USAFA - Day 3

The final day at the United States Air Force Academy was definitely one of my favorites. No, we didn't sit in a simulator or have lunch/ dinner with cadets, but we heard presentations from two incredible cadets and the second young man, James Johnson, absolutely amazed me.

For day three we started at the USAFA Airfield. It was interesting to learn that the cadets are the primary instructors for other cadets. They are responsible for 94% of the flight training and 95% of the parachuting trainings. The first cadet who talked to us was a senior at the USAFA and he is a soaring instructor. That means that he is responsible for teaching other cadets how to fly the glider airplanes (no power source). He was interesting to listen to and honest in his responses - he talked about what he has learned through the experience and the importance of being able to stay calm when you are teaching other cadets how to fly because they "are trying to kill you" and yet you have to wait until the last possible moment to take over and save the plane. He said you don't want to scare them away from flying and you want them to learn how to correct their own mistakes and keep improving. Evidently there are teams that compete - like a cross country soaring team - where they try to fly far distances by using the air streams and air currents to move their planes. It was interesting. Here is a picture of a glider airplane being towed behind another plane.

The second young man that we heard from was a parachuting instructor. He is known as a jumpmaster and he is a trainer for other cadets. James is a junior at the
USAFA. He had never jumped out of a plane before his sophomore year at the USAFA, but he now has 260 jumps (including one the morning before he spoke to us) and is responsible for teaching other cadets how to safely jump from (perfectly good) planes. Interestingly, he is responsible for everything from training the other cadets on the ground to also helping them when they are up in the back of the plane preparing to jump. He is on the headset with the pilot, he holds them at the doorway before they jump out of the plane, and then, after all of the cadets have jumped out of the plane he jumps out after them. Clearly he is good at what he does because he is a member of the USAFA's "Wings of Blue" demonstration team. (That is why he has a blue uniform instead of the more common green version.) As a member of the demonstration team he is one of the individuals who would jump into stadiums, etc. He was entertaining and poised and incredibly confident making it a joy to listen to his experiences. I have lots of video clips (although if I would have been taping more instead of just listening there would be even more) from this segment of the trip - obviously because I thought it was so interesting and I can't decide on just one to share with you - so I hope you enjoy them because I have a lot of them. :-)

The first clip is James introducing himself. I think you will see what I am talking about with his confidence.

He was open to answering questions and one of the other counselors asked him what went through his mind on his very first jump. Here is his response.

Obviously, things can go wrong when jumping out of a plane. James talked about several different safety elements. He said that they average one reserve ride every thousand jumps. (By reserve ride he meant needing to use your reserve parachute.) In this clip he introduces a backup system. And in this clip he talks more about the Cypress system and what would happen if you were unconscious as you were falling from the plane.

In this clip he answers the question, "Is it like a rollercoaster?"

This final clip is one of my favorites and I started recording as he talked about the ground hurting and (I think) it is entertaining.

We did get to see some people from the Army that were being trained by the cadets at the USAFA jump from a plane which was fun to see. It was also interesting to learn that there are all different sizes of parachutes (canopies) and the different sizes determine how quickly you move down to the ground - the better you get the smaller canopy you can use allowing you to reach the ground faster.

After we finished at the airfield we concluded our day with a presentation by the Director of Selections, Mr. Rollie Stoneman. He reviewed for us the different avenues that students can seek nominations for the USAFA (and the other service academies). They ultimately offer appointments to about 1600 students (out of the 9500 students who are qualified and receive nominations) with the intent that about 1300 of those students will actually attend the USAFA. He stressed that they are looking for students of good moral character who will ultimately be able to serve as officers of character. Applying to an academy is a rolling process and generally begins in the spring of your junior year. Basically, when selecting a student to offer an apointment they are considering their Academic composite score (GPA, Strength of Curriculum, Verbal and Math Standardized test scores - think ACT/ SAT), Extra-curricular composite score (athletic and non-athletic activities), Candidate Fitness Assessment, USAFA Liaison Officer Evaluation, Teacher Evaluations, and Medical Qualifications and then a panel looks at all of those pieces and determines if the students should be offered an appointment to the academy. If you are interested in learning mroe about the details and what it will require in order to be competitive for a service academy, please stop in and see me and we can review the information that they shared during this program and the trip as a whole.

(One off the topic side note - the server FINALLY came back up this afternoon - THANKFULLY! It will probably take me a little while to get through the ton of e-mails that were awaiting me when I was finally able to read them. Please be patient. Thanks!)