The 1985-1987 Commissioning-->SNA-->Fleet Timeline:
22 MAR 1985 - AOCS Commissioning (after 16 weeks of excessive FUN!!)
25 APR 1985 - Started VT-3 Primary in T-34C
13 AUG 1985 - Completed Primary (70.7 Total Hours)
22 OCT 1985 - Started VT-23 Intermediate Jet VT-23 in T-2C
26 MAR 1986 - Completed Intermediate and CQ with 4 Traps on Lex (177.6 Total Hours)
06 MAY 1986 - Started Advanced Jet VT-22 in TA-4J
25 AUG 1986 - Completed CQ with 6 Traps on Lex
26 SEP 1986 - Winged after TacForm and ACM Hops (282.7 Total Hours)
21 DEC 1986 - SERE School American Flag goes up!
30 JAN 1987 - Light Attack Wing One Weapons School (Conventional and Special)
26 FEB 1987 - First A-7E Flight in VA-174 as an ENS
25 NOV 1987 - Completed RAG (453.0 Total Hours)
02 DEC 1987 - First flight with VA-72 in CAG-7 as LTJG
02 DEC 1988 - After 1 yr in a Light Attack w/ 6mo Med Cruise (696.7 Total Hours/88 Traps)
Commissioning to TACAIR Wings: 1 year, 6 months, 4 days
Commissioning to TACAIR Fleet Squadron: 2 years, 8 months, 10 days
Am I really this old?
Timelines will have to improve a bunch because there's a pretty stable trend that indicates we'll see over 58% of the 1st service commitment Aviators departing in 2024. Removing CQ with the exception of the E-2 Crews should shorten the TACAIR Pipeline. How much? Who knows, but it's definitely going to be yet another hurdle in the RAGs since CNATRA keeps pushing anything they dare, that was once taught in the Advanced Jet Syllabus, toward those fleet squadrons training plans. However, the way I see it, opportunities for the newest TACAIR SNAs are unmatched these next ten years. Long live PLM ...
I maintain pretty solid inside gouge from NAS Kingsville IPs/SIM guys as well as a RAG IP or two for the TACAIR side. Any "Current Primary/NIFE SNAs" have recent info on their current NIFE wait times from Check-In, as well as pool waiting times between NIFE and Primary (Milton or Corpus)?