I must really love birds.
I must really love VT.

Actually, just the latter is correct.

Systems week

Wouldn't this be cool as a patch? Warbucks... we drop bombs, biyotches, we drop bombs.

More systems this week. That and some time to spend on muscle memory with checklists and EPs.
I can't wait for my brain muscles to actually do some working, unlike back in college... lol

Oh, and I might just add the ribbon + "We will prevail" to the current Hokie bird patch. Kind of cluttered, but it'll work somehow.

Purr-rye-mary.

I'm glad I joined the HT's. If it wasn't for them (or 3rd battalion for that matter), I wouldn't have to spend extra money on navy blue t-shirts for my uniform at VT-4!

So I'm between getting the already-made Hokie bird in a flight suit patch... versus a patch I haven't made, but want to make. Its a white or black background with the VT and a ribbon behind it, possibly saying "We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech."

Feedback is greatly appreciated.

Parasailing, anyone?

Horrible form on my spiral.



That's me in the air. Light as a feather.



Why are my goggles all fogged up?!


Good ending to all the fun. Time to check out and hopefully I'll remember a condensed version of API whilst in Primary. Or else, I'll be screwed. And... if I forget any of these experiences, I've got this blogger to look back on!

One of the top 3 coolest experiences - the helo hoist

I think thats me in the Virtual Reality Trainer... anyways

IF that was me (which I'm pretty sure, but I took so many pictures I don't know anymore) then I was in the middle of a bicycle kick trying to free myself from a line twist in my chute. Pretty cool huh? The harness was grabbing me in the... area...

Today was one of the coolest days ever. Aside from practicing PLFs in preparation for tomorrow's redneck parasailing, I was
1. Dragged by 4 of my classmates on grass, dirt, and its moguls
2. Floating in Pensacola bay with nothing but an inflated vest and dolphins swimming around me
3. Hoisted up by an H-3 helicopter

Yeah, it was a short day, but hey, 2 more days until graduation, and that's what counts, right? Then I checkout and start Primary. This has been a cool ride so far, I wish we did these kinds of things at least once a week, the warm weather is definitely enticing to those who end up cooped up studying all the time, but what can one do, eh?

Alabama.. tomorrow.

More practice with parachutes, helicopters, and ejection seats

Today was Play in the Water day!

We did the pool thing bright and early today, putting on our G-suits and going through the techniques for PLFs in the water. Trained with all the stuff strapped on you: the inflated LPU, harness, seat cover simulating the part of the ejection seat, and the rest of your flight gear. Did some more helo hoist practice and then finally we were dragged across the length of the pool only to unhook ourselves with our good arm. No more pool! (I hate manual inflation, by the way)

The day was done for the pilots, but we T-6ers were sticking around for the ejection seat trainer. Wasn't all that hard, I should remember not to eat so much right before another lecture. (The food didn't come up during the eject, it just helped me doze off in the front row.) It was really simple, 2 commands and we were out of the plane. The trainer used compressed air, which is the dumbed down version of the real thing of course. In real life, we would be feeling lots of hot gases under our butts and maybe a period of unconsciousness...

Here's a picture from the trainer:



Hi Ma!

Dunkin donuts... and one more week

Can you imagine being strapped into a seat inside this section of a helo and then hitting the water after a major malfunction, then having to brace for impact, then find your way out of this huge washing machine (yes, you go upside down) with very limited visibility? That's what we did yesterday. Practice a lotttttt of water egress while feeling disorientation. I just have gotta say, that's a situation I don't ever want to find myself in (the aircraft crashing, of course).

We all had to familiarize and build up to that point, however, by learning how to unstrap ourselves from safety harnesses and find reference points which would eventually lead us to our exit. Turning and pulling knobs and handles in the dark is hard enough, all I have to say is that you definitely should be familiiar with your aircraft. Then we did the SWET (Survival Water Egress Trainer) where we sit in a set and then manually turn us upside down, teaching us how to brace for impact and find a way out despite the disorientation. That is when you start getting used to water going in your nose. 2 times and a third time with blackened goggles and then you move on to the helo dunker. The backseaters also got to practice the helo hoist... the "save me, save me" technique and then how to attach yourself without the help of a SAR swimmer.

All in a day's work. Oh, finally took the freakin class picture. Aren't we lovable?

Parasail ops Part I

Some pictures of the Low Pressure Chamber experience and the Pensacola pattycake (I'm playing on the left side, Seat 14). I hit my head on the back of the pattycake. I am really more coordinated than you think WITH oxygen.




More of this other stuff was from today, we learned about some extended sea survival and certain life rafts, then we were taught a little bit about ejecting from the T-6, my future aircraft trainer, learned a bit about what's going to happen next week as far as practicing PLFs (parachute landing falls). We then went out to shoot some day/night flares, pencil flares, then did some pretty fun stuff like jumping into the cool water and getting into certain scenarios with the single and multi life rafts. I was morale officer and all I could come up with was the one joke about the 2 Mexicans playing bball with each other (Juan on Juan, get it? Oh man, now I have to go figure out a new one to tell...) But overall, it was a good day.

Now all I've got left to do is continue videotaping (because I have really become the PAO in this class, and the only female =) )

Tomorrow is in the pool, for helo hoist.

21-22

2 days of physiology =

Day 1 - the entire joint aerospace physiology text in one day aka death by powerpoint
Day 2 - Multi Spatial Disorientation Demo aka Spin and Puke
Low Pressure Chamber/Rapid Decompression

Basically we learned everything we needed to know to take a physiology test today, but it was information that's going to be applicable in the future, which was cool. We did scenarios today, for instance, if your jet takes off and suddenly you experience engine failure or something happens which causes you eject from your aircraft, its pitch black.. are you going to be able to save yourself? Did you preflight well enough to know where all your equipment is on your SV-2 life vest? What do you do first in order to try to save yourself?

Our class was divided into 2 groups; I was in the first group to go to MSDD. We were put into these little pods that resembled Disney's infamous teacups and we were forced to listen to Top Gun music while trying to figure ourt which way we were turning the whole time in a simulated nighttime situation. It basically got our bodies used to a constant turn which fooled us into thinking we had stopped turning, in which the one thing to take away from that was "trust your instruments!"

In the altitude chamber, it was "can you recognize your symptoms of hypoxia?" They stole us from our oxygen (by the way, that was the first time for me to be put in an oxygen mask... oxygen is SOOO good when it hits your lips) and I even have video of us doing the Pensacola pattycake, then getting fatigued, confused, and completely unaware of the surroundings. We had a couple of goofy faces worth laughing about. (In my case, my muscles either became tight, or I was just got really tired playing pattycake. When I was playing with the invisible man, it started to blur a bit, and the video shows me hitting my face instead of hitting the helmet like I was supposed to. So fatigue set in, and I put that mask right on.)

Good times... the gas in your body, though, expands in high altitudes (we went all the way to 35,000 ft before leveling off to 25,000) so I was burping and farting trying to expend the gas... and no I wasn't the only one... and doing Valsalva maneuvers the whole way down. It was pretty awesome stuff. Like an amusement park ride almost, haha...