Initial Pilot Training and Future Pilot Training

[Pooter]

I think we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone in senior leadership is concerned with actual skillsets or experience. 

What is happening is very simple:

We can't maintain the jets we have and we can't acquire new ones in a reasonable timeframe.  At the same time we must keep the slides green at all costs. The only answer left (short of offloading the entire operation to the civilian world) is to retcon what a UPT grad is.

It costs AETC nothing to churn out crap and dump it into b-courses across the other MAJCOMs. B-course instructors will still wash out the weak swimmers, but at that point finding them a new home is an ACC/AMC/AFSOC/AFGSC problem.  AETC's hands are clean (on paper) and the brass at Randolph have figured this out. They can even pitch the UPT cuts as #innovation and cost saving to keep the (even more out of touch) GOs in the Pentagon happy.  

[Clark Griswold]

I think we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone in senior leadership is concerned with actual skillsets or experience. 
What is happening is very simple:
We can't maintain the jets we have and we can't acquire new ones in a reasonable timeframe.  At the same time we must keep the slides green at all costs. The only answer left (short of offloading the entire operation to the civilian world) is to retcon what a UPT grad is.
It costs AETC nothing to churn out crap and dump it into b-courses across the other MAJCOMs. B-course instructors will still wash out the weak swimmers, but at that point finding them a new home is an ACC/AMC/AFSOC/AFGSC problem.  AETC's hands are clean (on paper) and the brass at Randolph have figured this out. They can even pitch the UPT cuts as #innovation and cost saving to keep the (even more out of touch) GOs in the Pentagon happy.  

This is very easy for me to say from Retiredville but it may take several whistleblowers (IPs and recent grads) who contact media, sympathetic congressional leaders for top cover and inform the public, civilian leadership that what the GOs are selling is just bullshit.
For whatever reason, the people who should be and should have been skeptical of all this nonsense have let them get away with it, like 60 Minutes and the F-22 guys telling their story, someone(s) is going to have to risk their career & give an unvarnished, plain language explanation of the problem.
Public shaming of the AF at this point is probably the last thing that could be done.
It could be what I listed above but also a public advertisement(s) in appropriate places (military news sites, aviation news, etc) comparing recent historical UPT/SUPT to the recent iterations and comparisons to what allies and enemies are doing.


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[WheelsOff]

On 8/13/2025 at 10:38 PM, Clark Griswold said:

This is very easy for me to say from Retiredville but it may take several whistleblowers (IPs and recent grads) who contact media, sympathetic congressional leaders for top cover and inform the public, civilian leadership that what the GOs are selling is just bullshit.
For whatever reason, the people who should be and should have been skeptical of all this nonsense have let them get away with it, like 60 Minutes and the F-22 guys telling their story, someone(s) is going to have to risk their career & give an unvarnished, plain language explanation of the problem.
Public shaming of the AF at this point is probably the last thing that could be done.
It could be what I listed above but also a public advertisement(s) in appropriate places (military news sites, aviation news, etc) comparing recent historical UPT/SUPT to the recent iterations and comparisons to what allies and enemies are doing.


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Sadly, this is the way.

This is likely the only card we have left to play at this point to shed enough light on the problem in order to turn things around enough so that we don’t get our cheeks clapped in WW3.

Edited August 15 by WheelsOff

[Clark Griswold]

On 8/14/2025 at 10:39 PM, WheelsOff said:

Sadly, this is the way.

This is likely the only card we have left to play at this point to shed enough light on the problem in order to turn things around enough so that we don’t get our cheeks clapped in WW3.

Yup

So it’s about 175 flight hours (not counting sim time) that we’re talking about here and that’s 75 shy of an FAA commercial instrument certificate, 75 hours, in the grand scheme of the things that’s not that much.

That would have to 75 QUALITY flight training hours but the point is there, it’s not that much.

If there is to be a public campaign, it needs to show the penny wise pound foolishness of this whole situation. 

No pilot would legally be allowed to operate for hire without the requisite minimum amount of training/experience, why is the AF allowed to cut corners?

Now, if the Air Force wants to argue that it can’t afford a platform only used as a multi engine trainer, ok, I think that’s hard to believe but if you want to run with that then create a program that you build to have operational capability that you use also as an experience builder before other MWS assignments in AMC, AFSOC, etc… 

AETC pays for the type training, AMC flies / instructs these newly winged pilots in this short tour then onto their career assignment.

There’s always a demand signal for light airlift from/to major bases, ex KSUU, KSAT/KSKF/KRND, KDOV, etc… pick any major base/concentrated military presence and there will be valid movement requests, buy an affordable, small regional airliner (Do 328 for example) that can serve as a utility transport for regular pax, cargo and medivac missions.  Air Land only, no other specialized training, experience and reps while moving pax and cargo is the objective.  Fly them for six months+ or so there, then move on to the assignment awarded out of UPT.   

That easily exceeds the missing 75 flight hours in their training, likely gives them 200+ hours in a transport category aircraft before operating a more complex, expensive mobility aircraft in a demanding training program and serves as an extension to the UPT system, thus keeping pilots from wasting time just waiting for an FTU.

Edited August 18 by Clark Griswold
Changed example aircraft

[Clark Griswold]

Question
Is REFORGE dead or just waiting for the T-7 to actually get delivered?


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[Clark Griswold]

Son of Scorpion being offered to the Navy

https://www.twz.com/air/sncs-freedom-jet-enters-race-to-replace-navys-t-45-goshawk-trainer

[BFM this]

https://www.flightglobal.com/defence/usaf-pilots-to-train-at-italian-flight-school-in-historic-first/164331.article

[Boomer6]

What in the actual fuck...

[Clark Griswold]

Every time I think the AF has hit rock bottom in screwing up its training enterprise it figures out something else to go that much further


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[nunya]

They seem to have no idea how to run the enterprise anymore.

Edited 7 hours ago by nunya

[Swizzle]

[Swizzle]

[Swizzle]

1 hour ago, Boomer6 said:

What in the actual fuck...

How does one merge AF acquisition shenanigans of/for pilots with a new level of Italian-Acquisition 'bravate o imbrogli'?  

And are the Italians contractors now?

[DirkDiggler]

I had posted about this a couple pages back.  These are trial groups.  AF wants data on how students will do going from light singles/twins straight to a fast jet aka the eventual IFT model (light twins straight to T-7).

[viper154]

3 minutes ago, DirkDiggler said:

I had posted about this a couple pages back.  These are trial groups.  AF wants data on how students will do going from light singles/twins straight to a fast jet aka the eventual IFT model (light twins straight to T-7).

This.

 

Been part of the plan for at least a 1.5 years or more. 

[Boomer6]

32 minutes ago, DirkDiggler said:

I had posted about this a couple pages back.  These are trial groups.  AF wants data on how students will do going from light singles/twins straight to a fast jet aka the eventual IFT model (light twins straight to T-7).

Well if you've ever briefed/executed/debriefed with Italians you know exactly how it's gonna go.

 

[Clark Griswold]

5 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

I had posted about this a couple pages back.  These are trial groups.  AF wants data on how students will do going from light singles/twins straight to a fast jet aka the eventual IFT model (light twins straight to T-7).

Ok they are running a trial / experiment, is that the environment where you are going to get data that you can use to make policy?

A training program, run in a foreign country, in a jet that the USAF does / has not flown and flown I suspect primarily with non US military IPs… this is not going to be the process you will use, is it really a representative test?

If it were a USA based USAF instructed in an aircraft the USAF operated and/or was ready to run a larger training program in if the SGTO batch worked out, that were truly representative of an average student pilot and not some ringers they hand pick I think you would have a better case to run with this idea.

Edited 1 hour ago by Clark Griswold

[TreeA10]

I just flew a trip to Venice with a Captain born in Bologna, Italy.  Obviously he speaks fluent Italian. He could not understand the heavily accented Italian controllers speaking English just like the other two of us in the cockpit.  Kind of hilarious.