Reserve Pilot Tac Hel Req

[Inch]

Counter points to all mine, you've convinced me. I see no need whatsoever to have any officers, if everyone can do the job then pay everyone the same and have no commissions and we'll be off to the races.

If you wanted to pay me the same and employ me the same, I don't care what rank you make me. If this is the way Tac Hel drivers think, I'll stay MH, thank you very much.

Then again, how many guys have failed out of pilot training? Guess it's not quite the same as being a LAV CC, but what do I know, I was only a gunner and not a CC.

If you think we're the only ones that do a course on a Turboprop prior to streaming, you're wrong. The USN/USMC does it on the T-34 and the USAF does a similar 90 hr course on the T-6 Texan II before streaming off to Rotary, Jets, or multi. If it's good enough for them, and they train a hell of a lot more pilots than we do, then it's good enough for us.

Kind of ironic isn't it? In my experience, the Tac Hel drivers are the ones that complain the most about who's running the Air Force yet they're also the ones that seem to want NCM pilots. Who do you think is going to run the Air Force when less than half your pilots are Officers?

Anyway, I digress.

 

[dapaterson]

Quote from: Inch on Yesterday at 20:41:36
we simply don't have an army air corps anymore

Absolutely the worst result of unification.

I'd argue the old work dress was the worst result of unification (at least from a fashion perspective)...

 

[Rick Ruter]

What does speed have to do with anything?

I got 170 hours on the Tutor (the odd ED and a bunch of gear-puller trips and a Snowbird practice), and, while I'm glad that I had the opportunity to fly a tremendous little aircraft, none of it translated to what I did from the start of BHT on. It was a waste, from a military and economic point of view, of a year and a pile of money.

Loachman, I'm the product of fast air and then switched to helos and I disagree with your comment above. The 4-6 miles per minute gets you thinking pretty quick and when you get to helos, you have all the time in the world which keeps you IN the cockpit and not skiing behind. As an ICP, I see a big difference between loach drivers, slugs and fast air background. The fastair pilots are much better at IF. Wether you realize it or not, I'm positive the ILS', PARs and TACANs you did in the Tutor helped you in Portage.

 

[Loachman]

Loachman, I'm the product of fast air and then switched to helos and I disagree with your comment above. The 4-6 miles per minute gets you thinking pretty quick and when you get to helos, you have all the time in the world which keeps you IN the cockpit and not skiing behind.

Your mileage may vary. I stand by my comment. Nothing that I did in the Kiowa, especially when operating tactically, bore any resemblance to anything that I did in Moose Jaw that I can remember, and certainly nothing that could not have been taught more cheaply on something else, that something else preferably being more relevant.

As an ICP, I see a big difference between loach drivers, slugs and fast air background. The fastair pilots are much better at IF. Wether you realize it or not, I'm positive the ILS', PARs and TACANs you did in the Tutor helped you in Portage.

Again, that IF could have been taught on something cheaper and more relevant. After Portage, I had no use for IF other than achieving my quarterly minima and doing my ticket ride beyond treating it as the emergency procedure that it was for us. Most other Kiowa pilots were the same. Those of us now stuck on the CH146 haven't changed much, either.

 

[Rick Ruter]

Again, that IF could have been taught on something cheaper and more relevant. After Portage, I had no use for IF other than achieving my quarterly minima and doing my ticket ride beyond treating it as the emergency procedure that it was for us. Most other Kiowa pilots were the same. Those of us now stuck on the CH146 haven't changed much, either.

I understand as a loach driver that IF wasn't done except for minimums to keep your ticket but the Griffon???

Again, that IF could have been taught on something cheaper and more relevant.

Believe it or not, the Tutor was cheaper to fly then than the Griffon is now and that's what helo guys will get their wings on soon. But it is more relevant, hence logical.

We have different opinions because we started on different airframes. Maybe the 170 hours on Tutor didn't do me as much good as I believed because I put on 1500 hours on T-Bird after that... so my fast air stuff is mostly T-Bird.

 

[Good2Golf]

I've regularly filed to get around/over crap that many civy helo drivers had to sit and wait out. 

Everybody has had different experiences during the formative first tour, but IF and thinking at speeds that challenge one's performance are good reasons to keep things the way they are.  Heck, you could probably make a wings program based on the Goodyear blimp, but it would be far less relevant than the "overkill" that some profess exists in the CF pilot production stream.  The time that you would need being on top of things the most and not have had the challenge during training to allow you to handle the situation appropriately would be the deal breaker.  It's always easy to say, "I don't need [XXX] or [YYY] for training, if you haven't been one of the guys to ever need it -- I have, on the other hand, so I don't think the current system is broken.

mein 2¢

G2G