Week 33 - August 22 to 28

The navigation systems exam last week was our last academic exam - not counting the comprehensive written and orals obviously. But that will by in october/november....
After navigation systems, we had classes on integrated avionic systems and on weapons.
All the rest was pretty much the rest, more flying, more reports, more checkrides .....
The two new events were the first AN-2 qual eval, and flying qualities evaluations in the glidres (ASK-21 and GroB103)

Next week, we'll have : more weapon classes (weapon delivery, smart weapons, and some FTT briefs). More checkrides (for the FTEs), gliders FQ demo, AN-2, and many labs and sims.
And the last run before the TMP flight window (which start on tuesday, september 6th)

Week 32 - August 15 to 22

Last week, we finished the EW (electronic warfare) class, including a lecture by Shamu himself (the TPS commandant), submitted our EO/IR exams, and took the EW exam. Then we had two briefs for new FTTs (the air to air combat system sim and the EO demo in the F-16). Both sim and flight should begin over the next couple weeks. And finally, we begun the "integrated navigation systems" class.
On the flying side, there was more checkrides for the pilots in the T-38, more of the VSS flights, including the famous "fly-off" : since we have validated our FCS designs, pilots get to test 4 of them and vote for the best. Of course, they all try to guess if the design they are testing is the one they worked on ....
We also had some more labs, including EO labs and IFAST radar lab. IFAST is a facility here at Edwards that has an F-16 radar stuck on an outside wall. Rather convenient to work on it without being restricted by flight time or the number of people on board !
Finally, the first FTEs had their "first flight checkride". The objective is to perform the first flight of the C-12 (even though we all flew a  lot in that aircraft). That is a good challenge and requires a lot of work.
We have to present a brief the day prior to the flight, and based on IPs feedback, we then need to change our test cards for the next day, which is the checkride itself. We also have a chase for this ride, which had a good amount of planning. As always, planning is really important, and about 55% of the grade is decided before we even board the C12. And since it's a checkride, the grade is worth about 35% of the whole flying qualities part of the curriculum !!

Next week, we'll have : the end of the navigation systems class (and the exam), and the beginning of integrated avionics. More checkrides (both pilots and FTEs), gliders FQ demo, and many labs and sims.
And since we finally got feedback on our Lat-Dir 5314, we'll have to submit our Lat-Dir  group technical reports.

Week 30 and 31 - August 1st to 14

First of all, let me apologize for not writing anything last week ....
So what happenned over these two weeks ? In a flurry of activity, we moved forward in the curriculum. Acedemics : we had the radar exam and the EO/IR class as expected, followed by the EW class (ok, maybe some explainations would help : EO = electro-optics and IR = infrared, or how to detect a target without a radar; EW = electronic warfare, or how to defeat a radar or how to defeat a jammer trying to defeat our radar, or .... well, you get it).
Reports : the number of reports to write is getting insane : in just 5 days, I got 5 new reports to write, as most people in the class : departure data, FCS project, HQ-stall data, MiG qual-eval and T-6 qual-eval.
But hey, that means I got to fly on this to extra cool aircrafts !!! And yes, I'm talking about the AT-6C Texan, the WW2 famous trainer !

And finally, we had to seat through a 6h meeting for our TRB/SRB (technical and safety review boards for our TMP).
On the flying side, we almost finished the departure data ride in the F-16, finished the stall-HQ data rides in the T-38, half the pilots got their FQ check ride, almost all of us got to test our flight control system designs in the VSS Learjet 25. We also had the first of the radar labs (yes, that's not really a flight).
Next week, we'll have : lots of system classes and systems FTT briefs, the beginning of the "first flight check-rides" in the C12 (more on that next week), the rest of the T-6 qual evals, and many systems labs.