Another week down, another week closer to being done. Granted, this course I'm in now is a ton better than going through IFS, but it just feels like it's going to take forever. We're just now at the halfway point. 5 weeks left. We've gotten through 5 of the 7 tests, and we have a little over 30 sims left to do. We also got a printed schedule detailing the rest of our time here before we're done. Academics (i.e. computer aided coursed, review sessions with IPs, and academic tests) ends in about three weeks from now. After academics are done, all we have to worry about is flying the sims and passing our one and only checkride at the end. Next test is in ten days, and covers advanced instrument procedures. Right now, it's just about getting into a routine, or rythym, of doing the (relatively) same stuff day in and day out. The reward? Being instrument qualified and knowing where I'll be assigned once ALL of the training is completely done. As of now, the choices are Las Vegas, middle-of-nowhere New Mexico, or Missouri. I'll give you two guesses as to where I (and everyone else in my class) want to go...
As far as this course goes, the amount, and more specifically the breadth, of knowledge that we're expected to know and memorize is insane. It would totally be possible, if we tackled one subject at a time, but it feels like we're trying to learn everything all at the same time. It's just too much. We're basically cramming what traditional pilots learn in 6 months, into 2 months. A few posts back, I posted a picture of the huge amount of pubs we were issued that would cover this course. Granted, we're not actually going to read every page that was issued to us, but regardless, it's still a lot of information. To compound that, we're going a lot faster with respect to covering topics in class than we are in the actual simulators. We're still making our way through the basics of flying the T-6 and instrument flight in our sims, but academically, we've just about covered everything there is to know about instrument flight. So as far as putting into practice what we're learning in class, there's about a two week delay. Luckily this kind of stuff really interests me and I can keep an attention span in order to focus on learning it all...for the most part.
On a side note...I'm definitely ready for vacation...
