Matt has rocked two flights since his 3-day spin program and is looking to solo as early as next week. Quite a change from our previous perspective of thinking he might be eliminated as early as next week. One of the greatest challenges guys on the spin program face, particularly those who entered IFS with zero flying hours (a minority group in this private-licensed-heavy crowd...it seems like prior E's are the ones least likely to enter with experience, as they generally do not have as many opportunities for experience d/t deployments and all...) is learning a huge new group of skills/terminology with extremely staggered opportunities to use it.
It is difficult enough to have ground school condensed into a few weeks, and then be expected to solo-pilot a jet with 12-19h of training on it. When you combine that challenge with airsickness and the spin program, flights are cut short d/t to prolonged vomiting, flights are missed for 3-5 days at a time d/t spinning, and opportunities to practice aircraft control are slim/none when you are having difficulty retaining control over yourself (piloting while dry heaving or worse is obviously not safe/permissible). We had been preparing ourselves for a worst-case scenario of total elimination, and capped our goals at possibly washing back a class for another round of training and spins.
Matt's anxiety/hyperventilation-driven problem seems highly nippable--as evidenced by two great flights and absolutely killing the Barany chair program. We are super-optimistic and excited about next week. And it would be awesome to have him solo before the holiday schedules kick in (breaking up his flying time with 4-5 days at a time off, when 1-2 can be hard enough when you are learning to get the hang of things). And better yet, we have company visiting the next two weeks--what a time and treat watching Matt's solo flight would be!
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