Navy vs Air Force

[Gatordev]

Ivgravy:

The Navy may have a small book (and to be honest, I have no idea what the AF book is), but the Navy has lots of them. For my HAC board, I was responsible for:

NATOPS
SOP
CV Natops
LHA Natops
NWP-3-04.1 (Small boy Natops)
OPNAV 3710 (the book I think you and Fly Navy are talking about)
TACMAN (which only has one volume...the P-3 guys have two and I don't want to think about what the pointy nose guys have)
WSM (Weapon Systems Manual)
Confidential WSM
Then there's all the right of passage, and fleet directives..oh yeah, and the TACAID. And that doesn't include the basic pilot stuff like "tail radial turn" or 5 different things you can do when you're cleared for the option (and so on).

I agree that the daily flight ops for the Navy are more dynamic, but this whole "my service is better than yours" thing is getting old. As a side note, even w/ the "fewer rules", guess who gets a lot of the violations? Helo LAMPS. Why? For a lot of the reasons that's been said here. We have these rules which tell us what we can't do, but we don't have big brother always controlling us like the HS and fighter guys. So that just means it's time to go play, and some take that too far.

 

[wink]

Since we have talked about training philosophies here let me address this "big book", "little book" thing. It is just an old expresion of operating philosophies and refers to no actual book, NATOPS, USAF dash 1 or other. Just as has been noted above with reference to the difference in training philosophies, there is an apparent, if not accepted difference in operating philosophies between the Navy and AF. The Navy tends to tell its crews what they can not do. That book is said to be "little". It is understood that everything else is permitted. If things don't go well then you better be able to justify your actions. This might be recognized as the well known leadership principle of command by negation. It has a historical basis in the old days of sail. A ship's commander left port with very general orders and was out of communication with his higher authority for months at a time. The commander took the action he felt necessary and answered for his actions on return to home port after a review of his seniors. The AF however is said to provide their crews with a book ("big" tho it may be) that lists only those operations that are permissable. If it ain't in the book, it isn't authorized. After 23 years in military aviation and one who has operated with the AF I can say that those are very fair generalizations of the two philosophies. Just reference the comments above regarding training. It appears very consistent to me. Just two different ways of operating. Again, I prefer the Navy way.

 

[kevin]

wink, i think you should write a book.

 

[TSPO]

But should he write a big one or little one?

 

[wink]

Little mind, little book!

 

[Gatordev]

Thanks Wink. You made my point, but in a much more eloquent and understandable manner.

 

[kevin]

see, you should write a book. maybe with an epilogue of your own personal military poetry.

 

[lvgravy]

When I was referring to "big book" "little book" I know it is just an expression and I was speaking metaphorically, I thought that was understood. When I am talking about the big book I am talking about the regulations and tech orders that govern AF flight. Since we are talking about books, the AF's big book includes;
-1, in-flight and reference
performance manual
-3
-9
11-2-----v1 through v3
11-202 v1 through v3
Flight crew bulletin
AP1 and a big ass bag of Flip
11-404
I think there are a couple more but I can't think of them off the top of my head now.

....and these are only the ones that are required for flight, there are still half a dozen other manuals we don't have to fly with; if you don't fly with the ones listed you bust. Granted this is from the tanker perspective, I can't speak for the other AF airframes, obviously fighters don't have room for these.

Just about any incident or any other occurrence is covered in the regulations, if it's not then it is pretty much up to the pilots discretion to handle the situation as he sees fit.
At home during training most flights are tightly governed but as a side note to the "big book" every thing is ultimately up to the pilot, especially when out on the road during business efforts, cornets, enroute to deployments, safty of flight or whatever. There isn't always a higher authority to tell crews what to do, so obviously the pilot has quite a bit of say as to what happens if it's not covered.

That's what I mean when I say it is hard to push the limits of the book, it encompasses so much that you would really have to go out of you way to push the limits of the book but it does happen. I hope this clarifies what I was trying to say.

I am not in a contest here trying to say one service is better than the other, why would I? I'm Navy all the way in October. I am just trying to give you my perspective from an AF crew member point of view...

 

[lvgravy]

By the way what is LAMPS?

 

[wink]

I hope gatordev gives you the authoritative answer, but from my perspective they are the do it all jack of all trades helo bubbas. LAMPS is Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System. They now fly SH-60s (model, gator dev?). They deploy on destroyers and cruisers, one or two aircraft dets. They can sink ships with missles, sink subs with torps, insert SEALs, pull your butt out of the water, shoot up "go fasts" (small boats armed with suicide bombers or crew served weapons)with .50 cals, transfer mail and personnel, etc. Did I forget anything gatordev? LAMPS, or HSL squadrons are also excellent opportunities to break out as a leader. The OIC of a detachment is usually a senior LT or more junior LCDR. They are responsible for the entire air operation, not the ship's CO. They are much like a squadron CO and mini airwing commnader (CAG) all in one. A lot of responsibility for a junior officer. Some guys really like the smaller ships over a CV also.

 

[lvgravy]

I know this is off the topic a bit....
That sounds like a really sweat mission, can you join a unit like that fresh out of training or do they like you to have quite a bit of experience first? What is the deployment rate like compared to other helo units?

 

[Vic]

WOW! What a waste of time!!

 

[wink]

You can select HSL right out of Helo advanced. I can't really say what the deployment rate is like now with the war on. It will probably be similar to the standard 6 month deployed and 12 month turn around and training cycle. Over to gatordev...

 

[contrail_dash]

What have I done? lol

Great post I think, thanks for all the feedback.

Just a quick story...

My old man trained back in 78-79 at Pensacola, flew helos in the CG for about 20 years, head of testing at Pax River for the HH-60J. Outstanding pilot. Anyways, he said that while he was in primary that he studied his butt off, and always studied ahead. There were many days when he did multiple flights. Basically instructors would walk up, ask anyone if they were ready to try the next flight and my old man would step up and say, I'll go, may not know everything, but whats the worst ya can do? Down me? (insert old man chuckle here). He loved training, loved flying, didn't like studying but ya had to do it. At the time, he said he was the fastest person to finish his helo training sylabus, and spent the last couple of weeks just getting extra stick time b'fore he headed to Mobile for Coastie training.

I guess the point is, no matter where you go study study study, and you'll do fine.

 

[Gatordev]

Contrail:

I like that approach. That was back in the days when you flew the UH-1, which would have been awesome.

Gravy:

The "annoyed" comment wasn't directed towards you. Sorry if it seemed that way. As for HSL...yeah, wink covered most of it. You can select HSL east or west out of flight school. You'll go to Mayport or San Diego and learn to fly and fight the -60B. One thing I think Wink left out was that the primary use for LAMPS is SSC, which is basically acting like an E-2C. When we deploy w/ a carrier, the E-2s have to get their beauty sleep, so from late till the morning, the HSL birds provide radar coverage.

When you're doing independent ops, then you go out and do the same thing, but for the ship you're on. I prefer being on the small boys. Sure there's lots of benefits to being on a carrier, but the crew on the small boys are more tightly knit, and you're pretty much the bottom of the barrel as a helo pilot on a carrier, as far as priority (well, except those S-3 guys

). I cruised on a frigate (imagine living in your closet, but sharing it w/ 2 others), and as pilots, you pretty much have the run of the ship. Sure, you have to play the shoe reindeer games, but it's not that bad...for being on a ship.

Deployments are kind of all over the place right now because of the war(s). Our squadron is even more of a weird one since we're kind of detached from the rest of the waterfront. The norm, though, is 6 months on and about 9 months or so till you do it again. The Japan guys are on a different plan all together, as they go out about 3 or 4 times in one tour, but their cruises are shorter.