Cadet Mentors
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Maybe we might be looking at an IP platform here where IP’s can work together and make our own separate squadrons better?
Allow me a little daydream: Having IP’s work together on tools, form, process and communication to lift the BMS community up and provide a platform and resource for future IP’s to add to?
Regardless of the individual SOP’s and squadrons we might be tied to. Inner workings of a VFS are specific and VFW internal:
I mean specifically the IP’s. Build a knowledge + experience base….There was a project called TCM, or Training Community Management in full, a few years ago. The idea was to have a TLP-like setting, in which squadrons would send some of their pilots to the TCM-programme, where they would be taught all sorts of things, which they could then take back to their own squadrons. Although not necessarily the purpose of TCM, our expectation was that IP’s would be the first to come over before sending in their trainees, at which point it would have been a two-way street in terms of shared feedback and experience.
We got pretty far in the preparations, actually, with 8-10 IPs ready to go, a complete theatre adjusted to our needs, (most of) the R&R and entry requirements settled, decided what was (not) important to be taught, IP/Student SOPs and flight manuals written etc.
IIRC, we were actually very close to launching a first private small scale trial before we went live publicly, but unfortunately, we ran into a few major setbacks, such as real life and/or own squadron needs reducing available time for many, technical issues, … Mainly the sudden exodus of IP’s was a problem, as it left only 2 or 3 guys, which obviously would not have been nearly enough to keep the programme running, so the project slowly faded away. I’m fairly certain though, that some IP/staff still hope it would someday lift off as intended. -
Its not just your IPs and staff that hold that hope.
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@Red:
I have no doubt of that. matter of fact, I always wondered how you guys do it
+1: without revealing inner workings or secrets, I am curious what the difference is in this particular method.
Does anyone have any experience in other methods than 1:1 training in an IQT course? I am trying to expand the method part of our course but not sure on the how and what (nuts&bolts) I need to get the wanted result (very good pilots, happy and motivated).
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+1: without revealing inner workings or secrets, I am curious what the difference is in this particular method.
Does anyone have any experience in other methods than 1:1 training in an IQT course? I am trying to expand the method part of our course but not sure on the how and what (nuts&bolts) I need to get the wanted result (very good pilots, happy and motivated).
If you want to learn the tactics, techniques, and procedures the right way, that is the only way. That’s the way it’s done in real life and if you want to get to a high level of proficiency that’s how it’s going to work in Falcon too. It takes tremendous study, almost a mini college degree in a sense to master all the techniques you can bring to bear in the F-16. You need to build upon previous lessons to get to the top. For example in our wing the first thing we study is aircraft handling characteristics and formation handling. So that includes basic ramp and airfield SOPs, or the local area orientation flights, then onto HARTS to learn the flight envelope of the F-16 while learning how to recover from various airspeeds and attitudes, then followed by aerobatics, which isn’t designed to make you an airshow pilot, but polish up handling skills and make your flying “cleaner.” From there you goto formation training where you get good at recognizing the visual sight pictures, formation limits, and contracts of both domestic and tactical formation. Domestic formation is used for general ATC navigation/transit and is a “default” and tactical formation is used to maintain element integrity in combat while engaging threats as a unit. These are the very basic building blocks to a fighter pilot.
After that it’s time for air-to-air phase. You learn very crucial offensive BFM concepts including turn circle entry, the control zone (4,000-6,000 feet) countering a constant turn rate and constant turn radius defense, exploitation of defender errors, and how to accelerate the jet into the WEZ for a kill. After you learn how to control and kill the bandit, you then learn how to defend yourself against the bandit using tactics such as the jink, reversing at the correct time based on visual cues, and other tactics such as the high/low man stacks, rolling tuckunder, ect. Finally BFM training is culminated in high aspect where it is a demonstration of all skills learned to take the bandit from an extremely high HCA at the merge to where you’re seeing tailpipe sending 20 MM as a parting gift. Once that is complete you will be taught how to fight as an element in ACM training where you learn the very specific tactics and contracts to killing a bandit as a team within the shortest time possible with either role establishment or a shot of opportunity (SOO). Obviously similar concepts are taught in the BVR arena with some other considerations and tactics.
At that point our pilots are then somewhat capable, they’ve been through approximately 10 sorties and are starting to get good at the basic SOPs and typically good at air-to-air. Now the next step is basic surface attack, low-altitude training, and surface attack tactics, which a former F-16 jockey and good friend of the 8th’s vice commander (Col Nuts) said, “you can’t drop a bomb if you can’t BFM.” It is absolutely true. During BSA, LASDT, and SAT the pilots will then learn how to employ unguided, IAMs, LGB, and later various tactics to employ a weapon against a hostile target including the LGB loft (a very demanding event to learn). We also do low altitude certification down to 300 feet (CAT II) and later on if pilots elect so down to 100 feet for certification. Those are the training altitudes, in combat you are allowed all the way to the deck.
Once a pilot has mastered all these subjects in our wing they’re still only BAQ status. They then go into MQT training where they learn even more advanced squadron specific training and get certified either BMC or CMR depending on their individual performance. But training doesn’t stop there, that is just a qualified and capable pilot in our wing. They then are entered into the Ready Aircrew Program (RAP) where they will continually hone the skills learned during IQT/MQT or go into specialized training (ST) where they learn even more advanced skills including FLUG (flight lead upgrade), IPUG (IP upgrade), SEAD training (though I do believe some of this can be taught at MQT levels in some squadrons), or FAC(A). As you can see if you want to get really good, this is what it takes. A near dedication to it (approximately 6 flights per month will get you there) and constant study. As RedDog mentioned you have three types of candidates, the ones who are pretty good, but can’t take debriefing well or criticism to perfect their craft (i.e. the guy was riding 10-20 degrees aft the whole time in line abreast instead of striving for 0 degrees). Then you have the great attitude types who always are behind the jet and struggle to learn, and then you have my favorite type, they guys who study their ass off and work to become the greatest they can be, doing they best they can in everything. That is the razors difference between the types of pilots you’ll find in BMS.
In our wing we are trying to capture the competitive process of just getting to the Viper, that it’s a priveledge to learn what’s contained in our course, and that’s just making it here, we still have to get through the sorties and training. Our course is about 4 months long, 60 hours on instruction total, 19 sorties, and every one of them is an evaluation. Our instructors first and foremost teach each member everything there is to know about the Viper, but also evaluate and make sure they have the ability to perform at the highest levels that our wing calls for. That’s what we are all about, I really hope this gives you a better sense of “what it takes.”
Good luck!
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…how do you train them to tank?
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…how do you train them to tank?
Same way you train any formation flight. Its not actually part of the USAF B-course, because pilots at that stage are already expected to be able to do it.
Im still firmly of the opinion BMS pilots should be rock steady on formation before they go anywhere near a tanker. Or a virtual F-16 for that matter, but thats another topic entirely.
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…how do you train them to tank?
Same way you teach Navy pilots to swim …. you eject them in the deep end.
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Same way you teach Navy pilots to swim …. you eject them in the deep end.
…yeah, but they hold them under too.
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…how do you train them to tank?
For the beginning of IQT they tank on nearly every single sortie and we have a chapter dedicated to it that the IPs can use optionally to focus just on tanking. As Blu3 mentioned RW they would already be proficient in this, just need to do it in the Viper. We train to get contact within 60 seconds (most get it in under 20) and once you learn the visual cues of formation it is much much easier.
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For the beginning of IQT they tank on nearly every single sortie and we have a chapter dedicated to it that the IPs can use optionally to focus just on tanking. As Blu3 mentioned RW they would already be proficient in this, just need to do it in the Viper. We train to get contact within 60 seconds (most get it in under 20) and once you learn the visual cues of formation it is much much easier.
That’s sort of my point - in the RW a pilot would step through a progression of various platforms on the way to a Viper, and as such would have that experience. For us we have to learn to tank with a Viper from the start…so, do you have a build-up syllabus for formation flight, com, ops, etc. on the way to tanking as part of basic airmanship/proficiency prior to getting to the point tanking “routinely”? Do people just end up falling out and RTB for BINGO because they can’t plug?..until they can?
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That’s sort of my point - in the RW a pilot would step through a progression of various platforms on the way to a Viper, and as such would have that experience. For us we have to learn to tank with a Viper from the start…so, do you have a build-up syllabus for formation flight, com, ops, etc. on the way to tanking as part of basic airmanship/proficiency prior to getting to the point tanking “routinely”? Do people just end up falling out and RTB for BINGO because they can’t plug?..until they can?
Yes those skills are built in aircraft handling exercises and formation training. Flying formation on the tanker is no different than with an F-16, and we have entire chapter dedicated to training tanking operations, the contracts, procedures, and visual cues to do so successfully. I’ve never had a pilot that couldn’t get on the boom after AHC and FORM training and reading the AAR chapter, plus we make it a requirement to at least be able to achieve contact before joining, without the time frame in which it occurs being important until after entry into training. At worst you may have to give some tips, but by flight six or so, it starts getting a to be pretty good for cadets getting contact and successful top off, even in the turn. So that would make up for the fact most guys are having to learn to tank on the Viper, and honestly that skill is the least challenging of them all. Learning how to LGB loft, or drop bombs on profile the correct way for example, is a little more difficult.
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+1: I am working to structure the course into classes and have the Cadets working together more and also have more senior pilots participate in a non teaching role, to create a studying, more lively atmosphere versus the 1-on-1 training which is not optimal for both IP and Cadet.
My 2 cents, for what little its worth. Take with several grains of salt - while Ive held the role of Training Commander for more than one VFW, my methods have not been met with approval from those wings.
Classes, are absolutely a great way to go. Camaraderie benefits aside, it gets a lot of team members together, in an environment where its okay to ask questions, and okay to brainstorm ideas. Its not just limited to teaching, either. Weapons shops, where you get junior and senior pilots together to brainstorm mission profiles for various roles, have a similar dynamic.
The aim of your training, is (and I presume here) to produce junior pilots for the wing, with a minimum standard of capability and knowledge. This has several aspects to it. They need to have certain knowledge about the aircraft. You can most efficiently teach a group this knowledge, as a class. Set it up as a tutorial - Have the students read through course theory material ahead of time, then rock up for you to go through it, break it down, and explain any gaps in their knowledge. Real viper guys get months of this before they go near the plane. Thats not really feasible for most wings, for applicant retention reasons if nothing else. But you can break it up with flights, building on what the students already know.
Which brings us to the other aspect of instruction. Pilots need to graduate your course with knowledge, but also the skill to apply that knowledge. Knowing how to drop bombs is not much help if you lack the ability to actually do it. So, you need to put those skills into practice. Unfortunately, you cannot teach a class all flying at the same time. In the air, you can teach one person reliably, or two people poorly. Three people is just a mess in the air. There isnt anything wrong with doing large flights together, but you need a ratio of 1 IP per every 1 student. Most sorties are easiest on the student with just their IP to worry about, rather than two other jets and their IP near them.
So, we need classes for efficient ground instruction, and training sorties to put that instruction into practice. How do we make sure the students time isnt wasted? We need to have an efficient and effective order to train things in. Its no use teaching ACM if the student cant BFM, or even fly a loop. Similarly, if you dont know the EPs when you first fly with the instructor, you wont be able to stay in control of the jet if an emergency situation presents itself. So, you need a curriculum, a syllabus that breaks down each training task into building blocks, so that sorties build on each other in a logical progression.
How do we identify a syllabus, then? Well, that depends on the course you are teaching. You need to know, what is the whole point of the course? Lets assume for the sake of argument, this course is to train pilots with limited to no experience of Falcon, who have flown other flight simulators before, and have a bare understanding of the topics generally covered in ab initio. The goal is to train them to a standard we shall call (again for the sake of argument) Basic Mission Capable. This BMC standard will entail that they can assist in the planning of, and fly as a wingman in, a limited set of missions, which we will assume are DCA CAP, OCA-A, Strike, and BAI. So having identified the goals of the course, we need to identify every specific task expected of graduates of the course. This list is our Training Task List, and every item on it should be covered by the Syllabus. The fun part then is breaking down the TTL, into specific sorties, in an order that complex sorties follow simple sorties, and a common difficulty applies to each sortie.
So that just leaves one last major item. How do we decide whether a student meets the graduate standard, then? The hard part of flying as an IP is not generally the instruction, I find. Its the increased tasking, of flying the jet, observing the student, instructing the student, and assessing the student. Its that assessment that I want to address here. You need to be assessing how the student is doing, on every task, on every sortie. Keep notes! Every time the student does anything, think about the task - does it meet the standard you expect of a graduate? Its a Q then. Is it close? Q- then. Not close enough? Hook em (U). Be active in your feedback. Save it for the debrief, but let the student know how they are doing. Give praise where its due, but dont be afraid to tell them exactly where they need work. If they got 'U’s in critical items for the sortie, they can refly it. If they got a lot of 'Q-'s, they may want to refly it. The worst thing you can do as an IP, is let a student get away with ‘good enough’. You let them down, and you let the wing down.
So in summary. Classes are good for ground instruction, and let you convey important concepts to students, and ensure they understand it. They have an active feedback built in, and build camaraderie, done properly. One on one is essential in the air, for proper assessment of student capability. Even with good ground schooling, and excellent IPs, you will still have trouble running a course if the syllabus doesnt make sense, or the TTL doesnt cover all the tasks expected of graduates. Finally, even a well thought out syllabus, with ground schooling and smart IPs, will not produce good pilots consistently without STAN/EVAL. You need to constantly assess where students are at, and actively refly sorties if the student isnt making the grade.
Hope that helps.
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Yes those skills are built in aircraft handling exercises and formation training. Flying formation on the tanker is no different than with an F-16, and we have entire chapter dedicated to training tanking operations, the contracts, procedures, and visual cues to do so successfully. I’ve never had a pilot that couldn’t get on the boom after AHC and FORM training and reading the AAR chapter, plus we make it a requirement to at least be able to achieve contact before joining, without the time frame in which it occurs being important until after entry into training. At worst you may have to give some tips, but by flight six or so, it starts getting a to be pretty good for cadets getting contact and successful top off, even in the turn. So that would make up for the fact most guys are having to learn to tank on the Viper, and honestly that skill is the least challenging of them all. Learning how to LGB loft, or drop bombs on profile the correct way for example, is a little more difficult.
…heh…I must be SOOOO backwards. Bombing?..no problems here. Tanking? Fuhgeddabouddit…
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…heh…I must be SOOOO backwards. Bombing?..no problems here. Tanking? Fuhgeddabouddit…
I mean no offense here, but something I have observed with a lot of pilots is that they have trouble holding formation. If you can fly formation to the standard you should be at to fly the viper, you should be able to tank like its a walk in the park.
Fortunately, formation is something thats not too hard to improve your skills at, especially with practice. Some theory helps a little. You might like to have a read of the Formation Pilots Knowledge Guide. It helped me out quite a bit.
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I’m assuming the turbulence behind the tanker is modeled?..because I have a far easier time flying off the wing of another Viper (or a bogey…) than I do trying to hold form on a tanker at boom distance…so I wager there are secondary skills to be picked up in order to tank successfully. I just need WAY more practice.
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It sounds like you are in the wrong position on the tanker, then.
Practice is always a great idea!
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I’m assuming the turbulence behind the tanker is modeled?..because I have a far easier time flying off the wing of another Viper (or a bogey…) than I do trying to hold form on a tanker at boom distance…so I wager there are secondary skills to be picked up in order to tank successfully. I just need WAY more practice.
You should avoid the hot air behind the engines of the tanker or you’ll mess up the engine irl, as well as the wing turbulence. You should be in this position when in formation with it
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In our wing we are trying to capture the competitive process of just getting to the Viper, that it’s a priveledge to learn what’s contained in our course, and that’s just making it here, we still have to get through the sorties and training. Our course is about 4 months long, 60 hours on instruction total, 19 sorties, and every one of them is an evaluation. Our instructors first and foremost teach each member everything there is to know about the Viper, but also evaluate and make sure they have the ability to perform at the highest levels that our wing calls for. That’s what we are all about, I really hope this gives you a better sense of “what it takes.”
Redshift, I’m curious, you can do all this in 60 hours, 19 sorties? How many Ip do you have to cover that?
I sure can’t. How many of your fellow pilots went through that already and how many did you qualify?My experience is pretty different, our training program is 10 graded flights. 4 basics + 1 mid grade. Then another 4 + the final checkride.
the cadet can request any training flights he needs between graded flights. they can also train solo or together with other recruits.
Most of the guys wash out around the end of the 1st 5 missions - which is a real shame because the hardest is done because that’s where you learn the F-16 avionics which induce a lot of self study.
Very few are capable to overcome that and continue to the end.As for AAR training, I agree about formation. it’s a waste of time to try AAR before you’re confident with plain formation. But still you can be proficient at formation and still struggle on the boom.
I disagree with the statement that says AAR is easier than some AG stuff. In a sim, IMHO, AAR is one of the hardest thing you can do, especially in a turn.We don’t do AAR straight away. We concentrate on formation first, AAR comes in the second part of our training.
The problem IMHO is unless you’re a large wing with a lot of IP, a lot of graduated pilots and a lot of cadets, you can’t really separate regular TEs from training TE’s. you have to do both at the same time.
On one hand, it’s great, because regular TE’s for recruits is a great way to see where they lack, to motivate to learn more and become more proficient and at the same time it has a training part as well.
On the other hand, it’s bad for the seasoned pilots to have to spoon feed recruits during regular TE’s (although I feel that in the pilot community, we always mentor someone - so to me it’s not especially bad)
but to some pilot, it ruins their enjoyment to see the cooperation and teamwork effort go down the drain because of a recruit pilot. If that recruit can learn from his mistakes, then it’s a good thing though and it will be accepted by the seasoned pilots. If the recruit can’t learn and repeatedly makes the same screw-ups, then it’s a real issue.
We’re back to square one, Type B pilot and the difficulties to deal with them.Again, when you have a large pool of pilots, you can avoid the issue and separate training from regular TE’s. And say for instance you give access to recruit only when they have reached a certain level in the training program.
But with the lack of pilots all around, I find this hard to do.S
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RD,
Totally understand why you’re asking. Absolutely can be done in the time I describe and so far we’ve had great success, but it takes a lot of time. We have 3 IP pilots with myself doing the lions share of training, mostly because I am the most experienced in the wing and my schedule allows. I train in the evenings after the kiddos and wife are in bed, usually after 0100z.
Here’s the thing, yes it is so much material to cover and it is exactly what you think it is: a ton of work for each pilot. I’ve graduated 4 pilots in total in both IQT and MQT. 1 air battle manager that took me about 10 hours to show how to communicate during tactical control. I’ve trained around 15 others that have washed out, completely because it’s too hard. There are 5 pilots currently in training now that are in the final air to ground phase or wrapping up air to air phase so that number is soon about to grow.
I would say my passion makes it possible but I never look at this as work because every time I take a student up I am actually getting to learn more and master my skills, so no matter what even if the student quits it’s a win win.
Here’s my stats from the ARMS system at the 8th:
I’ve trained over 160 sorties and 280 hours in all subjects. It’s also broken down by other categories too. Those numbers will continue to grow (but hopefully slow as my fellow pilots in the wing put on their IP hats too as they grow in knowledge and skill) into the future
As far as perceived difficulty of AAR I find it becomes the least taxing subject in our training program. The bulk of study is on other subjects and it hasn’t been a major issue for us as of yet. One of the best ways to show the student is to remind them that movement around the tanker (or any formation) is relative headings and airspeeds. +/- 5 degrees here and +/- 5 knots there and you can move to any position with ease, assuming your saddled and in position. That reduces a lot of the headaches if you think of it in those terms. Then there are the visual sight pictures, contracts for rejoin, rendezvous, ect.
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thanks for the numbers
So would you agree that you have about 75% washout rates then right? 15/20?We have about 85% washouts
in the beginning, I didn’t really care about the wasted time on these washouts. Because as you said, and as our motto says, you also learn by teaching.
But nowadays it’s harder, because I’m tired of doing the same things and knowing that I only have about 15%-20% chances of success in the long term.
I aspire for more tactical aspects than simply devoting the best of my time to training others who will most likely washout….