$$$$$ Dollar Ride $$$$$

FINALLY had my first official active duty military flight yesterday, in none other than the MIGHTY KATANNA! Woot woot! For all of you out there that are not familiar with Mighty Katana, let me introduce you to the first phase of aircraft anyone that is looking to be a pilot in the USAF will fly. The DA-20 is the aircraft of choice used for Initial Flight Screening.   She goes by the call sign of Mighty Katana, as you already know and flies quite nice.

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Yesterday was my first flight, fondly referred to as a Dollar Ride.  It gets it’s name from your IP is pretty much just flying  you around the entire flight demoing everything, so in return you give him a dollar. Hence the name! It was a good flight overall. The aircraft was pretty easy to control and we did a lot of pitch and power setting drills, all while maintaining alt and heading, and then while in turns, and then while climbing and descending in turns.  It reminded me of the days when I was first learning how to fly back in high school and Jim, my first instructor, would take me up and make me keep altitude, power and direction.  Good times!  My IP said I had a very good handle on the aircraft and that as long as I keep up my studying and keep working on all the procedures, I’ll move quickly through the program.  The one thing I realized about IFS is its not at all about if you can fly or not (well it’s partially about that) but it’s mostly about if you can follow the procedures, checklist, radio calls and callouts that they set in place and still maintain aircraft control.  We also had our first big academic test yesterday.  It was brutal, but since we all have been studying so much for it, it went really smoothly. The only hitch of this week has been a few people in my flight screwing up on their Operations Limits/ Bold Face test, thus making the rest of us all stay in our Blues, instead of getting to wear our flight suits during the day (we still get to fly in flight suits though, we just have to change right after) BUT…. That all changed to day when we all finally passed! So today is the day that we are finally allowed to wear our flight suits all day!  

AND to make things even better, Greg is driving out from Enid today to spend some time up in Denver and visit his mom and dad up there while I’m here.  I still won’t get to see him much due to the schedule they have us on here and the amount of studying I need to do in order to keep on top of the program, but at least we will be in the same state and able to see each other every so often! Just pray that Tazer isn’t too much trouble for him on that 9 hour drive.  Apparently Taz hasn’t exactly been on his best behavior while I have been gone, so we’re hoping that being around Greg’s parent’s dogs might put Tazer in line again.