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Career Reflections by Pickle
- Thread starter picklesuit
- Start date
We're in agreement, but PPC can pre-empt the questioning by simply stating "we're doing x in order to accomplish y" rather than simply stating "we're doing x". That's not always necessary, but it can't hurt.
Gator asks a lot of questions I would ask as well without knowing the full story. Overall sounds like although your decision was safe and within NATOPS, your crew didn't know your decision making process and you caught them by surprise.
How many tactical contingencies does your NATOPS/tactical brief cover? Seems like IMC letdowns to VMC to drop buoys would be something that should be covered and laid out to the whole crew. Something like "we'll plan to drop buoys from Xft, but if we're not visual with the ocean we'll descend as low as 200' to try and get to VMC. If we can't get VMC then we'll do some mitigation to allow us to drop buoys through the clag while ensuring that the sea below is clear." Does the NATOPS/tactical brief cover other tactical situations that may come up? 60 NATOPS also used to have standard verbiage for altitude changes over water at night that required you to discuss what altitude you were leaving, where you were going, and what your radalt is set to. Same sort of brief was done when using the hover couple over water at night. You briefed what altitude you were going to and how your radalt was set. We also used to brief things like IIMC entry in a flight and what the flight would do.
Communication is the hub at the center of the wheel of good CRM. I'm not sure how much you talk about what your plan is but it seems like if you didn't then doing that in the future would go a long way to keeping the whole crew in the loop. Not sure how the comms flow in VP but I imagine there's some way for the pilots to let the tube know that they're going low and that the crew shouldn't be surprised about it.
Did this come up at a formal debrief? Seems like the sort of thing that should be discussed in a ready room before you break for the bar. Good way for you to understand your crew's concerns and for you to dicsuss why you did what you did.
Have you considered doing a ready room discussion of this with the crew or junior folks? Perhaps with a WTI and a Senior NFO in the discussion to go over the event and how things could have gone better. Leave the egos at the door and talk professionally (not mean or sarcastically) about the tactical relevance of the event, CRM, and capabilities of the plane.
Nothing wrong with flying low for a good reason. Period. But I'd guess your disdain for flying with millenials is getting in the way of sound communication and ultimately trust with your crew. Being the curmudgeon that is reluctant to brief their reasoning for a reasonable course of action is a one way ticket to alienating your crew. Nobody, repeat, nobody cares about how it was done in the P-3.
yeah another thing pickled, i'd drop any use of the word "millenial." Don't make it a generational thing, a one anchor vs two, an O vs E, or anything like that. make it a mentorship discussion between an experienced operator teaching nuggets. A professional raising the professional knowledge of the FNGs so they can take the torch.
For awhile in HSC land it was popular to brief "we'll fly to the lowest comfort threshold" but that was a stupid thing to brief because the whole point of training is to raise comfort thresholds. It's ok for people to a be a bit uncomfortable. Quite frankly, people should be uncomfortable about flying to the boat at night, doing NVD TACFORM GUNEXs, flying VMC in VP, eating raw fish, or any other new experience. It the job of experienced crew to educate the nuggets on how we mitigate risks and how to safely conduct high risk events.
Also, VP risk aversion is nothing new. VP guys at VX-1 used to fight amongst themselves about whether or not they could fly VMC from Pax to Jax to the eternal amusment of the RW bubbas. VP OPSO also had to be educated on how it was perfectly legal for the squadron a/c to not log a flight plan for the local area because it was covered by the flight sked. He wanted all flights to be on an IFR plan like 3710 said. He and I had to sit down and I had to show him how that wasn't something that could really be done for local area helo flights.
Back in the day we had hard decks:
200 day VMC
300 night VMC or day IMC
500 night IMC
1000 with 2 engines loitered.
There was no briefing we’re descending from whatever to whatever. If we were at 2000 feet tracking and it was time for an attack, we went down. The only brief was “going below a 1000” on the interphone so everyone knew to put their LPAs on.
This should be routine and not require a special brief. If a P-8 pilot can’t fly low without being scared, he shouldn’t be flying.
From what I can see from the peanut gallery, VP is becoming the laughing stock of naval aviation. With this attitude, it’s no wonder.
200 day VMC
300 night VMC or day IMC
500 night IMC
1000 with 2 engines loitered.
There was no briefing we’re descending from whatever to whatever. If we were at 2000 feet tracking and it was time for an attack, we went down. The only brief was “going below a 1000” on the interphone so everyone knew to put their LPAs on.
This should be routine and not require a special brief. If a P-8 pilot can’t fly low without being scared, he shouldn’t be flying.
From what I can see from the peanut gallery, VP is becoming the laughing stock of naval aviation. With this attitude, it’s no wonder.
Then it’s incumbent upon us as leaders to teach and explain to the next generations who don’t know better. If they’re scared of VFR, then plan a VFR flight with them. If they’re uncomfortable going low, then take them low. Explain the importance of what we do so they can pass that to the next generation.
Establishing “my way or the highway” culture ain’t it it either.
It’s worth thinking about how to foster an environment where folks are bringing up CRM issues in real time and face to face, vice anymouse or ASAP.
Pickle, my dude, here’s what I’m seeing here (now that I’m not coming off a 12 hr overnight watch):
You feel you’re perceived as cowboy in the plane cause of
The system is trying to tell you that you’re deviating from expected norms. Full stop. There’s a good discussion to be had about those norms, but it’s not the gator closest to the boat.
That your flight leadership style deviates from norms enough to make it into your FITREP debrief should give you pause.
I don’t have a lot of answers here, other than self-work and self-awareness in pursuit of a flight environment that fosters open discussion and collaboration on the best way to get the mission done.
It’s not an easy journey to start. It’ll get easier the more you do it. Best of luck.
You feel you’re perceived as cowboy in the plane cause of
- Informal discussions w/ peers
- ASAPs
- Anymouses
- Formal FITREP debriefs (!)
The system is trying to tell you that you’re deviating from expected norms. Full stop. There’s a good discussion to be had about those norms, but it’s not the gator closest to the boat.
That your flight leadership style deviates from norms enough to make it into your FITREP debrief should give you pause.
I don’t have a lot of answers here, other than self-work and self-awareness in pursuit of a flight environment that fosters open discussion and collaboration on the best way to get the mission done.
It’s not an easy journey to start. It’ll get easier the more you do it. Best of luck.
What Pickle is referring to is a culture shift from a community that routinely flew low and aggressive to establish/maintain contact and then kill the target, to one that is getting too damn comfortable with all the bells & whistles that comes with the commercial passenger jet. This has NOTHING to do about Millenials, safety or the P-3 versus P-8 mindset. It has EVERYTHING to do with a warfighting culture (or, in this case, a lack thereof) and being able to exploit the full Cap/Lims of your TMS to achieve mission success.
Those are the words he’s using to describe what appears to be an entirely different issue...
When third tour aircraft commanders go "we can do that?" when I briefed an island tour VFR flight, then yea, the community sucks at embracing any level of adaptability. MPRA's "unacceptable deviations from the norms" are what everyone else just calls "flying the plane." The risk averse culture is so baked into our air quotes best and brightest at the RAG that they literally can't fathom there are different ways to skin the cat that are all legal. Guys who file IFR on a clear and a million day to go from KNIP to the St Johns working area and back come to mind. These guys become skippers.
On my first tour, TACCOs sometimes complained that I flew the P-3 "harder" than they were used to, but they rarely complained when I said "yea, I can still hit that weapons fly-to point that you just moved 2 miles closer and 90 off our heading." Showing people with less experience what you can do with the plane, within the boundaries of NATOPS, in order to get the mission done isn't being a cowboy...it's literally the job of a more experienced aviator. If the command isn't willing to back that kind of aviator up, then I'd argue it's the command that has a problem, and not the aviator.
Sometimes, as AC, you don't have time to explain and ask pretty please with sugar on top if you can put your LPU on and may we descend to 200, mr petty officer 3rd class. "we can't get what we need to get done at 500, we're going to try 200. once we're done, we'll climb back up. put your LPUs on." Why the fuck would any aviator expect someone to climb back through the clouds (more risk), waste more gas (less options), talk about going back down through the clouds again (there's more risk, again), only to drop 300' lower than he just was?
I never said to climb back up and that you'd have to do all that. That point in time is too late. Again, as a leader you have to be working with your crew during sims, training events, etc. so that when it comes to that point there is no question, if you need to descend to 200, descend and get the job done. Or it's easy as, "hey, the weather sucks and the only way we need to accomplish this task is to go to 200 so we're below the ceiling. If you're still uncomfortable with that, we can discuss later on the transit home or on deck."
Conversely, if your entire crew takes umbrage with something you're doing, maybe you should listen. Or be a leader and lead.
Wasn't you that said it. Pickle said aviators 'took umbrage' with him not climbing back up to discuss before descending back down.
Thanks for the feedback everyone, this is exactly what I wanted to see. I need to hear both sides of the issue so I don’t go in sounding like an idiot.
Won’t defend my personality (nor do I see the need to) but always trying to work on my communication skills.
A few minor comments:
If you “don’t care how we did it in the P-3” then you don’t care how every single person who developed the P-8 learned and practiced what you are now flying.
Every pattern you fly in this plane was developed by P-3 Aviators (or P2V aviators, more than likely) not P-8 bubbas.
They were built to track/attack the target. Our job is to get the plane there and find the target. Our current way of doing that in the P-8 is hindering the outcome due to an excessive amount of risk aversion.
As for our briefs, we have a standard low altitude brief as we proceed below 4K’ AGL and update the altitude I am headed to and what altitude to call me low at as we go lower/higher. In the specific instance, crew was briefed we were not visual at 500’, intention was to go to 200’ to get better visibility. Low altitude brief was updated to match. Down we went.
Squorch you are making some very good points and I’m listening. As for the “millennial” use in the comments, there is a very noticeable difference in how aviators from my timeframe process information to the way the aviators I see as JO’s process it. Not right or wrong, but different.
I’m still trying to learn how to understand how they think, but I don’t think I’m afforded the same consideration. They need to understand how my peers were raised and trained too.
Much of my insistence on pushing their comfort envelope is based on experience, whether that be on station in the GOO below a 500’ cloud deck looking for pirates or flying multiple straits transits on a black line trying to support the CSG or ARG making their transit, or landing somewhere with shitty weather at the end of a ten hour flight. As aircrew, if we don’t practice how we fight, we will never be able to fight at our best.
That means flying flaps 5 at 200’ during a CAVU day so it isn’t scary at night/IMC...
Please keep this going, I’m just giving one side of the viewpoint here, I’m sure there are others here (to include people that have flown with me) that I can learn from.
Pickle
Won’t defend my personality (nor do I see the need to) but always trying to work on my communication skills.
A few minor comments:
If you “don’t care how we did it in the P-3” then you don’t care how every single person who developed the P-8 learned and practiced what you are now flying.
Every pattern you fly in this plane was developed by P-3 Aviators (or P2V aviators, more than likely) not P-8 bubbas.
They were built to track/attack the target. Our job is to get the plane there and find the target. Our current way of doing that in the P-8 is hindering the outcome due to an excessive amount of risk aversion.
As for our briefs, we have a standard low altitude brief as we proceed below 4K’ AGL and update the altitude I am headed to and what altitude to call me low at as we go lower/higher. In the specific instance, crew was briefed we were not visual at 500’, intention was to go to 200’ to get better visibility. Low altitude brief was updated to match. Down we went.
Squorch you are making some very good points and I’m listening. As for the “millennial” use in the comments, there is a very noticeable difference in how aviators from my timeframe process information to the way the aviators I see as JO’s process it. Not right or wrong, but different.
I’m still trying to learn how to understand how they think, but I don’t think I’m afforded the same consideration. They need to understand how my peers were raised and trained too.
Much of my insistence on pushing their comfort envelope is based on experience, whether that be on station in the GOO below a 500’ cloud deck looking for pirates or flying multiple straits transits on a black line trying to support the CSG or ARG making their transit, or landing somewhere with shitty weather at the end of a ten hour flight. As aircrew, if we don’t practice how we fight, we will never be able to fight at our best.
That means flying flaps 5 at 200’ during a CAVU day so it isn’t scary at night/IMC...
Please keep this going, I’m just giving one side of the viewpoint here, I’m sure there are others here (to include people that have flown with me) that I can learn from.
Pickle