Today I had my first solo flight in the T-38C. This is our life support equipment room where all of our gear is stored. We get suited up with everything we need to fly and then step to the jets.
The T-38 ejection seat does not have a parachute, so we have to carry one. It weighs about 45 pounds and is a pain in the ass to haul around when it is hot. It isn't too bad in the plane, but it pulls you down in the seat when we pull g's.
Once we get to the jet we do a full walk around just to make sure everything looks normal. On this flight I noticed the jet had some old tires on it, so I had the crew chief change them since my landings are not that great right now. A blown tire on landing is not a good situation to be in.
It takes almost 20 minutes to get strapped in and ready for start. There are a ton of checks that need to be completed, and you definitely don't want to miss any step, so I am constantly rechecking what I already checked twice. And I still miss checklist items.
This is a good picture of our up front control panel (UFCP) and heads up display(HUD). It takes a while to get all the info in it, but once you do all of our primary flight instruments are all there at eye level so we don't have to look down while flying. When we pull a lot of g's looking down is not very comfortable, so this is a tremendous help. This is the exact same HUD that is in the F-16 fighting falcon.
Once all the avionics stuff is set up and radio calls are made it is time to check all the control surfaces. Here I am checking the flap-elevator (slab) inter connect to ensure it is working. If this were to fail on approach to landing I have 3 seconds to apply the correct procedure before the plane flips upside down and I am going to eject straight into the ground.
Taxiing out to the runway. This jet has afterburners so take off happens pretty quick and the airplane accelerates like a bat out of hell, nothing compared to what I will be flying in a year, but it hauls ass. We pull the burners out only half way down the runway, and we are at 300 knots by the end of the runway, which is 12,000 ft long. It's fast! It is a constant acceleration that shoves me back into the seat, and never stops until I pull the throttles back.
The flight went well, had a couple of really nice landings and some really crappy ones, but I am back safe. I almost GLOC'd myself (G induced loss of consciousness) in the practice area doing aerobatics. Pulled too many G's with no anti g straining maneuver ( flexing your butt) doing a cuban 8, but I recovered the jet at the first signs of high G and everything was cool after that.
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