Consolidated Advice for Primary

[Swanee]

How would it be possible for a squadron to not do the NATOPS brief? Isn’t the NATOPS brief a list of things that must be briefed prior to flight per NATOPS, and therefore required to do by everyone flying a T-6B?

NATOPS brief? They all boil down to the following "Big 5" (that has become 6, or 8 depending on how you count): Fuel, nav, weather, comm, contigencies/emergencies, ORM/CRM. Add in some TACADMIN and the mission overview and we're out in 30 minutes. And there is nothing wrong with "per SOP". We're professional aviators and we all know the SOPs. We don't need to brief them, but we should brief exceptions.

I was the NE for the RQ-21. I've been to the various good deal 3710 level NATOPS conferences. It ceases to amaze me about we turn something called a "brief" into an hour long (read: NOT BRIEF) event. If your briefing lasts longer that your flight perhaps you're covering too much material.


And I'm stepping off of my soapbox now.

 

[ChuckMK23]

What is an electronic knee board - what of device? ipad? android tablet?

 

[ChuckMK23]

NATOPS brief? They all boil down to the following "Big 5" (that has become 6, or 8 depending on how you count): Fuel, nav, weather, comm, contigencies/emergencies, ORM/CRM. Add in some TACADMIN and the mission overview and we're out in 30 minutes. And there is nothing wrong with "per SOP". We're professional aviators and we all know the SOPs. We don't need to brief them, but we should brief exceptions.

I was the NE for the RQ-21. I've been to the various good deal 3710 level NATOPS conferences. It ceases to amaze me about we turn something called a "brief" into an hour long (read: NOT BRIEF) event. If your briefing lasts longer that your flight perhaps you're covering too much material.


And I'm stepping off of my soapbox now.

Exactly. It seems to me that the Part 121 folks get this right - succinctly briefing whats planned, and what to do if things go wrong at various critical phases of flight. Versus regurgitate SOP verbatim.

 

[Gatordev]

What is an electronic knee board - what of device? ipad? android tablet?

Yes.

Historically it's depended on which PMA bought them, who was in charge of procurring them (and their lack of understanding on what's actually functional), and whether the wind has changed on what's acceptable (again, often based on a misunderstanding of how EKBs work).

 

[scoolbubba]

The original Samsungs and Microsoft tablets were garbage. I think my squadron still has a box of them shoved somewhere. A couple people tried them but quickly found that they were loaded up with so much bullshit as to be unusable. Slow, didn't use a good efb program...your basic DOD acquisition effort.

Now, our efbs are iPads, even at CNATRA.
Coincidentally, I don't know of a major airline that isn't using iPads vice whatever else is out there. The software working on the iPads is just too good at making it easy to keep things like r&i's, opspecs, FOMs, GOMs etc up to date in addition to having multiple sources for approaches.

When computery things aren't kludged up with 7000 nmci monitor bots, things work great. Whodathunk?

 

[Jim123]

The original Samsungs and Microsoft tablets were garbage.

But... they were cheaper... there's a powerpoint slide somewhere about responsible stewards of the taxpayer's money, harumph harumph. We could probably use that line to justify buying Yugos as duty vans.

 

[Birdbrain]

Like many other VT-J students I bought an iPad after my IR Check. The first time flying an approach after a forms flight in bad weather I reached into my bag, felt the iPad, and then grabbed the paper pub I had trained on and flipped to the page I needed without a second thought and shoved it under my g-suit strap.

iPads may be great for planning, filing, and system setup for an instrument flight but I did not feel enthusiastic about strapping that thing to my knee for RTB when a paper pub does the job.

 

[scoolbubba]

Like many other VT-J students I bought an iPad after my IR Check. The first time flying an approach after a forms flight in bad weather I reached into my bag, felt the iPad, and then grabbed the paper pub I had trained on and flipped to the page I needed without a second thought and shoved it under my g-suit strap.

iPads may be great for planning, filing, and system setup for an instrument flight but I did not feel enthusiastic about strapping that thing to my knee for RTB when a paper pub does the job.

Yea, you'll get over that when you can see 5 minute time late weather and no shit traffic on it. It's too good of a tool to continue to rely on paper pubs out of tradition, especially considering how every single plate is 8.50 a pop. This is why the studs in primary are starting to learn this way out of the box.

 

[Roger_Waveoff]

Current SOP in VT-J is studs can’t use GPS on the iPad until after the IR check.

Multi-engine was unrestricted as far as I remember.

Not when I went through. Tablets and EFB apps were fair game for pubs and FLIPs, but you had to turn the mini moving airplane feature off. Otherwise you could cheat on a point-to-point.

 

[RandomGoat1248]

Not when I went through. Tablets and EFB apps were fair game for pubs and FLIPs, but you had to turn the mini moving airplane feature off. Otherwise you could cheat on a point-to-point.

Your probably right, I did not pay a ton of attention to the rules around it since I didn't use an Ipad as they weren't going to be allowed in the VT-Js. The TW-1/2 SOP was only updated last month to allow them.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Not when I went through. Tablets and EFB apps were fair game for pubs and FLIPs, but you had to turn the mini moving airplane feature off. Otherwise you could cheat on a point-to-point.

The "point to point" procedure on a mechanical RMI in this day and age is a senseless procedure in my humble opinion. I can't for the life of me understand why its a thing?

I commonly "dumb down" the aircraft to teach pilotage during training for Private Pilot - interpreting the VFR sectional, completing the wind triangle for each leg, using a wet compass and stopwatch is key to learn the fundamentals and can be applied to something more basic like a J-3 Cub.

But even the FAA in the instrument syllabus realizes the importance of interpretting own-ship position on an MFD is a key tool for SA and using it properly (track-up/north-up, etc).

From the Instrument ACS

 

[SynixMan]

Y’all can dump on a TACAN point to point all you want, but for those 6-9 month pleasure cruises, they’re all you’ve got. Pencil method FTW.

 

[Python]

Y’all can dump on a TACAN point to point all you want, but for those 6-9 month pleasure cruises, they’re all you’ve got. Pencil method FTW.

Wait. You actually used this in your career?

 

[wlawr005]

Wait. You actually used this in your career?

Every time I ever marshaled behind the ship.

 

[sickboy]

Wait. You actually used this in your career?

All the time finding datums without hawklink/link