Career Enhancement?

Looks like my options just grew at the end of pilot training. Does this mean I might be able to fly CSAR with the 129th out of Moffet after all?

Wise Sidekick

Some advice on business and life from the Sage's Sidekick.

Some of my favorites:
"Mozart is a very good example of a life ruined by nuttiness."

"Man is too soon old and too late smart."
Which reminds me of a quote my Taiwanese friend 國偉 posted on his MSN:
人的上半生，不要猶豫；人的下半生，不要後悔。
Translation: "First half of life, don't hesitate; Latter half, don't regret."
That's Deep with a capital Delta.

"Most of [Warren Buffett's] achievement came by sitting on his ass and reading. You'd get fired in corporate America if you did that! The present generation of multi-taskers won't produce people who think as well as WB. Wisdom comes by sitting on your ass."
I sit on my ass all the time, but I don't think I'm going to be very wise anyway.

Not relevant: Winds are gusting to above 30 knots, which is above dual limits, so I couldn't fly with Bonemass this morning. Scheduled for my second solo this afternoon...when the daily T-storms are supposed to move in. Just my type of day. Morale -> 75%.

Upgrades

I've added a few things to the right frame: Newsreel focusing on military aviation, and changed a few other things because I didn't want to go to the gym.

Prosper.com Risk Analysis

The graphs below come from data extracted from LendingStats. I wanted to do a more in-depth analysis based on historical data (current as of today) of the risks associated with different parameters, i.e. how can I minimize the potential for delinquent payments and defaults down the road when I choose a listing to bid on. Some results are expected, but some surprises have come up, too. I know the graphs' text is small. Click on the pictures for a larger version.

This is pretty obvious. Risk jumps quite a bit between D and E. I personally avoid anything lower than C nowadays, but maybe I should consider D's, too.

Here's a surprise: risk is actually highest with lower debt/income ratios. Does having some debt = developing responsibility?
70-ANY includes a lot of self-employed people since they can't include their income in the Prosper debt/income formula, so they have astronomical ratios. Still very feasible investments, though, as shown above.

Another surprise for me: delinquency rate is higher when the loan amount is low. Maybe a small loan is easier to overlook, like dollar bills versus Benjamins. Maybe people who borrow more are more able to pay them off, and lenders are more likely to lend a larger amount to them.

Definitely only lend to people who verify their bank accounts. Honestly, anyone can open a no-minimum bank account today, so if they don't have one, something's fishy.

The risk is almot twice as high to lend to non-home owners. But the absolute difference isn't actually that great. Personally, this isn't one of the criteria that I'm really concerned about.

Automatic funding is where the listing closes as soon as enough funding is submitted by bidders. This result makes sense since people who can't afford to wait for the interest rate to get bid down further are more likely to already be in financial trouble.

SWDITTBAAFP? Pt 4

What a difference a day can make.

***

I lay in bed last night, couldn't fall asleep. My heart was pounding, and I kept thinking about the check ride scheduled for this morning, not just running the sortie through my head again, and again, and again, but worrying what might become the first step toward the end of a dream. What if this is it?

Down the hall, a dream was already over. Failing his last ride early in the week, we hadn't seen much of him for days. Tomorrow he would be leaving, back to a life more ordinary. He tossed and turned, too, I'm sure. Was he pondering the next step, or just kept awake by the disappointment?

***

I stepped down from the cockpit with brows entrenched. It had started all so well; everything was going according to plan. How could I f*ck up those last landings? How could I forget to power off on descent? How could I (almost) overspeed my flaps trying to slip down and salvage what's left of my check ride? How could I be so stupid? The IP told me take 10. I went back to my room, bordering on self-loathing tears and cursing my incompetence. Surely I don't deserve to pilot hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aircraft. The steps back up to the flight room were heavy. I gave my inquisitive flightmates a foreboding look, stepped into the check IP's office, closed the door, and sat down in front of him.

He took a long and hard look at the flight suits he will wear no longer before packing them away with the rest of his belongings. This is it, he thought. Life will go on, and I will be fine. He locked the suite door for the last time, and headed toward the front lobby, beneath the sign "Gateway to USAF Aviation". As he said a quiet goodbye to the security guard and opened the double door, he heard his name. He stopped and turned around.

***

I came out of the perpetually sunlit office to face a small crowd of eager mates. I closed the door behind me and pumped my fists in silent triumph. Yes! All the weight and guilt and shame of the past four days fell far away behind me, and I was surrounded by handshakes and congratulations. Yet no words were as sweet as those two the check IP uttered at the end of the debriefing. Go solo.

I collapsed onto a chair amongst my flightmates. Then I realized that a familiar face has reappeared. He was studying, though I don't recall him being that studious before.
They gave me another chance! He said. Two more check rides to pass.
I'm so happy that you're back, I told him, slapping his shoulder.
Yeah, me too.

***

What a difference a day can make.


Not relevant:
I have 6 more flights before I get to go home to the wife, including the final check ride. After today, I'm feeling pretty good. See? You can make it happen if you just lose enough sleep over it.
Morale -> 90%

A Random Stroll Down Instapundit.com

"Hey, I guess killing these guys does help."
My note: So Vietnam fighter pilot K-Bob ("I believe the way to win wars is to kill lots and lots of people.") was right!? Roger. Wilco.

"I'm not sure anyone's brought this up yet with Michael Moore's *Sicko*, but one of the biggest costs on US health care is... people like Michael Moore...Maybe Moore's next film can be called Downsize Me!"

I can't believe this is happening

A natural history museum for Creationists? They never cease to wow, amuse and dismay.

SWDITTBAAFP? Pt 3

"The only difference between pilots and wannabes is desire."

Joe sent those words to me as a praise, but it's now taken the form of encouragement. If it's true that a pilot is only as good as his last flight, then my latest flights have cast a long shadow over what I achieved earlier in the program. It's amazing how fast things can degrade. After 3 days of not flying for me and a demoralizing Monday morning for the class, I flew like I hadn't been in a cockpit for months. Yeah I could blame the rust and the wind and what not, but truthfully, I probably just didn't work hard enough for it. And I'm paying for that now.
I managed to somewhat redeem myself today in what would've been the last flight before my 1st check ride, but I blew two simulated forced landings (SFL), and my IP--bless her heart, in a weird kinda way--failed me on paper so I could get another chance to work on that before the check ride.
The check ride is a nerve-racking process. If you fail a regular ride, like I did today, you get two more lessons before you check. If you fail a check ride, you have two more chances (88 and 89) before you are eliminated.
Yes, eliminated. And if we thought they were joking about that, the past few days proved utterly humorless. I saw the pain in a classmate's face, a face that's obviously been crying for hours, after he failed his 89 ride this morning and stayed in his room the entire day (I would've, too). He forced a smile and said "That's life." I felt awful. That's a life of not being a military aviator, which some of us have wanted to do more than anything else for the entirety of our existence (I'm not one of them). He wanted it, that's why he is here. And now it's over, just like that.
I used to laugh along when people who don't know better say that the life of a pilot is easy. That may be, once you make it. Right now it's nail-biting hard work every day for 12 hours plus study time. And if we make it through here (already 4 out of 24 of us have either been voluntarily or involuntarily eliminated), we will have another even harder year and a half ahead before we earn our wings.
If desire separates those who make it and those who don't, I'm gonna have to dig deep everyday from now on and find that fire. Because obviously I haven't dug deep enough.

Less relevant:
I have never completely failed anything in my life. I'm not about to start here and now. Still, I'm pretty nervous right now about every upcoming flight, especially the check ride (probably Thursday or Friday), so I'm pretty motivated to work hard right now. Morale ->80%

2nd Place Is the Last Loser

To mark the end of our mandatory PT sessions with Chris the Crazy X-Marine, we had a basketball and volleyball tournament. There were 4 basketball teams, one consisted of some more elderly IFS staff members. My team Euro (someone thinks Tyler looks like Euro trash) beat the staff members' team 14-7, and then lost to the obviously-stacked team of Sulli, Joe and Brion in the championship game. Not bad; I didn't even think we were going to make it past the first round.

Frieden was a last-minute recruit. He played on an injured ankle but was still the star.

Sniper Steve playing tough D.

Frieden taking it strong to the basket again. Probably after grabbing his own board 3 times.

I think this one went in. I actually didn't suck from long range...in the first game.

This shot was definitely long. Sulli barely had to guard me in the championship game to get me to miss.

J-Rat basically manhandled the championship game...

And I got schooled by Brion's crazy penetration moves yet again.

2nd place is the last loser. From L to R: Tyler, Steve, me, Frieden. I won the sweaty jersey contest.

V for Happy??

Why do Asians always use the V-sign when posing in pictures? Here's one explanation.

SWDITTBAAFP? Pt Deux

Emergency Procedure Stand-ups is a training tool that feels more like a cruel game, tastes like cold sweat, and smells like adrenaline and fear.

The format is simple enough. An instructor pilot (IP) puts the conditions

(where you are, the weather, your call sign, airspeed, altitude, attitude, fuel remaining, condition of engine gauges)

and an emergency

(black smoke from the engine, white smoke from the dash board, smoke and flames from under your instructor pilot's seat, bird strike, engine stoppage, fuel pressure loss, oil pressure loss, low-voltage and discharging battery, total electrical failure...)

on the slide, calls a name,

(Lt C, Lt L, D1, D2, D10...)

a burning chill speeds down your spine. And the fun begins. Your objective: to apply everything you (are supposed to) know

(emergency checklists, systems, aircraft performance, local airports, traffic procedures, radio calls...)

and verbally, in mind-numbing detail and correct sequence, bring the situation to a satisfying conclusion.

(that is, you land with your pink body still pink)

Your heart races as you get up off your chair and walk toward the cockpit poster, confidently reciting the only surety in the world right now:
"Sir, I have the aircraft. I'll maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation and take the proper action, land as soon as conditions permit. Sir, I'll maintain aircraft control by..."
Then your mind freezes. A million things are racing through, and yet nothing at all. You're so stunned that today is your day, this is your morning, that you stop thinking normally and logically, and you spurt out whatever words come to mind. The row of visiting lieutenant colonels sitting behind you disappear, yet somehow your legs still start shaking, and between hurried breaths your voice imperceptibly quivers inspite of your best efforts to stay calm. Oh, but they know you're scared. No other student is looking at you, but they are all staring at you with eyes that they didn't even know they had. Some are silently chuckling at your fumbling and the IP's incessant challenges to your plan, others are praying that you can get out of this jam, if only because they wouldn't be called to "help you out" and go through the same breakdown. Today just might be the day that you make it through the entire morning stand-up without mistakes, but it never is. The IP flew F-4s in Vietnam and F-111 thereafter. He's seen shit that you can't ever imagine. Yeah, like hell he's letting you off the hook, you punkass 2nd lieutenant from U. of Wherever.

In the 3 weeks I've spent at IFS, I've learned more about flying--more importantly, the AF way of flying--than the 3 months I spent flying at Edwards, and EP stand-ups are partly why. It has been said by wiser pilots than us that the best planning happens on the ground, and this torture forces us to cram tools and know-hows into our tightly-packed craniums, just in case something does happen in the air. I would've never cared to learn that this plane glides best at 73 knots and can reach 1.8 nm for every 1k ft of altitude lost, that the GPS, transponder and strobe light are the biggest non-essential electrical consumers and we can extend battery life by turning them off or pulling out circuit breakers, that if the IP is on fire it's probably because the flaps-actuating motor right under his seat is burning...

Stand-ups are the biggest rush, if you like solving problems under stress and be publicly humiliated.

Not relevant:
I was so happy that the winds were calm this morning (Morale -> 95% mixed with anxiety) that I completely ignored the fact that we had a sky overcast at 600' AGL. So my sortie was cancelled (Morale -> 85%), but at least I started my Friday early (Morale -> 90%).

Well, it was worth the moment of inspiration

Prince Harry won't go to Iraq after all, a decision--perhaps wisely--made based on security considerations for the prince and his men after repeated threats by insurgents of vowing to capture or kill him.

We just can't win this propaganda warfare, can we? Damned if he went and fell; damned if he stayed behind.

Nonetheless, I still admire the young prince for wanting to fight alongside his men. It's so easy to make up excuses not to go.

Not relevant:
Forecast: T-Storm in vicinity around take-off and through entirety of second sortie.
Whew! At least I flew this morning already. Morale: 85% (Didn't land very well a few times today).

So what does it take to become a AF pilot (SWDITTBAAFP)? Pt. 1

I know, I know....that I haven't been fulfilling the nominal purpose of this blog. I'll try to fix that...

I'm currently attending Intro Flight Screening in Pueblo, CO. Supposedly it's a "weeding out" program that will take care of the would-be washouts at UPT. It hasn't been all that tough, yet; I've had some pretty decent flights due to the few hours of Cessna 172S time I had at Edwards. Except that one day last week when my IP completely chewed me out. Morale -> 50%.
We've been trying to catch up on postponed sorties by double-turning (flying twice a day) as many people as possible, but the weather is not cooperating. I was supposed to fly today, but that got CNX'd due to approaching T-storm. I'm not even scheduled to double turn tomorrow, but anyway, looks like my afternoon sortie will get CNX'd again due to weather. Morale -> 30%.
At least I've been taking some pictures...of everyone but myself, naturally.

We fly the Diamond DA-20-C1 Tigers. My official position is that they are very nice little planes. Nah, they're pretty cool.

Throw away your Microsoft 2007 Flight Sims. We tape the airport traffic pattern on the floor so we can practice the procedure while rolling around on these awesome office chairs. Real pilots are made this way.

Teach a Man to Fish

I was very fond of charities during my teen years, but I didn't have much money to give away. In the midst of all the liberal vs. conservative back-and-forths over the last few years, I started to embrace the characterization of direct charitable givings as "hand-outs" that solve the needies' problems superficially and in the short term. I haven't given up on straight-up donations; after all, some charities do wonderful work for the less privileged (the AF runs several charity donation campaigns, in which I've happily participated now that I have a paycheck), but I've decided that it's more mutually beneficial to follow another path: help those who help themselves. Someone down on his luck who's handed a sum of money with no strings attached has very little motivation to better his situation, but if he has to pay it back, well, he just *might* kick his own ass into gear. That's what I like to see in a "charity", and this is the premise behind microloans.

The application of microloans is no longer limited to third world locales, thanks to person-to-person (P2P) lending sites Zopa in Britain and Prosper in the US. P2P lending basically works like this: someone who can't or chooses not to get a small loan ($1k-25k) from a major lending institution posts a listing on the website, and then potential lenders bid for the right to lend the whole or a part of that loan. I won't go into more details--there is, as always, already plenty written on the web and posted at these websites--I only want to note my own experience investing in P2P lending. If you feel the itch to argue that loaning money is not being charitable at all since it's for my own benefit, I suggest that you follow closely the ongoing research regarding why we h. sapiens are charitable to others at all.

I joined Prosper late last October and so far I've partially funded 30+ loans, totally around $1.5k. My borrowers include a college student who needs tuition money, credit card debt consolidators, small business owners, a guy who want to buy a monkey for his gf and more. In the beginning, I saw this more as a charity to the poor, so I was more cavalier about whom (in terms of credit history and score) I lend money to, but after one guy defaulted on me, I realized that I'm not that rich yet and can't handle losing so much capital. So far, I'm still recovering from that one default, but each week I'm closing out two new loans to borrowers with better records, so the future looks pretty bright.

Some really smart but possibly very nerdy and bored folks created an awesome sister site called Lendingstats to help people analyze the Prosper phenomenon, complete with all listings, rankings and more stats than Thermo Analysis. If you want to stalk the performance of my portfolio or laugh at my plight, just search for afreedawg.

Not that I'm extremely successful yet, but I've learned a few tactics that I use everytime I bid for a new loan to minimize my risks:

• The most obvious is lend to people with high credit scores (B or better), no delinquencies and public records. Home owners and people with verified bank accounts and steady jobs are also things that I look for.
  
• Don't chase the high interest rates offered by the borrowers. Someone who has to shoulder a 20% interest rate is a lot more likely to be overwhelmed, no matter what their credit score. I usually go for 10-13%, taking into account the low historical default rate for good credit scores.
• If you commit to a bid, you money is locked until either you're outbid or the listing is cancelled after you win. So I choose from among listings that are closing soon and are 95%-100% funded already. Why waste time when high school math taught you how interest grows?
• Read the listings and try to get a sense of who's borrowing and why. Read endorsements (although I suppose those can probably be easily fabricated/staged) and questions posted by other potential lenders. They might have seen something's out of place which you missed.
  

There's some debate online on whether Prosper will succeed or fail. I don't know, but so far, every month I'm getting back around $10 of interest for having put in not much more than $1k, which totally beats even the best savings bank rate. Looks pretty good to me.