Jump to content

F-16 Students skip Phase III


matmacwc

Recommended Posts

Who has the skinny on the F-16 RTU students who never flew in Phase III at SUPT and just did sims?  I hear there are 2 at Kelly, certainly we have a UPT or Kelly instructor on here to verify.  There is more to the rumor but it’s hard to believe.  It certainly would increase production quickly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nope, I'm at Kelly now, not a thing yet. They're just talking about the prospect of there being up to 2 per class some time in the future. Lots of folks asking what it might look like and how they would do it if it were a thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know what was fun recently? Flying dedicated formation rides, in an F-16, at an operational squadron, because the student had passed the B-course without a basic proficiency in formation flying.

Stuff like this just kicks the can down the road.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This has bad idea written all over it.  It's not even so much a matter of a particular skill that they learn in Phase 3, it's a matter of raw flight hours and the airmanship that comes with it.  We are running into the same thing in the T-1 with the majority of the mission fam portion of the syllabus waived.  WGAF about "airdrop" or "refueling" sorties.  They learn those skills in the FTU anyway.  The issue is the basic SA and airmanship that you can't teach in a sim.  If they want to cut Phase 3, a second lap through the T-6 program would be more beneficial than just kicking them down to the FTU to fly much more expensive and unforgiving jets.

Edited by Napoleon_Tanerite
Link to comment
Share on other sites

54 minutes ago, Napoleon_Tanerite said:

This has bad idea written all over it.  It's not even so much a matter of a particular skill that they learn in Phase 3, it's a matter of raw flight hours and the airmanship that comes with it.  We are running into the same thing in the T-1 with the majority of the mission fam portion of the syllabus waived.  WGAF about "airdrop" or "refueling" sorties.  They learn those skills in the FTU anyway.  The issue is the basic SA and airmanship that you can't teach in a sim.  If they want to cut Phase 3, a second lap through the T-6 program would be more beneficial than just kicking them down to the FTU to fly much more expensive and unforgiving jets.

Considering our week down here, the sheer irony of this statement does not escape me.

--break break--

I can't speak for the relative merits of the T-1 program, but as it pertains to the 38, yeah whoever suggests all we do in phase III is play patty cake for flight hours can go EABOD,  FTUs included. Col Jessup's infamous retort on A Few Good Men seem a fitting response to this garbage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll pipe in on the T-1 students we've seen at my MAF schoolhouse... They can't talk on the radio and generally lack SA. This has been most noticeable from Laughlin grads, where they did all their mission (tanker/airdrop) rides in the sim.

This leads to them running over taxi lights and overspeeding things, and generally taking longer in our FTU syllabus than they would otherwise.

It's a nuisance for us in a dual-pilot airplane... Can't imagine it's a good thing to teach UPT skills in an F-16.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, matmacwc said:

Who has the skinny on the F-16 RTU students who never flew in Phase III at SUPT and just did sims?  I hear there are 2 at Kelly, certainly we have a UPT or Kelly instructor on here to verify.  There is more to the rumor but it’s hard to believe.  It certainly would increase production quickly.

 

4 hours ago, xcraftllc said:

Nope, I'm at Kelly now, not a thing yet. They're just talking about the prospect of there being up to 2 per class some time in the future. Lots of folks asking what it might look like and how they would do it if it were a thing.

Confirm what we're talking about is doing T-6s, and then prof advancing to F-16s? No T-38s whatsoever?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, LookieRookie said:

It's being discussed. And UPT expanded to Bergstrom or Alliance with a contractor esque deal ala Doss with AF QA

So they are willing to take a T-6 student to a fighter? And what other options are they exploring to cut corners?

 

.... a few months ago about 80ish dirty MC12 dudes and dudettes (a lot T-38 trained) went to C2ISR and droids in their final drop. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, LookieRookie said:

It's being discussed. And UPT expanded to Bergstrom or Alliance with a contractor esque deal ala Doss with AF QA

KAUS man, that's baptism by fire! You better learn them radios real quick son, we ain't got time to fuck around! Either say it right the first time or just put yourself in a penalty container for the controller!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good grief... are we that bad at running an AF we are really considering this?

Flew the mighty T-1 back in the day but I am guessing the T-38 Phase III program is about 75 flight hours + 15 sim hours or so, so at 10K per T-38 flight hour and just figure 2K per sim hour (WAG) that comes to 765K per 38 stud. 

Now let's say you fly them in the 16 at 22K per hour and just guessing 4K per hour on the sim and you give them half the time for dedicated basic airmanship / systems (37.5 flight & 7.5 sim) that is 855K. 

Will that be coincidental with the mission employment training and there by save some flight hours in total?  Maybe but my calculator, my experience and my common sense say probably not.  You're going to pay more per stud and wear out your 16s faster more likely.

Non-concur.

Flight hour cost ref: http://nation.time.com/2013/04/02/costly-flight-hours/

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, matmacwc said:

Who has the skinny on the F-16 RTU students who never flew in Phase III at SUPT and just did sims?  I hear there are 2 at Kelly, certainly we have a UPT or Kelly instructor on here to verify.  There is more to the rumor but it’s hard to believe.  It certainly would increase production quickly.

Production of what? X and XX rides?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What we have right now is completely unsat, and the staff is kicking around ideas like cutting phase 3? Fuck you staff. I can't believe what were getting out of the FTU...not a spear at the bros teaching or the FNGs, but at those making the decisions that think this kind of shit is acceptable. I am truly concerned about dudes killing themselves, don't even get me started on combat capability. I've experienced what Jaded referenced; it's a trend across multiple squadrons, and will only stop when the ass clowns running this ship aground call a spade a spade and go back to valuing quality over quantity. 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, brabus said:

What we have right now is completely unsat, and the staff is kicking around ideas like cutting phase 3? you staff. I can't believe what were getting out of the FTU...not a spear at the bros teaching or the FNGs, but at those making the decisions that think this kind of shit is acceptable. I am truly concerned about dudes killing themselves, don't even get me started on combat capability. I've experienced what Jaded referenced; it's a trend across multiple squadrons, and will only stop when the ass clowns running this ship aground call a spade a spade and go back to valuing quality over quantity. 

It's depressing the number of times I've heard IPs arguing against giving an unsat with the reasoning of "Is this good for the timeline." The standard at UPT, on the -38 side at least, has been on a sharp decline for the last year or two, because we're more concerned on graduating everyone on time so the masses can keep the "100% on-time graduation" OPR bullet.  We're sending SPs to fighters that can't fly TAC to save their life. UPT flt/cc's are sending dudes to fighters because "it's not their job to decide who is good enough to fly a fighter and who isn't, that' IFF's job." Then the studs that can't even fly TAC pass IFF and on down the road the can goes. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not a single line IP should say the word time line. That's for DOs/CCs to argue about, maybe. If the line IPs aren't holding the standard,  we're all fucked. There's a bar, either hold people to it or go get some remedial training on being an IP.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, brabus said:

Not a single line IP should say the word time line. That's for DOs/CCs to argue about, maybe. If the line IPs aren't holding the standard,  we're all ed. There's a bar, either hold people to it or go get some remedial training on being an IP.

When the timeline or bust mentality is pushed by leadership the only people getting anything remedial are the "raving lunatics"  trying to push back and hold some semblance of a standard. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Boomer6 said:

When the timeline or bust mentality is pushed by leadership the only people getting anything remedial are the "raving lunatics"  trying to push back and hold some semblance of a standard. 

I believe you man; leadership is horribly failing at multiple levels. But that's old news...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

37 minutes ago, Danger41 said:

Is it difficult to wash a guy out of IFF/FTU? The fact that an operational F-16 unit is having to fly basic form sorties is ridiculous. 

 

I'm not sure but what I can say is we lost one from my 38 class in UPT, one from my IFF class (about 5 months ago) and there was a washout in the IFF class before ours. Kelly washed out 2 B-Course studs a couple classes ago.

Edited by xcraftllc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...