API- If you were like me in college you bastardized the system to get into a position to kill people and break their stuff. What I mean is I was a poor student who worked too many jobs and played rugby and had a wife so I didn't develope the proper study habits but API makes it hard to fail even for an average stud like me. It is also a little hard to see the importance in the material for some. If you are slated to go to Corpus and know you want helos I recommend talking to Capt Thrall and changing that to Whiting so you don't have to move. If you get slated to go to Vance and train with the chAir Force and want helos go and don't ***** out loud it is a cool opportunity to fly a jet but learn your EP's notes warnings and cautions by memory even when they tell you not to, this will help you later. Other than that E5B had a great account of API and since he did better than me I won't add much to it but it is as hard to fail a test as it is to get 100 so don't worry. As long as you keep your mind engaged in the lectures, ask questions as soon as they arise and do ALL the practice questions and get into study groups with somone who has some gouge you'll be alright. All in all it was fun and the last two weeks are a blast. Don't spot the deck during your PLF's.
Primary- Well I had a great onwing too VT-2's Maj Griffin. Fam advice remains the same as E5B with regard to the EP's but I would caviat that by saying a heavy understanding of systems will make the EP's make sense and thereby easier to understand and remember. Make your own gouge sheets for each system and place the EP's for that system on the sheet with the notes, warnings, and cautions. Draw your systems and use the molecule to explain them i.e. I am a molecule of oil where do I go and take it all the way through the system then study the EP's for that system. Make another gouge sheet with all the a/c limitations airspeeds, demensions, performance, weights, limitations and take it all from the NATOPS. Use NO gouge going through Primary. I prepared for briefs by getting the kneeboard card with the discuss items looking through all the pubs for info and writing it all out on a sheet of binder paper. Takes about 2 hours and then shut the books and study your notes like it was a speech you will need to give without reference to your notes. stay a flight ahead just so you can ask IP's questions about the next brief without penalty but make sure these are questions you attempted to answer through study on your own. I liked Fams but I am sick, and in the pattern if you had a $hitty final you f'ed up your 90 if you have a bad 90 you screwed up your 180 and if you're rushed in the downwind you ballooned in the break other than that "Power...flat, power....flare and the bird no kidding lands itself. I landed that thing on fam 2 once and from fam 3 on I never had any problems but I will say I have pretty good monkey skills. PA's were fun but I was scared and uninterested in them at first. Took me two solos to sack up a loop now I would love to take a fixed wing up and spin the $hit out of it. Forms were of course the most fun and don't accept a "shot gun solo" if you can help it because the form solo was the most rewarding flight in primary or advanced, please believe that. RI's what can I say except do every practice problem you get and make flash cards for your proceedures, in the sim fly the trim wheel but never admit to it. I also recommend car pooling and when you drive which should be fast yet safe have your co-pilot ask you random EP's and if you can't say them without pause while weaving in and out of cars you might pass the brief but will screw them up in the plane when they might really count. I also recommend using any down time BEFORE primary to decide what pipeline you want and stick to that, and the way you pick is by looking at the different missions of each community. I will also say to throw out the CDI factor(Chicks Dig It) and there is no glory in twin engine jets because we don't dogfight anymore and ask a grunt who he wants off station they are the only thing that matters in the Corps. However you want to help them is what determines what you want to fly. After all this soul searching tactfully state this to your onwing and then don't worry about it they will get you were you want to go and take that person on your cross country for 10 x's. As long as you are a squared away stud your grades will reflect where you want to go, get it? I needed to be under a 52 to avoid the jet draft and I got a 51.5 thanks again Maj Griffin. Ask for recommendations from IP's like your onwing at selection time.
Advanced Helos- Well if this is what you wanted, congrats. If not you will after you hover, and if you still don't want it suck it up buttercup because any monkey can drive fast in 3D but a helo pilot is both the angel of mercy and the minister of death. Now your briefs take hours not minutes and you have a fam partner to brief with. It is always you knuckleheads vs the IP. Never screw your fam partner in briefs and study together. My fam partner and I studied about 7 hours a day of which 5 were very focused. You now need to know why EP's are the way they are and you should think like this when you study because you will be asked. Fams were much more fun in the helo because you are expected to suck. No one is a "natural" helo pilot. Helo pilots are peculiar animals and always pesimistic thinking that if things haven't go wrong they will. Tactics were alot of fun and BI's required almost no study after the first on. Memorize all the checkpoints in the oscar pattern and learn gouge power settings for the sims. RI's weren't as bad as I thought they would be but it was precisely my apprehension to the discuss items that made RI's so easy I overstudied to the point where I enjoyed spending hours in the OPNAV and NATOPS and FAR/AIM. I became like on of those gym rats who loves to look at himself in the mirror at the gym in that I was obsessed with knowledge. How many milligrams of caffine can you have, can you fly if you're pregnant, requirements for standard IFR, special IFR, yearly mins and monthly max, airspace, cloud clearances, fuel plans, flight plans, categories of approaches. I recommend finding Capt Berrigan in HT-8 he is THE BEST IP IN HT'S! He will motivate you and make you a very proffessional aviator especially in RI's. His kneeboard method sets the standard for organization and cansistancy. And low levels are a blast but nothing holds a candle to forms. I could go on but I am rambling now. I hope some of this helps you and I realize I too used alot of terms and acronyms so if you have any questions please ask I have plenty of time as does E5B but if you are in high school or college or a Marine and not through TBS this isn't good information for you.
S/F
And E5B I hope you get skids we came a long way together and it's fitting we should get pinned together. Later devil.
Instruments were about half the program when I did it, and honestly the only reason not to get good instrument grades is you are lazy. GET IN THE SIMS!!
