Yarrrr We be off to Gasparilla!

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I've decided that I'll break up the next few blogs catching me up to now... Here's the first installment:

So after my latest entry was accidentally erased when I had almost finished it, it's taken me a while to get back into it and sit down to rewrite the whole thing. At this point, I'm on the verge of being finished with flying. I'm sitting in the student ready room up at Whiting Field killing time until my last flight, a tactical flight, in the TH-57C helicopter. A lot has happened since my last blog. Almost an entire phase of training, in fact. At the end of my last writing, I was just starting my cockpit trainers for the fixed wing T-34s. We do 5 of those total, then it's off to the wing. In retrospect, I actually enjoyed them. Sure, there's a lot to remember and a lot to know, but it was cool stuff, and even now I still feel like I might be able to do something if an emergency happened on a flight. I still remember my engine failure procedures (Speed, Clean, Look, Lock, Feather, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, Cold Beer). It was tough, but fun. Once I finished those (last one on a Mon), I headed over to my new squadron to check in: VT-6 -- the Shooters. It was a lot of administration for the next few days. We checked in Mon, had to return on Wed for an "official check in" with the student pilots who were checking in that day, then I had Thurs off and would return on Fri for my first flight. Well, actually, my first flight was a cross country to Tampa. We use the term "cross country" liberally. While it's only a 6 hour drive to Tampa, it still counts as a cross country. In the T-34, we're limited by airspeed and fuel, so we usually have to stop every couple of hours.

I was more than a little nervous about my flight. As many know, since I'd been keeping my facebook status up to date, I was most worried about air sickness. I had flown the T-45 jets (significantly faster and more maneuverable than the T-34) in July 2004 for about a month. Turns out, even though I used to love roller coasters, and God knows I love to speed, my body doesn't handle G's very well. G's are the shorthand way of referring to the force of gravity. +1G is what we experience on Earth all the time. If you go over a hill on a road really fast and get airborne for a minute, in that time you are experiencing less than +1G (maybe even negative Gs!). In a jet, it's easy to get your G's going positive and negative. Doesn't take much... Most people get sick with negative Gs, but my body just didn't handle anything straying from +1 well at all. While I don't think I threw up, I felt sick almost every time (I can't really remember if I threw up b/c at that point it's not the throwing up that's memorable, it's the feeling sick. Wouldn't have really mattered if I had thrown up). It's the most miserable feeling ever. They say that there's really only a very small proporation of people for whom that doesn't go away, though for some people it takes longer than others to extinguish. I could tell you about all the medieval techniques there are to condition the body for flight, but suffice it to say that I was under no pressure at that time, so I pretty much stayed on Phenergan the whole time (not an option for routine flight since it's so sedating) and we just took it easy.

In the T-34, I had no idea what to expect from our flights (would we be doing rolls? Spins? Dogfighting?) and didn't want to introduce myself as the wet blanket who was too afraid to try anything new. So I decided to pony up and take whatever they could give me. Cross country flights are usually highly sought after, and end up being a huge boon for us and the squadron -- they get 5 or 6 out of 7 of our flights done at once, and we get to check out earlier. Not to mention that it's a pretty nice vacation for the instructors since they don't really have to grade us or fill out much paperwork. However, the down side for me was that it's a long time in the air -- in back to back flights. So if it wasn't going to sit well with me, I'd be in agony for hours, then have to do it again and again. So you can see how I was more than a little nervous come Fri morning.

There's plenty of data out there about how beneficial ginger is for morning sickness. There are some suggestions that it's useful for motion sickness as well (though I couldn't find any good studies to support this). So I figured, what the heck. Can't hurt. I did everything you can possibly do to stack the cards in my favor. I took ginger, I got plenty of sleep, stayed far away from alcohol, had a nice breakfast of a bagel. Had some animal crackers before flight, was well-hydrated. I don't think I could have prepared any better. Plus I had my lucky barf bags stashed strategically all over my flight suit. I met up with my instructor on Fri morning for our version of a brief. For the students it's like presenting at morning report -- or for the non-medical types, like giving a graded presentation in class -- but for the docs, it's more of a formality. Since we don't know much, just a snapshot of flight stuff, they just gloss over much of it. Of course that's all instructor dependent, but I got lucky and had a great instructor for the weekend. I explained up front about my concerns, and he was very understanding. So off we went for my first flight in the T-34. Everything went pretty smoothly. Despite all my concerns, I only got a touch of unease when we did some quick climbing and descending. I actually did much of the flying. They say that helps, but I'm still not sure about that, but it's fun! At one point I was feeling so confident I decided to test myself. I put in a sharp turn with a steep bank. The turn isn't so bad, but the steep angle of climb was a bad idea. Turns out that even if I put the commands in myself, it still doesn't sit right. So before I made myself sick, I relaxed the stick and just kept to the straight and level for the rest of the flight. Of course, that's not so easy either. It was like playing a video game -- fun but challenging (but a freakin cake-walk compared to the helo!!). The only thing hard about it, actually, is trying to keep your heading and your altitude level, all the while trying to predict the wind. We made it as far as Gainsville (about 1 1/2 hrs flying), where we all stopped for fuel. Our cross country flight consisted of our plane (all T-34s have a front seat for the main pilot -- or student -- and a back seat for the observer or instructor), the other 2 flight docs with their instructors, and apparently a bunch of helo guys going on the same cross country. Why, you ask, is everyone going to Tampa? Well for Gasparilla of course. But more on that later...

Pilots are a lot like doctors when it comes to motivation. The choice of where to stop for fuel is mostly up to them, and their decision is based on who has the best food. The private air fields make big bank on whoever stops there because it means we buy fuel from them. So they all try to entice the pilots in by having the best deal on free food. Gainsville on Fridays has a lady that comes in and grills out for everyone. So we stopped, and I tempted fate by having a grilled chicken sandwich (what I thought was the safest of the choices). I did ok on the flight, but was very very nervous about getting back in the scary orange and white bird. I still had no idea how my body would react. Would I make it through without the embarassing use of the barf bag? Time would tell...

We got back in and set sail for Tampa. I only had 2 hours to go before being on the ground for at least a day, with a really fun weekend ahead of me. Unlike most doctors, pilots like to have a good time, and that weekend held a lot of promise. My friend Michelle actually drove down to Tampa and met us there for an awesome weekend! The nice thing about going with the Navy is that they pay for the hotel and give us per diem (spending money) for our “trouble” haha. Not a bad deal! I ended up making $150 cash on the weekend (but probably spent most of that on drinks and food).

We landed at Tampa just before sunset. After stowing the plane and meeting up with the other 2 flight docs and IPs (instructor pilots), we headed out in our borrowed government truck to our luxury accommodations at the Hilton. We timed it pretty well because Michelle had just gotten to town. It worked out even better than planned since the other 5 people there were guys and the Navy has a big no-mixing policy. Turns out I had an extra bed in my room anyway. Perfect! We dropped our stuff off, I washed the smell of JP-5 jet fuel out of my hair (ew I hate that smell - oddly enough the pilots love it. I guess it’s what you associate with it - which for me is motion sickness). Friday night was the big night in Tampa for us because of the Navy’s 12-hour bottle-to-brief policy. That means that you can’t have a drink within 12 hours of your brief - which for us would be Sun at 10am, calling for an early Sat night. As more is realized about safety and crashes, that time frame has gotten scaled back a few times in the not so distant past (from 8hrs to 12hrs to bottle to throttle, i.e. take off, to the current 12hrs bottle to brief. It’ll likely change again as they’re realizing that the effects last up to 72hrs!) Lucky for us, the restrictions still allowed us to thoroughly enjoy our Fri night. Our first stop was dinner. We started joking about this place by our hotel (which is by the airport) called Leroy’s. Then, almost on a dare, we actually went there. Though we mostly went for the name, it was the best choice we could have made!! I am still craving Leroy’s… It’s a little bbq/southern cooking restaurant opened/owned by some local football legend Leroy (Brown?). I think he’s famous b/c he’s the only local NFL player who was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Well I’m glad he was because his ribs were freakin amazing!!! That was THE BEST bbq I’ve EVER had! If you’re ever in Tampa, you NEED to stop at Leroy’s. I’m tempted to drive the 6hrs back just to get some more. Our next stop was a local bar (in a hotel but not ours) where we met up with a bunch of helo pilots/students who had made the cross country for Gasparilla as well. A few drinks there then we were off to Channelside (well, some of us anyway). Channelside is an area downtown that has a little collection of bars, clubs, restaurants, and shops. Not sure what it’s like during the day, but it was a great destination for us that night. We danced, drank, and generally had a great time! After a great night, we headed back to Hilton.

The next day was the big pirate fest. I started off the day with an awesome swim in the pool - finally I found somewhere I could do laps! Pensacola, though it’s the home of water survival and is filled with boaters/swimmers/divers, has very few options for swimming laps. If you can believe it, the ONLY option on ANY local base for swimming is a pool used for classes which opens for lap swim from 4:30-6:30 and 7-9 M-F. And it’s not that great of a pool, and definitely not that convenient. I had really gotten into swimming laps for workouts before I came down to Pensacola, and had gotten to the point where I was swimming an hour of laps a few times a week. It was a rough transition to life down here. But our little weekend road trips with different hotels has afforded me the chance to swim here and there.

After a good swim and complimentary breakfast Sat morning, Michelle and I headed out to the local Chili’s to meet my cousins Lindsay and her family, Nick, and Barbara for lunch. Michelle and I got there a little early and took full advantage of their 2-for-1 margaritas. Yum! That was such a nice start to the day! All in all, lunch took most of the afternoon. So much so, in fact, that not only did we miss the party that all the guys went to (a friend of a friend who lives on the parade route) but we missed all the parades as well. The Gasparilla parades are like mardi gras, but with less boobs. People dress up in pirate garb while pirate-themed floats go by and throw out beads. My cousin Nick, Michelle, and I found parking (over a mile away) and started walking toward the party/parade. On our way, we were wading through a sea of parade goers who were leaving with thick sweaters of beads on. Some of them probably had over 10lbs of beads on. Incredible! We saw a different view of Tampa in the aftermath of that mess. The street was DISGUSTING. I think worse than Mardi Gras (and I can say that now that I’ve been there…) There was at least one person passed right out on the curb with people around her (they looked responsible so we just kept walking). We met up with a couple of the guys and walked down the parade route to one of their friend’s houses nearby. After hanging out there for an hour or two, we made our way back to the car to meet up later for dinner. Ended up taking over an hour to drive 5 miles because the traffic was SOOOO bad. I couldn’t believe it! It was either very poorly planned for, or something unusual happened, but I couldn’t believe how long we were crawling through the streets of Tampa. There was a distinct lack of cops directing traffic through that mess. By the time we made it back, it was dark and getting late. Sat night ended up being much more sedate. Nick headed home for the night after that and Michelle and I headed out with another IP to the downtown area of Ybor City. This little strip was a very nice, well-cared for street lined with bars and pizza shops. Actually, it looked EXACTLY like Bourbon St, just wider. Open containers and everything. I missed that from New Orleans - get a beer in a bar, and if you’re not done with it when you want to move on, just get a plastic cup and take it with you! As nice as that street was, wander one block in either direction and you’re suddenly in a ghetto with cracked parking lots full of weeds, houses in disrepair, and not nearly as many street lights. Ybor City was a fun spot, though. We called it an early night on Sat since we had started that afternoon, and headed home.

Sun morning was just breakfast and checking out. I was tempted to catch a ride with Michelle to avoid the T34, but I was still hoping it would get better and my motion sickness would go away, as everyone promises. Actually, my IP had gotten progressively more sick over the weekend (a really bad cold) to the point where he stayed in Sat night and was questioning whether he’d be able to fly on Sun. I thought I actually might be getting a ride back with Michelle. If that happened, though, I’d still need like 3 more flights on 3 different days (which would have extended my training). By Sun morning, though he wasn’t in top shape, we were able to fly (just stayed low enough he wouldn’t blow a sinus out!), and off we went. We headed back to Gainesville again (on Sundays they have pizza) and I handled it ok. Our next hop was to Mobile for more pizza - apparently they’ll order you a couple of pizzas and my IP takes them home for food for the week. The only downside was that I had pizza twice that day, and it was dominos. Eh… However, the flights got better and better. One of the required flights in our syllabus is a night flight. While they sometimes cheat this and use the time right around sunset (so it’s still actually light out) and call it night, mine was really a night flight. We hung out around the Mobile airfield while I did a bunch of touch and gos (land and take off without coming to a stop). It was fun and I actually got to the point where I could do it myself! We were circling around the pattern doing that during sunset, so it got progressively darker and darker. By the time we headed back to Whiting (our home field in Milton, FL just 30min north of Pensacola) it was pitch black out. The field was so pretty, but unfortunately didn’t capture well on camera.

And thus ends my adventurous weekend to Tampa and Gasparilla. The rest of the week was pretty mundane - I didn’t fly until Friday, but of course didn’t know that until 4pm each day before. It was a lot of TV, movies, books, and working out. Friday was my last flight - my aerobatics flight. I was more than a little nervous about this. Not all the ginger in the world could counteract that awful feeling of my stomach sinking or floating whenever we hit Gs. I had gotten better so I could tolerate small changes (like with very benign turns or climbs), but anything with aerobatic in the title was scary. I actually contemplated taking non-drowsy Dramamine before my flight, but I manned up and held out (technically you’re not supposed to take any of that stuff, though since I’m not really a pilot it probably wouldn’t have mattered much). I got lucky and had an IP who was very understanding. We started out with some simple turns, and I made it through a spin (which was actually cool at first) and a loop before I tapped out. I probably could’ve handled more, but I was heading in the wrong direction. So we took a tour of all of the controlled burns in the area (and there are a lot). Flew over Mobile, and just basically tooled around until it was time to come back. And a big (but pleasant) surprise to me when we landed was that I was going to be checking out that day! I technically had one more flight, but they often waive it since it’s hard to get enough IPs for it (it’s a form flight, which means that you fly in a formation of 2 planes side-by-side, but I had done a lot of those with the T45s and was quite fine with skipping it in favor of ending a week early). And it was time for the weekend! To be continued...

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Photos

T34 Classroom
This is where we spent a grueling 3 days learning all about the T34

T34
A replica version of the cockpit of the T34. All those little buttons, gauges, and lights actually work

T34
This board was full of lights that showed electrical flow, rotors spinning, fuel lines etc. Interactive. Very cool...

Crammed in
On our way to Leroy's! Yum! L to R is Matt (Paul's instructor), Brad (my instructor), Langhan (one of the other flight docs), and Paul (one of the other flight docs)

Tampa
Obligatory self-portrait haha I have so many pics like this I could make a collage...

Downtown Tampa
At the club in Channelside. Michelle dancing with Jon, one of the coolest helo pilots ever! (and a good friend of Michelle's who happened to be in Tampa that weekend)

Yarrr
This was actually a chick

The leftovers
Making our way down the disgusting parade route. This was the good part -- it got really gross as we went farther

Pirate dog
Everyone with dogs had them loaded with beads. Kind of funny, especially when the beads weighed more than the dog!

Ybor City
In a little cigar shop -- just like Havana...