IFS>Primary

[scoober78]

Given a half-way coordinated brain/body combination and the proper amount of chair flying/MICROSIM/SIM practice along with lots of memorization, you can def get jet grades. I know a lot of people hate the MICROSIMS but they will make you money...believe it!!

Never touched a MICROSIM and probably beat you in primary.

No...seriously though, the key as he said is to get ahead early. Find the way you learn the information best, whether that is the microsim, chairfying with the TV on etc...and do it. Alot. Don't eliminate distractions either...the IP won't in flight. I studied in a chair watching TV with the wife. Sounds goofy and counterproductive but it worked for me because there was alot going on.

 

[Kycntryboy]

Now the consensus says if you get an IFR rating.....that's where you make your money, because that lessens the suck of the RI block of training which is the worst part of flight school...

Thats debatable, I would say with preference. If you have your IFR rating than you don't have to do a couple blocks of sims (which is good), however those blocks are pretty easy and its a good way to make money on your NSS before the later RI flights bring it down.

Just my preference I liked doing sims instead of flights during RI's not because I have some sick obsession with punishing myself, but they graded better. And that "stopped the bleeding" of my ratio.

The one advantage I can see to flying before IFS is to get more experience with comms because you will sound retarded with readbacks and you will request things that make no sense.

 

[Kycntryboy]

You have a GPA (basically what you scored on each Maneuver-in-flight totalled divided by the passing score). You can compare your GPA for various blocks with your classmates, and they MAY publish a list of average scores in each block for each class, but I only heard this.

Basically you have a pretty good idea how you're doing based on gouge/instructor input/comparing with friends etc. If you have a 1.0, you're going to make it through flight school by the skin of your teeth (or should). If you have a 1.3, you're tits. I don't think you can really guestimate what your NSS is until the end of primary when you have enough grades to make an educated estimate.

To add to your post. A good flight is 1.1 or better. Bens gouge has an NSS tracker that I used throughout Primary and modified it for RIs. I liked it because it gave me an idea of how I was doing.

 

[scoober78]

To add to your post. A good flight is 1.1 or better. Bens gouge has an NSS tracker that I used throughout Primary and modified it for RIs. I liked it because it gave me an idea of how I was doing.

How did it do that since you had no idea how your peers were doing and no idea how the however many before you were doing??

 

[Kycntryboy]

How did it do that since you had no idea how your peers were doing and no idea how the however many before you were doing??

While the ratio may differ from week to week, I would say the amount is negligable to give yourself an idea of how your doing. From my experience my score was within a couple points, is it a perfect system no, but getting some idea is better than no idea. If I was to just judge off my classmates that the guys I was competing against I wouldn't know how I was doing in perspective of the usual SNA. I had an extremely talented/lucky primary class, out the 16 of us 5 of us are in the same advance class (4 navy, 1 marine). Compared to those guys I was the low ball in primary with a 58 while the other 4 scored high 60's. Keeping what I was doing in perspective helped compete with my score and not them.
If on the contrary I was in a class that didn't score as well say low 40's as their final, if I only compared myself against them I would think I was doing great but compared to the average SNA it might be different and not qualify me for tailhook.
Some people didn't want to know and I understand that, but I like to know. So I try to keep myself informed on how I'm doing, I believe it helps me out.

 

[FLY_USMC]

Last time I listened to somebodies input on how to calculate my NSS based on my 1.XXX MIF score, it said I would finish with a 102, so take that shiat with a grain of salt. Looking back, you know if you're doing well based on the IP's impression of you. You KNOW if you you're the guy that sucks...everybody knows that guy....conversely you also know if you're the guy that IP's think is good. Use that as a judge of your performance. BTW, whoever said that IFS is used as an attrition program, get used to it. Attrition happens at all levels. It's ramped up to a max at the beginning....where the guy to your left and to your right is probably going to attrite...if not roll back...or whatever. If you remember you can ALWAYS attrite, your motivation will always be there. That goes for the RAG too....I like the story that one of the Blue Angel C-130 pilots from like 2 or 3 years ago attrited from the East Coast Hornet RAG. Tell me that guy didn't "think" he'd made it, and look what happened!

 

[FMRAM]

For the edifacation of us wannabes, what exacty is a MICROSIM?

 

[HokiePilot]

It is a MS Flight Simulator based training program with all of the Training planes in there that can be used to help prepare for a flight. I found it was really only useful for some of RIs.

 

[nugget81]

For the edifacation of us wannabes, what exacty is a MICROSIM?

 

[e6bflyer]

Thats debatable, I would say with preference. If you have your IFR rating than you don't have to do a couple blocks of sims (which is good), however those blocks are pretty easy and its a good way to make money on your NSS before the later RI flights bring it down.

Just my preference I liked doing sims instead of flights during RI's not because I have some sick obsession with punishing myself, but they graded better. And that "stopped the bleeding" of my ratio.

The one advantage I can see to flying before IFS is to get more experience with comms because you will sound retarded with readbacks and you will request things that make no sense.

This is sort of true, sort of not. The reason that accelerated studs tend to do so well is two fold. First, they generally don't suck as bad as most primary students because of previous experience (a PPL doesn't count). Second, they have less total graded items. If you look at the giant formula for NSS, total graded items makes up a big portion of the denominator. That said, the less TGI, the better students tend to do. Of course, if they are accelerated and suck at the same time, this doesn't hold true.
Most IP's realize that they are screwing kids by giving them MIF on the same maneuver in a block repeatedly when they don't have to grade it and it doesn't really help them out training wise to repeat the maneuver.
Non-accelerated studs need those early sims. They make lots of money GPA wise, but so does everyone else, so it is really a wash. True, it is hard to make money in the flights, but this is what separates the good from the average. If you can't fly instruments, you won't make it in Naval Aviation. Period. Even the dumbest helo pilot has to shoot an instrument approach at night in the weather. If you can't do it, you won't get winged.

 

[FLYTPAY]

Even the dumbest helo pilot has to shoot an instrument approach at night in the weather.

I'm sure there is at least a two-way tie for this title On the accelerated comment, e6bflyer hit the nail on the head. If you are fortunate enough to get to skip some of the instrument flights, you are better off skipping the LATTER instrument flights/sims. Make your $ when the MIF is 2. That being said, you will have a hella time flying a T-45 if you cannot fly instruments leaving the T-34.

 

[FLY_USMC]

While we're talking MIF, and since I can safely talk about MIF since I longer give an F what MIF is, I'm going to throw out my 2 cents. Don't care if it's right or wrong, seemed to hold true for my class, and many others I knew.

You'll love the title of my story, it's called, "Why you get jets out of Vance." Caveated with if you're a window licking ninny it won't help you.

Air Force land has the whole TIMS grading system thing, shows you your GPA after every flight, yada yada yada. Chair Force students care about one thing and one thing only, checkrides. They don't care how they do on daily flights because essentially they weigh in ZERO as to what they get. We have what, 4 checkrides in Primary? Fam(Contact), Form, Instrument, and something else. SSSSOOOO, the instructors on daily rides are pretty laid back on the grading, since they don't mean much, just preparing you for the Checkrides. BUUUTTT, they do mean something, to the Marines and the Navy folks. In fact, that's ALL that matters to them, checkrides don't count towards our NSS at Vance. So the instructors have absolutely no problem throwing out 5's(for those that know what I'm talking about) on daily flights. If you're good and perform a maneuver shit hot, after the first flight in the block, you WILL get above MIF and possibly a 4 or 5 for it. Remember when you were at Corpus and getting five to six 5's on a flight was shit hot? Well guess what, at Vance, I had entire flights with every graded event a 5. That's like forty-five to fifty 5's on ONE flight, get that anywhere else? I guarantee not. It wasn't common for every flight, but it did happen, and more than once.

So what I'm getting at, caveated with if you go to Vance and you SUCK I can't help you, if you go to Vance and are a quality product, you CAN have a smoking hot NSS.

It's all my opinion, take it or leave it. Bell curves, last 50 finished yada yada yada...bell curves only hurt you when your not the top 1%.

 

[Raptor2216]

Bell curves, last 50 finished yada yada yada...bell curves only hurt you when your not the top 1%.

Not entirely true because my NSS out of primary along with other guys who finished within a few weeks of me actually had points added to their NSS if the raw NSS was above the average. I went though with a bunch of rock star NSS'ers and I sure wasn't expecting to benefit from the whole addition/subtraction of points but I ended up having some points added to my raw NSS.

By the way, I did use the calculator off one of the gouge websites and it worked out my predicted NSS fairly close to the real one so it does work...give or take a few points. Outside of using calculators to determine my raw NSS, you still have to wait for the squadron to work the magic on the curve before you find out what you are really worth.

 

[FLY_USMC]

Not entirely true because my NSS out of primary along with other guys who finished within a few weeks of me actually had points added to their NSS if the raw NSS was above the average.

Out of my entire post that's all you have to comment on?! I was being sarcastic about the bell curve....it was sarcasm in advance to whomever challenged my theory with the old bell curve comeback.

I agree with you, finishing out of Primary, I got like 10 points added to my NSS thanks to Mr. Bellcurve....I also.....Got 6 points taken away from my NSS about a month prior to finishing by Mr. Bellcurve in Advanced. We had 4 rockstars graduate right before a bunch of us and literally what was one day XX was the next day XX-6 which blows.

So with IFS being more an attrition program now than it has been in the past... Is there a way SNAs should prepare for it

You WILL be surprised by the absolute retards you meet in IFS/API/Primary that somehow slip through the cracks. For any modern man all of the above requires the same hard work/determination you used to get where you are today in order to succeed. Do this, and you'll be fine. Unless, you are one of the afformentioned retards, in which case, everybody will be surprised to meet you, and you can only pray you slip through the cracks.

 

[UORBulldog]

Well if I had known about this Gleim test prep software I probably would have gotten it a couple weeks before I started IFS just so I wouldn't have had to cram so much in the 2weeks you get before the FAA test.