NSS changes as of 04AUG08

[ProwlerPilot]

WOW! If you only put half as much effort into flying the plane and learning the systems as you do trying to compute your NSS, you would be able to select whatever you want!

As for "am I doing well." If you answered all of your instructor's questions in the brief, came prepared, know all the course rules / EPs / altitudes and airspeeds cold then yes, you are doing well. The monkey skills are pretty abitrary and will either be there or not. Or come with practice.

If you get a down, you are not doing well.

If you get a below, you are not doing well.

STUDY! Work HARD! The grades work out. If you do your best all the time, then even if you are LAST in your class, that is the best you could do.

 

[bunk22]

I think what ProwlerPilot is trying to say is, if you suck, you need to suck less.

 

[Rg9]

...If you get a down, you are not doing well.

If you get a below, you are not doing well. ...

I think you're thinking of the old/Tailhook Advanced grading methods. The problem with MIF is that is tells you little as to how you're doing. You can pass every single flight, get MIF (i.e., the standard) on every single flight, and fail out of flight school. In itself, it gives absolutely no bearing as to how you're doing (although if you are failing flights, yes, try to suck less).

 

[MIDNJAC]

I think you're thinking of the old/Tailhook Advanced grading methods. The problem with MIF is that is tells you little as to how you're doing. You can pass every single flight, get MIF (i.e., the standard) on every single flight, and fail out of flight school. In itself, it gives absolutely no bearing as to how you're doing (although if you are failing flights, yes, try to suck less).

So couldn't you just consider MIF'ing to be doing badly, while if you are hitting above MIF overall you are more than likely doing decently well? I'm more interested than anything, as obviously you have a lot more experience with this than me. I will say in my very short time in primary so far, if I do badly enough get MIF on an item, I view that as bad and something I need to bone up on for the next sim/flight/etc. Maybe this logic doesn't work as well in later blocks where MIF is generally 4?

 

[insanebikerboy]

So couldn't you just consider MIF'ing to be doing badly, while if you are hitting above MIF overall you are more than likely doing decently well?

It's a somewhat reasonable expectation that if you are getting several above MIF scores per flight you should be doing ok, but to say that getting purely MIF is bad isn't exactly true. As it's been outlined, your scores are compared to your peers, so theoretically you could get only MIF the entire time and still come out on top if your peers had been consistently getting several below MIF's each flight.

 

[Kickflip89]

So couldn't you just consider MIF'ing to be doing badly, while if you are hitting above MIF overall you are more than likely doing decently well? I'm more interested than anything, as obviously you have a lot more experience with this than me. I will say in my very short time in primary so far, if I do badly enough get MIF on an item, I view that as bad and something I need to bone up on for the next sim/flight/etc. Maybe this logic doesn't work as well in later blocks where MIF is generally 4?

No, because your all your scores are based on the squadron average from the past 60 people to go through your squadron. So, if you MIF everything and score a 1.0 you could be well below average, or you could be just plain average. "Good" and "Bad" are all determined by how your squadron usually grades.

Hell, my onwing only gave me below MIF or MIF...the only thing I received above MIF on was spins. He flat out told me my first flight was above average, especially on comms, and gave me 3 or 4 items below MIF and MIF on everything else for that flight.

On my last flight he said he really didn't have any notes or anything negative to say, just good job on everything, and MIFd me for everything. Since I got MIF by EoB, all that matters is how my score will stack up against the squadron average (although I have a feeling it may be below average for this block).

Of course, I could just flat out suck

 

[ProwlerPilot]

You can pass every single flight, get MIF (i.e., the standard) on every single flight, and fail out of flight school.

In this case, the system is jacked. If you pass every flight, you shouldn't fail out of flight school. That is stupid! (Kinda like a night bag X)

However, you can't tell me that you don't know when you are doing well and when you aren't. The comments that concern me are "am I doing well enough to get what I need, or should I work harder?!" If that is why you want to know your NSS, then I don't think you should get it at all. Answer: work harder. If you leave the debrief and you answered EVERY question correctly (without guessing) and hit EVERY altitude / radio call / airspeed / etc. then you did well. If you were clueless and hanging onto the vertical stab the entire flight, you did not do well REGARDLESS of what your instructor told you or what he wrote. For most of you, there will be no instructor to save your ass and get you off the stab when you are by yourself in the fleet. NSS won't save your life single seat at night single engine at the boat.

 

[bunk22]

In this case, the system is jacked. If you pass every flight, you shouldn't fail out of flight school. That is stupid! (Kinda like a night bag X)

However, you can't tell me that you don't know when you are doing well and when you aren't. The comments that concern me are "am I doing well enough to get what I need, or should I work harder?!" If that is why you want to know your NSS, then I don't think you should get it at all. Answer: work harder. If you leave the debrief and you answered EVERY question correctly (without guessing) and hit EVERY altitude / radio call / airspeed / etc. then you did well. If you were clueless and hanging onto the vertical stab the entire flight, you did not do well REGARDLESS of what your instructor told you or what he wrote. For most of you, there will be no instructor to save your ass and get you off the stab when you are by yourself in the fleet. NSS won't save your life single seat at night single engine at the boat.

I started primary in Aug 94 so I went through on the old system as well, above, below's, average, pinsk sheet downs for a bad flight, etc. Now the thing about MIF, it is defined. For example, lets say MIF on BAW is a 4.0 if the student is within +/-100 of altitude, +/- 10KIAS of airspeed and +/- 10 degrees of heading. Okay, so whats a 5.0? A guy might be within 50, 5 and 5 throughout the flight, so is that a 5? Or what if he is usually 50, 5 and 5? So this system is certainly not perfect, still subjectivity (is that a word??) in it. So the student meets MIF, so that would be at least average? Yet MIF out and it's below average? I dunno. I think aboves and belows could have been defined as above as well. I'm not a big proponent of this grading system. It seemingly lets poor performers continue on. Though maybe with this new criteria, it will change things. However, hopefully the process has worked regardless before an aviator is flying by him or herself at night, at the boat. If you're there, you probably have earned it.

 

[Gatordev]

In this case, the system is jacked. If you pass every flight, you shouldn't fail out of flight school.

Contrary to what you're hearing here, the above is not the case. There is (or was) no minimum NSS. 35 was a magic number that got thrown around, but it was either changed or finally followed that it was not a minimum. A 35 will warrant a PRB, but it is not the determining factor.

@Bunk:

FWIW, when Phrog and I went through, it was MPTS, but there was still the 3 strikes and you're done, so it weeded folks out. I suspect things were made more lenient because they needed bodies. Maybe now they realize that's not the best way to do it. So the pendulum swings.

I have no facts to base my assumption on, just basing it on what I saw over the years and after coming back through the pipeline as an IP w/ the newer (now on its way out) system.

 

[MIDNJAC]

However, you can't tell me that you don't know when you are doing well and when you aren't. The comments that concern me are "am I doing well enough to get what I need, or should I work harder?!" If that is why you want to know your NSS, then I don't think you should get it at all. Answer: work harder.

From a student's perspective all you said makes perfect logical sense, and I don't think many of us are just trying to put in enough work to only get by. I'm not going to be walking into a brief unless I am positive that I can answer everything on the brief list in detail, everything he/she could conceivably ask out of NATOPS, and/or any maneuver items or applicable/potentially applicable course rules. But in the rare instance where you are doing your best (as described above), working your butt off, etc, and your grades aren't great, you need to have some way of knowing, so that you can say "Hey, I thought I was working as hard as possible, but I guess I need to figure out a way to still turn it up a notch in these (insert here) areas". That's all I was saying anyway.

 

[Beans]

The [only] practical reason I can think of to have accurate feedback for your performance is this: ENS Schrute wants to try new study technique X to see if it can help him maximize his performance. After a few flights, an accurate track of his standing (such as a flight-to-flight NSS calculation) would help him determine if he should continue study technique X, abandon it entirely, or do something in between.

Up to this point, all we've had is a subjective "feel" of whether or not something is helping us, and little experience to draw upon. Quantifying it (or, really, just crunching the numbers that are already in TIMS) will help immensely.

 

[bunk22]

@Bunk:

FWIW, when Phrog and I went through, it was MPTS, but there was still the 3 strikes and you're done, so it weeded folks out. I suspect things were made more lenient because they needed bodies. Maybe now they realize that's not the best way to do it. So the pendulum swings.

I have no facts to base my assumption on, just basing it on what I saw over the years and after coming back through the pipeline as an IP w/ the newer (now on its way out) system.

But what's a strike? Three pinks sheets after 6 yellow sheets? In my day, a down was a down was a pink sheet. No yellow, no marginal, it was above, average, below or unsat. That means the above would be 9 pink sheets. Not sure if that ever happend for pilots. I know it did for NFO's...I saw a few when I was Stucon at the FRS for E2/C2.

 

[BACONATOR]

Now the thing about MIF, it is defined. For example, lets say MIF on BAW is a 4.0 if the student is within +/-100 of altitude, +/- 10KIAS of airspeed and +/- 10 degrees of heading. Okay, so whats a 5.0? A guy might be within 50, 5 and 5 throughout the flight, so is that a 5? Or what if he is usually 50, 5 and 5? So this system is certainly not perfect, still subjectivity (is that a word??) in it.

That's a good damn question. There were a handful of times where I performed a maneuver and the IP commented how it was GREAT or even that I did it better than he demonstrated it to me. 4... wtf?

Generally, the rumor is that 5 means "IP quality". I had a comment on a gradesheet that said "IP Quality- Fantastic" and I got a 5. Fair enough.

But toward the end of contacts, I'd put it down at a low descent rate, on centerline and stop in a relatively short distance. I got 5s from some instructors and 4s from others. How do you determine the difference? The landings weren't much (if at all) different.

It is STILL subjective. MIF is define, but not 4 (unless MIF is 4) or 5.

 

[SDNalgene]

It's a somewhat reasonable expectation that if you are getting several above MIF scores per flight you should be doing ok, but to say that getting purely MIF is bad isn't exactly true. As it's been outlined, your scores are compared to your peers, so theoretically you could get only MIF the entire time and still come out on top if your peers had been consistently getting several below MIF's each flight.

That theory wouldn't have held water when I went through VT-28. Average was something like 1.15 overall with a standard deviation of about 0.03. So if you got a 1.10 (a good ways above MIF) you would have had a 33 NSS. MIF doesn't tell you shit about how you are doing unless you know about your squadrons average grades. MIFing in VT-27 would result in a better NSS than MIFing in VT-28, solely because 28 tended to grade off of CTS instead of off of MIF.

In 28's stucon office there was a sheet that listed the average ratio for each block. The only real way to know how you were doing was to go block by block and figure out what your ratio was for that block and compare it to the average. It involved a calculator and 10 minutes so pretty much no one did it, but knowing almost exactly where you were at any point in time was doable. I knew my NSS to within 2 points before I went into my selection brief, but only because the stucon office published the necessary data to figure it out.

 

[SDNalgene]

It is STILL subjective. MIF is define, but not 4 (unless MIF is 4) or 5.

MIF isn't defined like that. CTS (Course Training Standard) is defined in the back of the Master Curriculum Guide for every maneuver and CTS is ALWAYS a 4. MIF (Maneuvering Item File, how the Air Force came up with that stupid name I have no idea) is the minimum score that you need to have at a certain point in training. MIF and CTS aren't supposed to be the same thing, but it seems like they get used interchangeably.

MIF has nothing to do with whether you are doing it right, or whether you are doing it average. All it says is to move out of block X you need to meet MIF Y for maneuver Z.

Maneuvers are SUPPOSED (though in practice it seems to depend on your squadron) to be graded off of CTS. If you do the maneuver correctly, with reasonable deviations, so long as corrections are prompt, positive, and correct, then you should get a 4, regardless of what block you are in or what MIF happens to be or what the "average" student performance for that maneuver happens to be. The subjectivity comes in as to what differentiates a 5 from a 4 or a 3 from a 4, but a 4 means you did it right, nothing more, nothing less. You're never going to be able to totally remove subjectivity and this is where it is in MPTS.

I realize I am just a student and I hope that didn't come off as being critical of instructors or their grading techniques or the system as a whole. I am just pointing out what the MCG says about grading, CTS, and MIF. Some squadrons treat MIF like its CTS or view MIF as "average". Their ratios are lower than squadrons that grade to CTS. However, it all works out in the end because you are compared against people in your squadron only. So long as you didn't get the one guy who grades to MIF for an onwing when everyone else in the squadron grades to CTS then you will be fine.