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