The Monster COD thread (homage to the C-2A Greyhound)

[Dirty]

I've grown used to the sultry smell of polished turds, and I find the odor quite aromatic at this stage in life. I've got no desire to start tape/stop tape - Just drink beer, chomp my Viagra and hopefully enjoy perdiem and day traps. If not, who cares, it still beats the 9-5. Cumdumpster, keep your eyes on the prize, and as they say, this too shall pass.....

 

[Godspeed]

@ cumhumper, I think everyone on here who has been through the primary/pipeline selection process can attest to the fact that at times it can be a total crapshoot. Good grades are good, but that doesn't get you what you want all the time. Guys with better grades than I had have ended up getting their 2nd and maybe even 3rd choices, and are now or will be flying P-3's, helos, E-2's, C-2's, even Jets From all I have gathered thus far here in Tailhook land, it is even MORE of a crapshoot here...

Great advice; couldn't be more true... For the last 6 weeks (at least) Trawing 2 (Tailhook in Kingsville) hasn't received one SNA from the Primary squadrons (apparently they have been taking absolutely zero studs in Tailhook recently, unless they've been sending them all to Meridian)... Might have changed recently, but this was straight from STUCON....

The week I selected, an NSS in the low 50s (51 in one instance) was enough to get you Tailhook.... Two weeks before I selected, a kid with a 60 didn't get it. In my "experience" there are really only two ways you can have a 100% direct impact on your 'chances' of going tailhook....

1) Get an NSS at or above 50. If you have a 49, you are officially inelligible, despite the current needs of the NAVY.

2) Be an absolute rockstar in primary... When I say rockstar, I mean very high 60s, low 70s.... The only peeps i've seen in this range usually have thousands of hours of flight time (mostly instrument) in complex aircraft (yes, on a rare basis there are prodigal children that walk out of primary with these NSSs with no prior flight time). I've never heard of someone in this range getting turned down, despite current needs, but I suppose anything is possible.

The needs of the NAVY change on a weekly basis. You can't 'game' the system by finishing earlier or later or any of that BS.

Since most of us weren't 'rockstars' in primary, it's easy to say that doing your best is 50% of it... The other 50% is a function of pure luck.

My take anyhow.

 

[cmhumphr]

Thanks for all good advice. I will take it one step at a time, and focus on what needs to be done first.

 

[MIDNJAC]

In all honesty, even with hard work, grades in primary were at least 50% luck dependant on who you were scheduled with. In many cases in the sims, you could basically guess your grades very accurately simply by knowing who you were scheduled with. There were guys I flew with that I could count on giving me 4-5 "5"s every time w/o fail (provided I didn't f**k something away), and there were a few who would be hemming and hawing at even giving out one. Hard to make a very objective determination about this, but when you compare both of those gradesheets knowing full well that both hops were of equal quality, you will see what I mean. Around here (flight school that is), being prepared, studying and working hard, and even flying well does not always equal success.

 

[firefriendly]

Great advice; couldn't be more true... For the last 6 weeks (at least) Trawing 2 (Tailhook in Kingsville) hasn't received one SNA from the Primary squadrons (apparently they have been taking absolutely zero studs in Tailhook recently, unless they've been sending them all to Meridian)... Might have changed recently, but this was straight from STUCON.....

Meridian has been taking most lately, however Kingsville has just recently opened it up slightly, taking a couple studs the past few weeks. Tailhook (mainly Meridian) has been taking studs at a steady pace the past two months so nobody needs to start stressing. However, the guys selecting have been in the high 50's and low to mid 60s...

 

[insanebikerboy]

..I mean very high 60s, low 70s.... The only peeps i've seen in this range usually have thousands of hours of flight time (mostly instrument) in complex aircraft (yes, on a rare basis there are prodigal children that walk out of primary with these NSSs with no prior flight time). I've never heard of someone in this range getting turned down, despite current needs, but I suppose anything is possible.

It's happened before. It's the training pipeline, anything can happen.

 

[donmagicjuan]

2) Be an absolute rockstar in primary... When I say rockstar, I mean very high 60s, low 70s.... The only peeps i've seen in this range usually have thousands of hours of flight time (mostly instrument) in complex aircraft (yes, on a rare basis there are prodigal children that walk out of primary with these NSSs with no prior flight time). I've never heard of someone in this range getting turned down, despite current needs, but I suppose anything is possible.

prodigal : prodigy :: humid : humor?

 

[donmagicjuan]

In all honesty, even with hard work, grades in primary were at least 50% luck dependant on who you were scheduled with. In many cases in the sims, you could basically guess your grades very accurately simply by knowing who you were scheduled with. There were guys I flew with that I could count on giving me 4-5 "5"s every time w/o fail (provided I didn't f**k something away), and there were a few who would be hemming and hawing at even giving out one. Hard to make a very objective determination about this, but when you compare both of those gradesheets knowing full well that both hops were of equal quality, you will see what I mean. Around here (flight school that is), being prepared, studying and working hard, and even flying well does not always equal success.

I don't really agree with what you're saying. If anything, I would say the sim instructors (at Whiting) were more standardized in their grading than the squadron instructors (about whom I didn't have any complaints, either). Sure, some were a tad more generous than others, but I never saw the variances that you obviously did. If you truly saw a gross disparity between two particular instructors, then I hope you at least lit them up for it on the respective critique. I remember standardization being one of the specific areas asked about on the critiques that I completed at the end of primary.

Bottom line is if you're above average, your grades will reflect it. The only case you might have is the distinction between a 67 NSS and a 70, but really who cares at that point? The law of averages dictates that you will more than likely get a random enough sampling of instructors for the above discrepancies to even themselves out.

 

[MIDNJAC]

Bottom line is if you're above average, your grades will reflect it. The only case you might have is the distinction between a 67 NSS and a 70, but really who cares at that point? The law of averages dictates that you will more than likely get a random enough sampling of instructors for the above discrepancies to even themselves out.

Yes and no.....you will still be "above average" but the question is by how much. I knew guys who just had rough on-wings who didn't give good grades to anyone. They may have finished with "jet grades" but not by a very good margin, and IMHO through no fault of their own level of study or dedication to the progra. Maybe you guys at Whiting had a better level of standardization, but I think most of the people I have talked to who went through Corpus with me would tend to agree. Throw in an on-wing who is new and unfamiliar with the incredible grade inflation that is rampant these days w/ the MPTS system (in other words a guy who says 1 "5" is well above average), and maybe you can see what I mean. The system just isn't really what it claims to be in my opinion. I got out of it what I wanted, but I can see how others wouldn't have been so lucky, in the most literal sense of the word.

 

[donmagicjuan]

I'm not trying to argue that the system is perfect. There will always be subjectivity in any kind of performance-based evaluation, no matter how you slice it. It's an unfortunate characteristic of the program to which we all consent from day one. You also have to remember that your on-wing only contributes five graded flights out of 66 total (graded events) in the syllabus. I think I'd be pretty hard pressed to convince someone that my NSS would have differed by more than 3-4 points had I been one of the "unlucky" studs that pulled LT Mifmonster for his on-wing.

 

[MIDNJAC]

I'm not trying to argue that the system is perfect. There will always be subjectivity in any kind of performance-based evaluation, no matter how you slice it. It's an unfortunate characteristic of the program to which we all consent from day one. You also have to remember that your on-wing only contributes five graded flights out of 66 total (graded events) in the syllabus. I think I'd be pretty hard pressed to convince someone that my NSS would have differed by more than 3-4 points had I been one of the "unlucky" studs that pulled LT Mifmonster for his on-wing.

We probably aren't arguing very different points, although contacts are weighted pretty heavily, much like RI's are in terms of graded items (vs events). I guess my point is that it's not as much about subjectivity, as much as there is not a consistent standard between instructors about what is "above average" in terms of MIF for a given flight, and what isn't. On the flip side, I think it can really benefit some people as well....in fact that IMHO is more where the disparity lies.

 

[donmagicjuan]

I guess I just grew tired of the incessant "I got screwed by my on-wing" complaints that were so popular in primary. Some fellow studs have a real gift for rationalizing away their aeronautical ineptitude. Some of my best flights were with these alleged terrible graders.

I do agree that not every instructor grades exactly the same for a given level of performance, and that's part of the point I was driving at. It's another less than desirable factor that would be impossible to eliminate from the process. Based on the feedback requests regarding standardization on the critiques, though, it's evident that the squadrons are at least making some effort to mitigate it. But if you don't write it up and cite specific instructors/dates, it becomes a lost cause.

 

[Beans]

Some fellow studs have a real gift for rationalizing away their aeronautical ineptitude.

Hopefully your aeronautically inept peers (do you consider them that?) have ascended to your level when the time comes for one of them to pluck your superior arse out of the drink some day.

MPTS needs a defender, but try to keep it objective, please. That's the goal of MPTS, anyway.

 

[donmagicjuan]

Not how I was trying to come across, but point taken. It was an exaggeration. No offense intended. And in the beginning, yes, we're all inept to varying degrees.

Obviously if you do well enough to make it through the program, you've proven your capabilities. It just seems people often look for reasons other than themselves to explain why they didn't do as well as they had hoped.

 

[bunk22]

Just wanted to toot my own horn with regards to the C-2. My old helmet from my COD days is now on display in the VAW/VRC Museum Ready Room on the USS Midway. That's right, the Bunk will live forever.....well, until they take it down. It has VRC-30 and the DET-2 image, the det in which I was OIC for a deployment and a half. Not a great pic but that's all I've got for now.