Training the Best

Finally, after less waiting than I had expected but more than I had wanted, I met my on-wing and did Fam 0. It's official designator is C1001, but we still call it by it's old designator which is short for Familiarization Flight 0. It's 0 because it's not actually a flight and it starts off the Familiarization phase of Primary. With the change to the new multi-service program a few year ago, the Fam block became the Contact block; contact with what I have no idea. Hopefully not the ground!

In Primary Flight Training, your on-wing is your primary instructor pilot. Out of the first twelve flights before you solo in the T-34, you will fly eight of them with your on-wing. He will be the one who shapes you as a pilot and has the greatest effect on your training here.

My on-wing is Lt. Gilkison. He's a Navy P-3 pilot (large 4 engine transport plane) and he's getting out of the Navy in July. He won't be around for me to finish Primary, but by the time he gets out I'll be onto the stages in which I am flying with a different instructor every flight. I'm his 11th on-wing (we're called on-wings for them, they are on-wings for us) and possibly his last. He is a really laid back, cool guy, and is reputed to be genersous with the grades. Things look good.

Fam 0 is basicaly a chance to meet your instructor and get acquainted with the routine of briefing, getting a plane, getting your flight gear, preflighting the plane, and strapping in. It was 50 degrees and drizzling on Thursday so we didn't go out to a plane but we did get to do a pre-flight.

A lot of what he told me was stuff that I had been told by three people already (gotta love the redundancy of the military) but some was new. Some of it was technique or personal preferences for the way he wants me to do things, some of it was just his little bits of wisdom on that particular aspect of the flight.

When Lt. Gilkison had originally called me he had said that we might not get to do a pre-flight and we might just do a briefing and talk about the maneuvers. That kinda pissed me off. I had the pre-flight down, I was counting on that as my chance to impress and show him that I knew what the hell I was doing. I did not yet have the maneuvers memorized and wasn't sure how well that would go.

The briefing went well, he didn't ask me any tough qeustions at all and we headed out to the hangar. Maintenance designates a plane every day for students to practice pre-flight inspections on; most of the time it is out on the flight line, but this day it was parked in the hangar, my lucky day.

Fam 0 preflight consists of the student walking the student walking the instructor through a pre-flight inspection and then instructor peppering him or her with questions about just about everythingon the plane. "What are you looking for on that flap?" "What vents are leakage allowed from?" "What is the battery rated at?" The engine bay is the most intense, there are more than fifty components in there that you have to be able to identify, know the purpose of, and know the operating ranges of. I think I did pretty good, I identified everything he pointed out and at one point he said "Damn boy, you know your shit." I did forget the amp-hour rating (2400 amp hours) on the battery, but that was the only screw up.

So Fam 0 is over and it's on to Fam 1, my first flight in a Navy plane on Monday. The instructor will do most of the flying, but I will do the taxiing and a little flying. Then on Fam 2 I'll do the takeoff and departure, and Fam 3 is landings. Things move very quickly here; twelve flights and you are ready for solo flight.