Training the Best

Today we started our water survival training. Yeah, I think I've said that three times already, but this was the actual Navy program that everybody has to have before boarding a Navy aircraft that flies over water. Everything up to this point has been entry level screening which is pilot specific. I don't know what the rest of the Navy does for their initial swim qualifications but I don't think that it is as intense as what pilots are put through.

So today we actually began to learn how to survive in the water given the survival equipment we will be given. All of the training takes place in the NSTI (Naval Survival Training Institute) in a quite impressive pool. Maybe not impressive by Air Force standards, but for a marine it was very well equipped. Our training started with hooking up to the recovery hook and strop that we will be lowered if we are ever picked up out of the water by a rescue helicopter (and will be on Tuesday). There is an electric hoist and water jets which simulate the downwash from the rotors and the current which is pushing you away from the hook. It looked easy from the poolside, but when you get in and the water is beating down on you it's very hard to see the rescue strop, even though t is a four foot long bright red float which is about as big around as a person's calf. You hook up, give a thumbs up, and you are along for the ride.

After that we went to an exercise designed to get us thinking about manipulating levers and hatches underwater. We dove underwater, grabbed a rail on the bottom of the pool, released a lap belt around our waist which was meant to simulate releasing from our seat, and pulled ourselves along it for about fifteen feet to a door. Once there we had to pull, slide, or push five different levers before turning another handle, pushing open the door, and finally pulling ourselves through the now open hatch. It was kinda fun.

Now onto the chair. You sit in a chair which is mounted to a rod that runs from back to front. After belting yourself in the instructor pulls a lever and you are flipped to the right, now upside down in the water. Release your lap and shoulder belts, find a reference point, pull yourself to the hatch to your left, twist the handle, and out you go again. You do this twice, the second time you do it you wear a pair of blacked out goggles which simulate doing this at night.

While we were doing the chair a local Air Force JROTC unit came by on a field trip. Yet another time when I wish I could hear what they were thinking. Probably a good recruiting tool for the Air Force; "See kids, if you join the Navy to be a pilot they're going to try and drown your ass first!" Little do they know the Air Force NFOs do the training with us and the Air Force pilots have to do something similar later on.

After those small build up events, we went on to the helo dunker. It is a blue capsule about the size of a large SUV which loosely simulates a helicopter interior. There are eight seats inside but we went in groups of six. Seats one and two are pilot (left side) and copilot (right) who sit facing forward in the simulated cockpit. Seats three and four are crew seats which are in the cargo area and face aft. Seats five through eight are along the sides of the helicopter and face inboard. Seats one and two have shoulder harnesses as well as lap belts (just like a real helicopter) while the rest just have lap belts.

Once you get your brief they raise the dunker about six feet above the water and drop it. As soon as it hits the water, seat two pops the window to his right and seats seven and eight open the windows to their right. However, the dunker, just like almost every helicopter which goes into the water, will turn over and you have to wait for that motion to stop. This takes a while, but if you release your belt before the motion stops in the dunker you have to do it again. Release too early in real life and you risk being injured by the still spinning rotor blades.

Just to make things more exciting, you are assigned a door to go out. Seat two just pops his window and swims out. Seat one must wait for him and go out the same window. Seats three and four must pull themselves along the seats all the way aft to the windows that seven and eight opened and exited. This can be difficult following the confusion of rolling and turbulent water that accompanies a helo going down in the water.

For the first dunk I was assigned seat one which is on the left side of the helo facing forward. The instructors rolled the helo left every time, which meant the guys on the left side were the first to go under. Combine this with having to wait for seat two to get out and you are holding your breath for a while. It wasn't really a big deal, I got right out. For the second run I was assigned seat seven. This meant that for the third and blindfolded run I would be in seat three, the worst one. Under water the longest with the furthest to go. Jeez. My Air Force buddy, Burns, who was in seat two next to me and eight across from me on the previous runs was not happy about this.

The second run went off without incident; I opened my window and flew right out. The third run didn't start out well. After I put on my blacked out goggles but before we were dunked I heard the squid in seat seven nervously telling the instructor that he did not understand how to open the window. Great, this is the guy that has to pop that window and get out before I can get out. I felt a second run coming on. I was also feeling a broken nose coming on from his flailing boots if he didn't get the heck out. I thought ok, calm down; this is just going to shorten the time you can hold your breath.

So let me take you through a run in the dunker while blindfolded. In seat three I assumed the crash position, which is bent over at the waist with my head on my knees, my left hand on my seat and my right grabbing my reference point (the seat in front of me) which will help me maintain orientation when things get upside down. Without warning, the dunker is dropped and we hit the water. Once we hit the water, the dunker started a slow roll which initially I couldn't really discern the direction of. Then things really get tilted and I knew. Since it is rolling to my right I didn't have much time to hold my breath. I inhaled deeply and waited. I didn't realize until a second or two later that I had inhaled too early. I could feel the water working its way up my right arm and angling towards my face. It was too late to exhale and inhale again so I just held. Right before my face went under I felt the coolness of the water rush up to meet my face and then I was underwater.

Once underwater the noises of the surface stopped but it was not quiet. The water rushed into the dunker from all angles, creating turbulent currents which tossed me around against my seatbelt. After the water calmed I could feel the dunker continuing its slow roll. You want to release your lap belt and get the fuck out but you can't just yet. You must wait until all movement is stopped before you release your belt so you wait. It felt like forever. Once the movement stopped, I pulled the release on my lap belt and begin to pull hand over hand along the seats toward the exit.

Once you are on your way, many things conspire to confuse and disorient you. Your helmet is buoyant, so through this roll it has gone from trying to choke you to death with your chinstrap to forcing your head towards the floor as the dunker rolls completely upside down. Your flight suit is full of trapped air as well, and as you pull your way along the seats facing the floor (now up) this trapped air rolls you over. If you didn't have a good grip on your reference point this will really screw you up.

After pulling yourself along three seats you are supposed to find a window which was left open by the man that exited the door before you. I say supposed to because that is not what I found. I mentioned before being dunked the third time to my buddy Burns that he should be looking out for a window which was closed when he got there because the divers might close it just for shits and giggles. Or as they call it "good training value." I was a little surprised to find the window closed when I got there but not panicked. I grabbed the window latch, pulled it open, grasped the frame and pulled myself out. For the final ride we had to swim clear of the wreckage, pull the release on our LPUs and then orally inflate them. They are supposed to inflate automatically but these are training LPUs and they want us to know what to do if they malfunction. Not really a big deal, just time consuming.

It was a little scary building up to the dunker and a little scary doing it, but looking back on it, it was kinda fun. Well I say that now, but my N-1, N-11 swim quals are only good for 4 years so I'll be back at least once more.

Today was the first day of water survival in the Bay Ops department. The water survival we did before was just skills training, this is centered on how to use the equipment we are provided. As advertised, we practice these in the Pensacola Bay. Water temperature today? 53 degrees fahrenheit. Yikes.

We had a bunch of presentations, which at lease one squid slept through part of. Damn squids. The lectures were boring and the room was hot, but this stuff will keep you alive if you have to eject or bail out of your aircraft, it might be important.

Fortunately, this was a Navy run operation so we got wetsuits. If the Marine Corps was running the show they'd just tell us to suck it up, it's "good training." First we fired off some M79 signal flares which were exactly like the flares my dad has from his days in the Marines during Vietnam. Guess if it works there's no reason to fix it. Then we popped some smoke and fired off a night signal which is like a road flare with a much bigger flame and only about 30 seconds of burn time. Ho hum.

Following the flare shoot off, we strapped on survial gear and inflated the LPUs (Life Preserving Unit) attached to them. We lined up on the pier in pairs and on the command "ditch, ditch, ditch" we jumped off into the freezing water. It was brutal for about a minute before all of the swimming around warmed us up. We climbed into a one person raft, rolled out, then swam to a 20 person raft. That one was a little more difficult to climb into, you have to flop onto a boarding ramp, turn around, stand up, and climb over the side into the raft. The bag may say 20 person raft, but it's not a roomy 20 people. We were all hip to hip with our feet pulled up, curled into a ball. Then we had a short class in the raft on surviving at sea for an extended period of time before rolling out and swimming the raft ashore.

The whole day was pretty cool actually; another one of those days when, as I was walking to the car to go home the clouds opened up, the sun shined, and I thought to myself, "I have the best fucking job in the world."

In the afternoon of Wednesday we did the MSDD. It probably wasn't a good idea to have that double cheeseburger and spicy fries at the Oaks club.

It was predictably anticlimactic. You sit in a dark tube which is on a huge circle with nine other tubes that spin independently of each other. A computer voice walks you through the program and you respond using the joystick and a bunch of buttons. As the program is running, confusing visual images are moving in front of your eyes in an effort to throw you off. For the most part I made the correct responses but once or twice they were confusing.

The biggest head screw was when we had to turn these small dials on the left and right sides of the instrument panel in front of us. To see them you have to bend forward and look to your right if you are looking at the left one and vice versa for the right. When you are in a turn, this really screws with both your semicircular organs and your otolith organs at the same time. When you sit up, the effect gets worse. We were told to put the "number of the day" in the left one and then the number minus 101 on the right. I had the most trouble figuring out what the hell 2006-101 was. Then we were told to sit up rapidly from the right side, which magnifies the effects. When I sat up I felt like I was tumbling uncontrolably through space.

All in all it was fun, but not as bad as advertised; nothing in the military is. Everybody builds stuff up to be harder and more intense than it is. At one point, dissapointed that I hadn't become nauseous yet, I started looking rapidly to the right and left. That did the trick and I stopped that quickly.

Week five of API has been the most fun so far; lots of good information and a couple of cool exercises. Nothing in the military can go on without an excruciatingly boring PowerPoint slideshow first, so we did have to pay our dues in boredom. No big deal, after TBS I have an amazing tolerance for the death by PowerPoint torture.

We stated out on Friday with a very painful first aid class. I've had so many first aid and CPR classes by now I could practically teach the damn thing. I would enjoy it if there was something new they were going to teach me but I was relatively certain that they weren't going to. There was a rumor that the Marines were excused from the class due to the training that we get at TBS, but I wasn't getting my hopes up yet. When we got there I found out that the Marines did indeed usually get the opportunity to test out of the class but since there weren't enough instructors we couldn't do that.

The class was, as expected, excruciatingly boring. The material was dated and presented in the most boring manner possible. It seems like they change their minds every year about how to perform CPR and administer first aid; every time I take a class something changes. It gets annoying keeping up with the changes so I don't even bother. The basics never change, let the pencil pushers worry about the minutia. The instructor was an unbelievably fat Navy chief petty officer. At first glance I didn't even think he was military, but then I recognized the shirt he was wearing as one of the enlisted staff. He was so fat that he did that wheezing thing that fat people do when they move around and their breathing rate increases above resting rate. I thought we might wind up having to prac app our CPR skills on this tub of lard.

Thankfully that class ended early, we took the written and practical application tests and we got out around 1330 for an early weekend.

Monday started up with a very short land survival class. A couple of videos, a little discussion, and we were on our way. Done by 0930. Nice. Our day does start at 0700 every day, but that's a nice, short day.

Tuesday was aviation physiology. It's pretty cool learning about the effects of altitude and g forces on the body; it really is a different world when you mix high altitude, high speeds, and high angles of bank. Good shit, it makes me want Hornets that much more.

Wednesday was the last of the classes, the altitude chamber, and the MSDD (Multi Space Disorientation Demonstrator), affectionately known as the spin and puke. The class was divided into two groups; one to the chamber, one to the MSDD.

My group did the high altitude chamber first. We got fitted for helmets and oxygen masks then on to the chamber. The chamber simulates altitude by dropping the air pressure at the standard lapse rate of the atmosphere (1in Hg per 1,000' of elevation) First we did a quick ascent to 5k (5,000') MSL (mean sea level) at a rate of 2.5k per minute. It's a rapid ascent and you have to continually swallow or yawn to equalize your ears. Then a rapid descent back to sea level. Again you have to equalize your ears, but this time you do so by squeezing your nose or putting your tongue against the roof of your mouth and blowing air into the eustachian tubes to increase the pressure behind your eardrums.

Once that is done and everybody gives the thumbs up that they are OK, we have to begin our 30 min oxygenation period for safety. We breathe 100% oxygen (the atmosphere regularly contains 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% other gases) for 30 min in order to increase the oxygen level in our blood so that we don't get really hypoxic really quickly. While we waited, we listened to an F-18 pilot talk about his experience with hypoxia in his jet. It's scary stuff if you don't know the symptoms and you let it get out of control. When you are hypoxic, you feel great; you are on top of the world. There are signs (numbness, tingling, fatigue, weakness) that occur before you are too bad to help yourself but they are easily written off as being the effects of something else. You are becoming more and more confused but you think you have your shit together. Eventually you will pass out, and that is a bad thing when you are piloting an aircraft at 35,000 feet.

So then we rapidly ascended to 35,000 feet. You are breathing oxygen under pressure, so you don't feel the effects of hypoxia, but your body is under ever decreasing pressure. If you have any gas in your system, it's gonna come out one way or the other. I'll leave that to your imagination. We hit 35k and then rapidly back down to 25k. That's when the fun starts.

One half of the chamber at a time takes off their masks and begins playing patty cake, working on one of those shape balls that they give three year olds, or doing some other very basic task that doesn't take much intelligence to do. Within about two to three minutes of being off oxygen, people start to become confused, slow, and they start to turn blue/white. It's funny to watch.

I didn't really feel that many effects when I did it. I went about three minutes before I started to become confused, tired, and slow. I never felt euphoria and didn't really feel hot or cold flashes. My fingers did start to turn blue though. Before I got too hypoxic the corpsman in the middle of the chamber motioned for me to put my mask back on and I did. Once you are back on oxygen you recover quickly. We got to watch the video later, which was good for a few laughs, but I was disappointed that I didn't really feel all of the effects of hypoxia.

Phew! Time to relax, finally! I haven't had more than a few hours to breathe since I came back from leave and now it's over. We took our last serious test today, FR&R, and the mother of all tests, Navigation, on Monday.

Navigation is the one that kicks everybody's ass. Unlike the rest of the exams which are 50 questions in 50 minutes, this one is 50 questions in 2 hours and ten minutes. There is a reason that they give you that long. Forty of the questions are knowledge questions, half of them just stratight from the brain knowledge and the other half calculations. The last ten are based on a jet log, which you must create from an assigned course. There are many measurements to be made from the map, many calculations to be made from those measurements, and more calculations to be made from those calculations. Make a mistake anywhere along the line and all the rest of your answers are wrong. And trust me, mistakes are easy to make. Keep in mind that 80% is passing, so there is little room for error.

So after studing like mad and not sleeping well the night before the test, I took the test. Things went really well, it seemed too well. I was a little nervous after the test while waiting for the results, but I was confident in my answers. It turned out well, I got a 96. We only lost one person on this test, a marine. He has been struggling academicaly for a while and showing less and less motivation. He may DOR (drop on request) from the program, which may be best for him. If he's struggling now he will likely struggle later and if his heart is not in it he'll never make it. He will probably make a great ground officer.

That was the huge hurdle, and this week we jumped the final hurdle; Flight Rules and Regulations. Not a big deal for me because my IFS instructor was really strict about me knowing the FAA regulations when I was flying with him. The only things I really had to learn were the regs the Navy adds on top of the FAA regs.

Carmean was sweating it, because he already has two test failures. The rule in API is that you get rolled back to the next class on two failures and you are booted out of aviation on the third. They did a study at some point and determined that of the students who are allowed to continue after their third failure, 98% attrite from the program later, so almost no one gets to continue past their third failure.

There was no reason for him to worry, he got a 94 and I collected my third 98. The final tally:
Aerodynamics I - 96
Weather - 90
Aerodynamics II - 98
Engines - 98
Navigation - 96
FR&R - 98
Not bad, if I do say so myself.

So we're heading into week five, which is filled with land survival classes, physiology, and the dunk tanks. Good fun, no stress. Life is good.

I couldn't help thinking of the part in Men In Black when J is going through his in processing to become one of them.

Zed: Edwards. Let's put it on.
J: Put what on?
Zed: The last suit you'll ever wear.

And I have to say, much like Will Smith, I make this look good. :)-

This is my work uniform now, no more cammies and definitely no more service charlies (thank god!). I will have to occasionally put those other uniforms on, but 95% of the time I'll be "in the bag" (slang for wearing the flight suit). The suits are nomex, so they don't breathe especially well and it is a rough material, but they more than make up for it with the comfortable fitt. I'd reccomend looking into getting yourself one too, but they cost between $150 and $300 on the open market and you might get some funny looks strolling into the office in your fire retardant pajamas.

Ok, I knew somebody out there was going to complain if I didn't smile, so here's one smiling. Just don't circulate it, the squids don't think Marines smile. :) 

Well the swimming torture is done for now. We swam the mile this morning, the culminating event of our water survival training in API. Thank god, I don't think I could take much more swimming. I am tired, tired, tired. On the upside, we get our flightsuits, boots, helmet, jackets, etc. tomorrow. Christmas in January!

We swim the mile in flight suit only, it's definitely doable but it's tiring and time consuming. We get 80 minutes to do it, people take from 40 minutes all the way up to 80 to complete it. I took 72 minutes. I most definitely could have done it faster if I had a little better technique, but the important think is that I'm done with it.

You may or may not have heard that a T-39 Sabreliner that was assigned to VT-86 at NAS Pensacola went missing yesterday. Just wanted to let everybody know that I was not on that aircraft and as far as I know don't know anyone on it. That type of jet is used for NFO training, I'll never be on one of those and will never be assigned to that squadron.

You can read the story online, but the basics are these: A T-39 Sabreliner assigned to VT-86 left from Chatanooga, TN at 1100 on 10 Jan, due to be in Pensacola at 1500. The last radio contact was at 1120 as the pilot contacted National Center.

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060111/NEWS01/60111002/1006

The names of the aircrew have not been released, but there was a civilian contractor pilot, a Navy instructor, a Navy NFO student, and an Air Force NFO student on board. I can't speculate on what happened to the aircraft and honestly I don't know any more than the Navy has released to the media.

It's important to keep in mind that while aviation is a dangerous job, this is one incident amongst thousands of flights flown out of NAS. The air over NAS is constantly filled with aircraft departing for and arriving from training mission. No matter what the outcome, we'll carry on tomorrow.

I had originally intended that title as a reference to another test being done, but I guess that could have two meanings. We took Aero 2 this morning, which means three out of the six tests done!

Unfortunately API class 0610 is gaining and dropping members like it's cool. We lost two people last week and we're going to gain another two or three this week. If a student fails two tests they get "rolled", which means they are dropped back to the class behind them. It's such a regular occurrence that it's not even shocking when it happens anymore.

Aerodynamics two is supposed to be one of the two ass kicker tests, and I studied my ass of for it. I have never in my life studied this hard. I think I'm averaging about four hours of studying a night, with test nights increasing to six and seven hours. I was a really lazy college student, I barely did the reading and I hardly studied at all for tests. There were too many other cool things to do! There was also not the immediacy that test taking now has in API. Bomb a test in college; you can make it up with a better performance on the next test. Bomb a test in API you will re-take it the next morning at 0600. Fail it again and you get rolled. Fail just one more test and you are no longer a flight student. Pull out your boots; your ass is headed to IOC.

It's also important to mention that in the Marine Corps and Navy, 80 is the minimum passing score. Seems harsh, but as one of our instructors put it, "when your wing's on fire at 1500 feet, 80% of the emergency procedure won't save your ass." Tough line of work I've chosen, but one day it will all be worth it.

So I haven't had a break in days. When I got back from leave on the 2nd I got right to studying for Aero 1 on the 4th. Then I took weather on the 5th. I took a breather on the 6th and spend the 7th and 8th in my study dungeon. I don't see the light of day unless I am coming home from work (I go to work before the sun comes up) or I see it through my blinds. It's getting easier now though, engines is on Friday and navigation on Monday. Having a little more time to prepare to those two will make life a lot less stressful.

It was worth it all though; I got a 98 on Aero 2, much better than a lot of my peers. The two German students (we train a lot of friendly countries' pilots along with our own) have always kicked our asses in testing and today I tied one and beat the other (he got a 94). The Marine Corps average in the class has eclipsed the Navy average by one percentage point but we're still behind the ChAir Force.

We also did our swim strokes test today; 200 meters using the four survival strokes: breast, side, back, crawl (modified freestyle). After that we put on flight suits, boots, gloves, and the helmet to pull ourselves along a rope underwater 10m to an escape hatch. Once at the hatch, there are five levers you have to manipulate to finally get the hatch open and get out. Not a big deal, it was kinda fun. After that we put on the flight harness with survival gear and swam 75 meters. A pretty easy day really.

We get our flight suits, jackets, helmet, and other stuff on Thursday! Then we get to go to work every day in "the bag" as we like to call flight suits. It's gonna be a good day!

A bit of humor from the Fundamentals of Aerodynamics text:

"The ultimate load factor should be avoided since the typical airplane is rather difficult to fly after its wings tear off."

Umm, yeah, it might be.

Time for a quick blog update and then back to studying.

After a relatively calm and uneventful first week, the second week has taken off in high gear. We had Monday off for the New Year's holiday, but we started Tuesday at 0530 with the flight gear tread. Strap on a flight suit, boots, flight harness and survival gear, and helmet, tread water for two minutes, float for three. If you lived your whole life in the pool maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal, but it's not easy for most.

The hardest part is that with the boots on you can't scissor kick, you have to use the frog kick. I've never used the frog kick for treading water so it didn't come easily to me. After treading water for two minutes; sucking down pool water and getting your heart rate way up, you have to put your face in the water and do a dead man's float for three minutes. The goal is to float for five seconds, rotate your face up, take a breath and return your face to the water. That is actually the easiest part. The flight helmet traps air so it becomes a huge float on your head. Every time I put my face down in the water I placed my hands on my helmet and just chilled, it was actually pretty relaxing. Tomorrow we have to do the 10m platform abandon ship drill and 15m underwater swim, then next Wednesday we do the mile swim and we're done with the pool.

Today was our first test; Aerodynamics 1. I was supposed to be studying for it while I was on leave, but of course I didn't really do much studying. I felt confident when I opened the test booklet, but that confidence waned and the frustration level increased as I worked my way through the 50 question test. (The funny part is that I just drew a chart in my head showing the inverse relation of confidence and frustration as I wrote that last sentence. I've got aero on the brain!) Every question in there is designed to throw you. The test will not ask you a question in the way that you learned it, they will ask you a negative or a completely different aspect of a relation, formula, or graph that you know. No memorize and regurgitate here, you have to know your shit forwards and backwards. I guess that is a relief to most of you, that pilots are expected to know their stuff. :)

We had 50 minutes to take a 50 question test and question #44 took about ten of them. I couldn't post the question even if you could understand it, so trust me that it was a beyotch. This single question took about three or four independent concepts and forced me to think backwards about every one. Gotta know your formulas, that's what saved me! I took 48 of the 50 minutes to take the test.

After this, we went directly into another aerodynamics test for our test on Monday. It's incredibly hard to concentrate on a class when you are still wondering if you passed the last test. This situation is particularly bad because we have a weather test tomorrow and Aerodynamics 2 on Monday. Somewhere in there the people who fail will have to retake Aero 1. Talk about brain overload. That would be a good way to put yourself way behind the power curve early. Fail two tests and you get rolled back to the class behind you. Fail three and you are no longer a pilot.

All the worry was for nothing though, I got a 96. The funny part is that I knew I missed two questions due to stupid mistakes on my part so I knew I could do no better than a 96. Guess the rest of them were right.

Ok, on to aviation weather.

The worst thing about two weeks of leave is that it eventually has to end.

Lots of regrets haunt you after so much time off. Did you really make the most of your time? Freedom to travel and time off are not things that come often to a person in military service and there is no worse feeling than feeling like you wasted the time you got. No time to dwell on it though, gotta get back to reality and go back to work tomorrow at 0530.