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T-45C Replacement

HooverPilot

CODPilot
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Maybe similar to the idea of sending Marine Hornet pilots with a carrier follow-on commitment to a post-winging CQ?

How about:
  • E-2/C-2 pilots graduate with their class having never been to the boat (like everyone else)... however, the procedures and techniques of carrier landings would have been taught from the first landing in the T-45.
  • After winging, remain at Kingsville / Meridian and go through a focused CQ syllabus that finalizes preps for the boat, and gets them their 10 traps.
  • Off to FRS success.
Just tell the AF guy to shut up if this is stupid.
I got to actually fly a few landings in T-2, T-45, F-18B/D/F (as well as watch a few in the TA-4J), and I sure wish I could have had the opportunity to try to land on the carrier. Frickin' fun... and cool.
And hard.

I think it’s a good idea you propose. I don’t doubt we can work through the problem, but I wanted to highlight the problem so we don’t commit to a path without addressing it.
 

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
I had an interesting data point, ran a mission training a cadre to operate an upper tier drone, left (pilot) and right (ball operator) seat, and we had a mix of winged aviators and others go through the training. Out of 15 to go through the training, we had 3 fail. Winged aviators. Helo guy, Hoover NFO, I forget the other pilot's community.

The number one grad was a guy who was a DCO, worked as a flight test engineer in his day job. No mil operator experience prior to that. Lots of Xbox.

Being a good drone operator was all about being able to take the sparse input and build a worldview in the noggin, then act on it. Good stick and rudder didn't automagically transfer over.

I have had the same experience.

Staying ahead of the airplane in the drone world is a lot tougher than one would think, and has been the boon of many TACAIR guys coming to the world. If you get behind, you really can't do anything to speed up, and you really need to know the logic of the airplane's FCS so you know exactly what it's going to do when you tell it to do something.

A guy who struggled with the stick and rudder skills- but kept up with the mission is going to do a hell of a lot better in this world than the guy who skated by because they were a good stick, but were tumbleweed on the mission sets.
 
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