NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention

[nittany03]

Granted, my air-to-air experience is limited to the TRACOM, running away bravely, and the occasional red air off Das Boot. But I'm not entirely convinced of the Goosehawk's value as an adversary platform. I mean, it could do some things, just like a Prowler could do some things here and there if CAG Ops was in a pinch. But it's not like we were a prime red air asset, either.

Also, I'd argue that the requirements of any support for Lemoore and Oceana are inherently going to differ from those of Whidbey. Which directly relates to our biannual Internet slap fight about the level of A/A training that's appropriate for the G community.

 

[Brett327]

So go outside the box a bit. El Centro, the Carolinas (MCAS), Fallon? These aren’t that far and could be reasonable training grounds. Air space can’t forever be an excuse to prevent evolution. I was pretty involved in the VTJ production and I see merit in looking into ways like this to move the syllabus out of the 1970’s.

There's no airspace in Fallon either. Between AWF and multiple concurrent WTI courses going on, you'd be surprised how limited it is.

 

[HooverPilot]

I blame Canada for that. And Obama.

 

[Brett327]

biannual Internet slap fight about the level of A/A training that's appropriate for the G community.

That fight exists beyond the virtual world as well.

 

[Farva01]

I hate being the guy who immediately starts from a position of "no," but in this case there's one thing I can think of immediately that kills this idea: airspace. There isn't enough in Lemoore, Oceana, or Whidbey with the existing demand - adding more users (with shorter legs) is a thing.

Airspace is definitely a good point to bring up. It is certainly getting more congested everywhere we go.

 

[nittany03]

That fight exists beyond the virtual world as well.

An exclusive look at CNAF staffers creating the Growler T&R matrix . . .

 

[Farva01]

Granted, my air-to-air experience is limited to the TRACOM, running away bravely, and the occasional red air off Das Boot. But I'm not entirely convinced of the Goosehawk's value as an adversary platform. I mean, it could do some things, just like a Prowler could do some things here and there if CAG Ops was in a pinch. But it's not like we were a prime red air asset, either.

Also, I'd argue that the requirements of any support for Lemoore and Oceana are inherently going to differ from those of Whidbey. Which directly relates to our biannual Internet slap fight about the level of A/A training that's appropriate for the G community.

Unfortunately F-5’s are the adversary of the future. As the LVC train picks up speed, a piece of iron (or composite) in the air is sufficient to drive other training objectives. The T-45 could be a good augment (not replacement) in the adversary role.

 

[Pags]

LVC

I'd be curious to hear how that is working for the fleet. Its getting pushed hard in T&E and I expended a few calories trying to make it work for the last program I worked on. That experience left me a tad jaded as to the reality of LVC.

 

[Brett327]

I'd be curious to hear how that is working for the fleet. Its getting pushed hard in T&E and I expended a few calories trying to make it work for the last program I worked on. That experience left me a tad jaded as to the reality of LVC.

I’ve played with it untethered and it’s a good tool that can supplement real red air. The Growler FRS uses it a lot tethered to a ground station for their A/A events. Once NGTS gets fully integrated, it’s going to be even better.

 

[Recovering LSO]

So go outside the box a bit. El Centro, the Carolinas (MCAS), Fallon? These aren’t that far and could be reasonable training grounds. Air space can’t forever be an excuse to prevent evolution. I was pretty involved in the VTJ production and I see merit in looking into ways like this to move the syllabus out of the 1970’s.

Fallon is tapped out and looking to expand IOT accomoodate existing requirements. El Centro lacks A LOT of infrastructure that’d be required to grow. The Carolinas seem workable until you start considering EIS and noise issues. Lest we forget the NC OLF idea that we’re not using.

I’m not suggesting there aren’t other options, but none are ideal or easily accomplished.

The good news is we’re not using MILCON money for anything else.....

 

[SynixMan]

Care to explain LVC to the unwashed?

I'm glad people are thinking about how to make Nuggets faster, but shorting VFA Cat Is is entirely a self created, temporary problem. I'm not even worried about the fleet seats, since PERS could make some Super JO billets in a finger snap and fill them tomrrow. Whether they do or not is up to them.

With respect to airspace, if we need more, let's ask Congress to un-BRAC some places in middle America that would love the money.

 

[Swanee]

I used to argue that it took longer for a Naval Aviator to get their wings because we needed more reps to get ready for the boat. That is why we had ACM and bombing flights prior to wings instead of the more specialized IFF training post wings the Air Force has.

I thought that too, but when I was in Kingsville, the dudes who tracked E2/C2 went to the boat right after intermediate, and they all did fine.

What would have helped a ton in flight school advanced? A RADAR and other mission type systems. A few flights into the Hornet syllabus and I'm trying to run a missile timeline intercept on a piece of gear that is completely new and that I have no frame of reference for while trying to learn how to fly a new airplane that has a different cockpit layout and software load from the sim. (AWI in a B model because that's what you've got? That is the definition of negative value training). It also didn't help that many of my flights were with WSOs who really couldn't help me with flying skills and workload management. "You're a single seat pilot, I'm really here as an evaluator while you figure it out."

 

[Brett327]

Care to explain LVC to the unwashed?

I'm glad people are thinking about how to make Nuggets faster, but shorting VFA Cat Is is entirely a self created, temporary problem. I'm not even worried about the fleet seats, since PERS could make some Super JO billets in a finger snap and fill them tomrrow. Whether they do or not is up to them.

With respect to airspace, if we need more, let's ask Congress to un-BRAC some places in middle America that would love the money.

LVC incorporates several way of connecting real aircraft with simulators and synthetic tracks. At its most basic level, it's injecting a synthetic track into MIDS for training, I.E a section of Rhinos could train against a section of synthetic red air represented as a MIDS track. At its most complex, real aircraft can be connected to sims and synthetic tracks so that everyone is operating in the same live-virtual world, if that makes sense. People in sims will "see" real aircraft, and those real aircraft will "see" the sim aircraft via MIDS. Pretty cool concept that has a lot of future potential. Imagine squadrons in Lemoore, Whidbey and Pt Mugu all doing mission rehearsal for an LFE through their interconnected sims before they get to AW Fallon, or a real operational strike.

 

[HuggyU2]

Unfortunately F-5’s are the adversary of the future.

Farva, is it accurate to say that "commercial adversaries" like ATAC and Draken are the future?

 

[Jim123]

I used to have an app on my phone that put simulated zombies on the map app and you had to run away from them. This was a few years before geocaching was a thing or people were getting run down by cars or mugged playing that poke game thing.

So I guess you could say I have a leg up over you guys when the zombie apocalypse comes (don't gotta be the fastest, just not the slowest) and I know a thing or two about this LVC training. Huzzah!