Monday, June 20, 2011

An Update About Our Current Training Situation

For those of you who haven’t heard, Caleb is now half-way through SUPT(Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training)!  He just completed four months of flying the T-6 (about 100 hrs, I think) and now he has passed the gauntlet and will be flying the T-38 for the next six months!

All fighter pilots come from this aircraft, but not all pilots who fly this aircraft will go on to fly fighters.  Kind of reminds me of when my fourth grade teacher said that a square was a rectangle but a rectangle was not a square.  Blew my mind.  Anyway, to be a fighter pilot (which is the goal) you have to track into a T-38, but out of the six students in his class of 24 who are in 38s, probably only 2 or 3 will be able to get a fighter.  The rest are eligible to fly any of the other Air Force tankers or cargo planes, or stay at Columbus as a FAIP( First Assignment Instructor Pilot).

We will not know what Caleb will be flying or where we’ll be going until December 2nd (or 2 Dec 2011 in military form!) and then graduation will be December 16th.  They also keep you in suspense as to when you’ll be going anywhere for several days or weeks after assignment night (Dec 2).

All right.  Now you know.  :-)

2 comments:

  1. Yay! I'm so glad your keeping a blog- I've already put it into my google reader. Can't wait to read more.

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  2. Thanks for this post. I'm sure it saves you having to answer the question a hundred times by explaining this to us! It's interesting to hear a little about how the military works since we've never been involved as TR's birthday was a high number in the lottery. Neither of my brothers were in either. A BIG thanks to Caleb for being willing to serve.

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