Growing a VFW in 2017
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I like your post, but allow me to give my input.
What you described above is pretty much the vision i had when i wanted to create my own wing, unfortunately i had to review my priorities and give BMS a rest, for now, I will be back
The thing that saddens me the most in the BMS community, is the lack of âAirmanshipâ. You can teach Airmanship and you can not teach it, you can give hints and examples but you canât really force someone to have airmanship. This is to me, what is really lacking and what actually makes a wing stand out from another. I guess this is what you mean by looking for the guy with the right attitude.
In the SIM world, people come from many backgrounds and not all have the chance to actually fly an airplane or to be involved with aviation in real life and this is why they choose to come to BMS. It is âslightlyâ less expensive than a flight hour in a C-152 and you can sip a beer or two while flying some high tech piece of hardware. I figured that out on my own âŚeven tough it should have been pretty obvious to me. We can not blame people to not have the right attitude when they actually never got exposed to the right attitude.
I think that what would make a wing stand out from another is the experience you provide in terms of Airmanship and aviation culture. There is a way of doing things in aviation, no matter if civil or military. If the student gets those basic concepts âŚthen the rest will be even more awesome as an experience. I think that in a virtual wing, the stick to the real life curriculum is a good step ⌠but it is just a tiny part of what being a pilot is. Being a Pilot, is an attitude, and it should change you ⌠the whole training, the challenges etc, it should make you a more dedicated person, a more organized person etc etc ⌠i know it is maybe going too much in deep âŚbut actually this is what people look for and actually enjoy. Some may find it too hardcore.
BMS by its nature demands you to actually develop some of the traits of a real life fighter pilot, and the wing can complement that by creating the atmosphere, the spirit, the community and the passion being shared. Of course some concepts like life and death can not be recreated, in the end it is supposed to be fun.
Just my five cents.
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Hmmm, thatâs 4000 KB per second, i believe we play at 1024, so you should be good to go as a client. Hosting youâd only be able to do 2 pilots lol. However all good for flying! [emoji6]
Nope, 0.4Mbps is only 400Kbps so he may struggle.
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I like your post, but allow me to give my input.
What you described above is pretty much the vision i had when i wanted to create my own wing, unfortunately i had to review my priorities and give BMS a rest, for now, I will be back
The thing that saddens me the most in the BMS community, is the lack of âAirmanshipâ. You can teach Airmanship and you can not teach it, you can give hints and examples but you canât really force someone to have airmanship. This is to me, what is really lacking and what actually makes a wing stand out from another. I guess this is what you mean by looking for the guy with the right attitude.
In the SIM world, people come from many backgrounds and not all have the chance to actually fly an airplane or to be involved with aviation in real life and this is why they choose to come to BMS. It is âslightlyâ less expensive than a flight hour in a C-152 and you can sip a beer or two while flying some high tech piece of hardware. I figured that out on my own âŚeven tough it should have been pretty obvious to me. We can not blame people to not have the right attitude when they actually never got exposed to the right attitude.
I think that what would make a wing stand out from another is the experience you provide in terms of Airmanship and aviation culture. There is a way of doing things in aviation, no matter if civil or military. If the student gets those basic concepts âŚthen the rest will be even more awesome as an experience. I think that in a virtual wing, the stick to the real life curriculum is a good step ⌠but it is just a tiny part of what being a pilot is. Being a Pilot, is an attitude, and it should change you ⌠the whole training, the challenges etc, it should make you a more dedicated person, a more organized person etc etc ⌠i know it is maybe going too much in deep âŚbut actually this is what people look for and actually enjoy. Some may find it too hardcore.
BMS by its nature demands you to actually develop some of the traits of a real life fighter pilot, and the wing can complement that by creating the atmosphere, the spirit, the community and the passion being shared. Of course some concepts like life and death can not be recreated, in the end it is supposed to be fun.
Just my five cents.
I really appreciate your reply and it provides a lot of food for thought about what it takes to get to these levels of proficiency (as opposed to mere currency). I will say that running a wing like this is a difficult endeavor. Itâs threatened my marriage and eeked itself into other areas of my life, I too reached a point where I had to objectively say it was too much. Now I fly in a much more balanced fashion. There are two prime nights: Tuesday and Saturday. Keeping it to that, keeps my marriage strong and life balanced.
I very much agree on the general lack of âairmanshipâ youâll find in BMS. That means having your aircraft performance handy, normal, abnormal and emergency checklists, your navigation charts (all of them, not just a plate to field youâre flying at), sound decision making, and more. We really try and drive airmanship home. We attempt as best we can to force the use of checklists, we always ramp start, we always use comms on the radio, and have a very defined set of AFIs and TTPs to follow. This sort of forces airmanship and through setting a good example by the senior pilots and command youâll see your junior pilots soon following what you do. The key is consistency in enforcement and weâve developed a âsteel toeâ culture where pilots do not fear negative feedback in relation to our flying (everything else is about mutual respect and friendship), but when it comes our flying you better do it right or expect an earful. Some pilots are unable to handle this and they move on. The emotionally strong learn something from it apply it to the next flight and you never see the issue again for the most part.
I also agree with the sim world youâre going to see all types. The key is setting expectations early, people will either rise to the occasion or go down in flames, their choice. Most choose to go upward and push themselves. You have to give people a chance to show the greatness within, we all have it. Finally you can blame people for not having the right attitude absolutely. It simply holding yourself and others accountable to their commitments. If you say youâll do something, then do it without reservation and you will see the results of hard work.
I feel we do a great job in building an environment of airmanship and aviation culture. Most of our pilots are real world commercial pilots, we have a current USAF F-16 pilot who consults for our wing and has given us his stamp of approval that we are doing it ârightâ and a retired USAF F-16 pilot who is going to be flying with us very soon with class 17-ABK. I myself am a pilot, we even have a retired F-16 crew chief. So our wing is steeped in aviation culture and we all have some involvement in the real world, I think thatâs what makes us different.
I believe folks who complete our course definitely develop the traits of a real fighter pilot and we complement that by providing an atmosphere and environment that cultivates that kind of group. The passion is there always; even when we are busy. I really am grateful for your response and truth be told you are exactly what weâre looking for so when you get back into BMS one day, come on board we would love to have you!
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Very much appreciated, i will for sure make myself known to your wing when the time comes for me to fly again in BMS. I donât expect it to be soon, but along next year. Keep it up guys
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flying an intercept timeline in either a Banzai or Skate flow doctrine
Sounds interesting. Can I read up on that anywhere? Google doesnât seem to reveal anything.
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Sounds interesting. Can I read up on that anywhere? Google doesnât seem to reveal anything.
Exactly the four corners, lol. Itâs out there just you need to know what to look for, Iâll PM some links for you.
And obviously we teach this during trainingâŚâŚ
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Best of luck to yâall
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Awesome goal.
Good luck to you all.
Nice to see⌠-
Exactly the four corners, lol. Itâs out there just you need to know what to look for, Iâll PM some links for you.
And obviously we teach this during trainingâŚâŚ
Would like to read that too. Could you send me the links?
Sent from my XT1225 using Tapatalk
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Speaking for myself, I have to say that the airmanship concept is wholeheartedly grasped by every member of our wing. Airmanship, what is it? The mental model of operating a flying machine from cold and dark to shut down. It is situational awareness, decision making, task prioritization, and of course âflying the airplaneâ. For us, its been so impressive to watch new candidates come to the wing and embrace this notion. Repettion, following SOPâs and thorough debriefings have resulted in our wing members coming to every training, or combat sortie ready to keep it going, applying their previous experiences to the current task. Sharpened form skills, comms and tactical execution are what we see as IPâs. Its very rewarding. I dare say, we do teach airmanship. I love what you say about the community of it too, that is another notion which for us at the 8th has held true. We support each other in real life and call each other friends. Spirit, community and virtual combat, thats what its all about.
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Hmmm airmanship. If not an utopia among simmers very hard to master it specially on wing level. Personal airmanship doesnât warranty wing airmanship.
We r talking about hobbiests here with limited free time in average.
The most needed factor to teach and be taught of it is free time and divotion .
The tactics and lessons can be found but free time ?
Good luck wish u all the best. -
Sounds great! Sadly not for me, free time & time zone are negatives, and iâm not sure iâm that serious about bms anyway Good luck for 2017
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Hmmm airmanship. If not an utopia among simmers very hard to master it specially on wing level. Personal airmanship doesnât warranty wing airmanship.
We r talking about hobbiests here with limited free time in average.
The most needed factor to teach and be taught of it is free time and divotion .
The tactics and lessons can be found but free time ?
Good luck wish u all the best.I hear you, it depends on the leadership at the individual VFWs. Just as the experience among individual simmers varies wildly, so does the training, leadership, and airmanship style of each wing as well. If you have a wing full of people who fly for a living or work in the industry (I can think of many people and wings that have these kinds of folks) then youâll see more ârealismâ whereas other groups you would see more that folks are there for fun and thatâs what matters to them.
There are folks who will want to fly the way we do, thatâs who we are looking for and trying to connect with. There are even more folks that donât want to fly like we do too, thatâs okay too. We hope the guys that do want to learn all they can about tactical aviation will find us and give it a try.
We havenât met too many pilots who didnât have fun doing it âfull upâ, you get a huge sense of pride and folks look forward to the next lesson eagerly. We cover so many details many report that we fill in details that they had never realized before and even more rewarding as you watch them transform, mastering the subjects you taught them just a few short weeks ago and possibly even able to share the knowledge themselves to other pilots within the wing and greater BMS community too. Thatâs what itâs all about.
For free time thatâs another side of finding the right pilots that makes it difficult, the time zone differences and individual schedules. Believe it or not Iâve found the most common day people want to fly to be Tuesday. Anytime someone wants training itâs always a Tuesday lol, thatâs why we picked that day for our main training time and Saturday night for combat flying. I think if we find folks that works for, plus any extra pickup flights guys want to throw up, then itâll be very rewarding. Free time is all we need, not too much to ask for right?
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Whatâs that with the beginning of the week having a flight⌠I just canât understand it :lol:
In my squad we had-have it on Monday⌠Every time I was like a headless chicken for the rest of the weekâŚ
The flight and debrief and some chit chat and hard knowledge lessons afterwords was going very late⌠and the rest of the week was just trying to balance your sleepless behavior, meaning a nightmare.
One of the major reasons I left XO and MP and devoted more to theater moding deving. -
Makes me wish I had the free time at present. Good luck with the recruiting!
To anyone thinking about it, the 8th is the closest wing Ive ever seen to what I want out of BMS.
Any chance I might not have read those links? Im always on the lookout for that stuff.
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A solid uninterrupted block of time remains my challenge, hence why I usually fly these days at FO.
Homeowner, Career that involves alot of travel, prone-to-violence-cop-wife, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats. No time.
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Redshift20,
good luck with your plan. I would love to join, but prior to that I need to learn and master AAR and enhance my skills with various application of weapons/systems. I am pretty good and some stuff, but the material to learn and master is enormous. Being UTC+1 (CET) could be doable, if you guys refer to EST.
And I agree with others here, the true asset that most of us value the most is time.
Cheers,
Andrej -
Makes me wish I had the free time at present. Good luck with the recruiting!
To anyone thinking about it, the 8th is the closest wing Ive ever seen to what I want out of BMS.
Any chance I might not have read those links? Im always on the lookout for that stuff.
Thank you Blu3 for the vote of confidence and kind words about our process, it truly means a lot! I think it should be noted that you played a huge role in the initial foundations of the wing and the vision of what it would be, there arenât too many in the community who rival your knowledge of the AFIs, procedures and tactics.
I think youâd be very pleased with where it has gotten to and would enjoy it, should you find some time for flying again.
As for the materials, trust me definitely is nothing you donât already have your hands onâŚâŚ
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A solid uninterrupted block of time remains my challenge, hence why I usually fly these days at FO.
Homeowner, Career that involves alot of travel, prone-to-violence-cop-wife, 2 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats. No time.
Yeah thatâs the challenge for sure. Our course sort of front loads the work, it takes a reasonable commitment (once per week) until the course is complete. Once finished two flights a month will keep a guy fairly proficient if all heâs doing is combat ops.
We have about 17 classes in IQT so while it takes a while, it isnât impossible either. Folks just have to enjoy that âtimeâ in the wing like anything else. All part of the process. I think sometimes guys look at the whole picture and go, âwow thatâs a lot I donât think I could do that.â But once youâre in it, doing it I think that perspective changes and even more so once through it like anything else all that time sort of collapses into itself and you never noticed, maybe even find the time spent was enjoyable or well worth it.
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Redshift20,
good luck with your plan. I would love to join, but prior to that I need to learn and master AAR and enhance my skills with various application of weapons/systems. I am pretty good and some stuff, but the material to learn and master is enormous. Being UTC+1 (CET) could be doable, if you guys refer to EST.
And I agree with others here, the true asset that most of us value the most is time.
Cheers,
AndrejAndrej, thanks very much. It sounds to me youâre on the cusp of being ready or already are ready. A lot of guys underestimate their potential and skill, theyâll tell you they are worried theyâre not ready, but then you start training and all that melts away. They start learning, like anything else you do it enough and it becomes second nature.
For AAR youâre just flying over glorified formation, once you learn formation handling basics the tanker is a much less daunting prospect. Learn a couple gouges/techniques and the rules around the boom, next thing you know youâre contact and good flow. So I would let that hold you back if I were you and give it a shot, what do you have to lose?
⌠plenty to be gained