PRELIM: For those who don't like waiting to class up, go Corpus. Definitely less to do there than in Pensacola, but the town really grew on me over time. The 4-5 week wait to class up in Corpus as opposed to the 6 month wait in Pensacola for primary was also a massive draw. Those time frames for classing up are still approximately valid as of last week and didn't change much for anyone I knew during my time in primary. All I know is that I finished primary at the same time my friends who were in Pensacola had their first flight. Your experience may vary.
PRE CLASS UP: Upon arrival to TW4 be prepared to run a PRT the week you arrive. Your experience may vary, but we did one as part of our check in. Muster is in person daily, so I recommend getting a stash job if you want to avoid the daily muster. OPS stash and FITU stash are both great opportunities to understand how things work in the squadrons before classing up. I also recommend going to the simulator building to work inside the static trainers on basic checklists, and learning your EP's and N/W/C in this timeframe so you have more time in ground school to study. Also make sure you get your flight line driver card certification before you class up so it doesn't eat into sim/study time.
CLASS UP / GROUND SCHOOL: I was put into VT-27. The tests are all gouged up, study the gouge and study with friends and you really won't have any issues. Fairly basic systems and course rules briefs and tests, as well as a few briefs from the AMSO. Considerably easier than NIFE in all aspects. You will also get fitted for your harness and G-suit in this time frame. Be verbal if it doesn't fit comfortably during the fitting as it was a hassle to get mine corrected later on. Study for the first couple of sims during this time frame as you can be opted for them the day after ground school.
CONTACTS: You will do the fairly basic checklist and EP sims immediately after ground school. You should be able to do the checklists quick enough that there is no significant pause between steps. This becomes more important later on, because in the summer the IP in the back really wants that AC turned on and your slowness to get that on won't do you any favors. Make sure you know the discussion items well enough to talk about them for the entire scheduled brief time; unlike NIFE most of my briefs were not a conversation and were just plain regurgitation of material followed by various questions from the instructor. If you really want to stand out, memorize the N/W/C, this will reflect on your general knowledge and EP grades. Remember that you make or break your NSS in each stage when the MIF is low, so you have to stand out early and often in all events with low MIF. After these basic sims you begin basic RI sims. I recommend prof-sitting each of these events several times in the UTDS as this is the first time your ability to fly the plane and perform maneuvers will be graded. MIF is also super low for this stage. You NEED to crush these early sims and flights to do well, I cannot stress that enough. After these sims you go to the landing pattern sims. Based on squadron loading, you may repeat this sim several times over a week or two before your first fam flight. Practice your basic contact maneuvers through profits or vr sleds whenever you can, and start working your nations brief. I cannot overstate how valuable being able to spit out your natops brief very quickly is, I'll touch on that again later on.
At this point, you should be assigned an on-wing. Text them to find out their expectations, as each on-wing may have specific requirements for their students. Practice the aircraft walk around and go to maintenance to check out the FAM0 book to learn about the different sections. I was quizzed on the discrepancy book on my first event with my on-wing, and he was impressed me and my on-wing partner knew what was in it. Make sure your boots are shined and you stand up when the instructor enters the briefing space. At this point, you should have your Natops brief down cold, like auctioneer speech cold. The difference between a student who takes 20 minutes deliver the brief while the IP looks sadly down as opposed to a student who takes 7 minutes is very obvious and quickly shows who is generally prepared and who isn't. It is the first interaction you have with each IP for each flight so really kill the Natops brief in record speed.
The first block of flights does not count against your NSS, try to relax and get as familiar and comfortable in the plane as you can while coming prepared for all the briefing items. After FAM block you move on to PEL and crosswind sims, I personally found that practicing in the VR sleds helped me get the procedures down well (although executing them in the plane was not as easy). After these you do your 4200 block, its similar to the FAM flights, but all flights count towards your NSS, and you are being evaluated for TAP. It is incredibly important to do well in this phase and to try to pate the 4205 flight if you care about your contact NSS. MIF is low compared to the follow on blocks, and you can potentially skip a flight if you can manage to PATE 4205. There are a lot of systems briefs in this block, I found that printing an unlabeled system chart and naming and explaining each part for the brief was a great way to flex knowledge. You should know all associated EPs for the system and be familiar enough with the N/W/C to answer questions about the chart. After the 4200 block you go on to the aero sim, know your parameters for each aero maneuver. I personally thought doing aero in the plane was a lot easier than in the sim. In the 4300 block, you get to do aero. MIF is higher for everything except aero, so really try to nail down those maneuvers. The next block has a PATE-able flight and a potential tap flight. To skip 4202/03 you need to be on TAP, and complete every maneuver for the block in one flight, as well as the SSRs. If you can manage to skip two of these flights where MIF is very high, it will greatly impact your final NSS.
After these flights is the check ride. I practiced the entire profile many times in the VR sleds. I'll be honest, my check ride was probably one of, if not my worst flight of all primary. My brief was solid but my flying was garbage. I think I was just super nervous, I messed up a variety of things and made a LOT of stupid mistakes I hadn't made before. None of them were quite safety of flight, but I was seriously wondering if I had passed after landing. Luckily I was pass/complete and onto the solo. The solo was awesome. I was stuck with the Shammy 500 because of weather, but flying by myself was a huge confidence booster. Enjoy it.
INSTRUMENTS: Ground School for instruments had just been redesigned when I went through, so there wasn't gouge yet for this iteration. Three of the tests were fine, but there was one rather poorly written test a couple people in our class failed, and several more in each of the following classes which was unheard of previously. I think it has been changed since because I didn't hear about any more failures from friends a few months later. I personally found the FTI to be more valuable than the classroom instruction for understanding instruments. Myself and my owning partner sat down one Saturday and read the whole thing out loud over 4 hours to get a good grasp on what was going on. I really recommend this approach because I was still rather confused after ground school, and having written procedures for everything was easier to study. After ground school the basic instrument sims were really easy, and the sim instructors were very helpful. You will do basic holding, and point to points, along with a few other basic maneuvers. The instructors recommended something called the riot trainer to practice for these, but I personally found the vr sleds to be better suited for practice.
Following these the real fun begins when you start doing instrument approach sims. Again, MIF is low in these early blocks, so really get those 4s, and 5s when MIF is 2s and 3s. The discuss items for this block are not a joke, there is a lot to each item and many discuss items in each event, so hit the studying hard. As far as prep for each event, I would do a jet log and a 1801 for each. While not required in this block, they will be for follow on instrument flights and sims, so having them graded for free now helps catch stupid errors and shows motivation. As far as the actual event, because the entire instrument profile with approaches are listed on a sheet in the sim bay, profsits are a perfect way to become familiar with each event and practice it several times. With profsits the events become rather easy as you have seen them once or twice before and know the flow. The only hard part about this block was my squadron mandated the use of paper pubs only for the first block of flights and sims (no foreflight), so you had to find what you marked in the paper pubs to get your approach plate, wx mins, or named arrival.
After this block of six sims are the first four instrument flights. MIF is low, and if you were recommended for TAP in contacts, you had to get another recommendation in this block of Instrument flights to be on the program for the instrument phase. Text your IP the night before with a potential plan so you can bring in a filled out 1801 and jet log to the brief, and mark the paper pubs with planned and backup approaches so you don't have to search for them while flying. The flights were conducted as out and ins, and the IPs were very much food motivated. I didn't have an instrument out and in where the IP didn't change or pick a plan based on the food at the location. I very much recommend going to college station by the way of Victoria. Victoria almost never had traffic and the approaches were very straightforward, so I highly recommend knocking out your approaches at KVCT before full stopping at College Station. College station has a special room set up for military, which was the nicest one I have seen so far, and gave out food passes to a fantastic restaurant right on the flightline. 10/10 would recommend. I got recommended for TAP again in this phase and went back to the next block of sims.
The next block of sims is rather similar to the previous block with the exception of the FMS, and the fact we could now use foreflight and bring paper pubs as backups. The FMS was surprisingly user friendly. I recommend practicing inputting the flight plan before each event so you don't spend 15 minutes trying to get it set up in the sim. The 1801s and jet logs are graded in this block. Half the time the sim instructors didn't even look at them, and hold the time they would go over it with a fine tooth comb, so make sure it is done according to the workbook you were issued in ground school. Besides these items, the events follow the published flow as per the profile sheet in the sim bay, so you should have already practiced these in vr sleds or profsits. Easy block of sims IMHO.
After this block of sims are the final two instrument sims. They are conducted as an out and in, and the jet logs and 1801 reflect this. The only new item in this block is circling to land at night. This was actually not too easy in the sim due to the projectors, and the only hard part of either event.
After this are the final two blocks of instrument flights followed by the check ride. If you were on TAP and PATE, you can skip over HALF of the flights in these blocks, which will work wonders for your NSS as MIF has risen to mostly 4s. If you PATE only, you can still skip two flights in the 4300 block. These flights are typically scheduled as cross countries. I got to go to San Diego with my on-wing, which we did in 3 flight blocks there and back. I struggled with comms, which put me behind the plane in the terminal areas, they were by far the hardest part of all instruments. I actually didn't get to TAP all my flights because my first couple of flights really sucked, which was more than fair. Even though I sucked on cross country, I learned a lot. It's valuable experience, but being out of the local area was a lot more difficult. Because I sucked on my CCX I had to do another flight before my check ride back in Corpus.
The instrument check was very easy, the local area was a breeze and the IP was a chiller.
NAV: The ground school for nav takes place during instrument ground school. Very gouged out, very easy. The two nav sims are done according to the class you take in ground school. You make the charts just like the ground school and FTI instruct and follow the techniques they give you to hit your checkpoints on time. Make sure your chart is in date for the sim, and that you bring the current notams and wx just like the sim sheet instructs. One small tricky thing is that you have to do a PEL in both sims, so re-read that section of contacts from several months back so you don't get to it and forget how to fly it. The nav flights are typically done on cross country. I did mine as my third and sixth flight. Your experience may vary, but IPs typically treat the NAV flights as more of a demo from mine and other student's experiences. Some IPs do a 5-minute demo, and then go do aero for the remainder, others treat is as a normal out and in. Again, you may get an IP that wants you to fly exactly what you charted out by the book, so be ready to do it but don't stress out over it.
FORMS: Honestly the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. Ground school is easy and the test is easy, done over only one day of in person training. The single sim teaches you what to look for in terms of checkpoints. The hard part is learning a whole new Natops brief that is longer than the normal one, and getting lots of hand signal practice in with your forms partner. If you get any time off in before forms, get the brief down cold. Being able to rattle it off accurately shows professionalism and puts you ahead of the crowd. Having course rules and hand signals down with your forms partner down cold too will help you do well. These flights were rather straightforward, the hardest part was constantly being sucked in relation to the other T6, I was definitely having issues getting comfortable being so close to another aircraft. After a few flights getting closer got easier, and it was really just pure fun. As far as the solo, I was on DET for forms so it was a shotgun solo with an IP in the back. This phase was a ton of fun, and I loved every minute of it, my forms parter was equally motivated and he rocked.
SUMMARY:
Primary was stressful, but very useful training. Come prepared to every event on time with the right discuss items and in the right uniform and it will be hard to have a bad day. I was fortunate enough to do well and get my first choice out of primary, and am currently waiting to class up. VT-27 was a fantastic squadron, I loved my time there. The IPs were great, and the students were close. If I could do it again, I wouldn't do it any other way; Corpus was the play for sure. If you have any questions, feel free to dm me, would be happy to help.
PRE CLASS UP: Upon arrival to TW4 be prepared to run a PRT the week you arrive. Your experience may vary, but we did one as part of our check in. Muster is in person daily, so I recommend getting a stash job if you want to avoid the daily muster. OPS stash and FITU stash are both great opportunities to understand how things work in the squadrons before classing up. I also recommend going to the simulator building to work inside the static trainers on basic checklists, and learning your EP's and N/W/C in this timeframe so you have more time in ground school to study. Also make sure you get your flight line driver card certification before you class up so it doesn't eat into sim/study time.
CLASS UP / GROUND SCHOOL: I was put into VT-27. The tests are all gouged up, study the gouge and study with friends and you really won't have any issues. Fairly basic systems and course rules briefs and tests, as well as a few briefs from the AMSO. Considerably easier than NIFE in all aspects. You will also get fitted for your harness and G-suit in this time frame. Be verbal if it doesn't fit comfortably during the fitting as it was a hassle to get mine corrected later on. Study for the first couple of sims during this time frame as you can be opted for them the day after ground school.
CONTACTS: You will do the fairly basic checklist and EP sims immediately after ground school. You should be able to do the checklists quick enough that there is no significant pause between steps. This becomes more important later on, because in the summer the IP in the back really wants that AC turned on and your slowness to get that on won't do you any favors. Make sure you know the discussion items well enough to talk about them for the entire scheduled brief time; unlike NIFE most of my briefs were not a conversation and were just plain regurgitation of material followed by various questions from the instructor. If you really want to stand out, memorize the N/W/C, this will reflect on your general knowledge and EP grades. Remember that you make or break your NSS in each stage when the MIF is low, so you have to stand out early and often in all events with low MIF. After these basic sims you begin basic RI sims. I recommend prof-sitting each of these events several times in the UTDS as this is the first time your ability to fly the plane and perform maneuvers will be graded. MIF is also super low for this stage. You NEED to crush these early sims and flights to do well, I cannot stress that enough. After these sims you go to the landing pattern sims. Based on squadron loading, you may repeat this sim several times over a week or two before your first fam flight. Practice your basic contact maneuvers through profits or vr sleds whenever you can, and start working your nations brief. I cannot overstate how valuable being able to spit out your natops brief very quickly is, I'll touch on that again later on.
At this point, you should be assigned an on-wing. Text them to find out their expectations, as each on-wing may have specific requirements for their students. Practice the aircraft walk around and go to maintenance to check out the FAM0 book to learn about the different sections. I was quizzed on the discrepancy book on my first event with my on-wing, and he was impressed me and my on-wing partner knew what was in it. Make sure your boots are shined and you stand up when the instructor enters the briefing space. At this point, you should have your Natops brief down cold, like auctioneer speech cold. The difference between a student who takes 20 minutes deliver the brief while the IP looks sadly down as opposed to a student who takes 7 minutes is very obvious and quickly shows who is generally prepared and who isn't. It is the first interaction you have with each IP for each flight so really kill the Natops brief in record speed.
The first block of flights does not count against your NSS, try to relax and get as familiar and comfortable in the plane as you can while coming prepared for all the briefing items. After FAM block you move on to PEL and crosswind sims, I personally found that practicing in the VR sleds helped me get the procedures down well (although executing them in the plane was not as easy). After these you do your 4200 block, its similar to the FAM flights, but all flights count towards your NSS, and you are being evaluated for TAP. It is incredibly important to do well in this phase and to try to pate the 4205 flight if you care about your contact NSS. MIF is low compared to the follow on blocks, and you can potentially skip a flight if you can manage to PATE 4205. There are a lot of systems briefs in this block, I found that printing an unlabeled system chart and naming and explaining each part for the brief was a great way to flex knowledge. You should know all associated EPs for the system and be familiar enough with the N/W/C to answer questions about the chart. After the 4200 block you go on to the aero sim, know your parameters for each aero maneuver. I personally thought doing aero in the plane was a lot easier than in the sim. In the 4300 block, you get to do aero. MIF is higher for everything except aero, so really try to nail down those maneuvers. The next block has a PATE-able flight and a potential tap flight. To skip 4202/03 you need to be on TAP, and complete every maneuver for the block in one flight, as well as the SSRs. If you can manage to skip two of these flights where MIF is very high, it will greatly impact your final NSS.
After these flights is the check ride. I practiced the entire profile many times in the VR sleds. I'll be honest, my check ride was probably one of, if not my worst flight of all primary. My brief was solid but my flying was garbage. I think I was just super nervous, I messed up a variety of things and made a LOT of stupid mistakes I hadn't made before. None of them were quite safety of flight, but I was seriously wondering if I had passed after landing. Luckily I was pass/complete and onto the solo. The solo was awesome. I was stuck with the Shammy 500 because of weather, but flying by myself was a huge confidence booster. Enjoy it.
INSTRUMENTS: Ground School for instruments had just been redesigned when I went through, so there wasn't gouge yet for this iteration. Three of the tests were fine, but there was one rather poorly written test a couple people in our class failed, and several more in each of the following classes which was unheard of previously. I think it has been changed since because I didn't hear about any more failures from friends a few months later. I personally found the FTI to be more valuable than the classroom instruction for understanding instruments. Myself and my owning partner sat down one Saturday and read the whole thing out loud over 4 hours to get a good grasp on what was going on. I really recommend this approach because I was still rather confused after ground school, and having written procedures for everything was easier to study. After ground school the basic instrument sims were really easy, and the sim instructors were very helpful. You will do basic holding, and point to points, along with a few other basic maneuvers. The instructors recommended something called the riot trainer to practice for these, but I personally found the vr sleds to be better suited for practice.
Following these the real fun begins when you start doing instrument approach sims. Again, MIF is low in these early blocks, so really get those 4s, and 5s when MIF is 2s and 3s. The discuss items for this block are not a joke, there is a lot to each item and many discuss items in each event, so hit the studying hard. As far as prep for each event, I would do a jet log and a 1801 for each. While not required in this block, they will be for follow on instrument flights and sims, so having them graded for free now helps catch stupid errors and shows motivation. As far as the actual event, because the entire instrument profile with approaches are listed on a sheet in the sim bay, profsits are a perfect way to become familiar with each event and practice it several times. With profsits the events become rather easy as you have seen them once or twice before and know the flow. The only hard part about this block was my squadron mandated the use of paper pubs only for the first block of flights and sims (no foreflight), so you had to find what you marked in the paper pubs to get your approach plate, wx mins, or named arrival.
After this block of six sims are the first four instrument flights. MIF is low, and if you were recommended for TAP in contacts, you had to get another recommendation in this block of Instrument flights to be on the program for the instrument phase. Text your IP the night before with a potential plan so you can bring in a filled out 1801 and jet log to the brief, and mark the paper pubs with planned and backup approaches so you don't have to search for them while flying. The flights were conducted as out and ins, and the IPs were very much food motivated. I didn't have an instrument out and in where the IP didn't change or pick a plan based on the food at the location. I very much recommend going to college station by the way of Victoria. Victoria almost never had traffic and the approaches were very straightforward, so I highly recommend knocking out your approaches at KVCT before full stopping at College Station. College station has a special room set up for military, which was the nicest one I have seen so far, and gave out food passes to a fantastic restaurant right on the flightline. 10/10 would recommend. I got recommended for TAP again in this phase and went back to the next block of sims.
The next block of sims is rather similar to the previous block with the exception of the FMS, and the fact we could now use foreflight and bring paper pubs as backups. The FMS was surprisingly user friendly. I recommend practicing inputting the flight plan before each event so you don't spend 15 minutes trying to get it set up in the sim. The 1801s and jet logs are graded in this block. Half the time the sim instructors didn't even look at them, and hold the time they would go over it with a fine tooth comb, so make sure it is done according to the workbook you were issued in ground school. Besides these items, the events follow the published flow as per the profile sheet in the sim bay, so you should have already practiced these in vr sleds or profsits. Easy block of sims IMHO.
After this block of sims are the final two instrument sims. They are conducted as an out and in, and the jet logs and 1801 reflect this. The only new item in this block is circling to land at night. This was actually not too easy in the sim due to the projectors, and the only hard part of either event.
After this are the final two blocks of instrument flights followed by the check ride. If you were on TAP and PATE, you can skip over HALF of the flights in these blocks, which will work wonders for your NSS as MIF has risen to mostly 4s. If you PATE only, you can still skip two flights in the 4300 block. These flights are typically scheduled as cross countries. I got to go to San Diego with my on-wing, which we did in 3 flight blocks there and back. I struggled with comms, which put me behind the plane in the terminal areas, they were by far the hardest part of all instruments. I actually didn't get to TAP all my flights because my first couple of flights really sucked, which was more than fair. Even though I sucked on cross country, I learned a lot. It's valuable experience, but being out of the local area was a lot more difficult. Because I sucked on my CCX I had to do another flight before my check ride back in Corpus.
The instrument check was very easy, the local area was a breeze and the IP was a chiller.
NAV: The ground school for nav takes place during instrument ground school. Very gouged out, very easy. The two nav sims are done according to the class you take in ground school. You make the charts just like the ground school and FTI instruct and follow the techniques they give you to hit your checkpoints on time. Make sure your chart is in date for the sim, and that you bring the current notams and wx just like the sim sheet instructs. One small tricky thing is that you have to do a PEL in both sims, so re-read that section of contacts from several months back so you don't get to it and forget how to fly it. The nav flights are typically done on cross country. I did mine as my third and sixth flight. Your experience may vary, but IPs typically treat the NAV flights as more of a demo from mine and other student's experiences. Some IPs do a 5-minute demo, and then go do aero for the remainder, others treat is as a normal out and in. Again, you may get an IP that wants you to fly exactly what you charted out by the book, so be ready to do it but don't stress out over it.
FORMS: Honestly the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. Ground school is easy and the test is easy, done over only one day of in person training. The single sim teaches you what to look for in terms of checkpoints. The hard part is learning a whole new Natops brief that is longer than the normal one, and getting lots of hand signal practice in with your forms partner. If you get any time off in before forms, get the brief down cold. Being able to rattle it off accurately shows professionalism and puts you ahead of the crowd. Having course rules and hand signals down with your forms partner down cold too will help you do well. These flights were rather straightforward, the hardest part was constantly being sucked in relation to the other T6, I was definitely having issues getting comfortable being so close to another aircraft. After a few flights getting closer got easier, and it was really just pure fun. As far as the solo, I was on DET for forms so it was a shotgun solo with an IP in the back. This phase was a ton of fun, and I loved every minute of it, my forms parter was equally motivated and he rocked.
SUMMARY:
Primary was stressful, but very useful training. Come prepared to every event on time with the right discuss items and in the right uniform and it will be hard to have a bad day. I was fortunate enough to do well and get my first choice out of primary, and am currently waiting to class up. VT-27 was a fantastic squadron, I loved my time there. The IPs were great, and the students were close. If I could do it again, I wouldn't do it any other way; Corpus was the play for sure. If you have any questions, feel free to dm me, would be happy to help.
