What Do Birds Feel When They Land?

Goshawk preparing to take off

Here is a Navy story about T-45 Goshawk pilots-in-training doing Carrier Qualifications for the first time on the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier. From other accounts we have read, watching videos of the landings and take-off's, and talking with our own Lieutenant Junior Grade in the the same stage of training, it is an intense activity. It is also the kind of thing that mothers lose sleep over, especially if she takes an afternoon nap and then has a caffeinated beverage along with dinner the night before. Our experience today is that once you hear everything went well, the qualification is complete, and the student pilot is back safe on land in Jacksonville, it's time to celebrate. A short phone call is all we needed for the time being - looking forward to details later. We have heard the first-time sensations from landing and taking off are pretty intense.

Shaking

T-45 Goshawk landing

The shaking some people experience during anxiety is usually most noticeable in the hands. Since social anxiety sufferers are often very self-conscious about others noticing their anxiety this can be a problem. Wobbling teacups, peas jumping off forks and shaking speech notes all make anxious shaking more visible and this can lead to sufferers avoiding these things when around other people. Shaking legs and quivering lips are also common visible symptoms.

The main worry of sufferers is that people will see their visible anxiety symptoms and then make a unfavorable judgement about them. The feared judgements will typically be that the sufferer is weird because of their odd movements or that they are weak because they are feeling anxious.

T-45 Goshawk take-off

People will often do their best to try and hide their anxious shaking, but this tends to only worsen the situation. Anxiety sufferers are nearly always caught in vicious cycles where the ways they try to manage their anxiety only serves to worsen it. Fears about starting to shake in front of people leads to increased worry about the onset of shaking. This worry then increases anxiety levels during social situations which in turn leads to the actual shaking they are trying to avoid. Self-consciousness is increased because of this visible shaking which leads to more worry and more anxiety and more shaking creating a distressing vicious cycle.

In addition to this, sufferers will try to hide or control their anxious shaking, but this only adds fuel to the fire. A common strategy is to tense up to try and keep movements still, but this increased muscle tension only exaggerates the shaking. Another strategy is to try and hide shaking through avoidance or keeping hands out of sight, but this too will worsen the situation. Avoidance strategies like these reinforce the idea that we need to hide these symptoms and that revealing them could have negative consequences for us. They prevent us from finding out that, most of the time, revealing our anxiety will nearly always have no negative consequences for us and that doing so will prevent the anxiety from occurring in the first place. (1)
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T-44C Pegasus

With the Carrier Qualifications complete, the next stage of training is a multi-engine T-44 Pegasus. The Pegasus aircraft is manufactured by Beech Aircraft Corporation, Wichita, Kansas.The aircraft is used for advanced turboprop aircraft training and for intermediate E2/C2 (carrier based turboprop radar aircraft) training at the Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, Texas. The T-44 is equipped with deicing and anti-icing systems augmented by instrumentation and navigation equipment which allows flight under instrument and icing conditions.The interior includes a seating arrangement for an instructor pilot (right seat), a student pilot (left seat), and a second student.Two additional passenger seats are included.A distinguishing feature of the aircraft is the avionics fault insertion capabilities afforded the instructor pilot from the right-seat armrest and the second student/observer audio control panel that allows the second student to monitor all radio communications.The T-44A is powered by two 550 shaft horsepower PT6A-34B turboprop engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney of Canada.

T-44C Pegasus

Specifications

Primary Function: Training platform for Navy/Marine Corps pilots.
Contractor: Beechcraft
Propulsion: two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT-6A-34B 550 hp engines
Length: 35 feet 6 inches
Height: 14 feet 3 inches
Wingspan: 50 feet 3 inches
Airspeed maximum: 245 knots
Ceiling: 31,300 feet.
Range: 1,300 nautical miles
Armament: None
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(1) Source of the explanation for shaking.

Getting Down To The Wire

Tailhook down, T-45 Goshawk

Our son is approaching the end of his Intermediate Flight School training. The crechendo - landing his T-45 Goshawk on an aircraft carrier. From what we understand, it is four touch-and-goes, and then down goes the tailhook, followed by 10 cable-arrested landings. In preparation for the real-deal, the training involves practices landings on land. Here is a video showing what he will be doing soon. The drawing of the T-45 shows the tailhook down - you can see it momentarily being tested before takeoff in the video.

A Day's Work

Here is a quick exchange today regarding a day at the office in Kingsville, Texas -- T-45 Goshawks flying in formation.

T-45A Goshawks formation

Ensign: Today was like little league of blue angels (1)

Father: Was it impressive? I assume fun and not scary.

Ensign: A little hairy at times, but pretty cool if I can get the hang of it.

Father: That's great. How close to the other planes?

Ensign: doing the barrel roll its about 30 feet, so not super close

Father: Plenty close for a bunch of Ensigns.

Ensign: My lead was actually the commanding officer, so that was cool

Father: Pretty neat.

Ensign: My lead for my solo was the Xo

Father: You are quite the attention magnet.
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(1) Note the absence of punctuation and capital letters as a moniker for the millennial Generation Y Ensign text, while the Baby Boomer Father adheres more closely to the rules of proper composition.

Mother's Worry List

We regularly check on line to see what our son's daily training schedule will be, or what he has been doing the past few days. Last night my wife text me, "Do you know what Tim did today[?]" A colleague of mine finished his service as a flight instructor at NAS Corpus Christi after he returned from Vietnam. He happened to have been in the same training squadron as my son - only forty-five years earlier. He said his dad would have given anything at that time to have been able to follow his training progress on the Internet, like we do today. Now that our son is at NAS Kingsville, seeing whether the type of activity[ies] for the day will be an exercise in the simulators (Sim C) or time flying (Flight),  is usually enough to meet our curiosity. But once-in-a-while, I will cut-and-paste the Event code into the Web browser and look up the PowerPoint briefing for that event. This next Monday's 1.3 hour event is titled: 

MPTS IJET FRM2101 

Mission 

FORMATION EP SIMULATOR

   
All of this jargon has to do with preparing several students for flying close to one another in formation (1). Below is the Recommended Flight Conduct for the event from the brief, shown with my interpretation of what a mother of a naval jet pilot in-training would see when read: 

start Malfunctions

ground Emergencies

interval Abort

interval take off with Emergency

parade visual flight rules

instrument flight rule

engine Emergencies

flight control Emergencies

electrical Emergencies

environmental control system Emergencies

fuel system Emergencies

turns 

echelon

Precautionary approach

section approach 

Missed approach with Emergency

visual flight rules Recovery and pattern Emergencies

visual flight rules landing pattern  

landing 

touch-and-go 

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(1) Just as my son was taking the freeway exit into Kingsville last autumn when we helped him move from Corpus Christi, several T-45's in formation were doing their break away pattern to land. It was pretty exciting to see. Tim is now preparing to do the same - a bit of a scary thought - several inexperienced ensigns learning to flying in formation together.

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Postscript, April 6, 2012: The F/A-18 crash in Virginia Beach yesterday, made this blog posting about emergency procedure training sobering. A news video clip can be viewed clicking here.

Waiting By The Phone - So To Speak

Happy Ensign

"Safe on deck, home soon! Phone was dead all day[.]"

Very glad to get this text message this past Wednesday evening. We can keep track of our son's daily schedule and what specific training events are planned for the day. The preparation for his first solo had to be restarted this week because of bad weather last week. Before soloing for the first time, the trainees must have a check flight with an instructor to certify they are ready. Because of the weather, the maximum time window allowed between the check flight and solo was exceeded, so another check ride this week and hope for good weather in the next three days. Success in the skies for both. Without knowing that his cell phone was not working caused some worry on my part when there was no confirmation of good weather for flying or a successful flight (and landing) more than four hours after the scheduled one-hour time for the solo. The marvels of internet and cellular technologies - imagination fills the voids in time.

Back In The Saddle, Again

U.S. Navy T-45 Goshawk

My wife and I lurk on line keeping track of our son's training schedule. We heard that he had finished a simulator training series, and the schedule for next Monday shows he will be flying again in a T-45 Goshawk - I think in the front seat. Since he is in Texas, and there are still real cattle and cowboys there (my wife also gave him my boots when he moved), I thought about an old Gene Autry song and how it is appropriate for this next stage of training. Country

Gene Autry

music, cowboy boots, and flying and riding the range go together. One of these day he may be propelled by renewable JP-5 or JP-8, probably not in his trainer (just recently tested in a T-45), but a good chance in whatever platform he ends up being assigned. We got unofficial word that a proposal will be funded that looks at oil seeds grown on the range for use in making jet fuel. Those two may go together as well in the future. I've written about these before (here, here, and here), its a small contribution to the Navy's efforts on my part.

My family heritage is tied to riding horses, cattle, and boots - but in California, not Texas. For Christmas, my daughter, recently retired from her job to become a full-time-at-home-mom, is into home industry, crafts, and other notions. A gift  tee-shirt she stenciled for

The Last Roundup

her husband had a simple message: Eat Animals - They Taste Good. Between the two text lines, were characterizations of a cow, chicken, and hog. I smiled. Being raised on a ranch, we ate meat from the freezer, rode horses, punched doggies. I didn't particularly like working the livestock - it seemed that fences were breached and calves needed to be pulled on holidays, weekends, and always during times in the worst weather. These were the reasons I went into plant science rather than animal husbandry - along with the fact that plants don't kick, bite, poop, urinate, or make you smell bad after being around them - particularly hogs. But even with those life decisions, I think a well-prepared animal tastes good, too. So when my folks made the decision to sell off their cattle herd in preparation for retirement, I was glad to have my three sons help with the last roundup. They had causally ridden once-in-a-while on the ranch, but they were raised as city kids. My dad was a bit emotional seeing the young fellows on horses, helping bring the cattle down out of the hills for the last time. As for the youngest cowboy that day, he may have boots, but now rides in a saddle that slips through the air, on a horse that kisses the sky.

Another Bird Learned

Navy Boeing T-45 Goshawk

It was just 15 months ago that we were watching the Blue Angels from the field at the Naval Academy, right before the Class of 2010 Graduation. With our son finishing Primary Flight School earlier this week, the news yesterday was what his next training platform would be and the kind of pilot he would be. The word yesterday around 1400 Eastern Time: JETS. My vocabulary is expanding when it comes to knowing different naval aviation planes. In the paragraphs below are a few that are being added to the check-off list - like the birds in my back yard.

Over 200 students a year report to Training Air Wing TWO for Undergraduate Jet Pilot Training. These students report to one of two training squadrons, Training Squadron TWENTY ONE or TRAINING SQUADRON TWENTY TWO. The Training Air Wing is responsible for providing the fleet with newly winged Navy and Marine Corps aviators. The Air Wing consists of approximately 250 student naval aviators, 75 instructor pilots, 80 civilian personnel, and 100 T-45A and T-45C "Goshawk" aircraft. Introduced to NAS Kingsville in 1992, the Goshawk is part of the T-45 Training System (TS) developed by McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing Aircraft Company. The Wing is in the process of upgrading all T-45A aircraft to the T-45C configuration, which more closely matches the avionics found in tactical fleet aircraft. In a historic partnership with the Navy of India, Training Air Wing TWO began training Indian Naval Students in 2006 and graduated the first class for the Indian Navy in 2007. All students undergo a rigorous syllabus in the T-45 Goshawk on the way to earning their Wings of Gold.

The Training Wing TWO Ground Training Department provides for classroom instruction, computer aided instruction, and flight simulation in instrument and operational flight trainers. Contract maintenance and support departments provide the Navy with maintenance and upkeep for the aircraft, support for the aircrew's flight gear, and support for all of the ground and simulator instruction.
Training Air Wing TWO enjoys operating in a very favorable community climate. The residents of Kingsville have always been ardent supporters of the base and continue to provide opportunities for local involvement in a variety of recreational, educational, and entrepreneurial activities. In conjunction with the NAS Kingsville base personnel, Training Air Wing TWO personnel are actively involved in the local schools, providing role models and mentors to the future of our nation.
 (1)

Student Naval Aviators selected for Tailhook training are assigned to NAS Kingsville, Texas or NAS Meridian, Mississippi flying the T-45C or T-45A. NAS Meridian uses only the T-45C while NAS Kingsville is nearly completely transitioned to the T-45C. The syllabus incorporates basic instrument flying, formation, night familiarization and airway navigation over approximately 58 graded flights lasting approximately 27 weeks. At the completion of the Tailhook syllabus, approximately 80% of those SNAs are selected for Advanced Strike training, leading ultimately to tactical jets like the F/A-18 or AV-8B (Marine Corps only). The remaining 20% receive further training in the E2/C2 pipeline, ultimately leading to assignment flying either the E-2C or C-2 Greyhound. Marine Corps SNA's automatically continue in the Advanced Strike syllabus and will ultimately fly either the F/A-18, AV-8B, or EA-6B. (2)
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(1) From Training Air Wing Two.
(2) From Wikipedia United States Naval Aviation.