Coming back from an early phase division form flight, crappy summertime wx prevented us from doing the RTB as a 4 plane, so we split into two sections, with lead and a classmate of mine in the first and -3 and I (solo) as the second section. They kiss us off for the recovery, we break out, hit the initial and lead breaks at the numbers. Feeling pretty cool (this being my 4th solo in the jet or something
) I decide to try my hands at the loud break. Count 4 potatoes, MRT, boards out, roll and pull. Easy right? Well unfortunately I didn't account for the fact that 1) we were already at 330-340 KIAS when lead broke, 2) he broke at the numbers, 3) my potatoes were more like "pota", 4) if you are going to do this, you really need more than a 4 second interval anyway...even if you are counting legitimate seconds.
Roll out of the break turn with my pitot tube just about up my lead's tailpipe and closing. I do some casual S-turns (didn't want to do anything TOO obvious and give myself away...) to gain some interval. Of course we broke at the numbers so I basically have no time to do this. Lead calls abeam and I kind of split the difference between the abeam and the 90 for my abeam call so that I don't have to sound like a retard on the radio (we were basically abeam at the same time). I extend, get my interval, am retarded LIG and land uneventfully. I felt like a big dumbass as I was unstrapping, but figured that it had probably gone unnoticed. Silly me....
Get into the debrief and lead goes through the card, eventually coming to the RTB. Asks me "dude, what was up with that break? Did you count 4 seconds or what?" Unknown to me (probably head too far up my ass at that point to hear them call numbers for the break), his section came overhead right as all of this nonesense was happening, and they got a nice view of the show. I say "well sir, I think I got a solid 4 seconds, but I kind of went the wrong way with my left hand for the break.....like mil instead of idle". After some good laughs he just basically says "whatever, don't do stupid shit in the pattern man". Already feeling like a full retard, one of the LSO's (who was apparently out in the shack at the time) comes in, says "dude, who was 14?" I raise my hand sheepishly.....he says "wtf was up with that break?" after some more laughing, I just say "sir, I'm a retard"
I think learning was done that day
Another one was on the El Centro weps det, when I was the very deserving winner of the pink bomb. It was my first solo in the weps pattern, my head was still kind of a little bit on fire, and like most of weps I was still struggling to get a consistent roll-in point and sight picture. Anyway I had made a few inexplicably poor passes (pipper pretty much where I wanted it at release altitude, with long ass hits) and I was getting pretty frustrated....as in banging the canopy and yelling every time they called out my hit. So lets just say that I was pissed, wanted to get rid of my bombs, and just go the f home for the day. Rolled in, looked bad (looked way worse in the tape debrief), and I just kind of gave it my best schwag for when to release....mind you I have about 3 flights under my belt so my schwag is basically a blind man with a stick. I pickle, immediately regret the decision and think....damn, thats gonna be another long one. I pull abeam, and the range dude comes over the radio....."3 your hit was seven nine (I'm thinking here please don't read a third number) four and 12 oclock" AHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHH. For those of you who aren't familiar with the T-45 weps pattern, 200+ ft is pretty freaking crappy, 300 normally in the range for the pink bomb, and I think the doc dropping from the back seat got at least within 500 ft. So I was the big winner that day......go big or go home right? Well the story didn't quite end there. We get into the tape debrief, and find that my HUD was caged almost the entire time......being uncaged is the only way you can get good hits on a day with any wind. I had pressed the cage button instead of the pickle button on my first pass, and was then off to the races. So in hindsight all the crappy passes made sense, but the real gem was my 794' pass. When we froze the tape at my release point, I was already pulling out and my pipper was somewhere between El Centro and the horizon (we were looking west). You don't really need any advanced experience in manual bombing to know that one was going to be in the next area code. Anyway, long story short, it was a good learning experience. Oh yeah, the XO was in lead's trunk for that one too, apparently he got a REAL good laugh out of it.
