Dothan Memoirs
Hello again. I hope all is well with you. I’ve mentioned this before to Ahni, and perhaps others, since it seems to hold true at least for me. The first week or so away from home and the family is like a nice break, new adventures, somewhat exciting…but then it gets rather boring. While I usually enjoy going out for dinner, having to go out for nearly every meal is getting monotonous. I do manage to eat cereal for breakfast, either in my room for those early mornings, or in the hotel lobby when I don’t have to be to the flight line until 0830. I try to buy salad in a bag and make a sandwich for most lunches, but that doesn’t always work out. I do go out for dinner nearly every night, sometimes with other guys in the course.
This was our first full week of flying. I had morning flights with afternoon’s filled with ground school (classroom instruction). Mornings are best for flying since thunderstorms tend to move through the area in the afternoon, which can cause delays and reduce the chance to get all the syllabus flight time per day, roughly 1.7 hours per student. There are two students per instructor, so one will sit in the back of the Cessna while the other flies. The instructors try to fly close to 2.0 hours per student to get ahead of the syllabus, so that bad weather won’t delay us and force us to fly on weekends. So about two-hours into the flight we land, shut down the airplane at some airport in the local (100 nm of Dothan, Alabama) area, use the facilities, get a cup of joe, then go back out and fly the second student.
There are a dozen guys in our class and most of them are National Guardsmen or Army Reservists. Most of my classmates are Warrant Officers, the technical specialists in flying. Where most of these guys had flown in the last week or month, I haven’t flown at the controls of an aircraft since 1999. I don’t recall most of the aviator knowledge that I had once learned. So my classmates merely have to learn the intricacies of this new aircraft, while I, on the other hand, have to relearn the basics of airmanship and the new airplane.
Ahni and the kids are coming down this coming week, stopping in North Carolina to visit some friends on the way. I expect to see their faces Thursday when I return from the flight line at dinnertime. We’ll go down to Panama City for the weekend and fend off the jellyfish. Meat tenderizer is the home remedy for stings, so we’ll be sure to bring some with us. The Army selected me for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel recently so I’m sure we’ll go out to our favorite steak place, the Conestoga, and raise a longneck in celebration. Time will fly by and on Tuesday the family will have to depart for northern Virginia. Ahni begins work the following week and summer will soon end for the kids.
This was our first full week of flying. I had morning flights with afternoon’s filled with ground school (classroom instruction). Mornings are best for flying since thunderstorms tend to move through the area in the afternoon, which can cause delays and reduce the chance to get all the syllabus flight time per day, roughly 1.7 hours per student. There are two students per instructor, so one will sit in the back of the Cessna while the other flies. The instructors try to fly close to 2.0 hours per student to get ahead of the syllabus, so that bad weather won’t delay us and force us to fly on weekends. So about two-hours into the flight we land, shut down the airplane at some airport in the local (100 nm of Dothan, Alabama) area, use the facilities, get a cup of joe, then go back out and fly the second student.
There are a dozen guys in our class and most of them are National Guardsmen or Army Reservists. Most of my classmates are Warrant Officers, the technical specialists in flying. Where most of these guys had flown in the last week or month, I haven’t flown at the controls of an aircraft since 1999. I don’t recall most of the aviator knowledge that I had once learned. So my classmates merely have to learn the intricacies of this new aircraft, while I, on the other hand, have to relearn the basics of airmanship and the new airplane.
Ahni and the kids are coming down this coming week, stopping in North Carolina to visit some friends on the way. I expect to see their faces Thursday when I return from the flight line at dinnertime. We’ll go down to Panama City for the weekend and fend off the jellyfish. Meat tenderizer is the home remedy for stings, so we’ll be sure to bring some with us. The Army selected me for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel recently so I’m sure we’ll go out to our favorite steak place, the Conestoga, and raise a longneck in celebration. Time will fly by and on Tuesday the family will have to depart for northern Virginia. Ahni begins work the following week and summer will soon end for the kids.
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