Seoul is beautiful to fly over at night. This is an entirely unsurprising observation.
What’s a little less obvious until you’ve actually seen for yourself is that whoever’s in charge is clearly a huge fan of SimCity. It’s a big, successful city, so there’s no question that they’re good at it. Still, it also shows some [...]
Every time we preflight, we take a fuel sample to ensure there is no contamination. We pump about a liter from the sumps of the tanks, ensure there’s no water or particulate matter present, and then discard it.
It’s not that huge a waste, tossing an extra liter of fuel from a helicopter which burns through [...]
Presented in timeline form:
-15 minutes: Friends are encouraging, but everyone repeats one caution: no matter what, do not touch your face with your hands. Keep them behind your back if possible.
+0 minutes: The immediate effect isn’t actually very dramatic. The mouth burns, of course, but not much more so than when eating any normal hot [...]
Delta charges the Army about a thousand dollars to fly a soldier to Korea. Given the Army’s policy of never buying a ticket more than three days in advance and Delta’s policy of allowing ten free checked bags to active-duty soldiers, that’s really not that bad.
The Army has no policy preventing individual soldiers from using [...]
Anthrax vaccine comes in two doses, and it is important to ensure that they not go into the same limb. It also gives the sensation that the injection site has swollen into huge bulb; quite disconcerting when no such bulb actually exists.
It’s my birth month, which means that like every other Army aviator on their birth month, I went in yesterday to get a flight physical. It’s a pretty comprehensive exam, but they run through it quickly here; they get lots of practice. It’s not difficult or particularly painful, but still nobody looks forward to it; [...]
It turns out to be surprisingly difficult to properly fly in formation. The big challenge is altitude control: you need to stay within about +- 10 feet of the altitude of the person ahead of you. If you go too low, you run into their downwash and get to deal with problems ranging from turbulence [...]
A sufficiently small bird will be invisible until it has disintegrated into a smear on your windshield.
Enjoy your holidays!
Conditions: Your service member left the military under honorable conditions. Their funeral is to take place in Alabama, north Florida, west Georgia, or eastern Mississippi.
Standards: Contact the Casualty Assistance office no later than 36 hours before the funeral. Provide them with the correct date, time, and location of the funeral; the name and rank of [...]
Right now, I’m in a bubble. This is just one of those inexplicable absurdities of flight school: as flight training is very expensive and very perishable, one would expect to be rushed through as quickly as possible. Instead, there is a mandatory, months-long wait between finishing primary and beginning training in your advanced aircraft. It’s [...]