Leaderboard

This is from the cheap seats, but everything being discussed in this thread strikes me as the whole point of pilot training. What am I missing? What is the USAF missing? Is this a serious proposal? We cut pilot training in half, but then add a program like this shortly thereafter? WTFO?

Correction: ACE did not end when SAC went away. It remained within the newly-formed ACC until summer 1994 (maybe '95) when General Loh cancelled the program literally overnight. In my opinion, this was one more indicator of the lack of understanding that officers like Loh and many of the other ACC generals with fighter backgrounds had WRT to the non-fighter platforms under their command. Although I was never in ACE, I have many friends and classmates that flew as ACE co-pilots, or that were assigned to ACE as instructor pilots. I have a lot of experience with the CT Program at Beale, which ran in conjunction with ACE until the ACE portion was killed. You pose a number of questions, Clark. Bottom line: the ACE Program was a cost effective and solid aviation method for getting low-time co-pilots some much-needed quality flying experience. Not to mention, it made pilots very happy that they were able to fly... actually fly anywhere they wanted to go, and work on developing their new aviation skill sets. Imagine that... happy pilots working to better their fundamental aviation skills. For a brief period of time, Beale RQ-4 pilots were flying Beale aero club aircraft in an ACE-like program. Pennies on the dollar. Of course, it was cancelled. But it showed that with a tiny bit of thought and effort... and not much money... something positive could be done. The short-sightedness of Gen Loh and his staff was very unfortunate. Bringing back an even better version of the ACE Program should be done today. In both ACC and AMC.

Unfortuantely, there are experience and recency blind spots no matter where you find yourself in the aviation industry. When bringing guys in to fly the B-24 and B-29, I am looking for a mix of: - Multi-pilot, multiengine, "professional" flying - Day/VFR GA flying - Tailwheel experience There are a lot of other desirable traits, but these are the ones that keep the airplanes from getting wrecked.

Are you looking for medical data on how keeping pilots physically healthy is worth the AF's time or are you just screaming at clouds here?

Regarding ATC "For those that did nothing but complain, and took time off, even though everyone knew they would be paid, IN FULL, shortly into the future, I am NOT HAPPY WITH YOU," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. -------‐------------------- Same post should be said for Congress. I'm looking at you, House.

Yeah while it's an interesting conversation in an academic sense, the simple reality is that the people who view flying as an unfortunate necessity and impediment to ladder climbing are not going to do anything but the bare minimum to train and keep pilots trained. The bare minimum will be discovered by gradually reducing flying experience until too many planes crash to ignore the problem.

Is this the jet that had drywall screws in the wings?

One more idea, in another thread this may have come up but what if ACE 2 were run at one or several centralized bases and participants TDY’d in for recurrency and a set training profile, like recurrency flights then an intense 2-3 weeks flying schedule. Figure 3-5 training programs. Since it would be about a one month TDY, the interference factor from home base could be eliminated.

The putin simps like bashi are confused because they got played. They thought they were voting for an idea (pro-putin) but now they realize their idol’s hurt feelings and chase for a Nobel prize are way more important.

My only comparison to heavies is the airlines, which I know isn’t apples to apples, but I don’t think it’s far off much of the time. These styles of flying allow for significant decay of stick/rudder skills and dealing with EPs/abnormals/unintended events that require them (vs. manipulating automation/simply pushing buttons). It is a disservice to young pilots especially not having ACE - the mil is holding them back on advancing their skills/maintaining solid proficiency. There’s a lot of airline pilots who could really use some GA time for this reason, and the ones who don’t care and rest on their 6900 airline hours don’t seem to realize they don’t really have 6900 hrs of flying, they have 6900 hrs of managing computers and rinse/repeating the same taxi flows/departures/arrivals (over generalization a bit, but point remains).

a bit generous referring to them as people 😁

The WSO mafia is stronger than I thought.

Wayyyy too soon to know. Remember a KC-130 broke up over Mississippi a few years back thanks to a corroded propeller blade.