The prevailing opinion is that it doesn’t meaningfully help you, especially considering how expensive it is. By all means go on a discovery flight if you’d like to for its own sake, but don’t waste your money on anything beyond that.
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Average NSS score range for aircraft selection
- Thread starter seadog18
- Start date
The prevailing opinion is that it doesn’t meaningfully help you, especially considering how expensive it is. By all means go on a discovery flight if you’d like to for its own sake, but don’t waste your money on anything beyond that.
If you're a wanna-be jet stud, its worth the investment.
Most do flight school with no prior hours. Plenty of my peers with zero hours selected "competitive airframes", however, prior flight time is almost always a huge leg up when paired with good study habits.
Primary is structured such that the early flights count the most. If you already have an idea how to fly, you're going to do better than your peers learning from scratch.
Of my peers who were in the now sun-downed avenger program, in every case I saw, those with prior flight time solo-ed significantly earlier than their zero hours counterparts. Ie, prior flight time can lead to higher NSS
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I had 2 (furlowed, it was 2009) airline pilots in my class that failed out.
Prior time might help. It might hurt.
Plenty of zero time folks select and are successful in jets.
Don't fly on the civilian side unless you can afford it and you want you do it for fun.
Please be careful with pushing stuff like this when you’re discussing a potentially 10k+ investment - lots of people lurk these boards looking for advice like this. A PPL isn’t going to make or break someone in the T-6. A dude who got their ticket in a 152 at an uncontrolled field is not getting a meaningful leg up against his/her peers in a 1000+hp complex hotrod.
IR? Complex/HP? If they have it, sure, I’d buy that, but spending a big chunk of change on a PPL solely to prep for the T-6 isn’t worth it. Not to mention that in this example you’d be the better part of a year out of the cockpit between OCS/NIFE etc so whatever skills PPL training imparted will be long gone before the T-6’s parking brake is released for the first time.
I do not agree with this assertion at all.
On my instructor tour, I saw just as many high-private and -commercial time studs come to grief in the program as those who’d never flown before in their lives. More to the point, CNATRA looked into this in depth and found there’s a point of diminishing returns when it comes to prior flight time. Beyond a certain point the stud spends most of their time unlearning old habits (or trying and failing).
*Some* flight time is helpful, and it can potentially get you through the first phase of training quicker. But the idea that spending thousands - potentially tens of thousands - of bucks on private ratings gives you a “huge leg up” is not borne out by the evidence and urging it on anyone as a guaranteed return on investment is, frankly, just bad gouge. Attitude and work ethic matter a hell of a lot more.
The best take.
Got my PPL my senior year, mainly as insurance- I wanted to be sure I liked flying enough and had sufficient aptitude to pursue it as a career.
I went through primary in T-34s, and found the skills I learned as a PPL helped me pick a few things up slightly faster. The instrument flying skills I had been working on helped even more. Most studs “broke out” in terms of NSS during instrument phase- fams/forms were more about how your onwing graded you.
Prior flight experience generally didn’t hurt, except in the case of a couple of “I know everything” airline types who were convinced that their shit didn’t stink. They found out otherwise. Other guys with prior professional flying and a good attitude did just fine. Stay humble.
Get .civ flight experience if and only if you want it for its own sake- don’t seek it out in order to score better in Primary. Attitude and discipline pay off the most.
I would say a discovery flight is well worth it, however anything else after that at this stage in your life/when you'll start OCS and flight school is a waste. You'll see three main categories of people in primary/selection.
1. The guy who's autistic about jets/NSS. Some had zero flight hours, some were prior CFI's, it didn't really matter. They were Gollum in the sim bay, obsess over every gradesheet, gets pissed when the IP doesn't let them talk enough in the brief so they can "show their knowledge", etc. If you want jets, be this guy and you'll get them whether you have 0 or 5000 hours.
2. PPL to Commercial license people. It seemed that if you had at least your PPL (but mainly Instrument or Commercial) and weren't killing yourself over trying to get a 5 on AOA approach they seemed to pretty comfortably coast through instruments and basically all secured Maritime. There were obviously other people that didn't have flight time, but all the airline/general aviation nerd types seemed to end up here.
3. helo (normal) people
Obviously these are just my observations going through and your mileage will vary. It's also a lot based on luck. Will you get the 5's Santa on your contacts check or will you get the guy known for failing people in the FITU? Which guy will the scheduling gods give you multiple times? If you already had your PPL and were working on your instrument and had some time before OCS sure, one could argue that's a decent use of your money, but again at some point it's diminishing returns.
There's also plenty of people who are between 2. and 3. and know how to listen, study, and have some decent flying DNA in them. They'll also get jets, or not if they don't want them.
I'm a proud user of hyperbole myself, but this isn't a thing or how it works.
I'm a proud user of hyperbole myself, but this isn't a thing or how it works.
After working in the natops office as a stash job during the waits for primary/adv I have seen multiple IPs unsat flights in the FITU. Don’t think I ever saw anyone fail out, but unsatting flights is definitely a thing nowadays.
Yes, you can UNSAT a flight, but it's not "failing" a flight the way you're thinking of it as a stud. The UNSAT flight in the FITU just identifies a deficiency and allows for another (or several) flight(s) to facilitate exposure and then continue through the syllabus.
"Failing" the syllabus is a much bigger deal and takes a long time and multiple STAN flights (they might be labeled IPC/FPCs, but that's not really what they are) before they make a final call. It does happen (we had one when I was an IP there), but it's an involved process and pretty rare.
AFidk
dumb ensign/SNA
Do check rides weigh heavier than mid stage flights?
Treat them the same and it won't matter.
In terms of NSS, no. In terms of consequences for failing the event, yes.
AFidk
dumb ensign/SNA
That’s what I meant thanks.