Got my first flight in pilot training (for the USAF)...

Friday marked my first flight during UPT (Undergraduate Pilot Training) for the USAF down here at Columbus AFB. For those not familiar with the program, you now start out flying the T-6 Texan II.

It was one of the coolest things I have done in a very long time, and I already have experience flying 3 other airframes, and have about 1600 hours in the KC-10A (as a boom operator though, not a pilot).

The T-6 flies and looks like an old WWII fighter. It was simply amazing the way this thing flies. I can't even begin to really explain how cool this was for a guy like me who since he was a kid dreamed of becoming an Air Force pilot, and this flight marking my beggining of flight training. :finger:

http://i40.tinypic.com/11b41tt.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/2a65x5x.jpg

omg thats freaking sweet! i always wish i could ride a jet fighter.

thats cool. my old neighbors are going through that right now. they are brothers and one is a little past you on flights and is in texas, the other did his first f-16 solo a month or so back and he is in arizona.

Congrats!! That would be so awesome, part of me still wishes I got into that.

Congrats Ben, I know you've been working for this for a LONG time now. Glad to see your dreams coming to fruition.

im a little queezy just looking at the pics

Nice! Good luck man, keep us posted.

And.... More pics are mandatory :D

Congrats! Lookks BA

Thanks. I am flying almost every day (just flew again a few hours ago). It's frustrating because they really pile it on. I just had my first flight a few days ago, and I will be taking the aircraft up alone (solo) with no instructor in 3 weeks! I barely know how to fly the thing. Our days are 12 hours long, when we get done for the day they leave us with about 72 hours worth of study due before the next morning class (impossible).

But on the plus side, the flying (as inexperienced as I am) is a blast, and it almost makes those verbal beatings all worth it.

Thanks for the support!