As I’ve mentioned a bit before, there’s been big changes at work. All the high-ups are now brand new to their positions now, having been promoted from within the ranks. I’m happy with some of the promotions, not so happy with others. As I think I’ve mentioned before, we’re divided into three “flights”: White, Blue and Silver. I was in White flight, but with so many people leaving for the jobs down in Pueblo, there was a massive personnel shift. I’m now in Blue flight, which I actually requested. I figured that some of the three white flight guys left would be there with me, but as it turns out two of them went to silver, and the other stayed in white. Strangely enough, white and blue flight switched offices, so I get to keep my desk. But whereas before white flight was comprised of loud, funny guys– the mood in blue flight is much more quiet and boring. The guy who sits right across from me now is a very strange instructor– one of two who was hired after me. He looks to be in his late 50s, wears way too much cologne, and almost always has a buttload of tobacco tucked in his lower lip. In fact, sometimes he’s got so much in there, it stars leaking out.

One of the good things about the changes is that the dispatch position is being eliminated so I’ll get to fly quite a bit more than I have been. I’m very happy about this, and should be able to make a little bit more money too.

We met our students for the first half of the summer semester yesterday. We got to spend an hour and half preparing them a bit for their first day on Monday. This has never really happened before– usually the first time the students meet their IP it’s to go flying. My three students seem promising, but that’s probably because I haven’t flown with them yet. One is a Glider IP– since he can teach other cadets to fly the gliders, he’ll be a much easier student than the others who have never flown before. Still, he’ll have a lot to learn, but it’s nice to have a foundation from which to work.

He’s not the first glider IP I’ve taught– they’re good students but have strange tendencies. The biggest problem comes with landing. You don’t really flare a glider for landing so much as just fly it into the ground. There’s only one wheel on a glider, and it’s hard to screw up a landing. An airplane is a bit different– you want to land in a full stall in a nose-high attitude. It’s tricky, and as you guys might remember, I spent a long time learning how to do it. The glider IP’s tend to have good aircraft control control, but they fly the plane right into the ground. I’ve found that if you can be patient, and simply tell them to pick the nose up at the last minute, they make fast but acceptable landings. Some more refining, and they make good landings.

The other common issue is the way they do stalls. I’ve never flown a glider, so I’m not sure of its stall characteristics, but I do know that glider IP’s tend to do stalls the same way. They start by pitching up far more than is necessary, which results in a harder break. As soon as the plane stalls, though, they recover by shoving the stick almost as far forward as they can. This results in a couple negative G’s which is totally unnecessary, and can be a bit alarming for an instructor who isn’t ready for it.

My second student was a pretty quiet guy. His bio sheet indicated that he’s an “SE Human Factors” major, whatever that means, and has a whopping 2.4 GPA or so. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns into a project, but I won’t know until I fly with him.

And my third student is a chick! I’ve never had a female student before, but I figure she’s got to smell worlds better than most of my students. She’s an engineering major with a 3.0 GPA, and very enthusiastic about flying. She asked a lot of very good questions the first day. So even though I can tell that she doesn’t really know anything about flying I think she’ll be a quick study. Still, you have no idea how someone’s going to fly until they actually do it.

It’s exciting to have three fresh faces, three bodies for me to turn into pilots. I’m sure I’ll grow annoyed with them in short order, but right now my job seems so cool. Three eager cadets, and if I’m any good at my job, I’ll turn them into pilots for the Air Force.

The summer is more conducive to teaching than the fall/spring semesters because of the scheduling. While these cadets are here for the summer, they’re not doing anything else. During the school year they’ve got a full load of classes, and we only get them for flying every other day. This summer they’ll be available to fly every day, and that should make thing easier.

The schedule for us instructors is pretty brutal. There’s basically three different shifts. They start at 5am, 6am, and 7am. Each flight will spend a week in each shift and rotate. If the weather’s good, we’ll be done at 3pm, 4pm or 5pm. If the weather’s bad, we could hang around as late as 7pm, but fortunately we can’t have a duty day longer than 12 hours. We’re also going to be working most Saturdays.