It’s hard to believe it has been almost a week since I last wrote. The days have been long but steady – one flowing into the next. We started flying on the 18th and we have stayed on schedule ever since. The first couple of days were nasty weather with lots of rain and thunderstorms but we were able to fit the flights in between storms. I felt completely lost the first few flights but the systems and procedures they use here are starting to make sense. It’s frustrating feeling like I am back in flight school and I have to keep reminding myself that it will all come together like it always does. The first flight was just handling the aircraft which was the same but finding all the information I needed (airspeed, altitude, heading and the like) was challenging. Since then we have focused on navigation, building flight plans and negotiating the airspace. Last night I did my required hour of night flying so I am officially aircraft qualified and now we start mission training – actually working with the guys in the back and flying the mission profiles. The plan is for us to completely take over the mission within the week. I’m not flying today so I hope to finish up my handover of the maintenance job. Three days ago I was able to go around and meet the people I will be reporting to. We are in an unusual position since we are attached to the 25th CAB we have to do status reporting through them (in addition to the program managers stateside) even though we don’t get any maintenance support from them. It’s a necessary evil because they have to know our availability but they don’t have the ability to affect it. What I hope to do tonight is learn the information flow and how the numbers are entered in the spreadsheets.
One nice thing about being over here is meeting all the people you have worked with before. I ran into my stick buddy from the fixed wing course who is over here flying MI aircraft and Brian Clyde who I worked with in Egypt is the maintenance officer for the 25th CAB’s lift battalion. I also found out the Sugarbears from Alaska were just leaving so I spent some time with them hearing about their time here and sharing stories of our Alaska adventures.
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A personal note..is Brian the Brian we saw the Giza pyramids with? The Brian who loaned us his 4x4 to visit the whale site? That would be cool. I never think of you learning to fly an aircraft while in the air. I think of the air as unstable...as opposed to the ground. (: I would want to learn on the ground...ah ha...the simulator. I can see someone has been there before me. (:
ReplyDeleteIt is the same Brian from Egypt. He hasn't changed a bit - still as confident and energetic as always :) Simulators are very useful but in this case we already know how to fly the basic aircraft so we are just learning how to use the equipment these aircraft have to accomplish the mission. We can practice some of it on the ground but learning is some much easier and quicker when actually on a mission
DeleteSay "Hi" to Brian. We have excellent photo of Brian looking energetic in front of a pyramid. (:
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