Life
in the
Transition Office

 

    The morning after I arrived & got checked into a house (11 January, '03) I got up at about 0545, showered, had breakfast, and drove to the 14th OSS (Operations Support Squadron) to check in. I got weighed (again), had my height checked (again), (Still 6'1 and 158... same as when I was 17...) then I was given a list of places I needed to go to finish checking in.

    When I went to the housing office I was given the keys to a few different rooms to see which one I wanted. One of them was facing the flightline, so it had an awesome view of the planes. I went back and said I wanted that one. Well, apparently it was a mistake and that one wasn't going to be ready for occupancy for a few weeks. I protested that I really wanted it, but it did no good.    Therefore I took my second choice.  The dorm buildings are shaped like a T and the room I WANTED was at the top of the T sort of on the right side of the crossbar. The room I wound up taking was near the base of the T on the right side. As I was moving in that evening, I ran into my friend Aric, who was also here for training, but he had started in August, so he is way ahead of me. Aric helped me to move into my room, which is conveniently right down from his. Aric's room is near the one I wanted, on the top of the T facing the flightline. I told him he was lucky to have such a good view. He said "Yeah, it's really great in the middle of the night when the maintenance guys run up the engines on the jets and wake you up." I was skeptical of his negative assessment, but I also respect his greater experience.

        The transition managers gave me several days to get settled in and get all of my stuff taken care of. I'd check in with them and they'd ask how things were going, and I'd say "Fine, fine! I just have X left to do," and they'd say "Okay, well take care of that and stop by tomorrow." So it was pretty great, I had most of each day off for the first week here.

        The week of 20 January I was the afternoon "Snack-O." As Snack-O it is my job to make sure that the refrigerator in the snack room is properly stocked at all times. I must also make sure that there is some popcorn in the popcorn machine, and coffee in the coffee pot. As long as those things are taken care of, I can do whatever I want in that office. I've taken to doing some studying and recreational reading. There is a computer there, but some software has all the interesting websites blocked, so I can't do much in the way of surfing. Which is probably good because I should use my time to study the relevant materials. Especially the Tweet BOLDFACE. This is a list of the main things you must do in various emergency situations. You must know it cold by the first day of class - there will be a test! The class doesn't get to wear flightsuits until everybody gets 100% on the quiz the same time it's given. As a result, we have great incentive to make sure we know it verbatim.

        Meanwhile, Aric was nice enough to let me use his computer to check my mail and stuff seeing as how I didn't have one. Now I'm pleased to report that the one I ordered using Aric's has arrived and I'm writing this on a brand-new machine.    It's really great to have this, since I didn't bring a stereo or anything, so now I can listen to music again. It's been very quiet in here the last two weeks.

    In response to a few requests I have received from some correspondents for more information about the base, etc, here are some further photos with descriptions to help give you a mental picture.

    First - here is the dorm I live in. You can't see my door, however, as it's on the other side and I took this picture from the parking lot.

           

    After I left my dorm with the camera I went for breakfast at my new morning hangout - "The Little Kitchen."

           

 

    Here is the 14th OSS building where I "work" these days before my class starts.

           

 

    Here, in the computer room, is a large cardboard box full of driver CDs for the 185 Dell and 120 Gateway computers they have in the several Operations buildings. Truly amazing.

           

 

    This is a "Cockpit Familiarization Trainer." It's just like the cockpit of a Tweet. Except that the dials don't work and the controls don't connect to anything. The purpose is for you to sit in them and mess around & get used to the layout so that you won't feel out of place when you hit the flightline.

 

        Finally in this segment: Two pictures of the T-37 simulators. These babies are full-motion hydraulic things. The gentlemen in front of the screens control the sims, create "emergencies" to be handled, or throw a huge thunderstorm at the driver... or if he's a n00b then maybe just a few clouds and low fuel.

             

            I'm particularly proud of this picture, as I took the 1/8 sec exposure one-handed!!!

 

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    The week of 27 January I spent every day working with Capt. Pringle and a 1Lt who just graduated. Me and the other LT spent Monday and part of Tuesday doing an inventory of all the computers in the OG building. (That's the funny sort of "M" shaped building next to the 14OSS building on the above map.) On Wednesday we pretty much did nothing, and Thursday/Friday we went to all the previously-inventoried computers and installed Hotfixes for Win2k in order to patch some security holes. This took us two days because the OG building  is three stories and is full of cubicles. So there are probably over a hundred computers in there, and each one took 5-10 minutes to do. With the three of us working it took us the better part of two days.

    Friday evening (the 31st) was maybe the most fun I've had here so far! It was "Assignment Night" for class 03-05. Before I went there, my only conception of Assignment Night was that it's where the class finds out their assignments. This is not something that one HAS to attend, but there's little reason not to go! Two days after I got here, some guys from 03-05 were going around the OSS selling beer glasses with their class logo on it for $5. All I was told was if I brought that glass to assignment night I'd get free beer. Seemed like a good deal to me. 8)   I showed up at the Officer's Club at 5PM, as that is the time I was told assignment night would start. After about 20 minutes of mingling in the bar area (oh, and enjoying my $5 glass full of Sam Adams) everyone wandered into an adjacent room where lots of people sat in chairs in front of a screen which was flanked by Harley-Davidsons. More people stood on either side of and behind the chairs. (The Harleys can be explained by 03-05's class logo, which was a modification of the Harley-Davidson logo.) The lights dimmed, after which someone started a short video that showed various stages of 03-05's training. Then somebody (I'm not really sure who) got up and introduced each class member in turn. While telling some sort of embarrassing or funny story about the individual, a slide was displayed on the screen with that person's vital statistics- name, hometown, school, embarrassing moment, etc. Then the speaker (who was probably the worst speaker I've ever heard... and I hope he doesn't read this... ) would simultaneously flip the slide on the screen to a picture of an aircraft and announce what was to be that person's new base and aircraft! Then everybody else in the class would run up and cheer and pat the person on the back, etc etc. Then everybody would sit down again, and the next person would be called up. The whole presentation took maybe 30 minutes and was a lot of fun to watch. 03-05 got a really good "drop" (in my opinion.)

    Let me explain assignments (as I understand them) really briefly: The instructors are told by the Air Force what kind of planes each class will be getting. This is the drop. It varies from class to class. So if there are 20 people in a class, the drop might be 1 F-15C, 2 F-15Es, 3 F-16s, 1 A-10, a B-52, 3 C-17s, 3 C-5s, 1 C-9, 2 B-1s, and 3 FAIPs. (First Assignment Instructor Pilot - that means they'll either stay at Columbus or go to another base for a couple years as an IP before getting assigned some other kind of aircraft.) So the IPs know what planes are available. Then the students each submit a list of the planes they want in order of preference. Then the IPs discuss the students, and rank them according to various things like scores on academic tests, checkrides, teamwork, etc. Then they'll look at each student in turn, based on their ranking, consider the student's choices, and give the student the aircraft highest on the student's list that the IPs think the student would fly best. Hopefully that will be #1 or #2 on the list, but it could be that a student really, really wants a Viper and he gets a Buff because the IPs don't think the guy could excel in the Viper. Anyway... That's assignments in a nutshell.

So there is a PowerPoint slideshow that is presented in a fun way that tells each student what plane he (or she) will be flying. After this, everybody went back to the bar and I wound up talking to different people until probably 11:30PM, when 4 more beers later (these were big glasses) I wandered back to my dorm room. (I like that the Club is walking-distance from the dorms. That's great!!!) I fell asleep thinking how much I'm going to be enjoying this lifestyle.

    Saturday, the first of February, I was awakened by my a phone call from my mother. It was not good news. Columbia was gone. Read my tribute to Columbia here. Although I drank way more than my usual hangover tolerance level the previous night, I think I was too shocked to have a hangover.

      The week starting 3 Feb through to the end of the week before class starts, I'm the entire "Crisis Action Team." At least during the night. Some nights I work 6PM to 6AM and others just 6PM to midnight, when a different lieutenant will come and relieve me. There are about 15 telephones in the room, but I am only concerned with one of them. If it rings, I answer it and take a message. Maybe the message can wait until morning, but if I'm not sure, I call my boss to wake him up, and give him the message. If he thinks it's important he will come in, call a bunch of other people in too, and then tell me to go home. Meanwhile I have a computer in there, as well as a big-screen TV, VCR, and DVD player. I can pretty much do anything I want including take a nap, as long as I answer the phone if it rings. So far I've worked 5 nights and it's only rang once, so I've watched several movies and done a lot of reading.

         This brings us to the end of this journal entry. As of this writing, I have just a few more nights to work in the CAT. Next Wednesday, 26 February, Class 04-06 of Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training begins. I can't wait! 

 

Wed, 19 Feb '03 3:46PM

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