Dude, API DOESN'T matter. Just get through any way you can. Everyone has their holy crap moment in API (for me FRR) when they dipped a little close to the 80 mark. Just pass and press. No one gives a crap about API once you get to primary. Seriously, treat API like a hurdle. Get over it any way you can, the important stuff is later on. Good luck. And be proud of your pink sheet. It will provide with a good story for when you get your wings. It seems like the end of the world then becomes a joke later on.
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Failures
- Thread starter jamnww
- Start date
For all the talk of how pink sheets come out at a mishap, I haven't seen that happen in any investigation I've ever come in contact with (thankfully none involving me). The only way it would come out is if you had a glaringly bad NSS on your summary sheet or it was a particularly hi-vis mishap (Kara Hultgren, anyone?). "Oooh, he failed API aero? Damn, it was only a matter of time before he killed somebody."
phrogdriver said:
An FRS student who might be FENAEB'ed will not have much a record after wings. So his flight school grades may be scrutinized, including any and all pink sheets.
As the student control officer for VAW-120, I always reviewed a students jacket when they earned a down, but never looked at API.
jamnww said:
WOW !!! How times change .... back-in-the-day .... I know, I know, no one cares .... except we-all who were "there" ... we care ....
... it's just offered for comparison purposes. Your grades stayed with you forever --- you just didn't "talk training command" when you got Winged and moved on to the RAG. If you REALLY screwed up, the board would/could always go back to day ONE and say --- "SEE, he's always been a plumber!!" "Pull His Wings!"Two academic failures in any pipeline stage; i.e., Pre-Flight, Primary, Basic, or Advanced --- pack your bags as you get an all-expense paid trip to Coronado and points west with the Riverine Force -- or if you're lucky ---the Fleet.
Any flight down in any pipeline stage (today's "pink-sheets" I am guessing??) --- You get a "speedie board"; i.e., "Special Pilot Disposition Board", a.k.a. the "long green table". If they like you, you probably get a couple of extra-times/warm-ups and a recheck. Get a recheck down --- pack your bags for the Riverine Force or the Fleet.
Third flight down cumulative thruout the training program --- pack your bags and see the above for your future assignment(s) ...
DOR as a commissioned Officer --- pack your bags and call yourself "Ensign Swiftie" ....
DOR as a NAVCAD or AOC --- pack your bags and call yourself "Seaman Deuce" ....
Bottom line back-in-the-day: don't DOR and don't get downs. Sounds like these situations can be "managed" in today's kinder, gentler atmosphere ...
I thought all of the grades were locked up after winging at CNATRA. I was just a board member at a FNAEB and we didn't have the ATJ from primary/advanced.
I agree with some of the sentiments above. You can have a watermelon (that is if training jackets are still that lovely green) coming out of the training pipeline, still be a good officer and an above average pilot. Flight school is flight school.
I agree with some of the sentiments above. You can have a watermelon (that is if training jackets are still that lovely green) coming out of the training pipeline, still be a good officer and an above average pilot. Flight school is flight school.
There is really no reason to fail any tests in API. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed (my ACT score was 21, SAT of 900) and i basically crawled out of high school. However, i didn't fail a single test in API and all it took was some good studying. The info is, for the most part, not really important later, but you do have to know it then. Everybody i knew who failed more than one test never studied hard and tended to party too much. Your job is to study and the stuff isn't hard. if you can graduate college, you should have no difficulties in API.
That said, i know things are more stringent now than when i went through. Tell your buddy, or anyone you know who hasn't done well in API, it does matter, not a lot, but it does, especially now. If your buddy has a hickup later in training they can review your API grades and i understand they're not terribly sympathetic to people not doing well in API. If i were an IP on a TRB and i saw that the stud in question had more than one API failure, i'd take that into consideration (if the reason for the TRB were academic).
Build those study habits in API as the testing methods are more or less the same in the Navy thereafter. For four weeks of API if beer doesn't touch your lips but you pass every test, i call that above average headwork.
That said, i know things are more stringent now than when i went through. Tell your buddy, or anyone you know who hasn't done well in API, it does matter, not a lot, but it does, especially now. If your buddy has a hickup later in training they can review your API grades and i understand they're not terribly sympathetic to people not doing well in API. If i were an IP on a TRB and i saw that the stud in question had more than one API failure, i'd take that into consideration (if the reason for the TRB were academic).
Build those study habits in API as the testing methods are more or less the same in the Navy thereafter. For four weeks of API if beer doesn't touch your lips but you pass every test, i call that above average headwork.
BurghGuy
Master your ego, and you own your destiny.
BigIron said:
I get the play on a watermelon! Its green on the outside, pink in the middle... that only took me 12 hours to figure out.
I've heard alot of people on here mentioning what used to happen if you washed out of flight school... but does anyone know what the current situation is? I know last spring they were pretty well stocked with naval officers, and were allowing most to go reserves, I know this because it happened to not one, but two of my friends. I know they were trying to lower the number of SNAs last year, but does that still stand?
While I don't think they follow you to the fleet, the TYPE of down will affect the disposition of a Performance Review Board. Having sat on several boards, academic and to an even greater extent, ready room downs reflect an inability or unwillingness to learn. The philosophy being that if you can't even put forth the effort to study, why waste our time training you further? We can spend a reasonable amount of extra time to teach a technique in flight, but if you come to a brief or test unprepared, it shows a lot of laziness. With the exception of NAV, API tests are not academically rigorous. "The part of the engine where combustion occurs is called: a)the exhaust b) the combustion chamber c) Bill d) the lower intestine."
As far as comparing to the old days, pink sheets are not directly equivalent. The new grading system gives them under a bizarre network of computer logic. You can actually grade a flight on the computer, hit return, and have the computer TELL YOU the SNA is supposed to get a pink or (here's the new one) yellow sheet. Even if a SNA isn't unsafe or completely gooned up, he may still go pink if he doesn't hit the prescribed "MIF" for a particular manuever a certain number of times.
As far as comparing to the old days, pink sheets are not directly equivalent. The new grading system gives them under a bizarre network of computer logic. You can actually grade a flight on the computer, hit return, and have the computer TELL YOU the SNA is supposed to get a pink or (here's the new one) yellow sheet. Even if a SNA isn't unsafe or completely gooned up, he may still go pink if he doesn't hit the prescribed "MIF" for a particular manuever a certain number of times.