• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

Flight time in primary

Status
Not open for further replies.

beau

Registered User
How often do you fly in a week or month for that matter? I know there are alot of factors but on average how often do you fly? In my Private(Part 141 school at college) course I was on the board to fly three times a week but ended up flying twice week through out the whole program.
Also how much refresher training does one get if they didn't fly for a couple of weeks due to certain curcumstances?
just wondering

Finch
 

webmaster

The Grass is Greener!
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Finch,

Those are some interesting questions, and in fact, before I got to Primary, I was wondering the same thing. Ok, lets see if I can help answer your questions.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU FLY

I would say on average, you fly (either in the plane, or a simulator event) at least 3 times a week, but you should average 4 events a week, plus watches. There are several factors that will effect the number of syllabus events that you accomplish each week, such as:

Aircraft Availability - As the day progresses, the number of aircraft available declines (ie aircraft being downed by pilots for maintenance) and you may have your syllabus event time pushed back while you wait for an plane to be issued to you from aircraft issue, this is readily apparent on beautiful days when each of the Squadrons are tyring to get as many flights as they can out.
Weather - If a weather system moves in during the week, and you are in any stage but RIs and BIs, then you are out of luck, and won't be getting any VFR flights in.
Instructor Availability - Hey, instructors get sick, have meetings to go to, or for some reason can't make the schedule, albeit that this is very rare, more than likely, there are just not enough instructors to go around. Some days you might be placed on Standby, to get picked up by an instructor (their student may have gone med down), usually the FDO will send you home if it becomes apparent that you won't get picked up for a flight. You can come in and place yourself on the Standby list (if Schedules hasn't already put you on it) on a day that you weren't given a scheduled event, I did that on a couple of occassions, and it worked out well.
Priority - Some times, based on another student's priority (ie they are farther along in the syllabus than you are, hence a higher priority, especially if they are trying to complete them for selection, or to get them into the RI Ground School class) you will get bumped from your scheduled flight. International Students, from foreign countries always have the highest priority, because their government is paying $$ to get them through the program. Next comes SOLOs, then Coasties, and last but not least Navy and Marines.
Student Loading - This varies with the time of year, during the winter months, the weather is worse, and the squadrons drop down in student loading from the summer months of 120-130 students to a winter loading of 90 or so (going off memory here), so while the weather may be worse, the instructor to student ratio increases in the weather months to allow more syllabus Xs to be completed.
Med down status - You get sick, and go med down, and be prepared to stand watch, AFDO or SDO.
Squadron your assigned to - Each squadron has their own reputation (which changes as new COs come in, and the instructors are replaced when their rotation is up). While I went through, and I believe is still in effect, VT6 tries to schedule you every day and get you out the door as soon as possible. At the end of the month, VT6's monthly flight hours usually equals both VT3's and VT2's put together. I finished Primary ahead of the people I went through Primary Ground School with.


HOW MUCH REFRESHER TRAINING

I don't have a Primary Master Curriculum Guide handy (if anyone does, back me up on these numbers since I am going off of memory here, either that or make me out to be a bold face liar ). Anyways, there are two types of warm ups that can be assigned to you:

Optional Warmup - You haven't flown for 5 days, and based on the instructor's opinion of your flying on that flight, can assign you a warmup, and the flight won't count against you. Some times the instructor will give you the choice, and ask you if you want to count it as a warmup.

Mandatory Warmup - After 10 days out of the plane, you get a mandatory warmup flight.

These warmup flights only count in stage, ie you are midway through FAMs, go med down for 10 days, then you get a mandatory warmup. But lets say, you SOLOed, and finished the FAM stage, and then get sick and go med down for 10 days. Well your next fligh is PA1, but you don't get a warmup flight since you are starting a new stage.

NOTE: After typing all this in, a thought comes to mind that I flew under the OLD SYSTEM, and I don't really recall what the requirements under MPTS (aka the NEW SYSTEM) are for Warm Up flights, so I might be passing on some bad info here, though I would imagine it would be close or similar in nature.

Hope that helps to shed some light on the subject,


Edited by - John Wickham on 11 August 2000
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top