Flight School
I'm about halfway through flight school now, and just got to the fun part!
I reported at the end of October and started off with a few lectures and a lot of swimming. During the first week I was here I had to take a physical fitness test on a non-standard track. Having just had a baby a few months prior, I wasn't required by Navy standards to take a PRT yet, but in order to start flight school I had to pass this one.. much earlier than I will have to take a real Navy PT test. I started running about 1 month post-partum, and spent all summer running to prepare for it. My Dad helped with some motivation as he goes running before work most days, so we were able to run together. Passing that test was a relief and the swimming was easy in comparison. The week of swimming involved learning some survival swim techniques, jumping off a tower, and culminated with a mile swim wearing a flight suit.
After the swimming I started Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API). This involved learning aerodynamics, weather, flight rules, engines and navigation, with an exam about every 3 days. I'm pretty used to studying so it wasn't too bad. The worst test was probably Navigation where I cut my chart for the test in the wrong place! I had to plot a point off the edge using my scrap paper on the exam... Anyways thank goodness for GPS because navigating with charts and whiz wheels is tedious! After passing all of the API exams, we celebrated with Flight Suit Friday at the Officers' club, where we got to wear flight suits after being in Khakis for all of academics.
The next week we had a variety of physiology training. We had a day of learning land survival techniques with Paul Levins. We had a run in the "spin and puke" which sounded way worse than it actually was. It was 15 minutes of sitting in a dark cylinder on a giant centrifuge kind of like a carnival ride, except with being dark they could totally control our visual input. We had to say which way we felt like we were turning and input some controls. Good news I didn't puke! We also had a hypoxia trainer where our oxygen saturation level was brought down to 50% while trying to fly a simulator and answer some questions. Hypoxia was more subtle than I thought, so I could definitely see how it could sneak up on you! Finally we had the helo dunker, which involved being strapped into a simulated helicopter with blackout goggles, going under water and getting flipped upside down and then having to escape. That was exactly as terrible as it sounds. We had 5 iterations, some with the goggles and some without, and some with a mini bottle of oxygen and some without. I had to re-do one of the rounds because I went out the wrong window once!
Next was primary flight training, which is what I'm in now! Pilot students often spend months waiting around to start API and primary, but as flight docs they push us straight through everything to get done in time. We started with 3 weeks of ground school and then had some simulators. This was a bit of a change from API, where we had the same expectations as student naval aviators. In primary we are treated much differently as docs, and the expectations are much lower. We don't have time to do all of the simulators and flights that the pilots do, and they don't hold us to the same standard. This week I finally got to fly in a real plane! We only get 4 fixed-wing flights and they went by pretty quick. My flights were to and from Mobile, and then to and from New Orleans the next day. I got a little airsick on one of the flights, but other than that it was pretty fun! Next week I will start learning about helicopters.
While I was in the air over Lake Pontchartrain, Justin was on the other side of the country setting sail for a Western Pacific deployment. We'll see him in San Diego when he gets back!
