Page 108 - Wish Stream Year of 2019

jet pilot territory – to be told he didn’t have what it takes, and was dismissed from the course. Naturally we were itching to get the first sortie under our belts to put some nerves at ease.
Day 3
Morning fog didn’t fill us with confidence that much flying would take place, but it dissipated quite quickly leaving some haze. The decision was taken to go ahead around lunchtime as we could use the top of the clouds as an arti- ficial horizon. At this very early stage, we need a horizon to fly against to know
engines power in aircraft control, speeding up and slowing down. Still not too stressful.
Day 5
Despite brilliant flying weather over the four-day weekend, we returned to more non-flying condi- tions. Frustrations and concerns were starting to show as we now had only eight days left of the course and most of us had only done 1 sortie.
Day 6
Bad news day. Due to the weather forecast and how we were behind schedule, the
if we are straight and level. Sor-
tie 1 – Effects and Controls. This
was basically to get a feel for
controlling the aircraft in roll pitch
and yaw using the control stick.
It was a relatively fun and relaxed
sortie; lots of enjoying the view
on way out from airfield to train-
ing airspace and back. No checks to know at this stage. We were told this would be our only ‘freebie fun flight’ to speak of, but we didn’t fully appreciate how quickly things would ramp up. The first six of us went up and it was great to finally get some of us airborne. After we were let off for the day, we were invited to a touch rugby game with some officers on the Apache course. We hoped that rugby skills did not reflect flying skills as we were defeated quite embarrassingly.
Day 4
We awoke to morning fog as the previous day but with the warming weather it burnt off even earlier. The remaining four of us got our first sor- tie under our belt with no sick bag deployed and 2 of us got their second sortie done. Now the long weekend of trying not to forget the checks we had learnt, as on Gradex 2 we are expected to do initial and prestart checks (76 checks). We would be taxing and introducing the use of the
The post flight quiet walk back. I wonder how it went
decision was taken that at this cur- rent pace none of us would come close to achieving enough sorties to be graded. The eight juniors on the course were told they would be going home so they could prioritise the two inters to finish the course. They took the news well, some very pleased to
still have a week and a half leave before returning for the demanding Intermediate term. Obviously, it was frustrating to have sat in the hanger for a week to get one hour of flying, but by the nature of British weather it’s something you need to get used to on the flying course. They had gained value by spending a week at Middle Wallop and learning more about life as an army aviator from the officers in the mess. All good experience and material for their RSBs, after which they would come back in August to do grading.
Day 7
A very quiet crew room felt empty without the eight juniors and with the knowledge we would now be flying at least every day, or possibly twice a day, the learning curve for the two remaining was about to increase substantially. We finally got our second sortie which felt great after a week off. No more touch rugby as our team had been decimated; probably best as we had to
We were told this would be our only ‘freebie fun flight’ to speak of...
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