A few things about PTN:
- PTN is not a watered down version of UPT with fancy toys. Because UPT is already a watered down version of UPT. If you look at programmed syllabus hours per student right now in UPT, it is 20% less than it was 5 years ago. That's across flights, sims, and academics. So the question should not be "why has PTN cut all this time out of pilot training and trying to pass it off as okay?" Instead it should be: "the time cuts are already happening at an institutional level. What can we do to maintain some semblance of quality?" We can b*tch about timeline guidance that comes down from on high until we're blue in the face, but that won't change anything. In my opinion, PTN is the only part of the pilot training enterprise that has that has actually made PROACTIVE attempts to maintain quality with reduced timeline.
- If the students were handpicked, how is this experiment valid or scaleable? Valid question, and I'll do you one better. The instructors were handpicked too, and I'd argue that's even more important. If your entire squadron is made up of experienced spec ops, fighter guys, and high time faips, the quality of instruction is going to be better. The youngest instructors at PTN had 600+ hrs, which would be considered medium to highly experienced in a normal UPT squadron. UPT is having a crisis of instructor quality right now, and it absolutely needs to be addressed if/when this gets scaled up.
- I hope people can recognize that PTN doesn't need to be declared an absolute victory or an absolute failure. The air force seems to be airing in the direction of absolute victory while everyone else (mainly online) is in the schadenfreude failure camp. If we're mature about this we should realize that there's a mixture of good and bad. We should take the good and scale it to UPT as a whole, and also be willing to call a spade a spade and not cling to the stuff that didn't work.
- The opr system is broken
- We should have bought more raptors
- I'm not that drunk.
