'Informal' Release!

Yes! Today was our last day of formal release! Up until now we've not been able to go home at the end of the day until all 12 of us were done with all of our events, and then we'd all sit in the room and the flight commander would formally end the day with us calling the room to attention and reporting out. After tonight, we're allowed to leave as soon as we're done with our last duty of the day! I just can't focus and study there like I can back home, so I know I'll be even more productive now with the 'free' time we've had the past that's been wasted waiting around forever for the last few to be finished. We've had a whole list of things to accomplish to 'earn' this, and it's been given to us with the assumption that 2 more items on the list will be accomplished by this Friday 'or else' we're back on formal release. So, that's one more milestone, and one that I've been anxiously awaiting! Our flight commander phrased it as us now being 'adult UPT students'.

I had two more events today, with an I-ride followed by an I-sim. So far these are going really well for me now that I understand how to prepare for them. In fact, I've gotten overall Excellent scores on all 4 of my I-rides so far! So I'm not trying to jinx myself or anything, but I obviously really want to keep that up! We also found out today that many of us may be running into a flying stop due to the fact that we'll be getting to some flight before the pre-requisits are completed, and so that will slow us down a bit. But we've been just flying along for about the last month now and have gotten a bit ahead, so that's a really good thing. At this point I only have 7 actual Instrument events left before my check ride, but that's not including the cross-country's coming up in the 'navigation' block that have to be accomplished before that check ride. Then we only have the formation block left, which should be a lot of fun! So things are definately moving along now.

Wednesday is our navigation test, which is our second to last academic exam in the T-6! We've had to learn how to use a whiz-wheel; which is also going to be a big part of the test, and that's probably the hardest thing for me! If I could just write out the problems by hand I understand them completely, but using that stupid spinning wheel just convolutes even the simplest of problems! Afterall, isn't that why we learn math in school, so we don't have to use a whiz wheel? And for that matter, why were calculators invented?!? Also, after we pass this test (assuming there isn't some sort of technological appocalypse) we'll never have to use it again because we'll just be using a computer for the rest of our career...oh well, I guess they just want us to appreciate the old-fashioned way and that we don't have to do it that way anymore. But as a computer-science major, when I look at these problems I just imagine writing even basic computer programs to automatically calculate it all for us...anyways, consider this my formal complaint. Thankfully tomorrow all I have is 1 sim (though sadly it is later in the day) so I can use the rest of my time to study for that test and go over a bunch of whiz-wheel material.