E6BFlightComp
Active Member
Haven't seen anything directly related or telling of SNA's going through the Avenger syllabus so I thought I would start, especially with the rollout of full scale for VT-28 with VT-27 soon to follow this summer (supposedly).
I will be following BOMR822's paragraph layout as I feel it is very advantageous to the dissemination of information and I am a fellow Boomer.
Class Up: My hard class up date, meaning that the first day of classes was 31MAY2021, but you get a call about 1-2 weeks before for your "soft" class up date to go get your pubs from book issue. I suggest going to the Paraloft in the Border Patrol Hanger to get your brown pub bag before hand to have it ready. The wing no longer issues an In Flight Guide so you will have to get one yourself from Office Depot off the SPID. Utilize the two weeks to really hit the books and watch all of the APPLICABLE Empact videos as I do believe they were a major help with solidifying what you were reading in the FTI. Try not to get ahead of yourself and focus on the next alligator in the boat. Students were racing through all the videos but all it was doing was muddling the information that was already in your head. The MCG is a great roadmap for where and what you should be studying, the initial version is very hard to read, but once you get the hang of it, it completely makes sense and can be very informative. I suggest having the EP's down pat by the time you class up and at least a working knowledge of the NWC's. Gouge is to have the NWC's verbatim for VT-27 but I personally never ran into that. I received more 5's by working around a problem in the moment using my knowledge of EP's and their associated NWC's than I did spewing it out during a brief.
Ground School (Contacts): It is assumed that you used your time well since your soft class up date, so ground school is comprised of what is seen as essential to emphasize and can be a great time to ask questions about concepts you don't understand or feel a lack of knowledge on. Ground school lasted about a week, maybe more, instructor dependent.
Contacts VR's: Everyone feels differently about the VR's, personally I found them very useful during my soft class up to start getting a feel for the cockpit with the ability to look around and interact with the environment more than just flipping a pretend switch on the static trainers. You get pretty good after awhile and knowing where to look to click something as the cursor is just the center where your eyes are looking. We did most of our VR's with our flight suit instructors but they moved slowly over to the contracting sim instructors as our time progressed. You'll probably have a mix of both throughout your time depending on instructor and bay availability. Try and emphasize procedures over how you actually look flying in the VR's as everyone already knows the trim is ass and its hard to keep altitude because one click of nose trim down sends you screaming into the ground, but one click up sends you on a rocket trajectory. I came in once a day for about an hour to practice the landing pattern, course rules and basic admin items such as your three C's when setting up each maneuver. Once you're comfortable with that, take a stab at practicing instrument approach procedures in the Radar Pattern just getting radar vectors to final, you don't have to worry to much about full procedures just yet as you'll only experience one during your Basic Instruments sims.
Contacts and Baby Instruments Sims: Sim instructors are sim instructors. You will run into the best of them and you will run into the worst of them, it is just inevitable. Some you will absolutely kill it just to check the grade sheet and see you got 4'd out. Others will see you doing a good job and reward you for it. Don't let your sim grades dictate your mood, come in with a positive attitude and your FTI knowledge on the discussion items down pat and be ready to go. An extra step I did for every sim was look up the FTI knowledge on discussion items, but find other interesting facts I could out of the Pilot's Handbook for Aeronautical Knowledge or the FAR/AIM. All sim instructors in Corpus should be Avenger qualified, some are completely on board with it, others are completely against it and think that you as well as the program are a worse pilot for it. Take whatever happens with a grain of salt and just listen to their gripes about how stupid it is while you're shooting a terribly vectored dog leg to final for the ILS. Use the early sims to your advantage, the best way to do good in primary is hit the ground running and never let off the gas. MIF at the beginning is all 2's & 3's so try for better grades here to set yourself apart.
Contact Flights: Time to put on the big boy/girl pants. There is a lot of graded items and Special Syllabus Requirements (SSRs) to be covered during this block and there are no more FAM flights, your first one is graded. If you have a good IP, which most of them are, they will let the first couple of minutes by to let the feeling of going 240 knots sink in before they really expect you to do too much. The first 10 minutes will be an absolute helmet fire, so I suggest practicing ground ops relentlessly leading up to your first flight as it is the first real thing you will do in the plane and can go completely sideways when you're strapping in for the first time. I went to Kings-4 once in my whole time in primary, which is funny because its literally all you practice beforehand. We got out to 8 low and started immediately with a spin. I was lucky enough to not get airsick but others aren't so fortunate, don't be discouraged it typically goes away. Just make sure to bring a plastic bag tucked in your harness just incase. In avenger, the typical progression is the first three flights are with your on-wing and then everything after that is with who ever is available within your flight (~6 instructors). This stage lasts anywhere from 4-13 flights. Once you have completed all graded items and SSR's you can then start doing your flights as Safe for Solo checks with other instructors. I was able to solo after my first off-wing flight with a total of 4 flights and about 6 hours in the T-6. The crazy thing is how comfortable I was the day I soloed because of how ready I felt due to the nature of my training up until that point. Once you solo, you will be scheduled with your class to start instruments.
Instruments VR's/Sims: Had a single day of instrument class, but there's talks about increasing it to the Charlie Syllabus standards. Instrument VR's are very helpful as I said because the VR's are very good at procedures. Practice with a friend or just give yourself the estimated vectors setting up different instrument approaches and practicing all the admin such as ABCD's or DLIDS/LDDHA. Instrument sims were just more in depth than the Basic Instruments phase but nothing you haven't seen before. Personally, I like that we get the hard part out of the way with learning how to shoot approaches first and then come back to clean up with holding and procedure turns as it all just leads to an approach. A good way to learn instruments that our class did was constantly play stump the chump, try and find some fact that you think no one knows and just go around the room asking each other questions (i.e. maximum holding speeds and why they're important (because they define the protected area of the hold) etc.) Follow your discussion items and be ready to brief everything about them.
Instrument Flights: During the last few sims is the time to start asking around the squadron who would want to go cross country with you. Your instructor can help tremendously as they have access to an all instructor group chat. This part is on you, I heard plenty of boo-hooing from students that didn't find an instructor for a cross country complaining that they never got to go on one and instead did a bunch of singles because they didn't show the initiative to get one. This stage can be anywhere from 7-11 flights with the ability to proficiency advance after your 7th leg, three of the flights must be done from the back seat. I did my first two as an out and in to College Station and then took a cross country to Denver with a VFR Nav portion through the Rocky Mountains, it was dope. Three legs out and three legs back with the last leg being a prof advance so I got to trunk this flight (even though the IP still made me fly, it wasn't graded).
Forms VR's/Sim: Another single day of classes but this is just like the regular syllabus. Strait to a double VR, typically the next day with an instructor. We just walked through the first time and then tried it in the VR's for the second event but as you can already guess, they kinda suck due to the trim and multiplayer being a little janky. But a great tool to get the checkpoints down before your sim. It is a single Sim for this evolution and the MIF is super low so a good time to try and give a little boost to your scores.
Forms Flights: The flights were great and a lot of fun, got to do multiple interval and section takeoffs which built a lot of confidence because you typically don't see anyone else doing them, only demonstrations. Formations flying is definitely a skill, and like anything else takes practice. Your first flight to your second flight will be an exponential change in your ability to pick out the checkpoints and fly them. Second to third is another exponential leap and by the fourth flight your instructor is in the back with their arms up on the bars letting you do your thing. This stage last anywhere from 4-6 flights with a forms solo at the end. My partner and I were able to do it in 4 with a single, an out and in the next day, and then a single followed by our solo the day after that.
Mission Phase: As per MCG, "The intent of this phase of training is to integrate all previously introduced tasks and maneuvers into a combined “mission” profile, while
continuing to improve performance on those items to end-of-course CTS." This basically means mission phase is a combination of everything you have learned up to this point all into a single set of flights. This phase comes with a hefty amount of plussed items and SSR's (basically every single procedure, maneuver, landing you can think of is bunched into 4-8 flights. This by far was the most challenging, but I would dare to say most rewarding and fun part of Avenger. The sheer amount of hours I spent planning plan after plan after plan for each one to fall through due to changing winds, changing weather, and changing destinations truly shows the amount of knowledge that my partner and I had formed around Naval Aviation to this point. A big header during this is CNAF 3710.7 for reserve fuels, planning an alternate and destination criteria.
Mission Sims: Truly be ready for anything, I don't think a single instructor followed the script, if there even is one. They truly throw the kitchen sink at you and see if you can handle it. I had a lot of fun thinking through critical situations such as an engine failure in the clouds right after take off or compounding emergencies that you have to sift through and determine which is the most abhorrent. I can only really say to be ready for anything, brush up on limitations and come in ready to brief discussion items. The grades during these ones hurt because the MIF is basically a 4 for every item.
Mission Flights: Pure (controlled) chaos. My flight partner and I from forms stuck it through to mission phase together because no one had finished forms behind us yet. We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to fly with our Det. OIC as a forms pair to Pensacola from Corpus. Mission phase is all about mindset shifts during flight, much like it would be out in the fleet (at least that's what the MCG tells me). We took off as a section and went to foxtrot with cross unders followed by a lead change and more cross unders till we were in the box. We then did two Breakup and Rendezvous, detached as a second, I went high and he stayed low. High did spin, stall series and UA's while the low block did the aerobatic squirrel cage, both rolls and wingovers. Turned it into a blind/radial rendezvous and trucked north east towards Houston doing parade turns enroute. Section RNAV approach followed by a waveoff into a wide pattern, lead change, repeat, fullstop. And that was just the first flight. Every flight after followed a similar trajectory with even a little formation admin cruise at 27,000 ft on an IFR clearance. A VFR Nav route followed by the river run over New Orleans at 1000 ft was probably the coolest part of the whole trip. Was able to complete mission phase in 4 flights with a final prof recovery leg back to Navy Corpus. This phase, like I said, tested my sanity in the planning phases as the students are the ones who come up with the profile. The flying though, the flying was worth every hour spent making it happen and I landed on the ground in Pensacola on Friday night at the end of the first day and asked my instructor if we could refuel and go up in the pattern to crush some more because I felt so good. Most rewarding time in the Navy thus far.
Mission Checks: You've been through this a hundred times and it feels like a walk in the park especially compared to mission phase itself. The ground eval was a cake walk, brush up on EP's and limits and know your basic systems. You will be sent a faux plan i.e. "You're a winged aviator in a non-training aircraft departing as a section to College Station you need to complete XYZ" big take away is your CNAF 3710.7 knowledge for weather and fuel. After you're given this plan, get together with your partner and come up with scenarios such as an engine failure or chip detector or landing gear is stuck down and quiz each other. The flight is very simple and is typically done as an out and in and is a minimum profile with 2x aero, 2x stalls, 2x approaches (precision and non precision) with a published missed and hold, 1/2 formation sequence. Very simple relatively.
Overview: The best thing I believe about the Avenger program was the class dynamic. Instead of only really being a "class" during your ground school and then just answering to the same Flight Lead, you stick with the same 12 people during your time in primary. Each class is separated into flights, and at least for VT-27 we had a nice little broom closet to call home. The amount of days I would come in and lose track of time because I got too busy explaining IFR low chart symbology or discussing whether it was an and or a the in the NWC's is countless. It bred friendly competition which made all of us strive to do better in the long run. The next best thing was the relationship with the instructors of whom stayed with you all the way through, so instead of getting some random instructor and trying to get the gouge on them the night before, you already know who they are and what they like. This led to a comfortability for not only the student, but also for the instructor to base his/her limits for the day. There were ample times I remember taking off for a contacts flight or qual review where all of the other flights got cancelled for the day and my instructor and I looked at the weather, met personal defined minimums for us both and took off to get the X.
Ultimately, I have very much enjoyed my time in primary. I am currently in Project Hellcat and will be heading to Meridian soon if you have any questions feel free below or to DM me. May edit this post throughout as things pop into my head.
I will be following BOMR822's paragraph layout as I feel it is very advantageous to the dissemination of information and I am a fellow Boomer.
Class Up: My hard class up date, meaning that the first day of classes was 31MAY2021, but you get a call about 1-2 weeks before for your "soft" class up date to go get your pubs from book issue. I suggest going to the Paraloft in the Border Patrol Hanger to get your brown pub bag before hand to have it ready. The wing no longer issues an In Flight Guide so you will have to get one yourself from Office Depot off the SPID. Utilize the two weeks to really hit the books and watch all of the APPLICABLE Empact videos as I do believe they were a major help with solidifying what you were reading in the FTI. Try not to get ahead of yourself and focus on the next alligator in the boat. Students were racing through all the videos but all it was doing was muddling the information that was already in your head. The MCG is a great roadmap for where and what you should be studying, the initial version is very hard to read, but once you get the hang of it, it completely makes sense and can be very informative. I suggest having the EP's down pat by the time you class up and at least a working knowledge of the NWC's. Gouge is to have the NWC's verbatim for VT-27 but I personally never ran into that. I received more 5's by working around a problem in the moment using my knowledge of EP's and their associated NWC's than I did spewing it out during a brief.
Ground School (Contacts): It is assumed that you used your time well since your soft class up date, so ground school is comprised of what is seen as essential to emphasize and can be a great time to ask questions about concepts you don't understand or feel a lack of knowledge on. Ground school lasted about a week, maybe more, instructor dependent.
Contacts VR's: Everyone feels differently about the VR's, personally I found them very useful during my soft class up to start getting a feel for the cockpit with the ability to look around and interact with the environment more than just flipping a pretend switch on the static trainers. You get pretty good after awhile and knowing where to look to click something as the cursor is just the center where your eyes are looking. We did most of our VR's with our flight suit instructors but they moved slowly over to the contracting sim instructors as our time progressed. You'll probably have a mix of both throughout your time depending on instructor and bay availability. Try and emphasize procedures over how you actually look flying in the VR's as everyone already knows the trim is ass and its hard to keep altitude because one click of nose trim down sends you screaming into the ground, but one click up sends you on a rocket trajectory. I came in once a day for about an hour to practice the landing pattern, course rules and basic admin items such as your three C's when setting up each maneuver. Once you're comfortable with that, take a stab at practicing instrument approach procedures in the Radar Pattern just getting radar vectors to final, you don't have to worry to much about full procedures just yet as you'll only experience one during your Basic Instruments sims.
Contacts and Baby Instruments Sims: Sim instructors are sim instructors. You will run into the best of them and you will run into the worst of them, it is just inevitable. Some you will absolutely kill it just to check the grade sheet and see you got 4'd out. Others will see you doing a good job and reward you for it. Don't let your sim grades dictate your mood, come in with a positive attitude and your FTI knowledge on the discussion items down pat and be ready to go. An extra step I did for every sim was look up the FTI knowledge on discussion items, but find other interesting facts I could out of the Pilot's Handbook for Aeronautical Knowledge or the FAR/AIM. All sim instructors in Corpus should be Avenger qualified, some are completely on board with it, others are completely against it and think that you as well as the program are a worse pilot for it. Take whatever happens with a grain of salt and just listen to their gripes about how stupid it is while you're shooting a terribly vectored dog leg to final for the ILS. Use the early sims to your advantage, the best way to do good in primary is hit the ground running and never let off the gas. MIF at the beginning is all 2's & 3's so try for better grades here to set yourself apart.
Contact Flights: Time to put on the big boy/girl pants. There is a lot of graded items and Special Syllabus Requirements (SSRs) to be covered during this block and there are no more FAM flights, your first one is graded. If you have a good IP, which most of them are, they will let the first couple of minutes by to let the feeling of going 240 knots sink in before they really expect you to do too much. The first 10 minutes will be an absolute helmet fire, so I suggest practicing ground ops relentlessly leading up to your first flight as it is the first real thing you will do in the plane and can go completely sideways when you're strapping in for the first time. I went to Kings-4 once in my whole time in primary, which is funny because its literally all you practice beforehand. We got out to 8 low and started immediately with a spin. I was lucky enough to not get airsick but others aren't so fortunate, don't be discouraged it typically goes away. Just make sure to bring a plastic bag tucked in your harness just incase. In avenger, the typical progression is the first three flights are with your on-wing and then everything after that is with who ever is available within your flight (~6 instructors). This stage lasts anywhere from 4-13 flights. Once you have completed all graded items and SSR's you can then start doing your flights as Safe for Solo checks with other instructors. I was able to solo after my first off-wing flight with a total of 4 flights and about 6 hours in the T-6. The crazy thing is how comfortable I was the day I soloed because of how ready I felt due to the nature of my training up until that point. Once you solo, you will be scheduled with your class to start instruments.
Instruments VR's/Sims: Had a single day of instrument class, but there's talks about increasing it to the Charlie Syllabus standards. Instrument VR's are very helpful as I said because the VR's are very good at procedures. Practice with a friend or just give yourself the estimated vectors setting up different instrument approaches and practicing all the admin such as ABCD's or DLIDS/LDDHA. Instrument sims were just more in depth than the Basic Instruments phase but nothing you haven't seen before. Personally, I like that we get the hard part out of the way with learning how to shoot approaches first and then come back to clean up with holding and procedure turns as it all just leads to an approach. A good way to learn instruments that our class did was constantly play stump the chump, try and find some fact that you think no one knows and just go around the room asking each other questions (i.e. maximum holding speeds and why they're important (because they define the protected area of the hold) etc.) Follow your discussion items and be ready to brief everything about them.
Instrument Flights: During the last few sims is the time to start asking around the squadron who would want to go cross country with you. Your instructor can help tremendously as they have access to an all instructor group chat. This part is on you, I heard plenty of boo-hooing from students that didn't find an instructor for a cross country complaining that they never got to go on one and instead did a bunch of singles because they didn't show the initiative to get one. This stage can be anywhere from 7-11 flights with the ability to proficiency advance after your 7th leg, three of the flights must be done from the back seat. I did my first two as an out and in to College Station and then took a cross country to Denver with a VFR Nav portion through the Rocky Mountains, it was dope. Three legs out and three legs back with the last leg being a prof advance so I got to trunk this flight (even though the IP still made me fly, it wasn't graded).
Forms VR's/Sim: Another single day of classes but this is just like the regular syllabus. Strait to a double VR, typically the next day with an instructor. We just walked through the first time and then tried it in the VR's for the second event but as you can already guess, they kinda suck due to the trim and multiplayer being a little janky. But a great tool to get the checkpoints down before your sim. It is a single Sim for this evolution and the MIF is super low so a good time to try and give a little boost to your scores.
Forms Flights: The flights were great and a lot of fun, got to do multiple interval and section takeoffs which built a lot of confidence because you typically don't see anyone else doing them, only demonstrations. Formations flying is definitely a skill, and like anything else takes practice. Your first flight to your second flight will be an exponential change in your ability to pick out the checkpoints and fly them. Second to third is another exponential leap and by the fourth flight your instructor is in the back with their arms up on the bars letting you do your thing. This stage last anywhere from 4-6 flights with a forms solo at the end. My partner and I were able to do it in 4 with a single, an out and in the next day, and then a single followed by our solo the day after that.
Mission Phase: As per MCG, "The intent of this phase of training is to integrate all previously introduced tasks and maneuvers into a combined “mission” profile, while
continuing to improve performance on those items to end-of-course CTS." This basically means mission phase is a combination of everything you have learned up to this point all into a single set of flights. This phase comes with a hefty amount of plussed items and SSR's (basically every single procedure, maneuver, landing you can think of is bunched into 4-8 flights. This by far was the most challenging, but I would dare to say most rewarding and fun part of Avenger. The sheer amount of hours I spent planning plan after plan after plan for each one to fall through due to changing winds, changing weather, and changing destinations truly shows the amount of knowledge that my partner and I had formed around Naval Aviation to this point. A big header during this is CNAF 3710.7 for reserve fuels, planning an alternate and destination criteria.
Mission Sims: Truly be ready for anything, I don't think a single instructor followed the script, if there even is one. They truly throw the kitchen sink at you and see if you can handle it. I had a lot of fun thinking through critical situations such as an engine failure in the clouds right after take off or compounding emergencies that you have to sift through and determine which is the most abhorrent. I can only really say to be ready for anything, brush up on limitations and come in ready to brief discussion items. The grades during these ones hurt because the MIF is basically a 4 for every item.
Mission Flights: Pure (controlled) chaos. My flight partner and I from forms stuck it through to mission phase together because no one had finished forms behind us yet. We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to fly with our Det. OIC as a forms pair to Pensacola from Corpus. Mission phase is all about mindset shifts during flight, much like it would be out in the fleet (at least that's what the MCG tells me). We took off as a section and went to foxtrot with cross unders followed by a lead change and more cross unders till we were in the box. We then did two Breakup and Rendezvous, detached as a second, I went high and he stayed low. High did spin, stall series and UA's while the low block did the aerobatic squirrel cage, both rolls and wingovers. Turned it into a blind/radial rendezvous and trucked north east towards Houston doing parade turns enroute. Section RNAV approach followed by a waveoff into a wide pattern, lead change, repeat, fullstop. And that was just the first flight. Every flight after followed a similar trajectory with even a little formation admin cruise at 27,000 ft on an IFR clearance. A VFR Nav route followed by the river run over New Orleans at 1000 ft was probably the coolest part of the whole trip. Was able to complete mission phase in 4 flights with a final prof recovery leg back to Navy Corpus. This phase, like I said, tested my sanity in the planning phases as the students are the ones who come up with the profile. The flying though, the flying was worth every hour spent making it happen and I landed on the ground in Pensacola on Friday night at the end of the first day and asked my instructor if we could refuel and go up in the pattern to crush some more because I felt so good. Most rewarding time in the Navy thus far.
Mission Checks: You've been through this a hundred times and it feels like a walk in the park especially compared to mission phase itself. The ground eval was a cake walk, brush up on EP's and limits and know your basic systems. You will be sent a faux plan i.e. "You're a winged aviator in a non-training aircraft departing as a section to College Station you need to complete XYZ" big take away is your CNAF 3710.7 knowledge for weather and fuel. After you're given this plan, get together with your partner and come up with scenarios such as an engine failure or chip detector or landing gear is stuck down and quiz each other. The flight is very simple and is typically done as an out and in and is a minimum profile with 2x aero, 2x stalls, 2x approaches (precision and non precision) with a published missed and hold, 1/2 formation sequence. Very simple relatively.
Overview: The best thing I believe about the Avenger program was the class dynamic. Instead of only really being a "class" during your ground school and then just answering to the same Flight Lead, you stick with the same 12 people during your time in primary. Each class is separated into flights, and at least for VT-27 we had a nice little broom closet to call home. The amount of days I would come in and lose track of time because I got too busy explaining IFR low chart symbology or discussing whether it was an and or a the in the NWC's is countless. It bred friendly competition which made all of us strive to do better in the long run. The next best thing was the relationship with the instructors of whom stayed with you all the way through, so instead of getting some random instructor and trying to get the gouge on them the night before, you already know who they are and what they like. This led to a comfortability for not only the student, but also for the instructor to base his/her limits for the day. There were ample times I remember taking off for a contacts flight or qual review where all of the other flights got cancelled for the day and my instructor and I looked at the weather, met personal defined minimums for us both and took off to get the X.
Ultimately, I have very much enjoyed my time in primary. I am currently in Project Hellcat and will be heading to Meridian soon if you have any questions feel free below or to DM me. May edit this post throughout as things pop into my head.
