Flight School Update 2.0 Intermediate/Advanced Jet Training

WOW!  It's hard to believe that the last flight school update was over a year ago and how much has happened since then.  If you missed the first half of flight school: IFS, API, and Primary, you can catch up HERE.

As usual, hindsight in 20:20.  Everyone told me when we moved to Meridian that we would be in and out in 12 months.  But here we are pushing the 16 month mark and still going strong.  While some people would complain about this, I love it.  Rob is safe stateside, not deployed, and for the most part home more than he is at work.  We are still safe in this little school bubble so I am savoring every second of it.

We moved to Meridian at the very beginning of September and Rob headed straight to San Antonio for the CFET.  This is where he goes in the "spin" machine to simulate g forces and is sort of like a right of passage into the jet world.  Rob had a little bit of down time and then started ground school for Intermediate with VT-7 at the beginning of October.  He was in ground school for about four weeks which meant classes in the morning and usually home by mid-afternoon.  After that, he started sims which meant that went back to life revolving around 5pm when the schedule came out.  (He would get scheduled for sims anywhere between 5am and 8pm!)  His first flight of intermediate came in January after holiday leave.  From there, he would alternate between ground school, sims, and flights for each block.  Overall, intermediate was pretty low key.  Most weeks, he would be scheduled for a sim or a flight which would take ~3 hours and then he would be home the rest of the day.  There were also a lot of days that he was not scheduled for anything at all.  Just like in primary, we knew these days were not going to last so we tried to take complete advantage.   Rob had two cross countries (one to San Diego, one to DC), flew solo in the T-45 15+ times, and finished intermediate in August (so almost a full year after we moved to Meridian).


Advanced was a complete 180!  Rob went from maybe one event a day in intermediate to having two flights most days and tons of studying!  The pace seemed to move much quicker and was much more rigorous but also a lot more fun for him as he learned specific "jet stuff" like flying in formation and dropping bombs.  He went on a cross country to Asheville, a cross country to Charleston, a weapons detachment (usually three weeks long in California), and of course, the boat detachment.  After successfully qualifying on the carrier and returning from the det, Rob has less than 10 flights left in flight school!  If all goes well, he should finish flight school and receive his wings of gold next month!