Sorry to hear that Sim.
I hope good weather starts heading you way, and soon.


Wheels

Weather is horrid. No flying today even though weather folks predicted 'partially cloudy'. So it was 'partially cloudy' all day long with overcast at 1500 / 3.

Welcome to Columbus!

FC

Yep, but today due to cold front, it was near perfect; just very light turbulence at 2-3k.


So today I had an 86 ride. After almost 10 days of no flying, it felt good. After going to MOA, I finished all of maneuvers in 12 minutes. So for rest of time, I played in pattern. Most memorable thing was ELP landing. Unlike discussions in IL2 forums awhile back about how landings should be 3 points, that is not the case in reality. Nose wheel doesn't like being landed on. My landing was firm but not enough to damage front gear. T-6 is rated for 600 fpm descent or 3.7Gs so it can take punishment of 'great' landings.

Solo expected in 3 rides.

Awesome reading about your training.

It's great to hear that you got to fly again.


Wheels

I was expecting a flight today, but IP was sick. Right now, I'm two flights away from solo. Tomorrow, I'm scheduled to fly so hopefully, if weather permits, Monday will be the day.


Things are going ok. Weather test passed. Instruments as confusing as ever. Contact portion of flight is fine.

Interesting thing during my last flights - During my pre-flight I need to lower ejection seat to my height so that view is same each flight. Well, seat doesn't respond. After getting expert crew chief to fix problem, we go on to our flight. Next day and different jet, exactly same thing happens to me; seat doesn't move. This time crew chief fixed it quickly and off we went. But what chances of seat going bad in two different jets. Odd.



In my last flight, I played a game to see who lands better with IP. IP was a bit off in perch but landed at almost perfect speed. I was exact on perch but landed a bit fast. I lost
So far I have ~17 hours in T-6. Hard to imagine that soon I'll get to fly solo in 5 million jet.

Make a dash for the border and see how far you get!

That reminded me of that old Del Taco commercial.


Wheels

I got to fly on Friday and it went fine so Solo on Monday. My scheduled takeoff time is ~0800. First I'm going up with instructor and do a couple patterns. After which, I will land and shut engine down to let instructor out. He will do walk around. Since engine is going to be fairly hot, I'll motor engine for 20 seconds to get it within norm for a normal start.
It's going to be only 2 touch-n-goes and one full stop which equals to about 150 pounds of fuel. Following landing a small tradition performed by flightmates. They will try to catch and dump me into little kiddy pool. If they don't catch me and I walk into flight room, every person will go into light financial debt by buying me a case.

After solo and on next flight, I'm getting intro to basic acrobatics; barrel roll, aileron roll, spit-S and loop.