Bleeding Eyes

Be careful what you wish for.

I had my first flight here at Fort Campbell last night. I arrived at the hangar at 1400. We did some flight planning and studying until about 1600. The Instructor Pilot and I did a pre-flight from 1600 until 1700. We spent an additional hour planning the flight and discussing what we hoped to accomplished. I then flew from 1800 until 0200 with just a short break to re-fuel and have a snack.

Whew! I was exhausted. Having not flown, I devoted an extraordinary amount of mental focus to the flight and it wore me out. Fortunately, I flew pretty well. I flew day, night, and with night vision goggles. I performed emergency procedures, traffic patterns, and got a general orientation to the area. The Instructor Pilot was generally respectful and nice to me and taught me some good techniques.

I spoke with the lead IP after the flight. He said that they are determined to get me up to speed as quickly as possible. In his words, they are going to fly me "until my eyes bleed."

The moral? Be careful what you wish for.

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