UAL T38 Phlyer

That WAS my squadron!! Pilot training, not IFF, for a Japanese student. The IP's callsign was Satan, even BEFORE this happened.

T-38 A/C is mediocre at best, so students put it full-cold. This makes it ice-up and clog. The technique to thaw the ice is to go full-hot, but the A/C has a nasty habit of the mixing valve getting STUCK there.

The real solution was a) don't put it quite full-cold, and b) don't go full hot, and c) be ready to hold it in MANUAL COLD for 6.9 seconds if it runs away hot!

Satan is screaming "shut the heat off!" Like all Japanese students, they interpret things literally, and he can not find anything labelled "OFF."

Ironically, if he had said "RAM DUMP!", the kid would have thrown one switch, shutting down the A/C, and problem solved.

This happened about 10 years ago, and students still got Friday Nametags with a callsign, which stemmed from a naming ceremony based on funny stories of buffoonery and laced with lots of alcohol.

This kid's nametage was "O-F-F," (With hyphens), pronounced "OHH EFF EFF!"

Satan supposedly was at Air Tran/SWA. I've heard that tape is used at FedEx for a CRM what NOT to do.

USMCFLYR

Has the fleet changed from 15/30/45 deg patterns to 10/20/30 deg patterns?
If not - - why the change in patterns from the pipeline to the RAGs.
Any ideas?

BDGERJMN

I don't think it died with the T-2 as I flew the squirrel cage in the T-45 with a tractor albeit 16 yrs ago. Not sure when it was taken out of the syllabus but it was included then. I had a blast flying that pattern...was great for moving the jet in 3-D.

T45Heinous

Can't speak about the fleet patterns, (I grew up an E-2C guy), but the training command has been using the same patterns for decades, although we did add a "pop" attack around 2010ish (and it's a load of fun!).

BDGERJMN

Squirrel cage isn't a fleet pattern....it was called that then...and was the same gun pattern the T-2 folks flew. Fleet patterns are flat. Pop attacks were always in the syllabus, they were just executed on the road recces as opposed to a dedicated syllabus hop for pop attacks.

1Seat 1Engine

BWWAAAAA.. Ain't that the truth! Those things didn't shoot straight at all! I remember it was one of the few times in the USAF I strafed with tracer rounds.

Even more fun was the totally not boresigted rockets fired with an Iron sight! The RCO needed extra pay for that!

The best thing about the 38 was it ran out of gas so fast that you had to cram a zillion things into each second of flight. I think I flew a 0.4 hr BFM sortie at HMN once.

My most important Holloman lessons: How to play fussball. How to taxi in formation. How to do a screaming rejoin on departure. How not to eject when the IP flew a tiger pattern. How to sit in a chair and nod for an hour and a half while the IP drew circles in chalk referencing a cassette recorder and being lectured on how worthless I was.

T45Heinous

Different pop attack...we always did the multiplane low level pop attack, but the WEPS pop attack with MK-76s is a fairly recent addition to the syllabus and a totally different animal than the recce, I got to do the validatation hops at VT-7 a few years ago, before we rolled it out to the SNAs...most fun with clothes on...as the saying goes!!

Dodo

Spider made a sweet video. Almost brings a tear to my eye.
Almost.

jumping ship

Without a doubt best assignment I ever had. Awesome flying, awesome people.

Hacker15e

I was that Lt's Flight/CC when he came to IFF at Moody.