Hello all,
It has been a good weekend. The command has been off post all week for an ATX (a week in the field.) so one of the W4s has been running the flight schedules. one of the nice things about that is we start the night flights at 2100 when it gets dark and not at 10. and the other thing is that we don't spend a lot of time doing things that we don't need to so we get out of there when we are done with all of the flight training that we need. friday we started at 9 and we only took about an hour and a half. and we were back here by midnight. it is pretty nice when you don't have to spend a full 12 hours at the airfield.
saturday was also a nice day. we had some bad weather in the area so we only had the first of the two periods fly. i was supposed to fly the late period, but weather made it otherwise. we chained down the aircraft and then went home it was nice to get home early again.
on sunday there was only one flight period for the new crew chief that just got his up slip. we had a maintenance event on one of the helicopters that took about an hour. and then we changed a tire. we built up a couple of more tires just to have them ready. when the flight got back we finished up his helicopter and what we were doing and we were done for the day.
today was a very good day. we were supposed to have to take a PT test this morning and there were a few of us that were confused because we had passed the first pt test that we took a month ago. we found out yesterday that it was only for the people who needed a second chance at the test. so the people who had passed the first time didn't have to be there, and got to sleep in. at noon when i went outside, they had steak that was provided by one of the recently promoted Platoon Sergeants because he couldn't buy beer for us. the steak was really good. and it was a hell of a lot better than the d-fac food that we eat every day. after lunch a couple of guys and i went to the bowling alley we had a lot of fun we bowled 4 games and killed about 3 hours. it was a good time. after that we came back here and watched some tv. we hung out and ordered some pizza for dinner. after dinner i hung out with my roommates and talked about home for a while. it was nice to have a day off. we really didn't expect to have it off.
I hope that everyone at home is doing well.
Signing off
Monday, May 28, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Been really busy
hey all,
I know that i said that i was going to try and write more, but i was really busy again this week! we have been going through aerial gunnery and that has kept us quite busy.
The first day we were firing from the ground on stationary helicopters. they weren't running so things were pretty good. we had about 800 rounds that we got to fire that day.
the next day was actually aerial gunnery. we did some flying that day. we each had 400 rounds to fire on two passes. and then another 200 rounds to fire under NBC conditions. it was fun because we actually were shooting and flying. there were a lot of targets along the range to keep us busy. i have to say that the best was the little house in the beginning. there were all sorts of things like cars old tanks and even got to shoot some fish.
the next night we were planning on doing our NVG firing. it was going to be a really late night for us. we were waiting for another company to get all of their people through the range and then we were going to go out to the range after that, but we are only supposed to work for 12 hours on days that we fly so that we don't get too overworked. they can give us extensions to go past the 12 hour days but every two hours you have to go up a command level, the first one goes to the company commander, then the battalion commander and the brigade commander. you push your luck when you are going to the battalion commander, but we were getting into the range that we needed to get to the brigade commander, and we probably would not have gotten the approval if we had gone that far up the chain. the reason that we were pushing our time limit was because they had us up and ready to go at 1 so that we could go through RFI (rapid fielding Initiative) which gave us a replacement for most of the woodland camo gear that we have like our old rucksack and Load bearing vest and other things like that. we were out at formation at 1 like they told us, and then the transportation that was supposed to get us there didn't show up so we waited for 20 minutes and then took our own little short bus to get there. then we stood in formation for the the next hour for them to get ready for us. once they were ready for us we went and got fitted for 4 new sets of ACUs which took about 15 minutes for the entire company. we then proceeded to line up so that we could wait for another hour. then we went through getting a new kevlar 2 new sets of boots. one that i will probably not wear (they are not flight approved). a replacement for the new $1200 that i have right now (they replaced it because the outer shell was woodland camo instead of the new digital camo. they gave us more long underwear, gloves, knee pads and elbow pads more gloves, and a few fleeces. then they gave us a winter hat, ear plugs, goggles and a new first aid kit. after all of that it took them about 20 mintutes to start checking people out even though all they needed us to do was sign two sheets of paper that they could print the instant that we were done getting all of our stuff. as we walked out we got a new ruck sack and a new load bearing system. all of that took us about 8 hours. it was a fast 8 hours but it still took 8 hours to do way too little. we were supposed to start firing around 1 and the range was supposed to take 5 or 6 hours that would put us way outside our window because we would have to take an hour to get the aircraft back and tied down and then it would take another 30 minutes to get us back and actually end the work day. so they decided that we would wait until the next night.
the next day was much better. we actually had our NBC firing that night. i thought i had seen a lot of things that looked like star wars in my day with tracers and ground fire, but you haven't seen anything more star wars like until you have watched a helicopter fly by shooting tracers. it looks like the orange lasers that the rebels fire from their x-wings. it is really cool looking. firing was even better under the NVGs you could see all of the rounds coming out of the barrel because of the heat signature.
the day after, we didn't have too much to do, we did a little bit of aircraft maintenance.
yesterday we had two flights scheduled and only went out on one. we did combat maneuvering flight. which is a lot of yanks and banks. it was a lot of fun kinda like a roller coaster ride. we didn't get to go on our NVG flight because the second period was canceled.
we did manage to get out tonight. and i am now a fully qualified crew chief. there really wasn't that much that happened to night we just needed to do multi-ship under NVGs so we followed another helicopter around for a while. but i am now a fully qualified crew chief. now all the training i do is practice and not introductions.
I hope that everyone at home is doing well.
signing off
I know that i said that i was going to try and write more, but i was really busy again this week! we have been going through aerial gunnery and that has kept us quite busy.
The first day we were firing from the ground on stationary helicopters. they weren't running so things were pretty good. we had about 800 rounds that we got to fire that day.
the next day was actually aerial gunnery. we did some flying that day. we each had 400 rounds to fire on two passes. and then another 200 rounds to fire under NBC conditions. it was fun because we actually were shooting and flying. there were a lot of targets along the range to keep us busy. i have to say that the best was the little house in the beginning. there were all sorts of things like cars old tanks and even got to shoot some fish.
the next night we were planning on doing our NVG firing. it was going to be a really late night for us. we were waiting for another company to get all of their people through the range and then we were going to go out to the range after that, but we are only supposed to work for 12 hours on days that we fly so that we don't get too overworked. they can give us extensions to go past the 12 hour days but every two hours you have to go up a command level, the first one goes to the company commander, then the battalion commander and the brigade commander. you push your luck when you are going to the battalion commander, but we were getting into the range that we needed to get to the brigade commander, and we probably would not have gotten the approval if we had gone that far up the chain. the reason that we were pushing our time limit was because they had us up and ready to go at 1 so that we could go through RFI (rapid fielding Initiative) which gave us a replacement for most of the woodland camo gear that we have like our old rucksack and Load bearing vest and other things like that. we were out at formation at 1 like they told us, and then the transportation that was supposed to get us there didn't show up so we waited for 20 minutes and then took our own little short bus to get there. then we stood in formation for the the next hour for them to get ready for us. once they were ready for us we went and got fitted for 4 new sets of ACUs which took about 15 minutes for the entire company. we then proceeded to line up so that we could wait for another hour. then we went through getting a new kevlar 2 new sets of boots. one that i will probably not wear (they are not flight approved). a replacement for the new $1200 that i have right now (they replaced it because the outer shell was woodland camo instead of the new digital camo. they gave us more long underwear, gloves, knee pads and elbow pads more gloves, and a few fleeces. then they gave us a winter hat, ear plugs, goggles and a new first aid kit. after all of that it took them about 20 mintutes to start checking people out even though all they needed us to do was sign two sheets of paper that they could print the instant that we were done getting all of our stuff. as we walked out we got a new ruck sack and a new load bearing system. all of that took us about 8 hours. it was a fast 8 hours but it still took 8 hours to do way too little. we were supposed to start firing around 1 and the range was supposed to take 5 or 6 hours that would put us way outside our window because we would have to take an hour to get the aircraft back and tied down and then it would take another 30 minutes to get us back and actually end the work day. so they decided that we would wait until the next night.
the next day was much better. we actually had our NBC firing that night. i thought i had seen a lot of things that looked like star wars in my day with tracers and ground fire, but you haven't seen anything more star wars like until you have watched a helicopter fly by shooting tracers. it looks like the orange lasers that the rebels fire from their x-wings. it is really cool looking. firing was even better under the NVGs you could see all of the rounds coming out of the barrel because of the heat signature.
the day after, we didn't have too much to do, we did a little bit of aircraft maintenance.
yesterday we had two flights scheduled and only went out on one. we did combat maneuvering flight. which is a lot of yanks and banks. it was a lot of fun kinda like a roller coaster ride. we didn't get to go on our NVG flight because the second period was canceled.
we did manage to get out tonight. and i am now a fully qualified crew chief. there really wasn't that much that happened to night we just needed to do multi-ship under NVGs so we followed another helicopter around for a while. but i am now a fully qualified crew chief. now all the training i do is practice and not introductions.
I hope that everyone at home is doing well.
signing off
Thursday, May 17, 2007
sorry it has been so long!
Hi all
Sorry it has been so long since i posted last. i have been knee deep in training and i usually end up getting up going right to training and when i am all done going almost right to bed. I have done well in training lately we have gotten a lot of work done to getting me to the final stages of my crew chief training. after getting to RL-2 they wanted to get me to RL-1 Day/night as fast as they could, it isn't a lot of training so it isn't that hard. two flights at the most, you can do it with one if it is set up right. and once you make it up to RL-2 you can start your NVG training so i have been doing that as well. just so you know i will probably inadvertently say we every once in a while because the guy that i came over from the med company with and i have been doing almost all of our training together.
I will explain what i mean when i say training and RL-1,2, or 3. as a crew chief you have progression in the levels of things that you can do. When you start you are RL-3. you have to do everything with an SI or an FI. An SI is a standardization instructor, and an FI is a flight instructor. they are for crew chief training the SI of a company is the head FI. At RL-3 you end up doing a lot of training on what are called base tasks like airspace surveillance fuel checks and take offs and landings. you spend a lot of time as an RL-3 getting familiar with the aircraft and how everything works in-flight. after you get signed off on all of those tasks by your SI/FI you progress to RL-2 Day/Night and RL-3 NVG. RL-2 Day/Night is all mission task based. different things like terrain flight and multiship operations. RL-3 NVG is a combination of both base tasks and mission tasks. some of the base tasks that you do as a beginning RL-3 you don't need to repeat under NVGs but some you do. and you get some of the same mission tasks that you have RL-2 Day/night under RL-3 NVG. after you finish your tasks with RL-2 Day/night you are RL-1 Day night and you don't have to do anymore major training in that area until you have your annual check rides. progressing to RL-1 NVGs basically follows the same path and you just need to get some different tasks done under the NVGs.
Monday was supposed to be my first RL-2 flight. that ended up being canceled because we had an issue at start up that could have been a major problem if we didn't check it out. but when we did all of the maintenance checks everything turned out to be ok. i didn't get to log any time that night but i did get to go out on a flight with the goggles on it was pretty cool, but it would have been better if i had a chance to sit in the crew chief's seat and not in the middle.
Tuesday we had a day flight that we meant to get us up to RL-1. it went really well and the both of us went up to RL-1 day/night so that was a breakthrough for us not needing both day and night training. after that i had an NVG flight scheduled for later that night. we ended up not taking that flight because we had a bad radio that we needed to send messages to ground and we had a bad HUD (heads up display) for one of the pilots so we didn't get to go anywhere that night either.
Wednesday night I had a NVG flight that actually made it off of the ground. I was part of a two ship mission that i wouldn't be able to be on normally but was able to go because i had the SI with me. it was my first official NVG flight and we were only out for 1.5 hours. but it was really good training and i got most of the rl-3 tasks that i needed done. there were only about 6 tasks that i needed to get up to rl-2. The SI was impressed by how well i did with that flight and how well that i adapted to flying with goggles. (you know that teacher that you had, that no matter how hard you worked, everything that you did was mediocre until you did something amazing and then he gave you an off hand compliment and you were really surprised about it? that is this guy) he actually gave me a compliment and i was really surprised.
he wanted to make sure that we got the proper academics for the NVGs so he took some time out of his thursday to get us our Academics. we had to take a written test, it was 50 questions and i ended up getting a 48/50 on the test which i was very happy with. and that night we had our 2nd NVG flight. both the other guy from the med and i were trying to get to RL-2 Goggles so that we could do aerial gunnery (which is happening tomorrow) and actually qualify. you have to be qualified on the goggles to be able to fully qualify in aerial gunnery. i will get into that tomorrow or the next day. when we got our briefs he was mad because he ended up on one of the flights that was introduction training to one of the newer pilots and it sounded like he wasn't going to get outside of the traffic pattern of the airport. i went out with a different FI than the one that i had went out with the night before and i got all of the rest of my tasks taken care of.
Today we had a pretty easy day. we had to get ready for aerial gunnery so we had to take a written exam on the 240H which is the weapon that we have mounted on the crew windows on all of the helicopters. after we did that we had some down time to get hang out then we went to supper. from supper we went and got all of our flight gear because most of us won't be leaving from the airport to get to the range we will be driving and then hopping into aircraft to do the qualifying. after we we got back to the barracks we had a little more down time and then went out to get a basic overview of what was going to happen tomorrow. from there we had the rest of the night off. It was pretty nice because for the last I can't even remember anymore i haven't had a day to relax cause of all of the training on the aircraft that i have been doing.
I hope that everyone back home is doing well, and i am sorry that i have taken so long to put up another post. i will try and do a better jo b uf keeping this up to date and a tleast posting every other day.
I miss you all very much and can't wait til july to get home to see everyone!
Signing off
Sorry it has been so long since i posted last. i have been knee deep in training and i usually end up getting up going right to training and when i am all done going almost right to bed. I have done well in training lately we have gotten a lot of work done to getting me to the final stages of my crew chief training. after getting to RL-2 they wanted to get me to RL-1 Day/night as fast as they could, it isn't a lot of training so it isn't that hard. two flights at the most, you can do it with one if it is set up right. and once you make it up to RL-2 you can start your NVG training so i have been doing that as well. just so you know i will probably inadvertently say we every once in a while because the guy that i came over from the med company with and i have been doing almost all of our training together.
I will explain what i mean when i say training and RL-1,2, or 3. as a crew chief you have progression in the levels of things that you can do. When you start you are RL-3. you have to do everything with an SI or an FI. An SI is a standardization instructor, and an FI is a flight instructor. they are for crew chief training the SI of a company is the head FI. At RL-3 you end up doing a lot of training on what are called base tasks like airspace surveillance fuel checks and take offs and landings. you spend a lot of time as an RL-3 getting familiar with the aircraft and how everything works in-flight. after you get signed off on all of those tasks by your SI/FI you progress to RL-2 Day/Night and RL-3 NVG. RL-2 Day/Night is all mission task based. different things like terrain flight and multiship operations. RL-3 NVG is a combination of both base tasks and mission tasks. some of the base tasks that you do as a beginning RL-3 you don't need to repeat under NVGs but some you do. and you get some of the same mission tasks that you have RL-2 Day/night under RL-3 NVG. after you finish your tasks with RL-2 Day/night you are RL-1 Day night and you don't have to do anymore major training in that area until you have your annual check rides. progressing to RL-1 NVGs basically follows the same path and you just need to get some different tasks done under the NVGs.
Monday was supposed to be my first RL-2 flight. that ended up being canceled because we had an issue at start up that could have been a major problem if we didn't check it out. but when we did all of the maintenance checks everything turned out to be ok. i didn't get to log any time that night but i did get to go out on a flight with the goggles on it was pretty cool, but it would have been better if i had a chance to sit in the crew chief's seat and not in the middle.
Tuesday we had a day flight that we meant to get us up to RL-1. it went really well and the both of us went up to RL-1 day/night so that was a breakthrough for us not needing both day and night training. after that i had an NVG flight scheduled for later that night. we ended up not taking that flight because we had a bad radio that we needed to send messages to ground and we had a bad HUD (heads up display) for one of the pilots so we didn't get to go anywhere that night either.
Wednesday night I had a NVG flight that actually made it off of the ground. I was part of a two ship mission that i wouldn't be able to be on normally but was able to go because i had the SI with me. it was my first official NVG flight and we were only out for 1.5 hours. but it was really good training and i got most of the rl-3 tasks that i needed done. there were only about 6 tasks that i needed to get up to rl-2. The SI was impressed by how well i did with that flight and how well that i adapted to flying with goggles. (you know that teacher that you had, that no matter how hard you worked, everything that you did was mediocre until you did something amazing and then he gave you an off hand compliment and you were really surprised about it? that is this guy) he actually gave me a compliment and i was really surprised.
he wanted to make sure that we got the proper academics for the NVGs so he took some time out of his thursday to get us our Academics. we had to take a written test, it was 50 questions and i ended up getting a 48/50 on the test which i was very happy with. and that night we had our 2nd NVG flight. both the other guy from the med and i were trying to get to RL-2 Goggles so that we could do aerial gunnery (which is happening tomorrow) and actually qualify. you have to be qualified on the goggles to be able to fully qualify in aerial gunnery. i will get into that tomorrow or the next day. when we got our briefs he was mad because he ended up on one of the flights that was introduction training to one of the newer pilots and it sounded like he wasn't going to get outside of the traffic pattern of the airport. i went out with a different FI than the one that i had went out with the night before and i got all of the rest of my tasks taken care of.
Today we had a pretty easy day. we had to get ready for aerial gunnery so we had to take a written exam on the 240H which is the weapon that we have mounted on the crew windows on all of the helicopters. after we did that we had some down time to get hang out then we went to supper. from supper we went and got all of our flight gear because most of us won't be leaving from the airport to get to the range we will be driving and then hopping into aircraft to do the qualifying. after we we got back to the barracks we had a little more down time and then went out to get a basic overview of what was going to happen tomorrow. from there we had the rest of the night off. It was pretty nice because for the last I can't even remember anymore i haven't had a day to relax cause of all of the training on the aircraft that i have been doing.
I hope that everyone back home is doing well, and i am sorry that i have taken so long to put up another post. i will try and do a better jo b uf keeping this up to date and a tleast posting every other day.
I miss you all very much and can't wait til july to get home to see everyone!
Signing off
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Flight time!
Hey!
Well, friday night i finally got my night unaided flight. it was a good flight; we went off the fort sill and flew around the cities around here. it was amazingly dark. the moon was not out at all that night so we had 0% illumination we were flying about 2000 ft and we couldn't see anything below us that wasn't lit up. i was happy because I finally progressed in my flight training to RL-2.
yesterday we did an RL-2 level flight. it was all terrain flight things flying under 200 ft above the ground. we did a nap of the earth route, which is less than 25 ft above the ground. that was really cool.
Tonight i have my first NVG (night vision goggles) flight. it should be really cool. i will let you know all about it!
hope everyone is doing well at home. Happy mothers day!
Signing off
Well, friday night i finally got my night unaided flight. it was a good flight; we went off the fort sill and flew around the cities around here. it was amazingly dark. the moon was not out at all that night so we had 0% illumination we were flying about 2000 ft and we couldn't see anything below us that wasn't lit up. i was happy because I finally progressed in my flight training to RL-2.
yesterday we did an RL-2 level flight. it was all terrain flight things flying under 200 ft above the ground. we did a nap of the earth route, which is less than 25 ft above the ground. that was really cool.
Tonight i have my first NVG (night vision goggles) flight. it should be really cool. i will let you know all about it!
hope everyone is doing well at home. Happy mothers day!
Signing off
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Decemination of information/crew chief christmas
hello all,
sorry it has been a couple of days since my last post. been a lot of different things going on around here. since we have been in flight mode down here we have been starting to get the mass evaluations going on. monday we did NBC. and tuesday we did max performance flights. today we switched over to the night cycle to get NVG certifications for people who need them.
On monday we did NBC evals for the entire company. NBC for those who don't know is Nuclear Biological and Chemical. that is all the gas mask stuff. we have a full suit with rubber boots and gloves to go along with the mask. it is all very hot equipment to work in. everyone needed to be certified that they can do it on the aircraft. so they had 4 helicopters going. two were doing start up and shutdowns, the other two were traffic patterns. i was in my NBC equipment for about 15 minutes, which isn't bad. the jacket and pants of the NBC suit is lined with charcoal, so it can be very messy. right now we have the old style NBC suits because they are for training and they need all the new ones for deployed soldiers. when we get in country we will get new NBC suits. there were a few people who had new NBC ended up with very black uniforms from all of the charcoal in them.
yesterday (tuesday) we did max performance training. that doesn't change much for me, but we still needed to be certified that we were on a max performance flight. when we went out for start up we had 11 people on board. 6 crew chiefs and 5 pilots. we were going through start up checks and had a stabilator failure. so we ended up switching aircraft. after that we went out to to the training area. we got through two sets of people then we were pulled back into the airfeild because of weather. we watched the weather for a while after we put the aircraft away. the weather was far enough that we really were safe from anything that was happening. we saw a few funnel clouds form but never touch down. we went to the tornado shelter for 15 minutes after that.
today we switched to what the army calls reverse cycle. basically working the night shift. we didn't have to be anywhere until 4 pm today originally. Me and one of my roommates went out and did PT at noon and then went to the PX and alterations. we were back around 2:30 and went to the room for a while. i was talking to a friend when a knock at the door comes at about 3:20. it is my squad leader and formation time had changed without anyone telling about half the company. we ended up just standing around until 4 so it was pointless to get out there 30 minutes earlier, but it was dumb because my platoon sergreant was giving us a hard time because we didn't know what time formation was even though we were never told. when we got out to the airfield we pulled all of the aircraft that were flying out to the flight line. then the people who had flights started pre-flighting. by 7 the flights had been canceled do to weather again. so we did some classes and we had Crew Chief cristmas. the SI or head crew chief did a lot of letter writing and got us the funding for certain things that he thought that we might need. today we got a pair of WileyX sunglasses. a gerber multi-tool, a quick open knife and a finger light. the WileyX sunglasses are balistic glasses that we can wear all the time. the multi tool is good for doing daily inspections of the aircraft. the quick release knife is good for survival situations. the fingerlight is a aircraft approved light that can be used while flying under NVGs. and it is very tactical when it comes to being seen by the enemy compared to the lip light that is the other option.
On a side note, news of the general and his fishing buddy that we were looking for this weekend. on tuesday we were in line for the chow hall and we passed a newspaper stand. the general and his buddy was found. they were both on the bottom of the lake. the divers found them on monday. we don't know the reason that they were drowned. but probably had something to do with the rapidly changing weather that we have been having down here. it is sad.
i hope that everyone at home is doing well.
Signing off
sorry it has been a couple of days since my last post. been a lot of different things going on around here. since we have been in flight mode down here we have been starting to get the mass evaluations going on. monday we did NBC. and tuesday we did max performance flights. today we switched over to the night cycle to get NVG certifications for people who need them.
On monday we did NBC evals for the entire company. NBC for those who don't know is Nuclear Biological and Chemical. that is all the gas mask stuff. we have a full suit with rubber boots and gloves to go along with the mask. it is all very hot equipment to work in. everyone needed to be certified that they can do it on the aircraft. so they had 4 helicopters going. two were doing start up and shutdowns, the other two were traffic patterns. i was in my NBC equipment for about 15 minutes, which isn't bad. the jacket and pants of the NBC suit is lined with charcoal, so it can be very messy. right now we have the old style NBC suits because they are for training and they need all the new ones for deployed soldiers. when we get in country we will get new NBC suits. there were a few people who had new NBC ended up with very black uniforms from all of the charcoal in them.
yesterday (tuesday) we did max performance training. that doesn't change much for me, but we still needed to be certified that we were on a max performance flight. when we went out for start up we had 11 people on board. 6 crew chiefs and 5 pilots. we were going through start up checks and had a stabilator failure. so we ended up switching aircraft. after that we went out to to the training area. we got through two sets of people then we were pulled back into the airfeild because of weather. we watched the weather for a while after we put the aircraft away. the weather was far enough that we really were safe from anything that was happening. we saw a few funnel clouds form but never touch down. we went to the tornado shelter for 15 minutes after that.
today we switched to what the army calls reverse cycle. basically working the night shift. we didn't have to be anywhere until 4 pm today originally. Me and one of my roommates went out and did PT at noon and then went to the PX and alterations. we were back around 2:30 and went to the room for a while. i was talking to a friend when a knock at the door comes at about 3:20. it is my squad leader and formation time had changed without anyone telling about half the company. we ended up just standing around until 4 so it was pointless to get out there 30 minutes earlier, but it was dumb because my platoon sergreant was giving us a hard time because we didn't know what time formation was even though we were never told. when we got out to the airfield we pulled all of the aircraft that were flying out to the flight line. then the people who had flights started pre-flighting. by 7 the flights had been canceled do to weather again. so we did some classes and we had Crew Chief cristmas. the SI or head crew chief did a lot of letter writing and got us the funding for certain things that he thought that we might need. today we got a pair of WileyX sunglasses. a gerber multi-tool, a quick open knife and a finger light. the WileyX sunglasses are balistic glasses that we can wear all the time. the multi tool is good for doing daily inspections of the aircraft. the quick release knife is good for survival situations. the fingerlight is a aircraft approved light that can be used while flying under NVGs. and it is very tactical when it comes to being seen by the enemy compared to the lip light that is the other option.
On a side note, news of the general and his fishing buddy that we were looking for this weekend. on tuesday we were in line for the chow hall and we passed a newspaper stand. the general and his buddy was found. they were both on the bottom of the lake. the divers found them on monday. we don't know the reason that they were drowned. but probably had something to do with the rapidly changing weather that we have been having down here. it is sad.
i hope that everyone at home is doing well.
Signing off
Sunday, May 6, 2007
try and try again
hey all,
so things haven't been bad. yesterday we were playing infantry so we got to do things like talking on radios and set up claymores. a bunch of stuff that we aren't going to be using while we are over there. we spent most of the day out there, but at least we had some time after.
today wasn't that bad, other than i didn't get my 5th try at getting my night unaided flight. we didn't have to be anywhere until noon and then when we got to the hanger we didn't have anything to do right away and then i ended up getting to come back to the barracks because i had a night flight. so we came back here til dinner and then we went back out to the airfield.
after that we started the preflight stuff. we didn't get to start up and the weather stopped us. but officially i did nothing today. so it can't be all bad.
hope everything is ok at home!
signing off
so things haven't been bad. yesterday we were playing infantry so we got to do things like talking on radios and set up claymores. a bunch of stuff that we aren't going to be using while we are over there. we spent most of the day out there, but at least we had some time after.
today wasn't that bad, other than i didn't get my 5th try at getting my night unaided flight. we didn't have to be anywhere until noon and then when we got to the hanger we didn't have anything to do right away and then i ended up getting to come back to the barracks because i had a night flight. so we came back here til dinner and then we went back out to the airfield.
after that we started the preflight stuff. we didn't get to start up and the weather stopped us. but officially i did nothing today. so it can't be all bad.
hope everything is ok at home!
signing off
Friday, May 4, 2007
air time and down time
so the last three days have been pretty interesting. wednesday was pretty nice because even though i wasn't flying i had all of my work done by 3 so i was able to get away from the hanger and get some things done. i had some things sown on one of my uniforms and picked up a few more essential things.
yesterday was my RL progression flight. i have been waiting on that flight since i was going in on orders about a month before we left. we tried 3 times while we were there and it was canceled all three times do to weather or maintenance. because the flight that i needed was at night we didn't have to be anywhere until lunch time when we needed to be out at formation. from there we went to the hanger, and waited. all the dailies were done and the aircraft were on the flight line. so all we could do was wait. we waited and went to supper and then came back to the airfield to wait a little while longer. at 7:30 we had our mission brief and got all of the pre-flight stuff done. we went out to the aircraft to start up the aircraft for the mission. the aircraft was on a fly-over from earlier in the day so we only had to do certain checks while starting up. we had both engines started and at idle and then we had a generator failure. it blew the #1 & #2 converter circuit breakers. that was a red x condition no flight for me. :(. oh well the commander has already scheduled me for another night flight for sunday. i will be RL 2 then. after that i get to start flying NVGs; i am excited for that. we waited for everyone else who had flights last night to get back in so we could help them take their stuff in and get home faster. so we were out at the airfield til midnight anyways.
today was a lot of fun for me. I had some real world tasks that i got to perform. I was supposed to fly at 2. we had a briefing on Arabic and the Iraqi culture in the morning and that went on til about 12:30. around 12 the first seargent walked in and asked for the crew of the two flights going out at 2 to come with him. there were two pilots and me who were already in our flight uniforms so we went straight to the hanger. the others went back to the barracks to get changed. when i got to the hanger i found out that i wasn't going to be doing the training that was originally planned. we were going to be doing a real search and rescue mission. apparently there was a retired general who liked to fish on a little lake down on the western side of Fort Sill, and he hadn't come home the night before and his wife reported him missing. the crew of my helicopter was going out to see if we could help find him. the commander had to talk to D company to get an aircraft assigned to this mission. when he told me the tail number i was suspect about being able to use that aircraft because i remembered it being used the night before and it hadn't gotten it's daily done yet. so i went and got the log book and double check and sure enough it didn't have a daily and it couldn't fly. so i had to go get another logbook (by the way a log book is a laptop in a huge protective case) for the bird that we ended up taking out for the mission. we were in the air 30 minutes from when we started planning for the mission. we flew out to the site where the general was fishing and we picked up a few policemen to come up to help us scan the lake. we made 2 slow, low passes side to side on the lake looking for anything important that might give us a clue. on one of the first passes we found a hat that probably belong to the general or his fishing buddy. we didn't find anything else in our sweeps. from there we dropped the policemen back off and went searching in the surrounding areas. we went a klick and a half in every direction searching for the general or his buddy, but saw no signs. we searched until we were close to our reserve time with fuel and then we had to go back. they had quite the ground crew out there. we were not going to be much more help so we didn't send out another helicopter after us. as of right now they have not found him, which is too bad. they will find him soon i am sure.
I hope that everything is going well at home!
Signing off
yesterday was my RL progression flight. i have been waiting on that flight since i was going in on orders about a month before we left. we tried 3 times while we were there and it was canceled all three times do to weather or maintenance. because the flight that i needed was at night we didn't have to be anywhere until lunch time when we needed to be out at formation. from there we went to the hanger, and waited. all the dailies were done and the aircraft were on the flight line. so all we could do was wait. we waited and went to supper and then came back to the airfield to wait a little while longer. at 7:30 we had our mission brief and got all of the pre-flight stuff done. we went out to the aircraft to start up the aircraft for the mission. the aircraft was on a fly-over from earlier in the day so we only had to do certain checks while starting up. we had both engines started and at idle and then we had a generator failure. it blew the #1 & #2 converter circuit breakers. that was a red x condition no flight for me. :(. oh well the commander has already scheduled me for another night flight for sunday. i will be RL 2 then. after that i get to start flying NVGs; i am excited for that. we waited for everyone else who had flights last night to get back in so we could help them take their stuff in and get home faster. so we were out at the airfield til midnight anyways.
today was a lot of fun for me. I had some real world tasks that i got to perform. I was supposed to fly at 2. we had a briefing on Arabic and the Iraqi culture in the morning and that went on til about 12:30. around 12 the first seargent walked in and asked for the crew of the two flights going out at 2 to come with him. there were two pilots and me who were already in our flight uniforms so we went straight to the hanger. the others went back to the barracks to get changed. when i got to the hanger i found out that i wasn't going to be doing the training that was originally planned. we were going to be doing a real search and rescue mission. apparently there was a retired general who liked to fish on a little lake down on the western side of Fort Sill, and he hadn't come home the night before and his wife reported him missing. the crew of my helicopter was going out to see if we could help find him. the commander had to talk to D company to get an aircraft assigned to this mission. when he told me the tail number i was suspect about being able to use that aircraft because i remembered it being used the night before and it hadn't gotten it's daily done yet. so i went and got the log book and double check and sure enough it didn't have a daily and it couldn't fly. so i had to go get another logbook (by the way a log book is a laptop in a huge protective case) for the bird that we ended up taking out for the mission. we were in the air 30 minutes from when we started planning for the mission. we flew out to the site where the general was fishing and we picked up a few policemen to come up to help us scan the lake. we made 2 slow, low passes side to side on the lake looking for anything important that might give us a clue. on one of the first passes we found a hat that probably belong to the general or his fishing buddy. we didn't find anything else in our sweeps. from there we dropped the policemen back off and went searching in the surrounding areas. we went a klick and a half in every direction searching for the general or his buddy, but saw no signs. we searched until we were close to our reserve time with fuel and then we had to go back. they had quite the ground crew out there. we were not going to be much more help so we didn't send out another helicopter after us. as of right now they have not found him, which is too bad. they will find him soon i am sure.
I hope that everything is going well at home!
Signing off
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
First day of flight
Today was my first flight of training. today was not a bad day, but that was just the first day and i know that it won't stay this way. Today because i was part of the flight crews i had it pretty easy. I didn't have to be at morning chow because we had flights and most of the flights were going out at 7pm and we were going out at 2pm. we got up at 9 and hung out until lunch. after lunch we went to the hanger and we set up to go on our flight and then left. by the time we got back it was time for dinner and we came back, finished picking up our flight gear and put it away. when we were done with all of that we went back to the barracks and we were done for the day.
The flight was pretty good. we did an LAO (land area orientation) it was a lot of fun because you get to see a lot of things that you don't get to see in Minnesota. not that Minnesota is bad, but it is really flat. one of the things that we flew by was called medicine bluffs. the Comanche Indians would take the sick up to the top of this cliff and they would either heal them or they would throw them off. it was kind of interesting. we saw a lot of the different ranges and the things to go with all of the artillery firing that goes on down here. and it was really interesting because it was mostly sunny but one part of the reservation (what we call fort sill) had an isolated thunderstorm moving through it and it was directly over one of the routes that we were supposed to take so we went around that one and stayed outside of the storm. it was actually kind of interesting flying with the sun on one side and a storm on the other. we flew around for 2 hours on the different flight corridors then we came back to the hanger and did a few simulated emergency procedures for one of the pilots on the way in.
i hope that everyone at home is having a good time!
signing off
The flight was pretty good. we did an LAO (land area orientation) it was a lot of fun because you get to see a lot of things that you don't get to see in Minnesota. not that Minnesota is bad, but it is really flat. one of the things that we flew by was called medicine bluffs. the Comanche Indians would take the sick up to the top of this cliff and they would either heal them or they would throw them off. it was kind of interesting. we saw a lot of the different ranges and the things to go with all of the artillery firing that goes on down here. and it was really interesting because it was mostly sunny but one part of the reservation (what we call fort sill) had an isolated thunderstorm moving through it and it was directly over one of the routes that we were supposed to take so we went around that one and stayed outside of the storm. it was actually kind of interesting flying with the sun on one side and a storm on the other. we flew around for 2 hours on the different flight corridors then we came back to the hanger and did a few simulated emergency procedures for one of the pilots on the way in.
i hope that everyone at home is having a good time!
signing off
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