I wasn’t talking about personal preferences of living near New River vs SD.
I meant that the USMC is short V-22 pilots, so they’d institutionally probably prefer not to farm their pilots out to Navy billets.
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All things MV-22 Osprey
- Thread starter Dave Shutter
- Start date
I wasn’t talking about personal preferences of living near New River vs SD.
I meant that the USMC is short V-22 pilots, so they’d institutionally probably prefer not to farm their pilots out to Navy billets.
Hm. Wonder what their reaction was to the VRC EA memo?
A VRC RAG wouldn't be all that big...-120 has 4 or 5 CODs at any one time, IIRC. But I doubt they'd be able to cram all those Plopters into the current VRC-30 hangar. Same with -40's at Norfolk. Neither have any excess room. NASNI or Norfolk, I bet they're going to try and kick some helos off the flight line to make room, which should be a fun little inter-Wing turf war to watch.
Not sure about Cat-I, but a great deal of their training is out at Kirkland AFB in Albuquerque NM.
I think Norfolk does have more actual acreage though, the transient line is usually pretty sparsely populated and you could also do the musical chairs thing Whidbey did for years with the VP and VAQ squadrons trading spaces and hangars except permanently at Norfolk.
As far as I know, they select Ospreys out of helo training at Rucker, then go to the 58th at Kirtland for transition. I don't think their V-22 Cat-1s do any multiengine in their track.
There will be (is?) Plopters already at Norfolk from the Marine Reserve squadron. Rumor was they were gonna leave the heliport and swap spaces with HSC-26.
Norfolk I’d argue still has room, specifically on the south side by the AMC terminal or by the transient line.
Norfolk I’d argue still has room, specifically on the south side by the AMC terminal or by the transient line.
Different people have different pull, so no surprise there. But from an anecdotal point of view, space on NASNI really is sparse, with FRC being a big player (and right or wrong, they have a lot of pull, no matter the base).
To you or me, flight line space isn't the issue, it's the facility space. You can always put another few airframes on a flightline, but it's the infrastructure that's the issue on NASNI.
So 26 would go from LFs to the LPs back to LFs?
Brand new CV guys come through the Marine FRS, get a MV-22 NATOPS check, then head off to Kirtland for follow-on CV training. They maintain a cadre of USAF IPs and an O-5 Det CO has an office next to the Marine COs (along with the Navy O5 Det COs office)
When I was at -204, both Huey guys and T1 guys were coming through. Apparently the two T1 guys were a rarity, but it does happen.
Just so we’re clear...
Squadron: VRM
Aircraft: CMV-22B
In my view, it makes sense to have the FRS at NASNI. VRM-30 will be much bigger than VRM-40... not to mention the det in Japan. We are pivoting to the Pacific, are we not?
As it is now, VAW-120 should be viewed as a support squadron to the fleet more than a training squadron. I don’t see the CMV-22 RAG being much different on that front. There’s a lot to be said about having your materiel support close at hand.
Squadron: VRM
Aircraft: CMV-22B
In my view, it makes sense to have the FRS at NASNI. VRM-30 will be much bigger than VRM-40... not to mention the det in Japan. We are pivoting to the Pacific, are we not?
As it is now, VAW-120 should be viewed as a support squadron to the fleet more than a training squadron. I don’t see the CMV-22 RAG being much different on that front. There’s a lot to be said about having your materiel support close at hand.
Ahhh so the squadron desig VRC —> VRM. Makes sense now!
What's the rationale for the designation change? Are they changing the PLADs as well?
Yeah, but get this... they’re new squadrons. Even though they will be composed (on the pilot side) of former VRC guys, they don’t fit into the Navy heritage lineage scheme. Technically, they wouldn’t be related to VRC-30 or -40. Weird, I know. In fact, those squadrons would still coexist until their sundown.
*Further edit: This change has caused some confusion. For some reason a lot of helicopter guys have gouge that says that they a path into VRM, including at the command level. That just isn’t true. Yes, there will be some helicopter guys needed in the FIT/new wing/etc., but those numbers will be comparitively small.
VRM dets = transitioning C-2 pilots and new accession CMV-22B pilots.
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I don't see why they can't transition the lineage of the squadrons, there are several ways to do it with none of them being very hard and it certainly has been done before. Squadron lineage and history is one thing the Navy does very poorly compared to the other services.
How would you do it?