Lord Ratner
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Posts posted by Lord Ratner
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That's odd because there are two aero sims and associated academics in the PTX syllabi.
You've been in AETC long enough to know that putting something in the syllabus does not ensure it is taught, let alone sufficiently.
I'm not trying to make a point about tankers, just using them as an example of a larger issue. Stall recoveries are mindless, as long as you have more than a thousand feet below you. But looking at some of the recent aviation mishaps, clearly people aren't working on the basics enough. Colgan 3407, Air France 447, the MC-12 crash. We can all get defensive about how our communities are doing just fine with training stalls once a year, or twice in PTX, or fill-in-the-blank, but clearly something is wrong. And this mishap wasn't a one-off either, it was just the first one to cost lives.
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Why are we pining on this? I'm not talking about the breakdown in everyone's Safety shops. But, Couldn't fly instruments or understand the automation presented. Or totally disregard the fact they couldn't recognize the stall or apply stall recovery mechanics. Yet, we harp on the fact that the info hasn't been disseminated. Telling everyone that you should fly instruments or apply stall recovery procedures doesn't sound like a ground breaking or earth shattering issue.
Background: FAIP, MC-12 deployment, tankers now.
The training for the MC-12 was terrible, probably because it was new, had few permanent pilots, and many of the people flowing through didn't give a . For me, that masked a lot of the issues that are perhaps more AF-wide.
I haven't been in the tanker long at all, but other than a very brief demo in the sim, I have not seen, heard, or discussed stalls, spins, vertical S's, cross checks, etc. I know as a prior FAIP my whole world was stalls and falls for years, and I didn't expect anything close to the same level of emphasis in the MWS world, but zero emphasis is lower than I expected.
I can't speak for all the other airframes out there, since I haven't flown them, but the basics seem to be left at the UPT bases. EPs are another weak area.
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Anyone working for Avenge or any other MC-12ish gig? Got a call for a PIC position at 476$ a day, only to have them swap it to a SIC for 310$ a day.60 on 60 off. Seemed like an extreme lowball offer.
Is that an average? Guys we talked to out there were getting 750 a day deployed, and half that back in the states if they had a job, 0 if they only did the deployed part.
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I know it's against popular opinion, but I really appreciate hearing Liquid's thoughts on these items. It's already been quoted, but saying you ordered the removal of that specific nose art will make it a lot easier for an internet detective with a grudge to vet you out - FYI.
Actually, that didn't help much at all. Other stuff has. But I have no intention of scaring away one of the best things to happen to BODN in a while by "outing" him. Suffice it to say he's the real deal.
Either that, or its a very elaborate ruse by someone who researched his past and has way more troll skills than the rest of us will ever understand. Doubt it though.
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Has anyone else done the cyber awareness challenge formerly known as information assurance? I think it changed in October-new FY and all. Who dreams this shit up? And fire extinguisher training for all my friends?
I know I should have gotten over CBTs long ago, but wtf is up with the latest iterations? How do we find money to keep changing them?
Cake compared to the (new?) Risk Management Fundamentals. Took over an hour, and that was while max performing the left mouse button.
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Will I be hanging out with good friends from work after duty hours? Sure, but not at the Club, not in the squadron. The new USAF that is afraid to let people interact as the flawed humans they are are simply going to create a culture of clicks and small groups…all being politely professional at work, but with no actual substance to their relationships, no true desire to see their community as a whole succeed, just to survive the work day…make sure to keep those feelings in…don't want to show your true self, if for no other reason that someone may take a minor offense to it.
That "culture" already exists within certain bases/squadrons. It's tragic.
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My opinion on all of this has changed over the past 3 years as I've watched my wife struggle with the environment in her flying squadron and the blatant hostility that peers and leadership have directed towards her. I used to think the AF was fine with women and there were no problems. At least in her Sq I was wrong. Both words and actions have pushed half the females in her squadron to seek opportunities outside of the squadron and/or AF. This is in spite of the praise lauded on her by the people that have actually worked with her. It's doubly sad because she loves the flying job, but dreads the office. Like most of you all she wants to do is fly.
What aircraft? Not trying to identify her, just trying to get a better sense of which community this story relates to. Not all flying squadrons are even remotely alike.
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I don't know about that these days. Seems like a lot of crap comes out at the bottom of the T-1 barrel.
Was anyone in AETC when the T-1 came online? Seems like a way for the AF to save money by lowering the standard for passing UPT and thus wasting less money on wash-outs. What was the party-line back then? Disclaimer: I went through T-1s.
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The initial version of our C-130J TOLD calculator (preTOLD) is designed to run on Windows-based laptops and tablets, but we are also working on an iPad version. I've been reading a lot lately about the adoption of iPads within USAF and am curious about the user experience so far. How are they being utilized so far and what is the state of the configuration/app distribution infrastructure? What sort of flight planning applications are available? Are other services also planning to adopt iPads for flight planning?
Poorly, poor, bare bones, none, don't know.
In the tanker, you have one app for looking at pubs, and one for looking at approach plates. The pubs app is tolerable (pretty sure its a commercial app), and the FLIP app is garbage (made specifically for the govt). Everything else is completely locked down. The iPad itself is terrible for FLIP in my opinion. Too big, too heavy, and too bright. A kindle with the integrated light (or any e-ink type display) would be cheaper, lighter, and easier to read on final.
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As a FAIP who just moved into the AMC (really USAFE, but same difference) heavy world: go to and enjoy every single one of those squadron events. If you ever find yourself thinking about sitting one out, slap your self and tell the POC you'll be there. It does not exist in any way, shape or form out here, and like you, I got the same feedback from the MWS guys.Just a FAIP, but what are some of the enduring traditions the Air Force can have/has? We have roll calls, bro calls, squadron events and outings where we cut loose and drink. MWS guys I've talked to say that this squadron is a lot more tight knit than any AMC unit they've been apart of because of these things.
If your UPT squadron was anything like mine (or is the same one), you aren't going to find that anywhere else. Enjoy the hell out of it.
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The MSG and MXG don't need to release MFRs that say don't use sexual innuendo, inappropriate call signs, explicit lyrics and early afternoon drinking. Their enlisted and officer leadership does not tolerate it.
Everything you said, which I mostly disagreed with but still respected as valid, was undone right here. When's the last time you were around a group of maintainers? I've heard more horribly inappropriate shit come from maintainers, some even female, than any other group in the AF (except perhaps EOD). Whatever metric is being used to measure the problem, it's ######ed if someone actually believes the OGs have a bigger (rather than more visible) problem with SA/SH.
Here's the other side to the coin: Never in human history has the military operated this way. That doesn't mean it won't work, hell, I'd bet it will. But to me it's like the uniform battle. Every time an E-9 goes on a rant about pilots with their zippers down or maintainers with dirty boots or personnelists with jackets on indoors, they fall back on the "history" that the uniform represents and the "heritage" we are shitting on by wearing it "disrespectfully." Yet every picture I see of WWI and WWII looks like a competition for who can wear their hat funnier, or not at all. Vietnam vets could be seen wearing more than the required pieces of flair, if any uniform items at all. It's made up. They're using a fictional history to justify the new direction. Just like our current battle with SA/SH in the workplace.
There's no historical precedent for a non-sexualized military, so instead of attacking how fighter pilots (or whoever) have been doing it wrong all this time and we just "finally have a senior leader with the balls to confront it," be honest about it. Times have changed, and we have to change with them. The Captains and Majors complaining about having to change aren't to blame any more than the Colonels and Generals (now the ones telling them how stupid and offensive they are) are for doing it when they were captains and majors. But if you think our culture is worse than others, I challenge you to spend some time with an army unit living next door in Bagram. It may calibrate your expectations.
Sir.
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There is so much wrong with your attitude as an instructor it's hard to find a starting point. Yelling at a student for no other reason than to try to knock them off the rails is self serving at best, and directly detrimental to their learning at worst. We spend a lot of time in phase 3 trying to un-###### these kids' heads because they're so wound up from downright poor instruction in phase 2 that they are incapable of constructive learning.
Honestly, what does yelling at a student accomplish? This tactic seems to be invariably used by bitter FAIPs who have nothing to offer other than to try to pass on their own self-imposed misery of being FAIPed and try to make UPT as miserable as they can for students.
Bitter? I loved every second of that job. I'd go back without hesitation. Save your crap FAIP generalizations.
Why do you have such a hard time conceptualizing it? Or are you unable to see past the caricature of an angry FAIP you've built in your mind? Do you imagine it to be a non-stop parade of profanity? A 1.3 where I simply imitate a car alarm?
I yelled at the students who needed to be yelled at. Students like me, and others not like me. Others I simply took the aircraft and redemo'd the maneuver. I didn't do it because it was fun (even though it was), I did it because the ones I yelled at told me the same thing I told my "bitter FAIP" after phase two: Thanks for getting me to pull my head out of my ass and be better. Believe it or not, pilot training attracts some rather over-confident assertive personalities that occasionally need to be taken down a notch. C4103 was my first of several come-to-jesus moments. Or maybe you're right, and all students are the same and just need to be gently reminded of their downgrades. As I said before, UPT needs all types of IPs.
Un###### their heads? It's stand-up, not the trenches of WWI. Anyways, I'm done pissing all over this kid's thread. My advice stands. Learn those three things before the dollar ride, and you won't have to worry about your IP being concerned about your emotional growth opportunities. The horror.
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I've flown with you in the tanker. Survivable might be an overstatement.
I mean, we did literally survive.
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You're clearly witty and obviously God's gift to FAIPs. That said, this is completely the wrong attitude. I hated IPs like this and still do. There's no reason to be a d*ck and only one reason to yell. That is if your ICS is inop. Having had IEDs go off in my LZ, 7.62 come through the cabin and cockpit, and RPGs fly over my tail, it's the calm, cool, collected pilot who saves the aircraft and crew.
Despite what you may have been told, in UPT, you are not preparing studs for combat, you're preparing them to not kill themselves in the NAS and to be ready to learn in IQT. I'm not advocating lowering the standard. And by no means do I think students should be codled. But fear, sarcasm and ridicule are the tools of an inferior pilot and instructor who doesn't have the maturity to properly facilitate learning.
Got it, you were weak in UPT, and the injustices of the world have made you a crusader for the new generation of students with no hands. Good. UPT needs instructors like you too.
But don't assume that FAIPs just lack perspective. Experience with copilots in two MWS have only made me regret letting some of them slide when they should have gone to that third 89.
Every student is different. Some, perhaps like you, didn't respond to yelling. In fact the worse the student, the less you can yell (generally). But it may surprise you to learn the better students often need a sharp kick in the ass to do better than just good enough. Airline pilots (50%ish), some prior-e flightcrew, and the ones who just lucked into being shit-hot fall into this category. They don't tremble like a leaf in the wind when you hook them for a bullshit checklist step (yes, we know its a bullshit hook), they hit the books harder and refocus on improvement.
From your post, it seems like your only experience with UPT is from the perspective of a student, and even the nicest, they'll-fix-him-in-phase-3, E's-for-everyone Santa Claus will tell you a students perspective is worthless.
Hopefully you flew the T-6 better than you fly the tanker.
T6 I flew great, T-1 i was so-so, MC-12 was a piece of cake, and in the tanker I'm survivable at best, but striving for mediocre.
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...Continue to Challenge!..."I'm a leader because there was nobody else." Leadership by default? Are you serious? You don't know my background or where I came from prior to commissioning. Seriously, I had officers, Chiefs, and high level civilians mentoring me at my first duty station. I must have flushed everything after commissioning.
I can assure you nobody kicked me anywhere. Another false assumption again. A well known CC put in a by name request to have certain individuals released to his specific MAJCOM. When the MAJCOM comes a knocking, what do you think will happen? Kicked to the curb is being forced out of your community and handed PCS orders to some place you don't want to go. I saw this happen a year after my PCS to individuals in my old community.
I still keep in touch with leadership from my previous community. They were awesome to me.
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A buddy of mine always said "The rich get richer." Not to poo-poo you dudes who didn't have their PPL before going to UPT, but while they're getting ground ops down you have it nailed, when they're flying you're working on instruments, and while they're trying to grasp instruments you're perfecting them. Since you have the basics down of flying w/ 100 hours, stay ahead and reap the benefits.
False. 100 hours in a Cessna may as well be 100 hours knitting. I had airline pilots with 3000+ hours (many of those were teaching PPL flights) walk in and knock their dollar ride out of the park. But the second I started yelling it was like Michael J Fox trying to play Jenga in the front cockpit. Likewise, they knew the ILS like the back of their hand, but when I (intentionally) blocked any radio call they started with "and uh," we'd be on the missed approach before they could check in with tower.
You're either good, or your not. If you're good, pilot training will be a breeze. Sure, you'll pretend like it's hard because you don't want to seem like a braggart, but the simple truth is the majority of the people at the top of the class aren't "working their ass off" compared to the people are aren't naturally talented at flying. If you're not good, you'll just have to spend every waking second of UPT building your skills until you are good. But you wont know until you start.
To the future UPT stud: Study nothing now. If you absolutely must, memorize the Bold Face and Ops Limits, but no more. AFTER you start academics, aside from learning what they teach, memorize these three things, cold.
1. All standard radio calls, where to say them, what information to include, and know what they mean. There aren't many in Contact, but nothing destroys your ability to keep the jet where you want it like fumble ######ing around with a two word radio call.
2. All checklists on the consolidated checklist, in order. If a two word radio call can put you 300 feet off altitude, imagine what looking around the cockpit for the next step in the HEFOEP check will do. Learn them all cold, use your poster to make sure you actually know where the switches all are, and when you finally have the opportunity, spend lots of time in the UTD (screenless simulator) going over the checklists, beginning to end. Take a friend and time each other on the cockpit check. 90 seconds in the sim is slow,
3. Departure procedures. There will be 4 or 5 for contact. Know them cold. Altitudes, courses (most are GPS now anyways), points. Know them cold. Did I mention you should know them cold?
If you know the above items perfectly on your first flight... you'll still ###### up royally. But 4 or 5 flights later your comrades will still be pulling their peckers out of their mouths to call Initial, and you'll have your shit in a sock, and will be able to focus on the real flying.
And for god's sake, don't listen to other UPT students.
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I know this surprises no one here, but that article has nothing in it that supports the so called good-old-boy club argument. It even has one of the good old boys arguing against a verdict reversal. I also found it interesting that Hicks "knew [breedlove] was “very much in Franklin’s camp.”"
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Any time you eat in a pub, you're going to get 'pub grub', regardless of what they tell you.
If you want good food, eat in a good restaurant.
Agreed, with one exception:
Everything out here looks like a pub (especially from the outside), and compared to American restaurants, is a pub. There is a slow, but steady movement (at least where we are) of pubs bringing in real chefs and serving some pretty great food. Still rare, but one just popped up in Ely. The problem is that it still looks exactly like all the shitty-food pubs and there is no reliable review system like Yelp in the US.
Compared to the US though, it's still dire.
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My advice based on a few trips down there.
Get an Oyster card (5gbp) and use the tube to the max extent. I wont go over the prices, but you'll save more time and money than you could possibly imagine. The card makes it easier if you plan on using the tube multiple times a day, which you should plan on. You can save the 5 quid and get a zone pass each day, but I like the card better. Avoid cabs. A single cab ride will cost you more than an all day pass on the tube.
As stated by someone else, the Tower of London is for history nerds, as are many other attractions out there. The fact you'll be paying about 20 - 30 quid per location means you really have to like that kind of shit. Westminster Abbey, Buckingham, ToL, Kensington Palace, there are lots of wildly historic places there to see. We like that stuff, so we go, but others have been bored out of their mind.
Double Decker Bus - The tours are hop-on hop-off, so a ticket lasts all day, but honestly it's a pretty terrible way to get around london. The tube is better. Instead, get tickets online for a night time double decker tour. They are generally about 1/2 the price, and instead of using it as a way to get around, just get on, ride the whole circuit (60-90 minutes) and you can check off seeing many of the more conventional tourist areas in one go.
London Dungeon, Madam Toussaints, etc - Depends on your tastes. I thought the Dungeon was awesome. Kind of a mix of a haunted house, carnival rides, cheesy acting, and some very basic history. If you want to do it in conjuntion with the Eye ferris wheel, you can get a combo discount online. The lines are long in the mid afternoon, but die down around 630pm. Just watch out for closing times.
Hotels are expensive. Find a hotel on the outskirts of london near a tube station, and use the saved money towards the food, which is expensive.
Learn to love the salt shaker. London is better about good food, but many of the pubs will over promise and under deliver as far as food quality goes.
I cant think of much else. If you have any specific questions, PM me or ask here.
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I can vouch for Dredd. Solid and entertaining B movie.
The plot was B. But the production was A and the acting was a solid A-/B+.
I get the sense that the science of making an action movie has gotten to the point where there are no B movies any more, just boring A movies and low budget C movies.
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You'd think some defense contractor would see this opportunity and jump on creating a system like you'd describe, a la DTS.
I hope not. DTS is one of our less talked about financial catastrophes in the world of acquisitions.
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I spent a decade enlisted before I crossed over into the "O's". Granted all of my time has been in the Comm community, but the cultural differences between the O and E side are very hard for me to describe beyond "more is expected."
Not just leadership, management, or other nebulous words that hold varying meanings. Sure I'd have E's that would stay with me late to work Inspection checklists, but no enlisted person was there as late as all the (non-sh*tbag) officers. Only one enlisted guy (MSgt in my flight) would look ahead more than 2 weeks to see what was coming up that could get the CC slapped. Signing my name to a piece of paper now means more, legally and personally, than it did before. My peers are conscious of their reputations more than my peers when I was enlisted.
Sure, I'd have Amn innovate all day long to get the job done, and work inside/outside the rules, but we're nerds over here and that's what we do: anything for more World of Warcraft time. I never had one who would think into 3rd order effects of what they were doing, which is why they came to talk to me. In fact, I would have SNCO's decide they were going to implement cyber programs that would have destroyed our Sq because they lacked this attitude, or were never instructed in it.
In Cyber MSG side our Amn are the technical experts. I'm highly discouraged to get involved in the actual equipment unless I've got a shoulder monkey watching, past experience be damned. Doesn't mean I couldn't do the work well, it's just not my place. Same for the E's thinking outside the box or other drivel cliche's we're going to use.
In the end, Big Blue wants the Officer attitude and culture in RPA's for some reason.
Shhhh. You're ruining the righteous fury of the we're-all-snowflakes crowd with your experience and perspective.
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The real question is, if the Navy's primary mission these days is projection of Air Power all over the globe, why do we waste our time with a separate service (Navy) when we could just keep the support assets together. Or to put it in his words: Separating naval military assets from the air assets they organically support makes no more sense than the creation of separate arms for tanks and submarines.
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You mean the same Buzz Aldrin that whores himself out on the WWE?
Just because he's old doesn't mean he can't smell what the rock is cooking.
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MC-12 Crash in Afghanistan
in General Discussion
Posted · Edited by Lord Ratner
I agree with everything you said, minus which is key. I don't think either is key, really, though obviously I would rather recognize it before and avoid having to recover at all.
The Castle example is why I think knowing how to recover is so important, still. Sure, they should have seen it coming, but as someone who has never been in a major EP scenario yet, I won't armchair quarterback it. You are correct though, feeling the impending stall would have saved them. Proficiency in TP stalls would have too.
I think we're nit-picking at this point. Stall recognition and recovery should be taught together.
And agree 110% on UPT studs flying stalls like they fly loops. I hooked a kid on his check ride for TP stalls because after recovering the aircraft, he continued to pull up to around 30 degrees nose high, let the airspeed drop off about 40 knots, then right before entering an unintentional power-on stall, called "maneuver complete" and dumped the nose out of the shaker. I asked him to reaccomplish the stall, and he pulled the nose even higher on round two. I started teaching stalls very differently after that.