I got to sleep around 1:30, and woke up at 4:30 wide awake. Got sleepy again around 6:30, and had to get up at 7:30. Nice. ;) But we all got up, got going, and were at the airport by 9:00, briefing the first flight of the day. They'd agreed that today they'd all just fly to work with me. So I was #4, and we were out for over an hour the first time. That's a long time to be a new #4; it was a lot of work, that's for sure. Some things went well, some things were rougher, some things were nailed, a couple I blew, but all in all, the consensus was that it went well. They seem to feel they could finish me off before the end of flying season this year, which would be awfully nice. I don't care if it's RPA or NATA, either. RPA has stricter tolerances and more to have to do to pass, but that's not a bad thing either.
That first flight for today I had a backseater. He is a retired Air Force fighter pilot, and he's flown every fighter from the 70s on. F-4, A-10, F-16, you name it, he flew it. He was shot down in N. Vietnam twice and had to be rescued by helicopter, and he's won every major award possible, from Purple Heart on down. I saw them on his wall along with photos of him in about 10 different jets. He said "Can I ride with you? I've never flown in a T-6 before!" lol Sure. Meanwhile, the #3 guy I was flying off of was another, more recently retired Air Force fighter pilot named Nevill. At one point in our flight, we went to what they call "Extended Trail", where basically One starts maneuvering and Two has to keep him within a certain 'cone', and three and four do the same thing with each other. It's using lag and lead to maintain distance and position without touching power, no matter what your Lead does. So One and Two are going to town, which I keep an eye out with my peripheral so I always know where they are, and my lead starts diving, climbing, yanking and banking and cranking, and off I go on him. (So to recap, a fighter pilot in front of me is maneuvering while the fighter pilot in my back seat observes as I, a not fighter pilot, tries to keep him in my sights within a certain range at all times no matter what he does. Got it. ;)) It's actually kind of a fun exercise, used as a tension breaker as much as a learning tool, though when I first started flying with them I wasn't very excited about doing that as opposed to just getting with it and flying actual formation practice. It gets more fun once you know what you're supposed to actually be doing. ;)
When we got back on the ground, Neville came over and talked about what a blast he had, and how much he loved the extended trail. My backseater was very complimentary, to which Neville said "Yes, no matter where I went, I'd look back, and there you were, always had me in your gun sights, didn't matter what I did! That was great!" So that was my smile for the day. My backseater had a total blast back there, after the flight he thanked me about 17 times for letting him ride along, says he loves the T-6, and said about six times, four of them to me, "You're really very aggressive in the airplane." The first time I wasn't sure what to say to that, and he said "Don't change that. That's a good thing." A few minutes later: "Really, you're quite aggressive on the rejoins and stuff. That's the way to be." He was pretty surprised, as evidenced by his tone of voice and how many times he mentioned it. I honestly didn't think I was being all that aggressive. Maybe I was just aggressive for a girl. ;)
We did have one major flub that started off as a deliberate flub and ended up a bigger, undeliberate flub. They wanted to practice a blown rejoin and boy did we ever get one. Airplanes ended up going blind, all out of whack, all over the place. Not cool. So we did three more deliberate blown rejoins until they went smoothly. It was really good practice.
Land, debrief, lunch, brief, then the last flight of the day after which we were heading for home. I was #4 again, and started off kind of rocky this time for some reason. Tired, probably, but by the middle of that flight I'd settled back in. Of course, come to think of it, that's the flight where Lead had a camera pointed back at all of us. Figgers. ;) We did maneuvers until about Shelbyville, then split off our own ways and headed for home. I had to fly over and let a couple people know I was home, and then I topped off the day by making an absolutely perfect, roll-it-on, greaser 3-point landing, something I haven't done in awhile in that plane. I halfway wanted to go and do another takeoff and landing and see if I could pull that off again, maybe had accidentally rediscovered the trick, but I was tired and couldn't stand the thought of ending on my usual "Well, I'm here, anyway" 3-pointer, so I put it away. Driving home and picking up food, I got so tired I felt like I could fall asleep in the car. That's a special kind of tired, a mental and physical tired. It's good, though. :)
Kaylee was sitting outside on the grass in the front yard waiting for me, and it was good to be home...
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