I know most are probably getting tired of the Vance vs. Whiting/Corpus threads… I am writing this strictly to inform those that are interested in going to Vance, are voluntold to go to Vance (like I was), or those who are looking for more information… I am going to be completely straight forward telling you the points that (from my point of view) suck or are awesome about JSUPT here at Vance.
First, lets kill some rumors right off the bat:
•Vance will not guarantee you get jets (could help you in some ways, could hurt you in some ways depending on your strengths and weaknesses).
•Stand up EPs don’t make you wish you were never born (they aren’t bad at all).
•The 15 day program is somewhat of a joke (compared to what it’s been made out to be).
The biggest shock to me when I made it here, is how misinformed everyone at API was. Everywhere I went, all the studs were talking about how evil Vance was; how the 15 day program and stand up EPs are a devilish nightmare. Not the case in my opinion.
I came to the realization that everyone I talked to about Vance had never been here. So listen up; if you want to hear about training at Vance, talk to those that have actually gone through JSUPT here, don’t listen to all of the bad gouge that is being spread around by people that have never been. Get the information at the source from threads like this or talking to those that have been.
Just like anywhere you go, there will be some positives and negatives. I’ll start with the things I liked about training here.
Class sizes are small…Your class will have approximately 20-25 people which will stick together during academics, but be split in to two ‘flights’ when you hit the flight line… Essentially your class will split in half.
Each flight room has several assigned IPs. You will see PLENTY of Navy and Marine IPs. You won’t be this lonesome SNA floating in an Air Force abyss. In fact, our squadron CO is a Navy CDR. Usually each flight room has 5-6 assigned IPs. Usually there is at least one navy IP and one Marine IP per flight….
At the beginning, you’ll go through an abbreviated API (just the academics). It takes about a month… You’ll cover aerodynamics, systems (t-6 specific), weather, physiology, ejection seat training, etc. The academics are a joke compared to API. You’ll find that the tests are easy, and the days are short. The great news about the academics is that they don’t count at all towards your NSS or anything like that; just pass the tests.
Towards the end of academics, you’ll start simming. There are three types of T-6 sims; the UTD (no screen, just cockpit), IFT (a flat screen in front of the cockpit), and OFT (180 degree bubble around you). At first, the sims will aid in speeding up your checklist procedures and strapping in. You are allowed to check out one of thee UTDs during your personal time to familiarize yourself with the avionics or checklist procedures.
After the academics are over, you hit the flight line. The hard truth is, you’ll be spending many 12 hour days on the flight line. You’ll usually have 2 events a day (either a flight and sim, multiple sims, or multiple flights). Each event usually takes 3 hours (an hour to brief, and hour and a half to fly and 30 minutes to debrief). There’s half of the 12 hours right there. You’ll also have a formal brief in the morning (roughly an hour long), which will include a weather brief, ops notes, and a stand up EP.
On to the stand up EP. You have to stand up in front of your flight (only 10-12 studs and the IPs. You have your emergency checklist, in flight guide, and scratch paper. An IP will present you with an emergency. You have to respond in a methodical way to every IP (Sir, I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take the proper action, and land as soon as conditions permit.) You have to describe how you’ll maintain aircraft control (usually involves using coordinated aileron and rudder blah blah blah). You move on to analyzing the situation by 'checking' your annunciator panel and circuit breakers, data displays, etc… You come to a conclusion (Sir I have a an engine fire, blah blah)… To take the proper action you apply the boldface (if one applies) and run through your checklist. If you royally jack it up, they will tell you to sit down (you’ve failed the stand up event). This usually involves you making a gross error to some extent.
I’ve been sat down before, and it’s no big deal. You just learn from what you’ve done wrong and move on. The Air Force guys dread it because it plays in to their flight commander ranking (30% of their mass score; their NSS essentially). But for us? No biggie… just don’t jack up on a regular basis and you’ll be fine.
The point of the stand up EP isn’t to haze you, it is to make sure that if you did have an emergency, you’d know how to properly handle it… Makes sense if you ask me. They make you stand up in front of your class to add an artificial sense of pressure. But to those that have a moderately thick skin, you won't give two sh*ts about standing up in front of your class.
So all in all, you have about 4-5 hours of ‘dead’ time a day…. During this time, I studied, went to the gym, practiced in the UTDs, ate lunch etc. They release you at the end of the day and everyone goes home. Rinse and repeat the next day.
The only difference between the 15 day program and the rest of your time here at Vance is during the 15 day program, you’ll have a 10 minute quiz on notes, warnings and cautions each morning, and 10-20 minutes of shotgun questions (from a question bank that you’ll get). Also during the 15 day program they keep you for the full 12 hours every day.. After the 15 day program is over, you go home whenever everyone is back from their flights/sims (most of the time).
It is definitely safe to say that the days are much longer than they are at Whiting or Corpus (from what I hear). However it also seems that the pace here is quite a bit busier. From my first flight to being done with primary has taken me exactly 4 months (fairly common here for NAVY/Marine guys). Another beauty of flight training here at Vance is that the day you show up, they give you your graduation date. You might graduate before this date if scheduling/weather permit (a month earlier in my case), but you won’t graduate after it.
On to the airplane… From talking to the Navy/Marine IPs here, it is unanimous that the T-6 is a much better trainer than the T-34 (I didn’t say that it made better pilots, just that it is a better trainer!!)...The majority of the airplanes I’ve flown here had between 500-700 hours and still have the new car smell. They are meticulously maintained, and rarely break/have issues. According to them, the more advanced avionics allow for more training in the instrument environment, and higher performance characteristics make for better contact flying. As for my .02 on it, I loved that airplane. To me, it was the best thing since sliced bread (bare in mind my basis for comparison was a C172, so of course I loved it).
On to other things… I’ll have to say that my biggest fear, before I showed up here, was the reputation of the ‘Air Force mentality’. I pictured a land in which everyone walked around whistling the Iron Eagle sound track, whilst their scarves fluttered in the wind. I thought I’d hate it. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. You’ll find that the Air Force studs are for the most part as laid back as the NAVY guys. There seem to be an equal share of alcoholic womanizers in the Air Force as there are in the NAVY. Just like any bunch though, there are a few that you won’t be able to stand. Generally, these are the blue falcons that relentlessly have their noses half way up their flight commanders’ a$$es, in the hopes they get a better flight commander ranking (so they can go jets). Although it sounds bad, it is quite cathartic to give them incessant amounts of sh*t. :-D
On to the grading system (which was never properly explained to me before I arrived at Vance)…. Now I’m not sure how it differs from how things are graded at Corpus or Whiting, but I hear it differs in this regard (please Corpus/Whiting guys keep me honest here): At Whiting and Corpus, your simulator & academics count towards your NSS. Here at Vance however, ONLY your flights count towards your NSS. Also, you get six freebie flights before they start counting. I’m sure you can imagine how this can hurt/help you… I.E. If you have a lot of flight time, and feel you’ll rock it out in the airplane but suck at taking tests, Vance’s grading system might help you, but the opposite is obviously true as well.
Ultimately, your NSS is based on your performance, and the performance of the previous sixty studs to come through your squadron (there are two T-6 squadrons at Vance). So as you can see, you really have no advantage/disadvantage over Corpus/Whiting.
This makes Vance a relatively low pressure environment compared to what the Air Force has to go through…. They’ll throw standardization tests at you, stand up EPs, Boldface tests, the works… All you have to do is pass em.. If you fail enough of them, it can start to have teeth (get put on commanders awareness program and other bad stuff). For me it simplified things… I studied what I needed to pass the tests, and focused the 99% of remaining effort into preparation for my flights and flying…
On to the bad…. Enid sucks. There aren’t enough places to eat (for a restaurant connoisseur like myself. The night life sucks. Basically, if you want to party it up, you’ll have to drive to Oklahoma City (about an hour and a half away). Every Friday you want to have a good time, you'll usually find a caravan of Air Force/Navy/Marine classmates making the mass exodus to the city. OKC has a great nightlife though, although I doubt it compares to Corpus or Pensacola. You’ll also have to drive to OKC if you need to go to Best Buy or Circuit City. Enid has the basics and that’s about it. Nuff said on that.
To conclude this horribly written monstrosity of an essay, I think you’ll find that if you come here with an open mind, positive attitude, and an eagerness to train, you’ll have a great experience.
There were many times I was envious of my Corpus and Whiting buddies, who were undoubtedly putting down margaritas on the beach many a Friday afternoon I was in the flight room prepping for the next flight. But now that I’m done 2+ months earlier than they are, I’ll have to send them a postcard from Vegas. It all comes out in the wash I suppose…
Hope this answered some questions. And if anyone has any other questions or things they want me to elaborate on, feel free.
GS
First, lets kill some rumors right off the bat:
•Vance will not guarantee you get jets (could help you in some ways, could hurt you in some ways depending on your strengths and weaknesses).
•Stand up EPs don’t make you wish you were never born (they aren’t bad at all).
•The 15 day program is somewhat of a joke (compared to what it’s been made out to be).
The biggest shock to me when I made it here, is how misinformed everyone at API was. Everywhere I went, all the studs were talking about how evil Vance was; how the 15 day program and stand up EPs are a devilish nightmare. Not the case in my opinion.
I came to the realization that everyone I talked to about Vance had never been here. So listen up; if you want to hear about training at Vance, talk to those that have actually gone through JSUPT here, don’t listen to all of the bad gouge that is being spread around by people that have never been. Get the information at the source from threads like this or talking to those that have been.
Just like anywhere you go, there will be some positives and negatives. I’ll start with the things I liked about training here.
Class sizes are small…Your class will have approximately 20-25 people which will stick together during academics, but be split in to two ‘flights’ when you hit the flight line… Essentially your class will split in half.
Each flight room has several assigned IPs. You will see PLENTY of Navy and Marine IPs. You won’t be this lonesome SNA floating in an Air Force abyss. In fact, our squadron CO is a Navy CDR. Usually each flight room has 5-6 assigned IPs. Usually there is at least one navy IP and one Marine IP per flight….
At the beginning, you’ll go through an abbreviated API (just the academics). It takes about a month… You’ll cover aerodynamics, systems (t-6 specific), weather, physiology, ejection seat training, etc. The academics are a joke compared to API. You’ll find that the tests are easy, and the days are short. The great news about the academics is that they don’t count at all towards your NSS or anything like that; just pass the tests.
Towards the end of academics, you’ll start simming. There are three types of T-6 sims; the UTD (no screen, just cockpit), IFT (a flat screen in front of the cockpit), and OFT (180 degree bubble around you). At first, the sims will aid in speeding up your checklist procedures and strapping in. You are allowed to check out one of thee UTDs during your personal time to familiarize yourself with the avionics or checklist procedures.
After the academics are over, you hit the flight line. The hard truth is, you’ll be spending many 12 hour days on the flight line. You’ll usually have 2 events a day (either a flight and sim, multiple sims, or multiple flights). Each event usually takes 3 hours (an hour to brief, and hour and a half to fly and 30 minutes to debrief). There’s half of the 12 hours right there. You’ll also have a formal brief in the morning (roughly an hour long), which will include a weather brief, ops notes, and a stand up EP.
On to the stand up EP. You have to stand up in front of your flight (only 10-12 studs and the IPs. You have your emergency checklist, in flight guide, and scratch paper. An IP will present you with an emergency. You have to respond in a methodical way to every IP (Sir, I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take the proper action, and land as soon as conditions permit.) You have to describe how you’ll maintain aircraft control (usually involves using coordinated aileron and rudder blah blah blah). You move on to analyzing the situation by 'checking' your annunciator panel and circuit breakers, data displays, etc… You come to a conclusion (Sir I have a an engine fire, blah blah)… To take the proper action you apply the boldface (if one applies) and run through your checklist. If you royally jack it up, they will tell you to sit down (you’ve failed the stand up event). This usually involves you making a gross error to some extent.
I’ve been sat down before, and it’s no big deal. You just learn from what you’ve done wrong and move on. The Air Force guys dread it because it plays in to their flight commander ranking (30% of their mass score; their NSS essentially). But for us? No biggie… just don’t jack up on a regular basis and you’ll be fine.
The point of the stand up EP isn’t to haze you, it is to make sure that if you did have an emergency, you’d know how to properly handle it… Makes sense if you ask me. They make you stand up in front of your class to add an artificial sense of pressure. But to those that have a moderately thick skin, you won't give two sh*ts about standing up in front of your class.
So all in all, you have about 4-5 hours of ‘dead’ time a day…. During this time, I studied, went to the gym, practiced in the UTDs, ate lunch etc. They release you at the end of the day and everyone goes home. Rinse and repeat the next day.
The only difference between the 15 day program and the rest of your time here at Vance is during the 15 day program, you’ll have a 10 minute quiz on notes, warnings and cautions each morning, and 10-20 minutes of shotgun questions (from a question bank that you’ll get). Also during the 15 day program they keep you for the full 12 hours every day.. After the 15 day program is over, you go home whenever everyone is back from their flights/sims (most of the time).
It is definitely safe to say that the days are much longer than they are at Whiting or Corpus (from what I hear). However it also seems that the pace here is quite a bit busier. From my first flight to being done with primary has taken me exactly 4 months (fairly common here for NAVY/Marine guys). Another beauty of flight training here at Vance is that the day you show up, they give you your graduation date. You might graduate before this date if scheduling/weather permit (a month earlier in my case), but you won’t graduate after it.
On to the airplane… From talking to the Navy/Marine IPs here, it is unanimous that the T-6 is a much better trainer than the T-34 (I didn’t say that it made better pilots, just that it is a better trainer!!)...The majority of the airplanes I’ve flown here had between 500-700 hours and still have the new car smell. They are meticulously maintained, and rarely break/have issues. According to them, the more advanced avionics allow for more training in the instrument environment, and higher performance characteristics make for better contact flying. As for my .02 on it, I loved that airplane. To me, it was the best thing since sliced bread (bare in mind my basis for comparison was a C172, so of course I loved it).
On to other things… I’ll have to say that my biggest fear, before I showed up here, was the reputation of the ‘Air Force mentality’. I pictured a land in which everyone walked around whistling the Iron Eagle sound track, whilst their scarves fluttered in the wind. I thought I’d hate it. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. You’ll find that the Air Force studs are for the most part as laid back as the NAVY guys. There seem to be an equal share of alcoholic womanizers in the Air Force as there are in the NAVY. Just like any bunch though, there are a few that you won’t be able to stand. Generally, these are the blue falcons that relentlessly have their noses half way up their flight commanders’ a$$es, in the hopes they get a better flight commander ranking (so they can go jets). Although it sounds bad, it is quite cathartic to give them incessant amounts of sh*t. :-D
On to the grading system (which was never properly explained to me before I arrived at Vance)…. Now I’m not sure how it differs from how things are graded at Corpus or Whiting, but I hear it differs in this regard (please Corpus/Whiting guys keep me honest here): At Whiting and Corpus, your simulator & academics count towards your NSS. Here at Vance however, ONLY your flights count towards your NSS. Also, you get six freebie flights before they start counting. I’m sure you can imagine how this can hurt/help you… I.E. If you have a lot of flight time, and feel you’ll rock it out in the airplane but suck at taking tests, Vance’s grading system might help you, but the opposite is obviously true as well.
Ultimately, your NSS is based on your performance, and the performance of the previous sixty studs to come through your squadron (there are two T-6 squadrons at Vance). So as you can see, you really have no advantage/disadvantage over Corpus/Whiting.
This makes Vance a relatively low pressure environment compared to what the Air Force has to go through…. They’ll throw standardization tests at you, stand up EPs, Boldface tests, the works… All you have to do is pass em.. If you fail enough of them, it can start to have teeth (get put on commanders awareness program and other bad stuff). For me it simplified things… I studied what I needed to pass the tests, and focused the 99% of remaining effort into preparation for my flights and flying…
On to the bad…. Enid sucks. There aren’t enough places to eat (for a restaurant connoisseur like myself. The night life sucks. Basically, if you want to party it up, you’ll have to drive to Oklahoma City (about an hour and a half away). Every Friday you want to have a good time, you'll usually find a caravan of Air Force/Navy/Marine classmates making the mass exodus to the city. OKC has a great nightlife though, although I doubt it compares to Corpus or Pensacola. You’ll also have to drive to OKC if you need to go to Best Buy or Circuit City. Enid has the basics and that’s about it. Nuff said on that.
To conclude this horribly written monstrosity of an essay, I think you’ll find that if you come here with an open mind, positive attitude, and an eagerness to train, you’ll have a great experience.
There were many times I was envious of my Corpus and Whiting buddies, who were undoubtedly putting down margaritas on the beach many a Friday afternoon I was in the flight room prepping for the next flight. But now that I’m done 2+ months earlier than they are, I’ll have to send them a postcard from Vegas. It all comes out in the wash I suppose…
Hope this answered some questions. And if anyone has any other questions or things they want me to elaborate on, feel free.
GS
