Vito

Not to come across in the wrong way, but what’s an air advisor? Nevermind, Googled it. Sounds like an interesting job.

Correct.

Democrats are punishing America

Any C-17’s ?

“Any old guys here who went through UPT back in the 38 only days” I went through CBM 87-04. We washed out half the class. Of the 21 studs in my class who walked across the hallway from Tweets to -38’s we lost about 4. All in the Contact phase. There were some who struggled in formation, but I can’t recall any of them washing out. We also had a student who passed his last checkride hours AFTER we graduated. They let him walk across the stage with the class because his family was there, then he left to take his 88 checkride. If he had busted he would have washed out. Our Wing CC had a 3 checkride failure policy. No exceptions. He ended up a 2Star General! Col Chuck Edwards CBM 1987 was the CC.

Another example of the “ masochism” that occurred. We had a stud, who became a very good friend, that was very smart and very successful in any endeavor he pursued prior to UPT. Top of his High school class, graduated college in 3 years, Magna Cum Laude, DG from OTS etc. He was the only stud who passed the first boldface test we took. He lasted about 6 weeks once we got to Tweets before he washed out. We were all shocked. After he left one of the IP’s told me that his issue was he expected perfection in his flying, so when he made a mistake, even a small one, it bothered him so much it affected the rest of the flight. The IP told me after that, even if he didn’t make a mistake, they told him he did something wrong. Instead of ignoring the “fake” mistake and continue the flight, he tried to figure out what he did wrong and his performance and confidence suffered. It was a game the IP’s played with his head until he SIE’ed. The good news is he got a second chance at UPT about 5 years later, and earned his wings and retired as an O-5. my Class 87-04 actually graduated 26 or the original 52 students, the other 3 were washbacks from other classes

I understand your point about my classmate being unable to handle the stress of the added scrutiny he received after his stand up debacle, however, I saw this “piling on” mentality numerous times in UPT. Once a stud showed the slightest crack, or weakness the “vultures” (IP’s) would start circling and the added stress caused many to washout. I also witnessed firsthand, my own IP telling me he was going to washout a fellow student the next morning during the standup! He did, after the stud fainted during a very stressful standup scenario that any of us would have screwed up. Like I said, different times.

In my class, CBM 87-04, we had a guy essentially wash out because of a standup. He was a strong student up to this point. We were in the first weeks of T-38’s and the Stan EVAL section sent a representative to “sit-in” on our morning stand up, to observe. Since this stud was pretty solid, he was chosen for the stand up and he royalty fu#@ed it up! He was quickly sat down (it was an automatic bust and grounding for a failed stand up in my class) Our flight Commander asked the visiting Stan EVAL observer to step outside for a minute. As he left the room, our Flt CC chewed the stud out and ripped him a new a-hole, telling him he embarrassed himself, us, the IP’s and everyone in the civilized world! We never saw our CC so mad. The next flight he took, he busted, then he busted again, went to an 88 ride, busted that and failed his 89 ride and was gone within a week of his stand up performance. No lie! Sad thing is, he would have been a solid pilot, but he couldn’t handle the onslaught and wrath of the CC and IP’s. It was a different time.

The C-17 has an AR Mode that dampens some stick forces during AR as well.

Took fuel many times over the years from that jet.....McGuire 141/-17 pilot 1987-2014

As a student at UPT the ability to accomplish a formation landing was just another hurdle to earning your wings. Fix to fixes fell into the same category. They are challenging, difficult to master in the time allotted and rarely utilized in the real world, but it did help separate those who could from those who couldn’t. I kept a lot of my UPT manuals, one day I found my T-38 In-Flight guide and was amazed at the complexity of the departures procedures, arrivals and some of the approaches. There were numerous step down altitudes, way too many speed restrictions etc etc. 33 years later, As a very experienced pilot, I question my ability to fly some of those SID’s, STAR’s etc today without an auto-pilot, FMC etc. We were all young, inexperienced kids flying very high performance aircraft In an artificial environment designed to overwhelm and load us up. I always thought formation landings and fix to fixes were tools to weed us out, nothing more.

Fix to fix, especially in the Tweet, was the reason 50% of studs washed out back in the day! Bust a check for a muffed fix to fix, then the vultures would start circling.....a vicious cycle., and very unfair to guys who would have been great pilots in the real Air Force.

So it seems like the same amount of check rides, just different names..

Can you explain the point about 50% less check rides at UPT? When I went through in 86 we had 3 checks in the Tweet and 3 in the 38. They had just deleted a Low level check in the 38 a class or two prior to mine..so are there only 3 or 4 check rides total in UPT now?

Perhaps this may help to give credence to the myth. When I first inquired about becoming a pilot around the summer of 1984, the recruiter had a worksheet with 7 criteria. Each one was worth 3 points, for a max of 21 points. IIRC some of the criteria were College GPA, Vision, type of College degree, any previous flight time or a PPL and a few others I forgot. I scored a 19, because my GPA was a 3.3 and you needed 3.5 or above to earn a “3,”,and my College degree wasn’t a BS (Science) but a BA, so I got a 2 instead of a 3 due to my lack of a Science/Engineering degree. Because I scored above a certain threshold on this simple survey, He set me up for the AFOQT. There was a minimum score below which one could not qualify for a pilot slot.

Best book I’ve read in years about UPT was, “If You Ain’t a Pilot”. By Ray Wright The most realistic book about UPT back in the day 1988, but also pretty funny and any Pilot can relate to it!

This was UPT in 1986, and those numbers are skewed since some of the graduates were wash-backs from other classes.

I was in one of the last UPT classes with the white helmets 86-87.. Part of UPT tradition was we designed a class patch, and also a class Helmet design. Nobody flew with a plain white helmet.

C-17 and C-141 guy here. The nice thing about the C-17 is jet speeds, jet engines, travel the world, and participate in world events as they happen, like earthquakes, hurricanes, contingencies, evacuations, VIP and Presidential support. For example, I flew into Berlin as the wall was dismantled, Panama invasion, all the wars and skirmishes since 1987. Left 6 years of active duty with 4400 hrs of international heavy jet time, which the airlines love. My buds in Tankers had 1500 hrs total in the same time frame. To be fair that was during the time they sat SAC alert a lot. The nice thing about C-17 is it’s new’ish, you get to taste all missions, Airdrop, tac low level, special ops, Air refueling etc. we had a few Tanker guys transition into my Reserve squadron and they liked the challenge of the mission but complained about all the currency. Either way, if you notice the responses so far, most guys like the plane their flying and enjoy the mission. If your goal is Airlines, I think a KC-46 would be tough to beat nowadays. Good Luck

“Empire Building”. Like the old guy at Charleston AFB in the 80’s and 90’s whose sole job was to sit behind a window and hand out pubs to crews. God forbid your chart got ripped or you needed a new chart or approach plate. I made the mistake of walking into the pubs room and grabbing a chart I needed! He almost called the SP’s on me!

Jeremiah Weed, Great post. A lot of truth there. I experienced a small slice of what your talking about when we transitioned from the 141 to the C-17. The vast majority of my Reserve Bros were Airland only, no tactical, low level, or airdrop experience. Those guys all rose up to the challenge and did a fine job, despite what many predicted. Talking about having some old school skills (3-1 rule, Pencil method) it does come in handy when the “magic” takes a dump. During an AR rendezvous the magic went tits up and my Young Co-Pilot starts pinging about our ARCT timing. I told her to check our ground speed, divide by 60, take that miles per minute number and figure it out. She was amazed, and said, “That’s why I like flying with you old guys, you know all the tricks!” I told her, “it wasn’t a trick, it’s Math.” As far as UPT and IP’s not teaching one to fly, I always felt that UPT wasn’t intended to teach us to fly, it was to overload us with data, stress, and pressure to see if we could handle it. After all, half of my class (87-04) had PPL’s and many of those guys washed out. It wasn’t that they couldnt fly, they just couldn’t handle the stress. I kept my old UPT In-Flight guides, One day I looked at the SIDs, and recoveries and couldn’t believe the complexity and amount of altitude changes etc...they were loading us up intentionally.

Any idea what the next “T” designation will be for the new TX? T-8; T-9????

You have to assume the clamshell canopy just hinges on one side without a motor to open and close it, if that’s correct, you’d save a lot of weight and Mx issues by eliminating the motor and heavy struts that a normal opening canopy requires. Is the T-6 canopy motorized or is it manually operated. I know the -38 was a manual system, never flew a T-6. The TX canopy is huge and it looks damn heavy for a manual operation, even with struts helping out.

Anybody know what the name of the new TX is going to be .T-8? T-11?

It would be refreshing to see this program stick to a timeline and not incur years long delays aka KC-46