My Swift Adventure

Day 8 is over and everyone passed!!!!!!! Heading back to the range tomorrow to learn and practice more backing skills... we are officially the veterans... haha

 

Day 9 and we started more backing skills today. We were doing off-set backing, 45* alley dock, and 90* alley dock. We were supposed to start blind side parallels today but the instructors were tied up with PTI evals. Got to see the Goodyear Blimp berthed at the airport this morning. At about 9:00 the bus pulled up with the pilots and grounds crew and it launched, followed by the crew breaking down the berth and leaving. Also got to see an Osprey and a Blackhawk take off and do maneuvers. Not bad for a Tuesday.

 

Day whatever it is... Evals done and I am relieved. Only point I got was a pull-up on my sight-side parallel because I bent too much in the box and had to pull up to straighten out. Tomorrow is play day... time to do right turn and perfect my 90* alley dock.

 

Definitely not under the impression that I "Got It"!!! Had a good run at the 90* Alley Dock, 1st time running clean... I was expecting to get 3-4 points but it finally clicked and made sense in my mind. Today I am gonna spend as much time as I can working on the 90* to make sure it continues to make sense. I took the approach to testing that I worked on 1 skill until I got it and tested on it, then moved on to the next and so on. Thursday I messed myself up and did the circuit and by the time I got done I couldn't do any of it.

 

Day 1 of Road Training... Lovin' it!!! Got to drive all over Memphis and Millington today. I never realized just how narrow the lanes are on some of the roads. Looking in my mirrors my sidewalls were on both the left and right lines. Not too many people were brave enough to pass me on the right going down Poplar Avenue... might have had something to do with the "Student Driver" stickers all over the truck and trailer. Successfully completed several right and left turns and scared the heck out of a few people in the process but I had a lot of fun.

Only 2 students in the truck, the 3rd didn't show up today. I go to DMV testing next Wednesday in Nashville so I actually get 4 more days to prepare than I had been planning on. I should have 35- 40 hours of wheel time when I get to Nashville so I ought to be really ready.

I missed a few gears on downshifts from slowing too much while trying to shift, mostly coming to a stop and trying to catch 4th before the light but had a great time and felt really comfortable navigating 16 tons down city streets.

I think my biggest obstacle is going to be actually talking my way through the driving. I am very used to looking at everything going on around me having ridden motorcycles for years and generally being "invisible" to everyone around me but I am not used to vocalizing the scanning process. I should have plenty of time to become accustomed to it though.