7 June, 2003

            I’m writing today to discuss the general overall feeling of our flight over the past few weeks.  I am going to try to stay away from flat out bitching, but it will be hard to do.

            I want to start off by saying that I absolutely LOVE flying the T-1.  It is definitely my type of flying, and I am lucky to be doing it.  The flying part of training is going great, I feel like I am learning a lot and am becoming a better, more precise, pilot.  I find myself smiling when I am flying because if I were to have gone the civilian route, it would take me years and years to get where I am today.  I have great confidence in Air Force pilot training as the best in the world.  Please understand that the bad things that I have to say, are relative, and are not bad compared to some other situations.  I feel like “keepin’ it real” (haha) requires me to be true to my feelings at this time.

            The past few weeks have been rather awful in the flight-room.  Like I said, the flying is a blast, but the “motherhood” we have been experiencing has been, in my mind, unjustified.  There was a misconception that when making the transition to the T-1 side of the house, that you were given a certain amount of respect (since you completed tweets) and with that, that you were now expected to keep your shit wired tight and just do your job (ie UPT student).  Well, I feel that that has been a huge misnomer and coming over to the T-1 side of the house, has just been a return to being dog-shit.   It sucks.   We put up with so much bullshit that, in my humble opinion, it makes the days drag by and it really has a very negative effect on people’s attitudes.  I am a firm believer that a persons’ attitude really makes all of the difference in life.   And frankly, our attitude (the entire class) is totally shitty right now.  Everyone is complaining and generally pissed off whiel we are in the flight room. 

            I have tried to figure out a cause for all of the ill will floating around and I can’t seem to figure out what the problem is exactly.  I don’t dislike our IP’s, and everyone else seems to get along with them fine.  There are a few “wankers” but that is to be expected.  The flight commander seems to be decent, even if he isn’t the best I have ever seen.  The FAIP’s for the most part, while remaining true to some of the FAIP stigmatisms, are pretty decent as well.  One problem that I do see is that, we are being expected to be as far along as the flight that is 3 weeks ahead of us.  There are actually 2 flights in the same flight as I have mentioned before.  The guys ahead of us are about half’n’half.  Half good dudes, half dickheads.   The unreasonable part, I think, is that the IP’s and the FC seem to expect us the be as far along as the other guys, even though we are 3 weeks behind in flight, in general knowledge, and 3 weeks behind in the learning curve.  I find it frustrating that we are held to that, with also having less time to utilize the IP’s because they are dicking around with the guys ahead of us, in order to get them ready for their checkrides.  Either way, I feel neglected, hehehe.

            More possible causes of the pain we are all feeling in the flight-room.  We have some people who are not getting along very well, or are just finally deciding that they don’t really like some of their counterparts.  I consider myself a champion of hard to get along with if you piss me off.  But I am recognizing it happening to a lot of other people too.  It seems everyone has their ying to their yang in the same room as them.  Also, if you are older, you know that the trivial bullshit that happens in any large group is happening here too.   People are talking behind people’s backs and have very little confidence to just say “Fuck’em” and go on about their business.  Personally, if I don’t like someone or something that they are doing, who gives a whip, I don’t have to harbor a grudge, I just don’t talk to them.   More importantly, it bugs me that some people think it’s their prerogative to speak for me to other people.   Almost as if because someone thinks that I may feel a certain way about someone that it is their duty to go spouting off at the mouth as if they know what they are talking about, which, of course, they do not.

            Hey alright, super bitch session has occurred.  Hahahaha, it’s all good, you clicked on this journal, so you get stuck with what I write.  Basically, there is a feeling of getting butt raped over here in T-1s.  Some of it is the fault of over-zealous IP’s and some of it is just plain our own damn fault.  Either way, I am sick of it.  I am sick of coming home pissed off even though I have one of the best damn jobs in the world.  I say to my wife a lot “If all I had to do was go fly, and not have to deal with all of this other BS, I would be much happier”, well, after thinking about it, I do have to deal with this BS and I should do my best and just stop bitchin about it and man-up.  We will see if I can do it, or just continue to complain in upcoming journals (yeah, yeah I know you’re probably like, “when might that be, you lazy-ass?”).  Anyway, one last thing to discuss before I go wash the truck (I have washed it even less than I have written lately).

            We get screwed with EP’s, EPQ’s, Safety topics, and USEM topics, every single day.  Imagine after a long day, stuck in a hot tiny room, with a bunch of people that the over-zealous USEM IP just wants to continue to make your life suck by giving you an EP, and then to top it off, he just plain sucks at giving them.   He gets all pissed off at weird little things and doesn’t always know the right answer, but will jump all over our ass if we don’t know.  No BS, the other day I stood up and asked him to clarify what he had just said and he quoted me a wrong answer to the question and another IP had to correct him.  Screw him, if he doesn’t know what the Dash-1 says than how can he yell at us for not knowing what he said was “absolutely necessary to know verbatim”?   Bullshit, this guy is probably not the guy I would have nominated to be our USEM if I were the Flight Commander, which of course I am not.   Oh well, just another thing I am going to put up with on the road to my wings.  I guess the reason I bring him up is to let you know you will have a few guys here that, well, just are kind of “ugh”.

            Anyway, that’s it for now.  As always, any questions, feel free to email.