Track select: T-1s!

Track select was yesterday and praise the Lord I got T-1s like I was hoping for! We had a breakfast in the heritage room as a class and with all guests (parents, friends, etc) and then a mission brief presenting to the families the mission of Columbus AFB. Then we had a mock formal brief and standup so the families could see what it's like for us every morning. For the EP there was a gremlin latched onto the wing holding up both radio antennas and a really big hammer and laughing at you! Two guys got sat down before someone could get the gremlin off (by climbing until the gremlin gets hypoxic and then spinning to knock it off). The rest of the morning was for RSU tours, flight line tours, and then lunch. In the afternoon sims were blocked off so that guests could get a shot at 'flying' the T-6 as well.

Then we all showed up at the O-club at 1600 for the 'festivities' to begin. We then went to another room with just our classmates, IPs, and the upper wing leadership for a toast and a shot. The wing commander even commented when he went over to the tray with all the whiskey shots on it: "hey, one of these is not like the others!" Yeah...that was my shot of pepsi, which I of course proceeded to 'shoot' like a champion! Too bad it had gone a little flat... Then we all went into the big audience room where we stood to the shide with a big slide presentation up front as they brought us up one by one. Each of us had a unique and funny slide a script that our classmates had written about us pertaining to the 10% rule (10% truth). Some of them were pretty cruel! But all were hilarious. Then we would step up, spin the prop, and the slide would blink through all 4 of the planes, pause, and then show the track that you got selected for. We had 3 T-38s total (1 guard, 2 active), 3 T-44s, no Helos, and the rest of us were T-1s. All 3 of the 38s were from my flight, and 2 of 3 44s were as well, so we're down from 11 to only 6 of us going into the T-1s, and then 7 of our lightning brethren joining us there as well. It was a fun night, though there were a few people who were surprised/disappointed, but that's inevitable.

We then met with our new flight commander for 10 minutes and he introduced himself and gave us a welcome packet and all. Then this morning we met in the flight for a real quick brief and then grabbed a bunch of new pubs and print-outs for the next 3 weeks of academics. But, we were out by a little after 12 today, so that was nice!

Last night Ryan and I took our bikes out to Proffet's Porch, which is a restaurant here that's literally out in the middle of no where. We were on a dirt road for a couple of miles just to get there, but I'd always wanted to try it and he'd finally found out how to get there. However, my bike overheated by the time we got there and had some coolant leaking out the overflow line and I could hear what sounded like it boiling...so that wasn't good. I don't know if the dust was the problem or what, but I'm planning on flushing out the cooling system tomorrow and doing an oil change on it as well since I'm not sure when either one was done last. It did fine all the way back home, so I'm hoping it's not a recurring problem. Other than that, no real plans for the weekend so I'm going to start getting into some of this T-1 stuff. It's a LOT of new material to learn so the more I space it out the better.