Naval Introductory Flight Training (NIFE) Phase 3 AAR: Flying

[Flash]

Dumb question, has the Navy given any thought to making IFS/NIFE more like the USAF's Initial Flight Screening course in that it is more under the control of the service? To me it seems like a better way to make the sausage, or does that make too much sense (or cost too much $) for the Navy?

 

[Bigfoot]

I fondly remember IFS at Jack Edwards. A nice long drive down the Gulf Coast beachfront to Alabama listening to podcasts, putzing around over Mobile Bay at a few thousand feet or a few hundred, feezing cold mornings preflighting a frosty Cessna 172 that was as old as my parents, practicing landings over a couple million dollars worth of yachts, stopping at that retro 50's diner for a hot meal after a flight...plus the solo at Fairhope was one of the best days of my budding flying career.

Ground school is not remembered so fondly.

Same here brother, we were so lucky. Imagine having to drive 1+ hours up to Milton/peter prince airport. NO thank you.

 

[DanMa1156]

So much of what I've seen that's fucked up with the active component and the Navy in general flows from this mindset. Don't bother with too much training and mentorship. Why bother when you can just take X percent more than you need, throw shit at the wall, and let the NSS curve/FITREP 500/selection board weed folks out? After all, if they didn't make it, they must be non-hackers anyway, because you figured it out, and you're the winged aviator/CO/[insert competitive billet here]. Right?

Yeah, I get that some people aren't going to make it through the program, but there's no magical way to push the attrition curve to the left. Some people just need a bit more time before the light bulb goes on, and some people walk on water until they don't. After a certain point, you're just abdicating the responsibility to teach. That's the reason the Navy details people to these things called training commands, and expects that they're going to be, what's the word? Ah . . . instructors. Not evaluators.

Ehhh I am with you that we should have solid training and mentorship, but I do think it makes sense to try to pull some attrition to the left. As an instructor, I was frustrated anytime a student was halfway through advanced and was like "eh, I don't like this anymore. I thought flying would be fun, but it's mostly just memorization and flying procedures."

I think with an IFS/NIFE/API whatever it is you can:
1. Weed out the academic non hackers. Some people just won't get the academics. Get them earlier rather than later... trickery on the tests isn't the answer, but we all know that guy who showed up to API and didn't study and thought "no one fails API, this will be a breeze," partied too much and was the TAD ENS fixing Page-2s six weeks later. This isn't fixed by mentorship: these students already had every instructor tell them to study in groups, their buddies offering them to join in, and some sort of review board to try to address their problems.

2. Make students realize how much memorization there is ahead (again, don't be ridiculous, but memorizing a few limits, EPs, and procedures to give them a taste of what Primary and Advanced will be like) so you weed out the people who thought flying would be kick the tires, light the fires, and take to the open skies and max throttle. I imagine most of us thought it would be like that but at some point we all bought into the safety our procedures brought us and we all realized at some point that some airspace is friggin crowded and we need to be procedurally compliant. There are a good number of students every year who just don't want to mature to that stage, and when it smacks them in the face, they don't think flying is fun anymore and don't want to do it. Get this to them earlier.

3. There are a good number of people who just get airsick. Sure, give them the puke-chair a few times, get them acclimated, but some people it just turns out, physically either don't like flying or can't acclimate to it. Get them out of the program in a $100/hour Cessna instead of a however-many-dollars per hour T-6.

 

[nittany03]

Ehhh I am with you that we should have solid training and mentorship, but I do think it makes sense to try to pull some attrition to the left. As an instructor, I was frustrated anytime a student was halfway through advanced and was like "eh, I don't like this anymore. I thought flying would be fun, but it's mostly just memorization and flying procedures."

I think with an IFS/NIFE/API whatever it is you can:
1. Weed out the academic non hackers. Some people just won't get the academics. Get them earlier rather than later... trickery on the tests isn't the answer, but we all know that guy who showed up to API and didn't study and thought "no one fails API, this will be a breeze," partied too much and was the TAD ENS fixing Page-2s six weeks later. This isn't fixed by mentorship: these students already had every instructor tell them to study in groups, their buddies offering them to join in, and some sort of review board to try to address their problems.

2. Make students realize how much memorization there is ahead (again, don't be ridiculous, but memorizing a few limits, EPs, and procedures to give them a taste of what Primary and Advanced will be like) so you weed out the people who thought flying would be kick the tires, light the fires, and take to the open skies and max throttle. I imagine most of us thought it would be like that but at some point we all bought into the safety our procedures brought us and we all realized at some point that some airspace is friggin crowded and we need to be procedurally compliant. There are a good number of students every year who just don't want to mature to that stage, and when it smacks them in the face, they don't think flying is fun anymore and don't want to do it. Get this to them earlier.

3. There are a good number of people who just get airsick. Sure, give them the puke-chair a few times, get them acclimated, but some people it just turns out, physically either don't like flying or can't acclimate to it. Get them out of the program in a $100/hour Cessna instead of a however-many-dollars per hour T-6.

Fair points. What I was mainly reacting to was a DivO telling studs "yeah, this is basically just to attrite you earlier." What a great way to say "I don't give a shit about you; you're just a widget." If there's things like what you mentioned that can be measured and assessed earlier, sure. Set the standard, teach to the standard, and hold the standard. I'm just skeptical that offloading that decision to civilians in any significant capacity is necessarily better. How are they supposed to evaluate a student's potential for wings they've never earned?

 

[Gatordev]

What I was mainly reacting to was a DivO telling studs "yeah, this is basically just to attrite you earlier."

Would you rather him lie to you?

What a great way to say "I don't give a shit about you; you're just a widget."

Maybe he can tell you that you're extra special and unique from everyone else. Again. let's be honest...in API you're pretty much a widget. As you progress through API, Primary, Advanced, and ultimately the RAG, you get more and more "support" from the system because you've been proving yourself along the way (and your opportunity cost has consistently increased over time).

Set the standard, teach to the standard, and hold the standard. I'm just skeptical that offloading that decision to civilians in any significant capacity is necessarily better.

Let's move past the defrauding the government part, as that's a separate (but not unimportant) issue. But it sounds like a standard has been set (there's a PTS/MIF system). And the decision isn't being off-loaded to civilians. Apparently it's quite the opposite, as now Navy IPs are making the decision via the checkride. And if the IPs are seeing trends, you better believe the STAN board will hear about it. That's how the system works. Every instructor role I've had has had that feedback loop and it's caught problems regularly.

I get it, you were both a victim and benefactor of the attrition system, so it's a topic that's near and dear to you, but Skywarrior's antics aside, it sounds like the intent of this system is to address the many issues your stating that were even more prevalent in IFS. Of course the argument for IFS/NIFE need to exist is a whole other topic.

 

[bigbuckslayer89]

Can any of you SNA's just getting to or waiting on NIFE/Primary give any info on what current wait times are from arrival to classing up? Thanks!

 

[ChuckMK23]

New Naval Introductory Flight Evaluation Program Provides Modern Foundation for Flight Training

The first 33 students graduated from the Navy’s new Naval Introductory Flight Evaluation (NIFE) program aboard Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola, Oct. 14.

www.dvidshub.net

 

[ChuckMK23]

Ehhh I am with you that we should have solid training and mentorship, but I do think it makes sense to try to pull some attrition to the left. As an instructor, I was frustrated anytime a student was halfway through advanced and was like "eh, I don't like this anymore. I thought flying would be fun, but it's mostly just memorization and flying procedures."

I think with an IFS/NIFE/API whatever it is you can:
1. Weed out the academic non hackers. Some people just won't get the academics. Get them earlier rather than later... trickery on the tests isn't the answer, but we all know that guy who showed up to API and didn't study and thought "no one fails API, this will be a breeze," partied too much and was the TAD ENS fixing Page-2s six weeks later. This isn't fixed by mentorship: these students already had every instructor tell them to study in groups, their buddies offering them to join in, and some sort of review board to try to address their problems.

What's interesting is the AF is taking the opposite approach - taking Air Force Officers who didn't do well in preflight academics and testing - pulling them out of the pipeline, giving them 10 - 15 hours of GA flying with Civil Air Patrol in a C182 with CAP CFI's, giving them a morale, motivation, and knowledge boost and then re-inserting them in the T-6 UPT pipeline. Apparently its been quite a successful program. Meaning the nurturing part is key as opposed to "find the folks who can't hack it and kick them in the ass".

 

[Griz882]

What's interesting is the AF is taking the opposite approach - taking Air Force Officers who didn't do well in preflight academics and testing - pulling them out of the pipeline, giving them 10 - 15 hours of GA flying with Civil Air Patrol in a C182 with CAP CFI's, giving them a morale, motivation, and knowledge boost and then re-inserting them in the T-6 UPT pipeline. Apparently its been quite a successful program. Meaning the nurturing part is key as opposed to "find the folks who can't hack it and kick them in the ass".

I imagine it is a matter of need. If you need make them and the AF needs pilots. I had a neighbor who flew the A-6 in Vietnam (flight school in 1969) and he noted he got “four or five” downs but they just kept him in the cockpit until he passed the event. He always joked that if you soloed you “were” going to get your wings.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Also consider how incredibly valuable the person who is college educated/degreed, is free of drug use and criminal history, has the moral, physical, and mental health to be commissioned, and then finally is physically qualified for duty as a pilot. Training is the difference between success and non success. The humans you need to get to the point of pilot training are far too valuable - history proves that the difference between success and not in pilot training is training amounts. Adding to that the culture change in we understand young people's brains are not fully developed until age 23-25. A more human centric approach pays off.

 

[taxi1]

Some random thoughts...

I tried an experiment when I was in the VT. During the brief, I'd tell the student, "You got a one above average (which of course was close to average), let's go learn." I think it worked out well, although I never gathered metrics. Just anecdotes. The second flight with the student was better, as they were definitely more relaxed. I remember telling one, "JFC that was the worst formation join I've ever seen, but you still got a one above." He laughed and improved greatly on the next iteration.

As a paddles, I'd get assigned a lot of flights with students who struggled in the landing pattern. I think it helped to let them know this was a 100% teaching event, not an evaluation event. The same thing with OCF, which was mostly exposure and building muscle memory. On these flights, there was a lot more back-n-forth with the students as they lowered their shields and got into the flying.

To this day I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and there was a section on an experiment the book's lead character ran where he didn't tell the students what their grades were throughout the class. Googling...of course the internet has the excerpt. Not identical to my case, but rhymes with it.

https://www.drury.edu/academics/undergrad/core/pdf/readings/Pirsig.pdf

 

[Flash]

I imagine it is a matter of need. If you need make them and the AF needs pilots. I had a neighbor who flew the A-6 in Vietnam (flight school in 1969) and he noted he got “four or five” downs but they just kept him in the cockpit until he passed the event. He always joked that if you soloed you “were” going to get your wings.

And a few months later all the SNA's going through jets at Beeville went to an all hands where 80% of them got pink slips. A squadron mate's dad was one of the lucky 20% but he went straight into the reserves after getting his wings.

 

[VMO4]

"I imagine it is a matter of need. If you need make them and the AF needs pilots. I had a neighbor who flew the A-6 in Vietnam (flight school in 1969) and he noted he got “four or five” downs but they just kept him in the cockpit until he passed the event. He always joked that if you soloed you “were” going to get your wings."

Stephen Coontz has a chapter in his book Cannibal Queen about this very topic, he basically said he had several failure points in his flight training and they just kept pushing him through, eventually into A-6's in Nam.

 

[taxi1]

I had a neighbor who flew the A-6 in Vietnam (flight school in 1969) and he noted he got “four or five” downs but they just kept him in the cockpit until he passed the event

These lucky guys got a shot before their first solo

 

[Griz882]

These lucky guys got a shot before their first solo

That isn’t NIFE...it looks like SAMURAI...”Sino Aviator Military Undergraduate Random Attack Introduction.”