Surprisingly, the takeoff in a T-6 Texan II from Columbus Air Force Base doesn’t feel too different from the rumble of a commercial airline’s ascent.
As the aircraft’s nose cuts through dreary, overcast Lowndes County on Tuesday morning, a horizon of white spans my view in the backseat of the plane.
While the roughly 240 mph we maintain makes it challenging to look around, I would mostly consider it a smooth ride. And for 20 minutes, it was.
Somewhere over Aliceville, Alabama, Capt. Daniel “Slick” Flynn, the pilot teacher in the front seat of the aircraft, speaks over the radio to explain the barrel roll maneuver we’re about to perform before he quickly jolts the plane to the right.
Suddenly the sky flips and becomes my floor, and we spin downward, pushing roughly 4.5 G-force, or feeling roughly 4.5 times the normal pull of gravity, and my body folds in on itself.
I feel like a weight is sitting behind my neck and forcing my head to the floor board.
The G-suit strapped around my waist and legs expands and pushes against my limbs to protect blood flow while I experience the unnatural force.
Looking just above the dashboard, I see Flynn, unaffected by the gravity of the situation, calmly redirect the plane out of the loop and back to our normal flight trajectory.
It’s the type of response that’s become second nature for Flynn after logging more than 900 flight hours.
Settling back to our intended flight path near the Mississippi state border, Flynn makes a hand signal to the other pilot we’re flying beside, and I begin scrambling for my air sickness bag.
Flynn said in his three years training dozens of pilots at CAFB, most if not all experience motion sickness – and everything that comes along with it – on their first flight.
“I would say for most of them it’s usually just in the first couple (of flights) that it’ll happen,” Flynn said. “And then pretty much what happens is every time we have someone get sick, we send them to our flight doctors and talk to them, and then they get checked out.”
Learning the basics
Flynn said most of more than 400 pilots-in-training at CAFB each year endure multiple stints in a Bàràny Chair, a specialized rotating device used primarily in military aviation to train students to recognize and overcome that motion sickness while flying.
“It does wonders for air sickness for some reason,” Flynn said. “After multiple sessions in the chair they usually do great.”
But that’s just one of the tools CAFB uses to train its pilots.
Within the last year, CAFB has implemented a new training regimen for pilots called the Tactical Athlete Program as part of the Air Force’s Comprehensive Readiness for Aircrew Flying Training Initiative. Through the program, personal trainers work with students to give them a nutrition and physical plan to better train their bodies for the demands of various kinds of flight.
Pilots going through training have to develop not just their bodies and their knowledge of the aircraft, but their mental fortitude during roughly a year of training that happens at CAFB, said Capt. Justin Sweat, a pilot instructor at the base.
Before arriving at CAFB, Pilots obtain a private pilot’s license, which serves as the officers’ foundation as they learn to fly faster aircraft with more complex maneuvering.
“It is so much workload trying to fly an aircraft like this and managing not only the aircraft itself, but all of the systems,” Sweat said. “Trying to keep situational awareness on all of the traffic around you, the weather – it’s just a lot. You’ve really got to train someone to be effectively a mental athlete to fly, because … it’s not enough to just know the procedures; you have to know how to apply them, when and do so very quickly.”
That need to improve mental fortitude is part of the reason why in August the base constructed The MindGym, a cube that uses mirrors and technology to track performance and stress levels during short sessions, to aid pilots in stress management during their flight training.
Flynn said the instrument has helped pilots on base develop healthy methods for maintaining composure while tracking flight and weather conditions and switching from instrument to instrument on the panel.
Getting behind the controls
Over the quiet hum of the plane’s engine, I hear Flynn ask if I’d like to take control.
My mouth forms the word “Yes” before I could fully recognize what was asked of me, and suddenly, I’m cautiously holding on to the steering stick of a roughly 4,700-pound aircraft.
Tasked only with keeping our ascent, I don’t jostle it, but I tremble slightly behind the controls as I feel a wave of adrenaline hit.
That adrenaline kick is part of what convinced Flynn during his time at the Air Force Academy that he wanted to be a pilot despite growing up in New Hampshire with dreams of becoming a doctor.
“I think the adrenaline is one thing, but then there’s just like very technical skills (needed to fly),” Flynn said. “It’s cool to get used to it and to kind of thrive in those high-stress environments.”
Flynn, who was assigned to CAFB as a pilot instructor about 13 months ago, said his favorite part of the job is seeing the pilots who graduate go on to accept assignments in bases across the globe.
“The first class (I taught), … some of them struggled a little bit, but at the end of the day, they all got through training,” Flynn said. “They all were excited to be Air Force pilots and got planes that they were really excited for. … Watching them go through (training) and finish up is probably my favorite (part).”
After a dizzying, hour-long flight among the clouds, Flynn tells me we are finally making our return to CAFB.
The descent is far more disorienting than the takeoff as we tilt and make a large loop, centering the craft to land on the roughly 300-foot-wide landing strip.
The wheels bump, slowing our momentum before we drive around and park under one of the many open hangars of the flight line.
Flynn unbuckles himself, removes his helmet and leaps from the side of the aircraft to do post-flight checks on the plane. I’m still inside, having not yet mastered the art of undoing the straps holding my shoulders to the seat.
After a five-minute wrestling match with the seven restraints holding my back, legs and waist to my seat, I dismount and feel my feet meet the ground – where I hope they will stay for a long time.
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 29 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
