Wednesday, January 04, 2006
API Week Two
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.
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.
// posted by Josh @ 1/04/2006 02:02:00 PM 
