There I was, a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force’s undergraduate pilot training (UPT). I look back now and think, “Was I really ever that young? Is anyone?” Everything was new and exciting about flying. The USAF really puts a lot of effort into training pilots, I found out. I thought when I joined up we would just start flying airplanes, like I did out at Hector Airport in Fargo (yes, like the movie). But no. There was a lot to do besides jumping into a cockpit and flying.
We had to go through a lot of what I thought was “non-flying” training. Like the altitude chamber, and hypoxia training. And spatial disorientation training. They put a bunch of us into the altitude chamber, sealed the door and sucked out the air. We watched the big barometer on the wall go up, up and up until we were at 25,000 feet msl. We all had helmets and oxygen masks on, and the flight surgeon, watching from outside the chamber, told us to drop our masks, and then when we felt “hypoxic,” we should put them back on. Part of the idea is to remember our symptoms, for the future.
