Wow, this week is finally over! I think I double turned almost every day this week, I had my first checkride, took the most failed test of the program, and was sick for the first half of the week. Wow...let's do that again!!
Today had a sortie first period and then another area solo 2nd period. The first sortie went pretty well, went down to Gunshy with Long and did some pattern work. My ELPs are actually coming along quite nicely now, though those were my weakest maneuver by far going into my checkride, so that's definately a plus. Then we went to a low area since all of the highs were taken and did some more work on my new aerobatic stuff. The barrel roll was giving me the most trouble, but I kept doing it until I finally started to get it right (about the 6th one!). At this point, though, we pretty much run our own training, so he sat back and just let me keep hacking at it until I felt more comfortable, which I really appreciated. And of course the whole time he kept giving me pointers and talking me through it and demonstrated it a couple of times as well.
Then we came back to Sunfish for a full stop landing. The winds were pretty squirrely today and I was really focused on the crosswind corections so that I ended up landing really flat and almost landed all three tires at the same time! And it was so funny because he didn't say anything about it until after we had taxiid back and parked, shutdown, and were walking away from the jet. Then he looked off into the distance and said "Well, that was interesting landing there..."
I chuckled and said "yeah, you mean that last one? It was a little flat"
And he sighed and said "Yeah...it's Friday...and I didn't really feel like trying too hard to fix it for you." Then he paused for a second and said "Actually, I was more interested in seeing how it would turn out!"
Which reminds me of my landing yesterday with Miller. I flared a little too high that time, and he just let me try to work it out. Finally the aircraft stalled out and just dropped about 4 feet to the concrete. At the same time we impacted the runway I heard him in the back over my headset yell "Kerblam!" And as we rolled out down the runway he continued laughing and yelling "Take that, ground, take that!"
But, honestly, as long it's still safe I like the fact that they're to the point of letting us make these little mistakes and then talking about them later as I personally learn better by actually making the little mistakes. That way, I know what NOT to do the next time.
So, this afternoon I had my area solo. I went out to gunshy by myself, which was really cool, and got a good 4 patterns and landing in before a couple more non-solo flight came in and of course they wanted to practice straight-ins and ELPs like they should at Gunshy. So, I bugged out of the pattern then and to the areas. They put in the farthest back area by the most round-about way, but I finally made. I went through most of the area work before I got a call telling me to vacate that low block and climb into that area's high block. Which was pretty fun as up there I found this tiny little see-through wisp of a cloud-want-to-be that I entertained myself with for a good ten minutes by chasing it around the area.
Then, I came back home to sunfish for a full stop landing. My land was pretty decent, and then as I was slowing down I got a master caution light and aural tone. When I looked at my panel I had a TAD FAIL light. So I taxiid clear and on the way back to the chocks had a nice talk with Texan Ops letting them know what I had and that I planned to take it in to park. They just suggested that I leave the battery on when I shut down so that the maintainers could check the computer. Then I got to write it up and drop the book off again like my first solo. So far I'm now 2 for 3 on breaking planes when solo! That's not a bad record! At least this time it had nothing to do with anything that I did.
Then to finish off this wonderful week we had to attend an hour-long briefing about the prop-sleeve touchdown issue that's been occuring. It was a whole bunch of technical jargon that I ended up dozing through part of and fighting to keep my eyes open for the rest. That was fine, and the torture finally came to an end after an hour, or so I thought! Then they opened it up for questions. And here I am, already thinking, why do we need the details on any of this stuff? I don't fix the planes, I don't build them, and I'm certainly not the one negotiating the hundreds of millions of dollar deals to purchase them. I just fly them, and I already know what I need to do in the air if this occurs, so really, why do I care?!?
But then I thought, I'm in a room full of guys who all want to go home like me, so this should go by quickly. Boy was that naive! Instead for the next 30 minutes people proceeded to ask a million stupid questions; the answers to which would not affect them in any conceivable way, no matter what the answer given! For instance, one guy even asked what this company was going to do about the excess planes being produced right now and not shipped out, wouldn't they run out of storage space?? Oh my!
Ok, so tell me, WHY DO YOU CARE? Do you work for that company? Are you in any way associated with them or have you been given the task of storing their airplanes for them? No? Well then, are they parking the extra planes in your back yard? No!?! Then WHY DO YOU CARE?? And most importantly, WHY DO I CARE?--you are wasting my time and precious moments of my life that I will never get back again!
Then, my personal favorite: there was mister "Uh, yeah, would please go back to slide 17?" (out of like what felt like 100 slides) "Uh, yeah, have you considered...?"
Already I'm thinking, "ok, here we go, wow us budding Einstein. Because if they haven't figured it out yet I bet you have the answer!"
Mr. Have-You-Considered: "This slide shows that there was a spike in the aircraft production during that time there, and it looks like there were more touchdowns associated with those engines. Have you considered...dramatic pause!...that there might a correlation?" (insert Hallelujah Chorus here, all of our problems are solved!)
Now, here's where I wish I was the civilian giving the brief. What I would have said in response (note the heavy sarcasm):
"Huh, no way! Well I'll be! That's brilliant! Our highly paid team of experts who have been working on this for months, and who, oh by the way, not only designed the aircraft and parts in question, but also put together the very slide and graph you are looking at, hadn't realized that! Thank you so much for solving this problem for us!" You've got to be kidding me. Of course he answered it much more politely and said that yes (of course!!) they had noticed that.
Ugh, and that went on for a half hour longer. Awful. But somehow, a fitting ending to this week. One nice thing was that today was a taco day where one of our lucky flight-mates who got downgraded on GK or EPs in the checkride had to bring in tacos for everyone. Now that's good stuff!
Now let me ask you: Have you considered...? ;)
DQ-out
Have a good weekend one and all!
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