Pilot shortage?

[Flash]

Prof Bruce Flemming is the guy. If you google him you'll find a whole bunch of articles either written by him or about him in papers like the Capital Gazette in Annapolis and elsewhere.

He made quite a name for himself by blasting the Academy and NAPS over and over wherever he could. He was also a big proponent of getting rid of the Service Academies and replacing with something like Sandhurst.

He had several articles with a lot of data about NAPS as well. Not the most popular guy, he eventually got booted from USNA over a sexual harassment claim (sending creepy pics of himself to female mids) but was eventually reinstated, but still not teaching actual classes I think.

He's a smart guy with some decent ideas but he is also someone who is really in love with himself and his own contrary ideas, sending shirtless pics to students as a joke because he thought it was funny. It may not have been sexual harassment in the end but the fact he thought that was somehow okay in this day and age shows a real lack of common sense that seems to be theme with him.

 

[Griz882]

Which would do away with ROTC and OCS as well, making the academies glorified OCS's like Sandhurst. That would be a drastic shift in how we handle officer training across the board, one that ironically may end up costing just as much if not more than the academies do now if almost officer candidate has to go through the same 6-8 month accession program.

It isn't just Sandhurst either, much of their initial military training is set up differently than ours. What works for them doesn't mean it would work well for us, notably most other Commonwealth countries with larger militaries have the American-style system of military academies that are also universities in addition to utilizing other commissioning sources.

While I disagree with your math, and your suggested outcomes, the reality is that it isn't going to happen in any case. Very much like closing NAPS.

 

[Griz882]

The AF seems to be actively looking for ways to get butts in seats... https://www.sandboxx.us/blog/the-ai...time-it-needs-to-train-pilots-almost-in-half/

 

[scoolbubba]

It shouldn't be a surprise that when you cut 5 months of training out of a 12 month course, it only takes 7 months to wing.

There is a huge difference in the maturity and airmanship of an advanced student vs a primary student. These guys will be undergoing that growing process in a c-17 or 135 or a herc. Those are not trainers, and for good reasons. Oopsies in those have real consequences and are far more expensive to fix. Not every AC they fly with is going to be an IP.

This is a bad idea and akin to slapping a bandaid on a chest wound. Rather than resource their pilot training appropriately to meet demand or, I dunno, fix the systemic issues that have people racing for the door, AF leadership produced an unfinished product in less time and patted themselves on the back.

 

[Flash]

While I disagree with your math, and your suggested outcomes, the reality is that it isn't going to happen in any case. Very much like closing NAPS.

The cost is definitely something I WAG'd but it certainly would cost more than the current OCS setup if we followed the Sandhurst model, an interesting exercise for someone who would want to study the issue but with so many unknowns it would be hard to nail down a realistic figure.

 

[Flash]

There is a huge difference in the maturity and airmanship of an advanced student vs a primary student. These guys will be undergoing that growing process in a c-17 or 135 or a herc. Those are not trainers, and for good reasons. Oopsies in those have real consequences and are far more expensive to fix. Not every AC they fly with is going to be an IP.

Even worse is that with the T-1 going away in 2-4 years the USAF is going replace them with an all simulator training syllabus.

"Wills said students in the fighter track will continue flying the T-38, until the new T-7 replaces it, while air mobility students will transition to an all-simulator training syllabus after the T-6, before they move back into cockpit training in their specific airframes, like the C-17 Globemaster or the KC-46 Pegasus.

That transition already is in effect at Randolph, where air mobility students already have gone to an all-simulator syllabus, replacing the T-1. At Vance, students headed to air mobility aircraft now train for about three months, in a combination of simulators and the T-1, before moving on to their operational aircraft. "

I don't see this ending well.

 

[Griz882]

Even worse is that with the T-1 going away in 2-4 years the USAF is going replace them with an all simulator training syllabus.

"Wills said students in the fighter track will continue flying the T-38, until the new T-7 replaces it, while air mobility students will transition to an all-simulator training syllabus after the T-6, before they move back into cockpit training in their specific airframes, like the C-17 Globemaster or the KC-46 Pegasus.

That transition already is in effect at Randolph, where air mobility students already have gone to an all-simulator syllabus, replacing the T-1. At Vance, students headed to air mobility aircraft now train for about three months, in a combination of simulators and the T-1, before moving on to their operational aircraft. "

I don't see this ending well.

There is a tremendous push to replace a great deal of flight training with simulators. I have never been in a modern sim so I don't know how good they are but I agree, there is going to be a tough learning curve on the far side of this.

 

[Pags]

It shouldn't be a surprise that when you cut 5 months of training out of a 12 month course, it only takes 7 months to wing.

There is a huge difference in the maturity and airmanship of an advanced student vs a primary student. These guys will be undergoing that growing process in a c-17 or 135 or a herc. Those are not trainers, and for good reasons. Oopsies in those have real consequences and are far more expensive to fix. Not every AC they fly with is going to be an IP.

This is a bad idea and akin to slapping a bandaid on a chest wound. Rather than resource their pilot training appropriately to meet demand or, I dunno, fix the systemic issues that have people racing for the door, AF leadership produced an unfinished product in less time and patted themselves on the back.

That's an interesting point...but is the maturity really an end goal or just a fringe benefit of a long syllabus? It sounds like the way NATSC would defend the USN syllabus: "sure, it takes us years longer to make a jet pilot than the USAF but our aviators show up to the fleet as more mature officers."

 

[Treetop Flyer]

There is a tremendous push to replace a great deal of flight training with simulators. I have never been in a modern sim so I don't know how good they are but I agree, there is going to be a tough learning curve on the far side of this.

Sims are pretty good these days. I didn’t feel at all unprepared flying my first real 737 flight with passengers on board. Then again, I wasn’t a flight student with 80ish real flight hours under my belt. I think they will be missing a lot of experience that can only be gained flying to real airfields with real traffic and real controllers and real weather and real airplanes.

 

[Griz882]

Sims are pretty good these days. I didn’t feel at all unprepared flying my first real 737 flight with passengers on board. Then again, I wasn’t a flight student with 80ish real flight hours under my belt. I think they will be missing a lot of experience that can only be gained flying to real airfields with real traffic and real controllers and real weather and real airplanes.

Agreed, it smacks of a kind of apprenticeship program which is not necessarily a terrible thing. There is great difference being co-piloting a C-17 around the US with 100 or so hours and suddenly having to co-pilot one on NVGs into an expeditionary airfield at night in a less than welcoming environment.

 

[taxi1]

The lack of a pause button changes everything.

They should have a fleet of light civil aircraft around, and maybe require them to log X amount of hours in them on cross countries. Anywhere they want.

 

[Jim123]

Money drives everything (duh).

No matter how good the sim, they never quite get the motion and feel right which means you have to "fly" it like a video game- aggressive visual scan and try to make your control inputs appropriately smooth based on how you think the airplane flies (so, trial and error). If you tend to adjust your control inputs in real time based on how the airplane is reacting in real life—say steering inputs rolling down the runway and feeling the whole ship wiggle as you keep it on centerline on takeoff or how hard you push/pull for how light or heavy you feel in the seat—well that doesn't work at all in any sim, Level D or any other level. Good sim instructors will quietly admit this and tell you to simply scan better and faster... which I suppose is fine.

There is a lot of checking and maintenance that goes into sims to make sure that the visuals work properly, for example the runway lights coming out of the fog at exactly the right moment for the visibility setting that the operator has selected. Modeling winds and turbulence in the sim though, I think that has a looooooong way to go.

The USAF experimenting with the heavy (big wing) track is looking a lot like what the FAA calls Part 142. The critics who wear blue suits are saying the same things that we're saying on here in these last few posts.

 

[jakd]

Just try flying parade in a sim. Not too difficult a task after a bit of training in real life, but nearly impossible to do well without depth perception or the tiny physical movement cues that exist in the actual jet. Almost every sim instructor I have ever met has said the event is more procedural training than actual practice flying, but here we are trying to get people to do almost everything virtually. Sims are great procedure trainers, but without the real element of danger, traffic and ATC doing unexpected things, and the physical inputs of the real world, we're a long way from 100% replacement. But they are a lot cheaper to a bean counter so we will be moving towards more and more simulator events as time goes on.

 

[Bergers2short]

? ::Gestures wildly at SWO simulator-based training and current mishaps::

 

[croakerfish]

? ::Gestures wildly at SWO simulator-based training and current mishaps::

Definitely. Let's see how these studs do on their way to aircraft commander, but I predict an extra dose of blood to go with the sweat and tears.