Current SNA at Kingsville - Send Questions

[PMPT]

For anyone else reading this, do not get discouraged by this guy's NSS. It's in a very high percentile range. I had a much lower NSS and got selected for NASK.

Also as far as foreflight, IPs were issued tablets recently. But I finished primary a month ago but no word was given about students using it. Would be nice though because it would be a money saver.

edit: just my two cents on having a PPL with 130ish hours coming into primary. Primary and API/NIFE does a really good job teaching you EVERYTHING you need to know. I haven't flown a Cessna in over 3 years in my first T-6 flight. I was kinda rusty but what probably set me from students was mostly the confidence factor.

To clarify as well. I had no prior flight time. Maybe an intro flight and a lesson here or there but I had no ratings nor had I ever really done more than have a CFI demo a few things to me. So you can go from zero absolutely. Looking back in hindsight though, I do wish I had had more exposure to aviation. Would have made my life a bit easier, but it is what it is.

Sucks about the foreflight thing. TW1/2 Studs can now use ipads from day 1 as of january. In any case the FMS in the T-6 is great, that nav page is an absurd SA builder, and the cockpit lighting is much better than the shitty T-45 anyways.

 

[Treetop Flyer]

This is an age old debate. You’re not supposed to worry about grades but everyone does. In primary my onwing kept telling me I was doing well and I felt pretty good about how I was performing. At the end of contacts I compared grades with my roommates and realized I was not at all on track to select what I wanted. I worked a lot harder and by crushing instrument sims I wound up with jet grades.

You’re supposed to always give 100% but it’s not that realistic. It’s human nature to wonder how you’re doing compared to others in a competitive environment.

 

[PMPT]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Back in the day, I had a classmate in Meridian and 129 who was a CFI and had flown bizjets pre-Navy. He beat me NSS-wise in Phase 1. I beat him NSS-wise in Phase 2, I think I got more bombing Es, and we could BFM each other to a draw, as much as being able to do that in SNA land meant anything (cosmically, basically nil, but bragging rights are fun at any skill level, right?).

Of course, in the end, he still figured out how to CQ in the Big Jammer and it kicked my ass, hence the three anchors . . . no HUD back then, let alone PLM PFM . . .

So did you have to go back and redo NFO training or something? or did they just say well yes you are a naval aviator but you didn't CQ in the prowler, so you'll just become an ECMO? Crikey.

 

[nittany03]

So did you have to go back and redo NFO training or something? or did they just say well yes you are a naval aviator but you didn't CQ in the prowler, so you'll just become an ECMO? Crikey.

I went back to Pensacola. There was a bit of hemming and hawing and head-scratching when I showed up to CTW-6, on the order of "he did what and what, and you want us to do what?" There was some sort of staff pow-wow, and the result was I skipped straight to 86 and went through the whole syllabus. T-39s were actually still good training; the pilot side didn't do anything near to the level of pure clock-chart-ground-radar combined instrument/visual nav they used to put you through in T-39s. I'm sure I had an advantage experience-wise, but it was still no walk in the park, and it made me a better aviator.

The silliness was T-45s. This was before the T-45 sims were up and running in P-Cola, so we went TAD to . . . yep, Meridian, where the instructors still remembered me. I had a 200-odd-hour head start, and the sim instructors were all basically like "this is a joke. Why are you making him do this again? If you make us waste time giving him entry-level T-45 flights, we're paying you back by giving him all 5s and 4s." And they did. @Gonzo08 was a bit behind me, and has always and will probably always continue to give me a raft of shit for crushing the NSS curve. Not because I was Chuck Yeager . . . I'd just seen it all before!

Same story at the Prowler RAG . . . but then you hit the fleet, and all bets are off, because you're still an FNG that hasn't seen the Fleet and doesn't know shit. If you look at my post history, this is why I get torqued off about golden children. Because I've been the ace of the base, the anchorman, and everything in between, and in completely random order. So I look down on folks who look down on other people because of their GPAs. And I especially look down on so-called "instructors" who got a few EP FITREPs and so they want to sit in an ivory tower, evaluate, and not get their hands dirty and teach. Most aren't like that, but some are, and one is too many.

But now I'm a civilian techie and a reservist staff weenie whose flying days are behind him, so it's all ancient history.

 

[nittany03]

This is an age old debate. You’re not supposed to worry about grades but everyone does. In primary my onwing kept telling me I was doing well and I felt pretty good about how I was performing. At the end of contacts I compared grades with my roommates and realized I was not at all on track to select what I wanted. I worked a lot harder and by crushing instrument sims I wound up with jet grades.

You’re supposed to always give 100% but it’s not that realistic. It’s human nature to wonder how you’re doing compared to others in a competitive environment.

So much of this. I did Primary on the MPTS syllabus that's like what they use now, and T-45s under the old above/below system. In Primary, I ignored my grades because I knew at the time "Pass/Complete" was the gateway to advanced, and I thought I'd get in my own head otherwise. In Advanced, straight "average" was I think a raw score of 1.0, and you got credit for each "above." But a 2-above flight was a rare achievement, and straight "average" was the road to attrition, because you had to be within a certain standard deviation of the mean at the end of each stage and phase. So you needed to know how many "aboves" you needed in each phase (BIs, RIs, FAMs, FORMs, etc.) to keep your head above water.

So I had a similar story to @Treetop Flyer in Advanced, where my onwing was telling me throughout the beginning of Phase 1 that I was on track and fine. Yeah . . . no, he was new and clueless. Simultaneously, the civilian admin clerk in STUCON was more interested in how many pilots she could fuck than actually doing her job (no . . . I never did. Hell, maybe it would have helped. ) I got an end-of-stage "marginal" at the end of I think FORMs. Oh, crap. Not good, but manageable. Three of those equaled one "down," and 2-3 downs was the road to attrition. Then magically, STUCON thot started doing her job or something, and two more blue folders showed up for RIs and FAMs, which I'd finished months ago. So congrats . . . there's your one pink sheet out of like 2-3 you're allowed, and you didn't even know because our staff wasn't doing their job and running reports when you finished a phase! And I was so far behind that I basically had to eat an end-of-PHASE marginal at the end of Phase 1 . . . which I think counted as another down.

Long story short, I dragged a 28 NSS up through the rest of that syllabus to get winged, but holy crap. I sure would have reached out for help sooner if I'd known I was in trouble. Know the game and know the score; don't rely on your instructors to do it for you.

In retrospect, the comedy in this whole thing was when the instructors discovered my situation and fired this bitch for not doing her job. STUCON was a ridiculous blizzard of paper for like a week, as they all went through everyone's ATJ with a fine-toothed comb to find what else she screwed up. I think a few people got bit, but not nearly to the level I did.

 

[Swanee]

I went back to Pensacola. There was a bit of hemming and hawing and head-scratching when I showed up to CTW-6, on the order of "he did what and what, and you want us to do what?" There was some sort of staff pow-wow, and the result was I skipped straight to 86 and went through the whole syllabus. T-39s were actually still good training; the pilot side didn't do anything near to the level of pure clock-chart-ground-radar combined instrument/visual nav they used to put you through in T-39s. I'm sure I had an advantage experience-wise, but it was still no walk in the park, and it made me a better aviator.

The silliness was T-45s. This was before the T-45 sims were up and running in P-Cola, so we went TAD to . . . yep, Meridian, where the instructors still remembered me. I had a 200-odd-hour head start, and the sim instructors were all basically like "this is a joke. Why are you making him do this again? If you make us waste time giving him entry-level T-45 flights, we're paying you back by giving him all 5s and 4s." And they did. @Gonzo08 was a bit behind me, and has always and will probably always continue to give me a raft of shit for crushing the NSS curve. Not because I was Chuck Yeager . . . I'd just seen it all before!

Same story at the Prowler RAG . . . but then you hit the fleet, and all bets are off, because you're still an FNG that hasn't seen the Fleet and doesn't know shit. If you look at my post history, this is why I get torqued off about golden children. Because I've been the ace of the base, the anchorman, and everything in between, and in completely random order. So I look down on folks who look down on other people because of their GPAs. And I especially look down on so-called "instructors" who got a few EP FITREPs and so they want to sit in an ivory tower, evaluate, and not get their hands dirty and teach. Most aren't like that, but some are, and one is too many.

But now I'm a civilian techie and a reservist staff weenie whose flying days are behind him, so it's all ancient history.

Something similar happened to a buddy of mine- couldn't hover a Harrier to save his life. Prowler CO of MAG-14 tried to work some magic so he could go the Prowler community. It would have been fairly easy, he would have stayed in the MAG. But this is when Dog Davis was the DC(A) and to him any pilot who had troubles was trash, and would never be trusted again signing for an airplane that said "MARINES" on the side of it.

To spite him, he gave him the offer to go ECMO, which my buddy took. But he had to go through the entire NFO syllabus. Needless to say, he was very popular with the instructors and had a pretty easy go of it.

He then promptly got out asap.

 

[nittany03]

Something similar happened to a buddy of mine- couldn't hover a Harrier to save his life. Prowler CO of MAG-14 tried to work some magic so he could go the Prowler community. It would have been fairly easy, he would have stayed in the MAG. But this is when Dog Davis was the DC(A) and to him any pilot who had troubles was trash, and would never be trusted again signing for an airplane that said "MARINES" on the side of it.

To spite him, he gave him the offer to go ECMO, which my buddy took. But he had to go through the entire NFO syllabus. Needless to say, he was very popular with the instructors and had a pretty easy go of it.

He then promptly got out asap.

Yeah, don't know how the Corps does it, but I had 8.5 years of Not Observed FITREPs by the end of that saga . . . which is why I'm a SELRES now. Was a complete dead man walking for active component promotion.

 

[MIDNJAC]

The silliness was T-45s. This was before the T-45 sims were up and running in P-Cola, so we went TAD to . . . yep, Meridian, where the instructors still remembered me. I had a 200-odd-hour head start, and the sim instructors were all basically like "this is a joke. Why are you making him do this again? If you make us waste time giving him entry-level T-45 flights, we're paying you back by giving him all 5s and 4s." And they did. @Gonzo08 was a bit behind me, and has always and will probably always continue to give me a raft of shit for crushing the NSS curve. Not because I was Chuck Yeager . . . I'd just seen it all before!

Hah, I remember meeting you in the sim ready/study room when I was in VT-7 and you were coming back through on said gong show. Must have been surreal

 

[nittany03]

Hah, I remember meeting you in the sim ready/study room when I was in VT-7 and you were coming back through on said gong show. Must have been surreal

"Surreal" was when Bert the Yeller poked his head in to pick up an SNA stud (he was banned from the SNFOs), looked over at me, and just said "heard you were back." ?

 

[MIDNJAC]

"Surreal" was when Bert the Yeller poked his head in to pick up an SNA stud (he was banned from the SNFOs), looked over at me, and just said "heard you were back." ?

haha sounds about right. I remember the first sim I had with him, there was no question that it was brief time as he stood at the other end of the sim building.....possibly even as far away as the next county.....and just screamed my last like some DI from every movie ever. Turned out he was actually a pretty funny and likable guy once you got past that first sim or two.

 

[FaithbyFlight]

Is there a functional O'Club there?

There is! And its not too shabby either

 

[FaithbyFlight]

Hey Im glad I saw this thread. I am going to OCS as SNA this September and I wanted to study as much as I can. Is there anyway you can send gouges or information to study? Id love to know aviation radio jargon and what they teach in API and Advanced. Thank you and good luck! @FaithbyFlight also your videos are insane helpful haha

I wouldnt worry about studying that far ahead. Worry about OCS, then worry about NIFE (formerly known as API). Youll get all the gouge you need when the time comes. Unfortunately all the gouge I had from API is obsolete as theyve changed the entire syllabus.

 

[FaithbyFlight]

Do you still skip IFS if you have a PPL?

Negative. They require everyone to do the flights. From what Ive heard, its after flight suit Friday and they wear their flight suits for the flight training portion.

 

[FaithbyFlight]

How did your prior flight experience help (or hurt) you during primary? What habits were hard to break and how did you over come them? Thanks!

My prior time helped a lot with Primary. The only habit that I had to break was talking too much over the ICS (Inter Comm). As an instructor, I was talking constantly, so it carried over and I had a few IP's tell me to shut it.

 

[FaithbyFlight]

[/QUOTE]

"Will I be able to take time off to get married?"

Follow up question, "In Mexico?"

uhhhhh... depends. In Mexico, probably a HARD no. Mainly due to the Cartels being so close to the border at the moment. As far as the wedding, yes; honeymoon right after, more than likely not.