Formation solo flight today; it rocked:

Yes, everytime I sling my dog tags around my neck I hear GDDCBCBAAGABABCBGBA....sorry (Top Gun theme song).

This flight is most student’s favorite flight in Flight School. It was definitely in my top 3. When I flew with our Skipper a couple weeks ago, his comment on our initial accent resonates still, “There are worse jobs, Jim!”

No kidding!

The trigometry works out that when flying formations in the T-34, we’re just shy of 11’ apart from each other – and they trust us to fly these alone! For us Coasties, these flights are essentially pointless, but who cares?!, they’re fun.

Our formation call sign was ‘Metal.’ My form partner is an Italian exchange student. I always said, ‘it works out for our language barrier that most comms are via hand signals…’ It’s pretty badass to hear ‘Metal’ over the radio in a thick Italian accent. I wanted our callsign to be ‘Callsign’ or ‘Deznuts.’ I didn’t think they’d fly (pun very intended). You want the word to be 2 syllables and clear with hard sounds like ‘Short Track.’ Some good ones lately: ‘Ramrod,’ ‘Jedi,’ & ‘Jitterbug.’ It’s good comic relief when you’re up there focusing on the maneuvers and ‘Ramrod’ is transmitted. I then recite the entire Super Troopers scene in my head.

So that’s that for my solo days…until I rent a Cesna or something.