Back in the saddle

Well, the holiday break is over, Matt is back in training, and the girls are back in school.  The girls eased right back into their routine—with 1 birthday party each to look forward to this weekend--and are excited about swim lessons at the Y resuming next week.  Matt has his first flight since the >2wk long hiatus on Tuesday…and I wish I could say overcoming motionsickness has been like riding a bike (in that once you have it down, you have it down), but that has not proven to be the case.  Despite spinning religiously over break—and even turning down the opportunity to roadtrip again to New Orleans to keep up our Barany chair routine, and despite a rigorous professional spin on Monday, Matt still threw up a whopping 4 times yesterday afternoon.  To cap it off, he is battling a cold, which is affecting his sleep.  He went to see the flight doc about that and his motion sickness (every time you throw up or report motion sickness during flight, you have to be cleared by the flight doc in order to proceed with training).  He was prescribed some Mucinex and grounded from flying until Monday (there are very few meds you can fly while taking d/t side effects).  Because he needs to fly every day to keep motion sickness at bay, it will in all likelihood be a lot of spinning this weekend, but then square one again on Monday. 

In my opinion, they way the training routine operates certainly does not help matters anyway.  Matt is slightly behind in academics (but still over a month ahead of syllabus) due to the bout of rough flights he experienced prior to the break.  You are not cleared for the next block of academics until you pass your check ride for the previous block, so he has some catching up to do.  Academic classes are held in the morning, which means for the foreseeable future, all his flights are in the afternoon, which is a far worse time to be flying, simply because he has eaten more.  When he can hop right out of bed, grab oatmeal w/flaxseed and a banana, and head off to his plane, results are muuuuch better.  It makes the cycle more difficult to beat.  And another thing that makes me extremely anxious about the program is how easy (in my opinion) it is to regain solo-flight status after a long bout of rough flights.  Of his past 10 flights, Matt has encountered problems with motion sickness or disorientation on 7 of them, resulting in “hooks”.  No matter how many he hooks, as soon as he passes 2 in a row, he will be qualified for his aerial solo.  He has assured me that when this time comes, he will play it extremely safe and do the minimal required in terms of maneuvers, so as not to pull too many Gs, etc. (increase susceptibility to motion sickness), but it still makes me nervous.  This is not the first time I have felt like the program may move too quickly for the new guys (those entering training with zero hours), but I am one of those wives/moms who always worries about everything and Vance does have excellent safety and success stats to back up its judgment.

Well, here’s hoping for the best and for Matt to have some pleasant flights next week.  :OD

Training Update

UPT update:

One of the main reasons (besides the fact that we loathe wasting free time off by taking leave during that time [note: military members typically get a full week “off” during either Christmas or New Year’s week, provided they remain in the local area…if they go out of town, even for a day, they are charged the full 2 weeks (1 week, with family days on either side of the weekends)]) we are staying in town over Christmas is to remain near the Barany chair.  Matt took about 3 days off during Thanksgiving, and then did extremely half-hearted spins (short, and basically spun himself) for the remainder of the week.  He then proceeded to hook (pilot talk for “not pass”) 6 out of 8 flights (due largely to spatial disorientation) and needed to fly both an 88 and 89 (commander’s review) flights.  Had he not passed his 89er, he would have been grounded from further training until he reported to the wing commander for a decision regarding his future (and the wait for this is killer-long; he has friends who have been in limbo for over a month!).  The flight he hooked prior to his 89 was actually comically bad—to the point where we were both cracking up discussing it.  Thank goodness he had an IP with him to retain control (on 4 or 5 separate occasions)—and it was not a solo flight.  He nailed his 89, though, and that has been a major boost to his confidence. 

However, it is also giving us a more realistic outlook for the future.  We are setting our sights more toward C-5s than C-17s and FAIP (First Assignment Instructor Pilot), since--as a new student pilot in a flight of almost exclusively licensed pilots, his flying skills are strong, but very middle-of-the-pack--and he could probably use a little more skill development before he starts teaching.  This new route is exciting, too.  We are very blessed to have a just-go-with-it outlook in terms of where we live, etc. and are always up for the next adventure. 

Airsickness: 0, Matt: 1

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!