Passing along the gouge for my final flight school post.
I was a primary grad NOT COPTR – they are continuing to experiment with a different syllabus, so some aspects will differ from what I touch on.
If you don’t want to read my anecdotal ramblings, scroll to the larger bold text to just read the Advance Syllabus gouge.
For those of you who have followed my posts, my time in helo advance was disrupted due to a medical condition. My return to training was a little under a year. I wrote extensive details on my medical experience in a separate post; however, take these into consideration:
A final prelude for those who were burned in Primary. The HTs are better. Much, much better.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you’re reading this as someone who has not completed Primary, read back on my earlier posts for acronyms and terms. This post assumes you’re well-versed in flight school speak.
START HERE FOR GOUGE
Pre-Class up
Unlikely Primary, there’s nothing you need to study before classing up. It all CAN be learned at the start of the syllabus, but I’d recommend this order of priority:
Sims – Night and day cultural shift from Primary, 100% for the better. Sims were genuine teaching experiences that I was excited for rather than critical evaluations. With some rare exceptions, discussion items were wave topped in favor of maximizing teaching time. Most discussion items will return on the flight line, so sim prep was still critical. Similar to Primary, you’ll brief then sim alone with one sim instructor and the occasional flight IPs depending on the event.
Flights –Expect longer briefs and to “not know” more often than in Primary. Rarely, you’ll be alone for briefing as almost every brief + flight is scheduled with 2, sometimes 3 students on various events. The IP will take turns asking questions about everyone’s discussion items. HTs run on “hotseat turn overs” where an IP and a student fly, they drop off one student and then pick up the next. As a result, flight days were longer than Primary. Fortunately, this is when you’ll make a lot of friends waiting around in the student ready room and eating at the Greasy Spoon (café/grill located conveniently in the HT8/18 building). Weather requirements for launch were also significantly lower than Primary, so expect substantially fewer weather cancellations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day Familiarizations (Day Fams) – You’ll complete ground school and sims events simultaneously, taking about 6 weeks before hitting the flight line. Try your hand at hovering early and often. Anecdotally, it’s the hardest thing you’ll learn to do at the HTs, but they give you nearly a month to figure it out. I promise it will click.
Fam flights should take about 5-8 weeks. You’ll have a Fam 0, be assigned an onwing and an onwing partner just like Primary.
DayFams finishes with a “Bro-lo”, ie, you and another student take the bird for a spin.
Basic Instruments (BIs) – The most relaxed phase of all of flight school, lasting anywhere from 2 – 5 weeks depending on weather. Discussion items are short and sweet. The weather requirements are the strictest, you’re the lowest priority scheduling-wise, so you get cancelled/ not scheduled frequently. If you’re going to sell/buy a house, get married, or handle any other major life logistics, handle it in this phase, as you won’t ever have as much “mental bandwidth” for the remainder of the syllabus.
Nights – Nights should take about 1-2 weeks. Controversial take, but my least favorite part of the syllabus due to the disjointed nature of the discussion items. Flying-wise, it was an absolute blast to put on the NVGs for the first time and zip around in the dark. Make sure to look up at the sky occasionally to see the dozens of shooting stars.
Instruments – Start to finish, instruments should take 2-3 months. BIs intent was to get you back in the “instrument mindset”, but this where the rubber hits the road. It starts with several weeks of sims. You’ll finally get to sit in the left seat and begin learning how to be a good co-pilot, then switch on the next sim event. If your squadron single or double pumps you through the sim phase determines your QOL. As I previously mentioned, the culture of the HTs sim bay is overly relaxed and will not prepare you for the proficiency needed for your checkride, so take the self-study seriously.
After remastering the art of the VOR, you’ll hit flying again. For those who did Primary in corpus, ask about the point-to-point to Pensi. Flying instruments again was a blast, albeit a little hokey pokey in a helicopter. Try your best to hit an out and in to Crestview when not practicing a Pensacola 500 (common check ride profile). Unlike day fams, the flight discussion items do not holistically set you up for your checkride. Close to 1/3rd of the required knowledge is not even covered in the discussion items, and another 50% was “discussed” as part of the sims. Inquire from others where the consolidated CNAF 3710 gouge/ what definitions you need to know verbatim, and you’ll be flying your second bro-lo soon enough.
The instrument bro-lo is an absolute blast. I was able to recreate my first NIFE flight by eating ice cream at Trent Lott, then flying back through Jack Edward’s airspace.
TERFs/SEA/SAR/LANDLOG –You’re in the end stretch. The remainder of the syllabus is about 5-8 weeks favoring busy work over the mass memorization of instruments. After finishing the instrument bro-lo, start asking about chart prep for TERF, as some squadrons don’t have a “prep day” nor assign someone to help you. The end order of the syllabus is up to skeds, but most typically completed, SEA + SAR, LANDLOG + TERF, and finished with FORMS.
SEA + SAR takes a max of a week. Hands down, the most fun I had in the syllabus, and it solidified my selection sheet in favor of Sierras. Sea is how to operate aboard ships. SAR is search and research.
LANDLOG takes a week and a half; however, they intermixed it with TERF. This is absolutely the most fun I've had in a helicopter, as you get to grip and rip her around, landing in tight spaces and flying around with a load.
Finally, TERF takes about 2 weeks, and oh boy, is there a lot of work for these flights.
TERF is cool as you’re flying low and racing the clock to hit your calculated times. It is important to put the time into learning JPMS (computer software) as you will need to make your own project.
Forms – The final, final stretch should take a little over a week. I found flying forms in the TH73 to be significantly easier than the T6. Prep work and flights will be similar to TERF + LANDLOG, but now you have a friend. My LFF was the perfect flight. Out-and-in to Crestview, where I finished my punch card and got my favorite food off the menu with one of my favorite IPs.
END OF SYLLABUS GOUGE
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Selection/Colo/EFMP – Congratulations! You are done with flight school. Typically, there is a winging ceremony every 2 weeks, and the cutoff is 2 weeks before that Friday. Coast Guard can finish up to the Wednesday before winging Friday (2 days before). As a result, timelines can be super tight, so prepare your family for booking last-minute flights. If you’re at the end of the fiscal year, they might pause you post syllabus to wait for several months before selection + winging. Just like Primary, do your best, and the rest is up to chance; however, COLO and EFMP selections should be accommodated. For both, make sure you are being extremely vocal with your CoC and stucon, so when handing in your selection sheet, it isn’t the first time they’ve heard about your circumstance.
Orders/ FRS timeline/ SERE – Currently, they are trying to send all wingers to SERE after PCSing and before starting the FRS Navy side. Additionally, not all FRS waits are the same. One of my peers winged and has waited over 3 months to start the FRS, and another peer checked in immediately into SERE and then started the FRS the following Monday.
DOR/Attrite/POCR/HFB – Please see my Primary post, as I have little to add to this. Attrition and DORing went exponentially down compared to Primary. POCR process remains the same. Same to HFBs.
Baby Leave – This is a side note I’d like to hit on. I saw multiple instances of new parents ultimately lose their approved baby leave upon transferring out of TW5 into their respective HTs. The HTs can take 7-12 months. Depending on how fast they are pushing people through, baby leave can be denied and then lost if an SNA gets slowed down too much in the syllabus. Take your baby leave wherever you are and do not trust a subsequent command to honor an approved request.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My first post on Airwarriors was 16Sep2020. I winged mid 2025, a nearly 5-year-long journey filled with super high-highs and very low-lows supported by my friends and family. Special shout-out to @villo0692. Thanks to everyone who’s supported me along the way to earning my wings of gold, and I hope these posts continue to help future SNAs as long as my gouge is relevant.
In conclusion, I loved my time in the HTs. I studied hard, whipped some helos around, and dodged some lightning at NOLF Harold. I’m very grateful to my patient onwing and all the HT instructors I flew with. I ended up getting my #1 choice out of advance, so I’m writing this from “sunny San Diego,” as they say.
...
~Mouse
I was a primary grad NOT COPTR – they are continuing to experiment with a different syllabus, so some aspects will differ from what I touch on.
If you don’t want to read my anecdotal ramblings, scroll to the larger bold text to just read the Advance Syllabus gouge.
For those of you who have followed my posts, my time in helo advance was disrupted due to a medical condition. My return to training was a little under a year. I wrote extensive details on my medical experience in a separate post; however, take these into consideration:
- I started the TH73 in the middle of the transition before COPTR studs were in the HTs
- I came back med up once the 73 transition was mostly complete + many COPR studs
A final prelude for those who were burned in Primary. The HTs are better. Much, much better.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you’re reading this as someone who has not completed Primary, read back on my earlier posts for acronyms and terms. This post assumes you’re well-versed in flight school speak.
START HERE FOR GOUGE
Pre-Class up
Unlikely Primary, there’s nothing you need to study before classing up. It all CAN be learned at the start of the syllabus, but I’d recommend this order of priority:
- Limits (you’re asked to list them all very early in sims)
- Hollywood Script (first 3 sims)
- EPs (check memorizer timeline as they are intermixed in early sims, but you do not need to learn them all early)
- NWCs
- Course Rules (Pub is called the RWOP for confused Corpus studs)
- ****NATOPS brief (Practice a flow, but this is NOTHING like the Primary one. I.e., it is non-verbatim but a discussion)
Sims – Night and day cultural shift from Primary, 100% for the better. Sims were genuine teaching experiences that I was excited for rather than critical evaluations. With some rare exceptions, discussion items were wave topped in favor of maximizing teaching time. Most discussion items will return on the flight line, so sim prep was still critical. Similar to Primary, you’ll brief then sim alone with one sim instructor and the occasional flight IPs depending on the event.
Flights –Expect longer briefs and to “not know” more often than in Primary. Rarely, you’ll be alone for briefing as almost every brief + flight is scheduled with 2, sometimes 3 students on various events. The IP will take turns asking questions about everyone’s discussion items. HTs run on “hotseat turn overs” where an IP and a student fly, they drop off one student and then pick up the next. As a result, flight days were longer than Primary. Fortunately, this is when you’ll make a lot of friends waiting around in the student ready room and eating at the Greasy Spoon (café/grill located conveniently in the HT8/18 building). Weather requirements for launch were also significantly lower than Primary, so expect substantially fewer weather cancellations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Day Familiarizations (Day Fams) – You’ll complete ground school and sims events simultaneously, taking about 6 weeks before hitting the flight line. Try your hand at hovering early and often. Anecdotally, it’s the hardest thing you’ll learn to do at the HTs, but they give you nearly a month to figure it out. I promise it will click.
Fam flights should take about 5-8 weeks. You’ll have a Fam 0, be assigned an onwing and an onwing partner just like Primary.
DayFams finishes with a “Bro-lo”, ie, you and another student take the bird for a spin.
Basic Instruments (BIs) – The most relaxed phase of all of flight school, lasting anywhere from 2 – 5 weeks depending on weather. Discussion items are short and sweet. The weather requirements are the strictest, you’re the lowest priority scheduling-wise, so you get cancelled/ not scheduled frequently. If you’re going to sell/buy a house, get married, or handle any other major life logistics, handle it in this phase, as you won’t ever have as much “mental bandwidth” for the remainder of the syllabus.
Nights – Nights should take about 1-2 weeks. Controversial take, but my least favorite part of the syllabus due to the disjointed nature of the discussion items. Flying-wise, it was an absolute blast to put on the NVGs for the first time and zip around in the dark. Make sure to look up at the sky occasionally to see the dozens of shooting stars.
Instruments – Start to finish, instruments should take 2-3 months. BIs intent was to get you back in the “instrument mindset”, but this where the rubber hits the road. It starts with several weeks of sims. You’ll finally get to sit in the left seat and begin learning how to be a good co-pilot, then switch on the next sim event. If your squadron single or double pumps you through the sim phase determines your QOL. As I previously mentioned, the culture of the HTs sim bay is overly relaxed and will not prepare you for the proficiency needed for your checkride, so take the self-study seriously.
After remastering the art of the VOR, you’ll hit flying again. For those who did Primary in corpus, ask about the point-to-point to Pensi. Flying instruments again was a blast, albeit a little hokey pokey in a helicopter. Try your best to hit an out and in to Crestview when not practicing a Pensacola 500 (common check ride profile). Unlike day fams, the flight discussion items do not holistically set you up for your checkride. Close to 1/3rd of the required knowledge is not even covered in the discussion items, and another 50% was “discussed” as part of the sims. Inquire from others where the consolidated CNAF 3710 gouge/ what definitions you need to know verbatim, and you’ll be flying your second bro-lo soon enough.
The instrument bro-lo is an absolute blast. I was able to recreate my first NIFE flight by eating ice cream at Trent Lott, then flying back through Jack Edward’s airspace.
TERFs/SEA/SAR/LANDLOG –You’re in the end stretch. The remainder of the syllabus is about 5-8 weeks favoring busy work over the mass memorization of instruments. After finishing the instrument bro-lo, start asking about chart prep for TERF, as some squadrons don’t have a “prep day” nor assign someone to help you. The end order of the syllabus is up to skeds, but most typically completed, SEA + SAR, LANDLOG + TERF, and finished with FORMS.
SEA + SAR takes a max of a week. Hands down, the most fun I had in the syllabus, and it solidified my selection sheet in favor of Sierras. Sea is how to operate aboard ships. SAR is search and research.
LANDLOG takes a week and a half; however, they intermixed it with TERF. This is absolutely the most fun I've had in a helicopter, as you get to grip and rip her around, landing in tight spaces and flying around with a load.
Finally, TERF takes about 2 weeks, and oh boy, is there a lot of work for these flights.
TERF is cool as you’re flying low and racing the clock to hit your calculated times. It is important to put the time into learning JPMS (computer software) as you will need to make your own project.
Forms – The final, final stretch should take a little over a week. I found flying forms in the TH73 to be significantly easier than the T6. Prep work and flights will be similar to TERF + LANDLOG, but now you have a friend. My LFF was the perfect flight. Out-and-in to Crestview, where I finished my punch card and got my favorite food off the menu with one of my favorite IPs.
END OF SYLLABUS GOUGE
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Selection/Colo/EFMP – Congratulations! You are done with flight school. Typically, there is a winging ceremony every 2 weeks, and the cutoff is 2 weeks before that Friday. Coast Guard can finish up to the Wednesday before winging Friday (2 days before). As a result, timelines can be super tight, so prepare your family for booking last-minute flights. If you’re at the end of the fiscal year, they might pause you post syllabus to wait for several months before selection + winging. Just like Primary, do your best, and the rest is up to chance; however, COLO and EFMP selections should be accommodated. For both, make sure you are being extremely vocal with your CoC and stucon, so when handing in your selection sheet, it isn’t the first time they’ve heard about your circumstance.
Orders/ FRS timeline/ SERE – Currently, they are trying to send all wingers to SERE after PCSing and before starting the FRS Navy side. Additionally, not all FRS waits are the same. One of my peers winged and has waited over 3 months to start the FRS, and another peer checked in immediately into SERE and then started the FRS the following Monday.
DOR/Attrite/POCR/HFB – Please see my Primary post, as I have little to add to this. Attrition and DORing went exponentially down compared to Primary. POCR process remains the same. Same to HFBs.
Baby Leave – This is a side note I’d like to hit on. I saw multiple instances of new parents ultimately lose their approved baby leave upon transferring out of TW5 into their respective HTs. The HTs can take 7-12 months. Depending on how fast they are pushing people through, baby leave can be denied and then lost if an SNA gets slowed down too much in the syllabus. Take your baby leave wherever you are and do not trust a subsequent command to honor an approved request.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
My first post on Airwarriors was 16Sep2020. I winged mid 2025, a nearly 5-year-long journey filled with super high-highs and very low-lows supported by my friends and family. Special shout-out to @villo0692. Thanks to everyone who’s supported me along the way to earning my wings of gold, and I hope these posts continue to help future SNAs as long as my gouge is relevant.
In conclusion, I loved my time in the HTs. I studied hard, whipped some helos around, and dodged some lightning at NOLF Harold. I’m very grateful to my patient onwing and all the HT instructors I flew with. I ended up getting my #1 choice out of advance, so I’m writing this from “sunny San Diego,” as they say.
...
~Mouse
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