test after test and flight after flight. I even got a cold over this last weekend and was barely able to push through everything yesterday. Luckily I was feeling much better today and after today's flight I'm ready for my first check ride tomorrow! So, pray for me as I fly that tomorrow. I'm feeling pretty confident right now that as long I can go out there and fly a regular sortie like I do every day I'll pass it just fine. So far we have 6 passes and 2 fails and I'd like to be in the first category! So, plan is to just go in there and do my best to not mess anything up and just face it like any other day. Lord willing it will go well, either way I face it like any other day: to His glory!



And I'm going to try to get back on schedule with daily updates again especially after this check ride is over. Things are only getting busier but I'm adjusting. Just...no promises...but I'm going to try my best to keep updating!