Well there’s nothing too exciting going on but it seems like it’s time for a post. Now I’m sure you’re all really looking forward to the rest of this post , ha ha!
We really enjoyed watching the Cardinals win the World Series last week. I thought of my Grandpa Jack, who instilled a life-long love for the Cards in all his children and grandchildren, and how happy he would have been to see them win it all this year.
Right before game 7, I was overcome with Cardinal spirit and decided to paint our kitchen floor red by dropping a gallon of Crystal Light fruit punch all over it. The cleanup was a bit of a process. Fortunately I had my sweet and ever-helpful husband to help.
We’ve also been really enjoying the warm, crisp, sunny days around here. Although it has started to get quite cold at night! We even had a freeze warning one day last week! Brrrr. I’m not at all envious of all the cold and snowy weather other parts of the country are getting.
Here we are all bundled up for an evening walk last week. Well, I am all bundled up. Caleb put on long pants and a thin hoodie over a t-shirt.
Every six months or so, CAFB has a career day where they bring in a lot of pilots and airplanes and in the morning everyone gathers in the auditorium and the pilots give briefs about the airframe and the accompanying lifestyle, typical deployment schedule, training schedule, locations, etc. After a lunch break everyone heads out to the SAC ramp(no, I do not know what SAC stands for. But it’s a huge concrete slab at the end of the runways) and crawls around the planes and ask the pilots questions. It’s pretty fun. This was our third and final career day before assignment night!
Capturing a huge slab of concrete covered with airplanes with a point and shoot proved to be more difficult than I thought it would be. I did the best I could. From the left, the planes pictured are a KC-10(tanker i.e. refuels other planes mid-air), RC-135(tanker and recon), C17(cargo) peeking out from under the C17 is one of the A10s(fat fighter), then AC130(armed cargo), a JC130(fancy cargo) and couple helicopters that didn’t make the shot, and a PC12(special ops) and a black T38(some bases use them for training to fly other aircraft as well).
This was our first career day where they brought in a pair of A10s, which are number two on Caleb’s dream sheet(after the F-16, which did not make it to career day this time) so that was fun to look in those and talk to the pilots. They are ugly, ugly planes used for air-to-ground support, i.e. dropping explosives and shooting things on the ground, not air-to-air combat like the prettier F16s, F15s, or F22s. (All the other Fs are Navy planes and not an option for us)
You do not want to find yourself on the wrong end of that gun. I believe Caleb said it’s a 33mm bullet. Also, you can see under the wings where they can load it up with missiles and bombs. Each plane has a nickname and the A10 is the Warthog. I assume because it’s ugly and dangerous. So that’s what’s supposed to be painted on the nose. I think it looks like a shark. Ugly, dangerous, and gray.
Due to the positive response we received from the solo interview that I had with Caleb a couple months ago, we are creating another detailed glimpse inside the life of a student T-38 pilot just for you. Today’s topic: formation flying.
TKB: Let’s start at the very beginning. A very good place to start. Pretend that I have no idea what formation flying is. In other words, picture me, one year ago. What is formation flying?
CFB: There are two types of formation: close formation, which includes flying as close as three feet from the other plane, and tactical formation, in which planes fly approximately a mile apart. Close formation is used for flying short distances and through bad weather, allowing planes to navigate as a single unit, whereas tactical formation is used in combat situations, allowing multiple planes to attack a single target while simultaneously defending one another.
TKB: How do they even begin to teach you to fly three feet away from each other at 400 miles per hour?
CFB: Well you start out in the T-6, flying ten feet apart at 200 miles per hour.
TKB: Which is just a walk in the park?
CFB: Not exactly but you have a wider margin of error which allows inexperienced students to learn the basics. From there, the transition to the T-38 is relatively straight forward. The high speed and close range is more challenging but the basic principles remain unchanged.
TKB: So what sort of techniques or guidelines do they teach you to help you not crash the multi-million dollar airplanes into each other?
CFB: Well, they teach us visual references which show us how close we are to the other plane.
TKB: Such as: if you can see your wingman’s dimples you are too close?
CFB: You’re funny. The cue we use is looking straight down the front edge of the wingman’s wing and placing your head next to their tail. [Caleb would like to note that these are laymen’s terms. The technical terms are "leading edge" of the wing and "horizontal stabilizer", or “elevator” where the editor thought the audience would relate better to “front” and “tail”]
TKB: Do you ever find yourself slowly gravitating towards the other plane and then over-correcting into a cloud? You know, how sometimes when one is driving a car and looks at something and then drift towards it?
CFB: You’re never truly in the exact correct position, and if you get there, moments later it will change because of the dynamic nature of flight.
TKB: Interesting. Now, all the flips and loops and rolls that you talked about last time: do you do those in formation?
CFB: We generally don’t do loops in formation, but we do fly barrel rolls and lazy eights. This is especially exciting when flying a formation solo, which means you’re alone and your instructor is flying as your wingman. Generally, there’s a student and an instructor in each plane.
TKB: Now, I know you talk about formation take-offs and landings. What is that like? Do you take off and land side-by-side?
CFB: Yes, and that can the most challenging part of the flight, especially if it’s windy. We have to coordinate gear and flap positions and changes in air speed in addition to the general challenge of fingertip formation. To aid this process, we use hand signals, such as pointing our thumbs down over our shoulders to indicate we’re about to put the gear down. Hand signals can be simpler than using the radio, and in combat you wouldn’t want to tip the enemy off to your presence or plans by making radio calls.
TKB: Wow, that’s impressive. And intense. Let’s not talk about combat.
Here’s a video of a T-38 two-ship formation take off. This is not a video of Caleb, but it could be! Feel free to skip ahead to about 0:45.
Stay tuned: in six weeks and six days we will know what our next assignment will be!
Last Friday Caleb finished work half a day early, so we decided to take Friday afternoon to go pick some apples so we could still watch football on Saturday...yay...actually we watched the Navy vs. Air Force game which was exciting because we were personally invested and it was a very exciting, nerve-wracking game. Anyway, here we are at our closest local apple orchard...about one hundred miles from our house...
We picked two types of apples, mainly Pink Ladies and a new one called Arkansas Blacks.
We got about fifteen pounds of apples for ten dollars. Score!
It was a beautiful day!
Then on Saturday morning I participated in my very first race! I ran a 10K in 48:25, which was about seven minutes faster than I thought I would run it, so I guess all that stuff about the competition pushing you is true! The weather was perfect, as it has been for the past week or so, and the course took us up and down the runways on base which added a little extra interest and fun! I was the fourth-place female finisher(out of twelve or so--but only two minutes behind the female winner!) and tenth overall(out of about forty). So I guess it was a pretty small race but I had a lot of fun and I am hooked!
Here I am after the race, with my number on and everything.
