IFS: Step one of USAF pilot training
IFS is designed for people with 0 hour flying.
It is a 3-4 week long program (22 days or more) which includes a solo flight and checkride to gradute within 12 flights. (Plus two bonus elimination flights if need be)
Firehose.
DAY 0
ARRIVAL, CHECK IN, INPROCESSING: Takes about 20 minutes.
Reccomendations:
Be in shape at arrival
Know Boldface and Ops Limits
Have waterbottle and some sort of caffinated drink (i picked up some caffinated lemonade powder at walmart, got me through the briefs)
DAY 1
12 HOUR DAY. MASS BRIEFINGS AND PFT.
PFT was easy. pretty sure everyone passed. I had been running to prep for it though...
We had 9 people fail the boldface/ops limits test. I passed but we all failed as a unit since ppl failed and such..
Flt Com reccomended studying radio calls, local area procedures, and checklist flows to know by tuesday (Dollar ride) also do practice quizzes.
I ate dinner, played some guitar for a bit, and studied. 2 Practice quizzes in Safety and Flt Phys. Read a bit of LFP and now looking over some checklist flow. This is gonna suck.... got a senior pegged to help me chairfly this weekend. just gotta commit to learning the startup procedures, dont wanna fall behind.
DAY 2
Another 12 hr day. exhausting. recommend doing the quizes. submit answers right away to "fail" and just memorize the answers. Trying to guess and understand everything proved to be futile. Keep you eyes on the prize. IFS is like finals week at the academy. Cram only what will be tested. for the AC test, you only need to know quiz answers, not comprehend. For the rest of the program, chairfly in detail...
DAY 3
More AC, finally friday. Drank a bit in the flight room and met some of the other studs. Fun times, but stayed up too late and wasted my saturday recovering
WEEKEND
Fri-Sat:Rest
Satnight- study quizzes
Sunday- study all day. Mostly quizzes.
Next weekend I should try to sleep earlier and have a game plan of what I wanna study, SPECIFICALLY and FOLLOW THROUGH.
Just did a boldface refresher. Should be able to pass tomorrow no problem.
Did some research on other things like concentration, keeping cool under pressure, memorization and rapid learning techniques. Trying to take a critical approach to solving the problem that is passing IFS.
DAY 4
Last day of AC. I began to feel sick today. Perfect timing... dollar ride (1st flight) tomorrow. whoopedee do. Really wish I hit those quizzes at full force earlier. It would have helped alot :/ you live and learn. I need to study MUCH MORE next weekend and the days to come. It seems my peers are pulling ahead. Oh great.
No time to chair fly today... spent all day on quizzes again. GTIMS kept freezing up. Annoying.
DAY 5
First flight was pretty bad. Didn't really know anything. Good thing I didn't have to.
DAY 6
2nd flight. IP says Im in the "middle of the pack." great.
DAY 7
New IP. First flight. he sure loves to brief. getting better a ground ops. had an ok flight.
DAY 8
Had a great flight :) starting to get this stuff down
DAY 9
Monday.... Horrible flight :(
DAY 10-11
No-fly, stupid weather D:
DAY 12
Worst flight to date :( feeling discouraged. IP says its normal for this to happen in the beggining of 300. Id better study a buttload. got my pattern only tomorrow.
DAY 13
Had an OK Flight. didnt study, just vegged out in front of the TV. i think i need to get out of here
WEEKEND
Saturday so far havent been very productive, i just feel lazy i dont know why...
Finally got out of here to see a movie.. i think that helped. hit the books all day Sunday.
DAY 14
New IP Flight to Fowler. So-so flight. need to study pitch pictures and remember to crosscheck/not get fixated on one thing. (ie so fixated on ground track, ip had to initiate cruise check) Funniest thing. realized I need an extra cushion. hopefully tommorows flight will be better when i can see out the cockpit.
DAY 15
First good flight. Need to crosscheck altitude! and that damn mixture...
DAY 16
Pretty bad flight up out to Area 11 and back to Kpub for patterns. Not sure what happened. IP let me slide with all Fs and a G overall he said I was just having a brain fart.
DAY 17
Supposed to have the day off today, then BAM! Surprise solo. bit me in the butt. 20 minutes later i'm briefing up for it, took off and did some good patterns, built my confidence and solo'd away. it was AWESOME. :) Tomorrow I get a real break. Got all week to study for my pre-check, but I'm not gonna fall into that trap! NOoooo.
DAY 18
Friday- no fly. good break.
Saturday- lolygagged around. blah blahh bleh
Sunday- Oh shit my pre-check is tomorrow! better hit the books...
DAY 19-20
Shitty Pre-check
Super-shitty check (schd/profile change last min)
Passed both. done. peace.
ADVICE
As I sit here waiting on my flt com to outprocess. I shall reflect.
When you first get here, before your dollar ride, it would behoove you to go to the P drive and look at the file Technique- Trim. and memorize the pictch pictures, power settings, and trim settings for each straight and level airspeed. I personally struggled with altitude control the whole entire program. It didn't get me kicked out, but it annoyed my IPs :). I would also take the first weekend off to read the entire Local Flying Procedures. Email to yourself, print it out at kinkos and hit up starbucks on saturday morning, just get it out of the way. It will help you understand alot of the proceudures. As for radio calls. Lookup a file on the P drive called "Beagles Radio Calls by Profile". This file is money. I had a small printout in booklet form I took to the CPTs the first few times, then the radio calls just came. Think of them logically. (Who you are talking to, Who you are, Where you are. [And perhaps what you want]).
Just think about it. If you are talking to departure, you need to tell them what altitude you are going to so there are not mid air collisions, (that is what your "where you are" will count as.
If you are talking to approach, they know youve been out a while. As always Denver needs to know your altitude. But since you are coming home after a long grueling mission, they need to know if you have the most current informations. So it makes sense any time you talk to approach you do the first three things, then altidude, information, and intentions (inbound patterns or inbound full stop) Anyways the radio calls will come. You won't have to think twice about them by the end of the program. But if you are struggling with them better nip it in the bud now. If you cant do radio calls on your check thats bad news.
No matter how good your IP tells you you are doing. Keep studying and practicing like you are on your 89. Don't get complacent, there is always room for improvement. (unless you are a prior time hotshot, then you probably ARE that good.)
Get out on the weekends, but get it together when you come back. I found the best thing was to get out on friday, do whatever you want that night, and be ready saturday morning or afternoon to get up and hit those books hard.
I would consider getting a logbook. If you are considering it, just get it now. It will be alot smoother outprocessing when you already have all your signitures and don't have to chase IPs around all day. Im chilling in my flight room waiting forever on my CC so I can outprocess. You can check the Schedule in GTIMS to see when he's likely to be availiable to save time and misery.
BIG THING- Study social. If you see the senior class chairflying, ask if you can sit in. If you are going to the CPTs Chairfly with a buddy! You must talk to others to see how they are doing, and what they know so you know what you do not know! If you think you can study on your own and be fine, you are wrong. People that stuggled here tended to be more intoverted. This is your time to suceed and your career depends on it. Be aggresive in asking for help. I'm done and I am happy to help the junior class with any questions they have or even chairfly with them. I remember being a little intimidated asking for help from the senior class when I came in. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Most people will not mind, and if they do who cares? Buy them some beer and you're even. Your career is on the line, theres no time to beat around the bush with getting help.
It is a 3-4 week long program (22 days or more) which includes a solo flight and checkride to gradute within 12 flights. (Plus two bonus elimination flights if need be)
Firehose.
DAY 0
ARRIVAL, CHECK IN, INPROCESSING: Takes about 20 minutes.
Reccomendations:
Be in shape at arrival
Know Boldface and Ops Limits
Have waterbottle and some sort of caffinated drink (i picked up some caffinated lemonade powder at walmart, got me through the briefs)
DAY 1
12 HOUR DAY. MASS BRIEFINGS AND PFT.
PFT was easy. pretty sure everyone passed. I had been running to prep for it though...
We had 9 people fail the boldface/ops limits test. I passed but we all failed as a unit since ppl failed and such..
Flt Com reccomended studying radio calls, local area procedures, and checklist flows to know by tuesday (Dollar ride) also do practice quizzes.
I ate dinner, played some guitar for a bit, and studied. 2 Practice quizzes in Safety and Flt Phys. Read a bit of LFP and now looking over some checklist flow. This is gonna suck.... got a senior pegged to help me chairfly this weekend. just gotta commit to learning the startup procedures, dont wanna fall behind.
DAY 2
Another 12 hr day. exhausting. recommend doing the quizes. submit answers right away to "fail" and just memorize the answers. Trying to guess and understand everything proved to be futile. Keep you eyes on the prize. IFS is like finals week at the academy. Cram only what will be tested. for the AC test, you only need to know quiz answers, not comprehend. For the rest of the program, chairfly in detail...
DAY 3
More AC, finally friday. Drank a bit in the flight room and met some of the other studs. Fun times, but stayed up too late and wasted my saturday recovering
WEEKEND
Fri-Sat:Rest
Satnight- study quizzes
Sunday- study all day. Mostly quizzes.
Next weekend I should try to sleep earlier and have a game plan of what I wanna study, SPECIFICALLY and FOLLOW THROUGH.
Just did a boldface refresher. Should be able to pass tomorrow no problem.
Did some research on other things like concentration, keeping cool under pressure, memorization and rapid learning techniques. Trying to take a critical approach to solving the problem that is passing IFS.
DAY 4
Last day of AC. I began to feel sick today. Perfect timing... dollar ride (1st flight) tomorrow. whoopedee do. Really wish I hit those quizzes at full force earlier. It would have helped alot :/ you live and learn. I need to study MUCH MORE next weekend and the days to come. It seems my peers are pulling ahead. Oh great.
No time to chair fly today... spent all day on quizzes again. GTIMS kept freezing up. Annoying.
DAY 5
First flight was pretty bad. Didn't really know anything. Good thing I didn't have to.
DAY 6
2nd flight. IP says Im in the "middle of the pack." great.
DAY 7
New IP. First flight. he sure loves to brief. getting better a ground ops. had an ok flight.
DAY 8
Had a great flight :) starting to get this stuff down
DAY 9
Monday.... Horrible flight :(
DAY 10-11
No-fly, stupid weather D:
DAY 12
Worst flight to date :( feeling discouraged. IP says its normal for this to happen in the beggining of 300. Id better study a buttload. got my pattern only tomorrow.
DAY 13
Had an OK Flight. didnt study, just vegged out in front of the TV. i think i need to get out of here
WEEKEND
Saturday so far havent been very productive, i just feel lazy i dont know why...
Finally got out of here to see a movie.. i think that helped. hit the books all day Sunday.
DAY 14
New IP Flight to Fowler. So-so flight. need to study pitch pictures and remember to crosscheck/not get fixated on one thing. (ie so fixated on ground track, ip had to initiate cruise check) Funniest thing. realized I need an extra cushion. hopefully tommorows flight will be better when i can see out the cockpit.
DAY 15
First good flight. Need to crosscheck altitude! and that damn mixture...
DAY 16
Pretty bad flight up out to Area 11 and back to Kpub for patterns. Not sure what happened. IP let me slide with all Fs and a G overall he said I was just having a brain fart.
DAY 17
Supposed to have the day off today, then BAM! Surprise solo. bit me in the butt. 20 minutes later i'm briefing up for it, took off and did some good patterns, built my confidence and solo'd away. it was AWESOME. :) Tomorrow I get a real break. Got all week to study for my pre-check, but I'm not gonna fall into that trap! NOoooo.
DAY 18
Friday- no fly. good break.
Saturday- lolygagged around. blah blahh bleh
Sunday- Oh shit my pre-check is tomorrow! better hit the books...
DAY 19-20
Shitty Pre-check
Super-shitty check (schd/profile change last min)
Passed both. done. peace.
ADVICE
As I sit here waiting on my flt com to outprocess. I shall reflect.
When you first get here, before your dollar ride, it would behoove you to go to the P drive and look at the file Technique- Trim. and memorize the pictch pictures, power settings, and trim settings for each straight and level airspeed. I personally struggled with altitude control the whole entire program. It didn't get me kicked out, but it annoyed my IPs :). I would also take the first weekend off to read the entire Local Flying Procedures. Email to yourself, print it out at kinkos and hit up starbucks on saturday morning, just get it out of the way. It will help you understand alot of the proceudures. As for radio calls. Lookup a file on the P drive called "Beagles Radio Calls by Profile". This file is money. I had a small printout in booklet form I took to the CPTs the first few times, then the radio calls just came. Think of them logically. (Who you are talking to, Who you are, Where you are. [And perhaps what you want]).
Just think about it. If you are talking to departure, you need to tell them what altitude you are going to so there are not mid air collisions, (that is what your "where you are" will count as.
If you are talking to approach, they know youve been out a while. As always Denver needs to know your altitude. But since you are coming home after a long grueling mission, they need to know if you have the most current informations. So it makes sense any time you talk to approach you do the first three things, then altidude, information, and intentions (inbound patterns or inbound full stop) Anyways the radio calls will come. You won't have to think twice about them by the end of the program. But if you are struggling with them better nip it in the bud now. If you cant do radio calls on your check thats bad news.
No matter how good your IP tells you you are doing. Keep studying and practicing like you are on your 89. Don't get complacent, there is always room for improvement. (unless you are a prior time hotshot, then you probably ARE that good.)
Get out on the weekends, but get it together when you come back. I found the best thing was to get out on friday, do whatever you want that night, and be ready saturday morning or afternoon to get up and hit those books hard.
I would consider getting a logbook. If you are considering it, just get it now. It will be alot smoother outprocessing when you already have all your signitures and don't have to chase IPs around all day. Im chilling in my flight room waiting forever on my CC so I can outprocess. You can check the Schedule in GTIMS to see when he's likely to be availiable to save time and misery.
BIG THING- Study social. If you see the senior class chairflying, ask if you can sit in. If you are going to the CPTs Chairfly with a buddy! You must talk to others to see how they are doing, and what they know so you know what you do not know! If you think you can study on your own and be fine, you are wrong. People that stuggled here tended to be more intoverted. This is your time to suceed and your career depends on it. Be aggresive in asking for help. I'm done and I am happy to help the junior class with any questions they have or even chairfly with them. I remember being a little intimidated asking for help from the senior class when I came in. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Most people will not mind, and if they do who cares? Buy them some beer and you're even. Your career is on the line, theres no time to beat around the bush with getting help.