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Talk about luck!

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EODDave

EODDave

The pastures are greener!
pilot
Super Moderator
Well here is something that is un friggin believable! It all started with me getting an age waiver to the age waiver for pilot training as I'll be 31 when I get commisioned. To top that, I decided that I wanted to get a little bit ahead with flight school. So... I went to a little local flight school about two miles from my house to take some lessons. Today was my first and I met my instructor. He asked me why I wanted to learn to fly etc etc. I said I wanted a head start for Navy SNA training. Then he SMILED. Turns out that this guy just got out of the Navy. His last tour of duty? Instructor pilot at NAS Meridian. I thought to myself no "F"ing way. I just fell into my own private naval aviator instructor. Turns out that this guy is the bomb. He's giving me some insight on the program and what to expect. He's also teaching me how to fly Navy style. Different aproaches and stuff compared to regular civilian style flying. I'll try to keep everyone up to date on his gouge. Talk about luck!


Dave
 
There's an airport near my shore house that serves as a community center: police, fire, offices that also has the look of a little airbase with a school, baseball fields outside and what not. When you drive on base there's a sign that says the place used to be NAS Wildwod NJ, a Dive bomber training base during WW II. Anyway, there's a Naval Aviation musuem in one of the old hangars and when I went the first time I saw a P-51 in there with CDR. Somebody painted on the canopy. I thought Cool! A retired Navy flyer lives around here. Anyway the next time I went back the plane was gone and I found out that not only does the guy live in Mass. but he's 85 and just had his license revoked for good. But there are a lot of old timers down here and a lot of private planes on the flight line so I was gonna hang flyers around the place asking if anyone wants to give a future SNA some flight time for $$$. I hope I'm as lucky as you.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!
Dave
 
DS and all,

If you are curious about getting a little flying time then goto a local airport. Ask around if there are any prior Navy or AF pilots. Even if they dont give lessons offically, explain your situation and ask if you can go up with them next time they fly. Most people even non military aviators will be willin to let you fly with them if they have an empty seat.

Dave
 
Just finished lesson #2 and have lesson 3# at 0800 tomrw. My instructor has me flying the typical navy pattern. It is a big oval, with a left hand approach. The runway is to the pilots left, so when you turn in and dip your left wing the strip/carrier will always be in sight. I'll scan in this pattern just incase anyone else out there gets a chance to take any lessons. If anyone wants I can email the scanned in pattern to them. Its pretty damn cool, when you consider the standard civilian pilots way of doing things. I get to do "stalls and falls" in the am. Wonder how fun it will be in a Cesna 150? Well I'll report back in tmrw.

Dave
 
Dave, I take it that you are doing this at Gainesville Regional? I got checked out on the 150 and Warrior there, and also did touch and gos with the P3 there a few times also (short hop from Jax!)...
 
John,

Actually I'm doing it out at kitty hawk aviation (grass strip near jonesville 241 south). Its only a cuople miles from my house. Yeah Ive been in a 150 and a 172 no warriors as of yet. Stalls was pretty easy this morning. Also did some more TO & Lndgs. I have 3 hours in the planes and my IP wants me to solo after the next two lessons (so about 5 hours of flight time). John, does this sound about right? Well so far so good anyway. more later

Dave

Oh, no airsickness yet.
 
EODDave - I'd like to take a look at the flight pattern. Please e-mail it to me at roryarussell@aol.com. Thanks.

-Rory
 
EODDave...

5 hours seem a little light to me to be soloing, it took me longer than that to get slow-flight down (then again I was 15) never turn on final w/o being real good at it BTW, but I never went all the way to my PPL so don't listen to me. If he trusts you to solo after only five hours then you must be doing good!

I never got airsick either and we did everything the Warrior can do (which isn't much actually) but when we practiced circling a point for about an hour I lost it real bad, watch out for that if you get that far.

Good luck!
 
Frumby,

His name is Bill Howey. I think he said he was a VT-9 guy. Could be wrong about the squadron though.

Dave
 
What's up guys. I have about 4 hours so far in a C-152 and so far i've done slow flight, two landings, no stalls and no steep turns. My instructor tell's me that i'm ready to solo and I have some trouble believing him. I just wish I could do some more flying and get some more hours under my belt. The only problem is that I live by San Francisco and the ugly fog moves moves in every evening and is always there in the morning untill about 11:00 AM. And it just so happens that the only time I can go fly is in the evening and morning. As if that wasn't bad enough, there's two international airports cover most of the airspace and that means the pilots have to have very good communication skills. So, I can only hope that I solo before 10 hours. But that's the story.
 
What a day! Today we did spins. We were at about 3500 feet and paracticed stalls for a while. These were a piece of cake. Next we climb back up to 3500 feet and get the plane to stall again. (this is when your plane exceeds the angle of attack, and your wing stops producing lift) Next you keep pulling the yoke back, the plane starts to vibrate and the controls get all mushy. At this point you give the plane full rudder (doesnt matter which way). This causes the plane to fall over, then flip inverted. Like a great rollercoaster. THe plane then goes nose down and starts to spin. At this point you give the plane opposite rudder (from the spinning direction) untill it stops spinning. No we are in about a 80 degree nose down dive. We then recover by pulling out of the dive. This was a blast. My IP instructed me on the procedure on the ground and then walked me through the first one. Then I got to do a couple more. I know this is probably kid stuff for Frumby and the other pro aviators. But for me, with 5 whole hours under my belt, it was a good time. We also did slow speed flight and more landings (great crosswind today). Tomrw is EP's, HAPL's and LAPL's and some kind of slipped landings. I take my pre solo test in a couple of days!

Dave
 
Hi All,

I just did my first flying expreiene this morning. I was motivated to try it out after reading this topic and wantign to know if I truly wanted to do it in the Navy before I get involved. I must say it was a complete blast. Even though it was only a intro flight of 30 minutes, It was fun taxing, basic flying of banks ascents, decents and then landing. It was totally cool how you can fly the plane without instruments was very interesting. I did start to get a little queasy but that I believe was to my first expreience and breakfast :) I don't know if I will do more than a couple of flights as it is rather expensive. Arizona is nice for flying as it is great weather but there is something to be said for training in adversity, as quoted from my scuba diving instructor. The oddest thing was final approach and landing as when we coasted to the edge of the runway, I thought we would come short of the runway but we actually landed a quarter of the way in. After expreiencing this I am sure that landing on a carrier is much harder but probably more rewarding when you hit the 3rd arrestor wire. Any suggestions on what I should ask to do when I go back for experiences. This place also does acrobatics.

Brian
 
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