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time so we live to drink at the club tonight.” He also hated the training command and passionately loathed most FAIPs. So, Daddy Rabbit, if you’re reading this, thanks for everything.
    Within a week, guys began washing out for air sickness, failure to master emergency procedures, or just a basic inability to think and fly at the same time. If a student busted a ride, he got a repeat, called an “X” ride. If he busted that, then he flew a “Double X” flight with a more experienced, non-FAIP, squadron officer. If he failed again, he went next to a Proficiency Check with a Flight Examiner, and if he didn’t pass it, then he was out. There were students who were fully enrolled and engaged on Monday and gone by Friday.
    The Tweet phase progressed through formation flying and basic instrument procedures, and guys continued to drop like proverbial flies. As always, through all of this, there were endless academics. Aerodynamics, aircraft systems, weather, instrument flying procedures—anything that could affect you as a pilot. Emergency training was nonstop. More classroom instruction, simulator flights, and a little ritual each morning called “Stand Up.”
    This occurred in the big flight-briefing room. Each instructor pilot had a table and usually four to five students (at the beginning). Every morning, before flying and academics, there was a Mass Brief. This covered weather, the schedule, and general announcements. One instructor would then give a thirty-second scenario involving a flight situation and turn it over to a random student. The Stud would then “Stand Up” and take over, in real time, whatever near-death situation had been presented. With an audience of instructor pilots and his peers, he’d have to take this to a logical conclusion and, hopefully, get the plane back on the ground. It was very effective in teaching a young pilot the basics of thinking on his feet and ignoring outside pressures during a crisis.
     
    A FTER SIX MONTHS AND TWO CHECK-RIDES, THOSE OF US WHO were left got to move across the street to T-38s and the advanced flight phase of UPT. About 40 percent of the initial class was gone by this point, and those remaining were seasoned by now. Not cocky, certainly, because we still didn’t have wings and also had seen too many buddies wash out. But we’d recovered a bit of the misplaced confidence we’d all walked in with.
    The attitude was different on the 38 side. Instructors still washed people out, but they figured we’d proven ourselves over the past six months by simply surviving to this phase. The Air Force also had a chunk of money invested in us by this point and would work a bit harder to keep a potential pilot around.
    I loved it. Whereas piloting the Tweet had been brute-force mastery over ugly machine, the T-38 called for finesse. It flew like a fighter (at least a 1970s-vintage fighter); the Air Force had several fighting versions in the form of the AT-38 and the F-5 Tiger II. It sat high above the ground and had the tremendous virtue of tandem seating. This was much better than the Tweet, where the instructor was sitting right next to you.
    Jet flying clicked for me during the next six months. I’d come out of Tweets in the middle of the pack, but my hands and brain caught up with each other with the T-38. It had an afterburner, and we now wore G-suits to counter the effects of gravity during maneuvering. Compared to high-performance fighters, the T-38 wasn’t a tough nut to crack. But as I saw my reflection in the glass doors, with my G-suit and helmet, I thought I was already there—a fighter pilot on his way to deal death. Maybe it helped. Maybe not. But I liked the look.
    About eleven months into the program, all the instructors and commanders went into a huddle over a long weekend. They examined everything about us; each test score, simulator flight, and actual flight had been graded and scored. This mass of sleepless nights and sweaty palms was compiled into an