F-5 upgrades

Any of the Adversary squadrons have the upgraded F-5 cockpits yet?

https://www.navair.navy.mil/news/ARTEMIS-program-receives-first-repatriated-Swiss-F-5/Thu-04042024-1256

 

[AircraftGeek513]

-111 is still flying them too (as well as VMFT-401 and whatever the brand new Beaufort reserve adversary outfit is being called), but I believe F/A-18's are on the road map ahead.

Agreed about your preference for something better than a flying piece of metal (i.e. F-16)

As the guy below said, VMFT-402 is the second Marine squadron. They say the airframes can last into the mid 2030s.

 

[MIDNJAC]

As the guy below said, VMFT-402 is the second Marine squadron. They say the airframes can last into the mid 2030s.

Oh yeah, sorry I was specifically talking to -401. Also, for their sake, I really hope they aren't still flying them into the 2030s, but knowing the Corps, of course they will be.

 

[JTS11]

The DACT card I’ve always been handed from skids/53s was always actually kinda fun to fly, but definitely not a realistic employment. Also kinda dangerous because they just wanted you to rage in a “2 circle” fight at 300 AGL which keeping a tally and that turn was always a little sketchy and usually we bumped it up a little.

It was good training for us, but not really that relevant tbh. IIRC the F-5 dudes had a hard time spotting us, even while sitting on the deck. To do the range estimation demo while on the desert floor, you'd need to pull a little collective to create a little dust cloud. The training was mainly a requirement to send a stud to WTI. One of my old CO's said they used to do some 1v1 DACM with just 53's in the 80's/90's (he said it was stupid and a mishap waiting to happen bc the training rules weren't very well established), so you had two helos with poor cockpit visibility trying to outclimb each other. Needless to say, it was stupid and got axed.

 

[MIDNJAC]

It was good training for us, but not really that relevant tbh. IIRC the F-5 dudes had a hard time spotting us, even while sitting on the deck. To do the range estimation demo while on the desert floor, you'd need to pull a little collective to create a little dust cloud. The training was mainly a requirement to send a stud to WTI. One of my old CO's said they used to do some 1v1 DACM with just 53's in the 80's/90's (he said it was stupid and a mishap waiting to happen bc the training rules weren't very well established), so you had two helos with poor cockpit visibility trying to outclimb each other. Needless to say, it was stupid and got axed.

This is what they were doing in Iran in '79 isn't it?

 

[JTS11]

This is what they were doing in Iran in '79 isn't it?

That's actually an interesting study of how that the whole thing was cobbled together and led to a lot of changes.

 

[Gatordev]

One of my old CO's said they used to do some 1v1 DACM with just 53's in the 80's/90's (he said it was stupid and a mishap waiting to happen bc the training rules weren't very well established), so you had two helos with poor cockpit visibility trying to outclimb each other.

When we would do the legacy LSF profiles in the T-34 up against the -60s (before they switched to the Iranian intercept profiles), we had a similar concern risk, as it was hard for the -60 pilots to tally after coming out of their turn to start the intercept. We had a pretty good technique that would put us up against the sky while also giving a large wing flash.

Not exactly within NATOPs procedures...or 3710...or probably SOP. But it was fun! I could get through at least 3 students doing it that way, and sometimes 4 if they hot-seated quickly, before I would have to JOKER back to my luxury hotel.