I was assigned a new crew, whose pilot had broken a leg playing volley ball. They were in the mid phase of their training. It only took a short while to blend into the new crew. They had been well trained and since I was repeating a month of training, with an additional hundred hours of flying experience I felt very prepared for what was ahead.

The upperclassmen have complete control over the lowerclassmen (called «Zombies»), putting them under continual pressure to eliminate the less dedicated cadets. Demerits are handed out for any infractions of the rules: dusty shoes, not saluting or replying too slowly to questions and so on. The demerits add up to one hour walking tours with a rifle and a cadence of 128 steps per minute.