Flight School backed up

[MGoBrew11]

What did you have to give the Devil to make that happen?

Idk, that was also with 2 months off due to a family tragedy.

My theory has always been that it was my last name (early in the alphabet) got me on the early morning flight schedule in primary and I always got my X. My peers scheduled later in the day always got cancelled for weather or ACNA.

 

[FlyNavy03]

I think even earlier than that. Mine were 30 including the HITU and that would have been ~2016. One of my peers had 27 month orders to make disassociated! The Skipper straight up told him on check in that there was no viable way for him to compete because functionally his peers were already 3 to 6 months ahead of him in terms of producing students.

You're right. Being a reservist at the HTs is basically like being a Highlander. I stayed there while everyone around me came and went. Seriously, I'll remember a flight or something at the HTs but most of the time I couldn't tell you if it happened in 2015 or 2023.

 

[FlyNavy03]

20 hours for someone who graduates flight training with ~200-ish hours I would argue is also significant. That's 10-15 (whatever, I can't remember how long a T-6 sortie was) reps of going through all of the communications and mechanics of getting out to the training area and doing the thing for someone who has almost no flight hours. It's not nothing. 20 hours in a fleet aircraft is also significantly more expensive in an environment with different resource constraints than flight school....it's not as simple as saying "that's a month!"...

Again, you're not wrong. For what it's worth, almost all COPT-R flights are 1.0 so the 50 hours does represent more individual sorties - dealing with civilian controllers in an extremely busy airspace where people don't have a script to follow like at Corpus and Whiting - than 50 hours in the VTs or HTs.

Also, like I said, no one here is breaking any new ground with their concerns. Everything is subject to the butterfly effect. Everyone is aware of the extra challenges that may go into COPT-R students making HAC. Yes, 20 hours in fleet aircraft is more expensive, but it also means they'll have 20 extra hours of experience in model and 70 more hours in type when they're up for HAC. Good trade off? Maybe or maybe not. We're considering other solutions for the HAC question, too, but each of those also brings its own suitcase full of pros and cons. I promise that none of these decisions are being taken lightly or made impulsively.

 

[DanMa1156]

Again, you're not wrong. For what it's worth, almost all COPT-R flights are 1.0 so the 50 hours does represent more individual sorties - dealing with civilian controllers who don't have a script to follow like at Corpus and Whiting - than 50 hours in the VTs or HTs.

Also, like I said, no one here is breaking any new ground with their concerns. Everyone is aware of the extra challenges that may go into COPT-R students making HAC. Yes, 20 hours in fleet aircraft is more expensive, but it also means 20 extra hours of experience in model and 70 more hours in type. Again, time will tell, but I promise you that there are other solutions to that problem being considered.

Are you able to expand on this?

 

[FlyNavy03]

Are you able to expand on this?

Send me a message on FB and we can talk about it, but like I said, I'm on here in case there are SMAs that have questions about COPT-R I can answer. I don't want to drag this thread down that rabbit hole.

 

[ChuckMK23]

ENS winger under Reagan - ahhh those were the days! Plenty of ENS wingers across the board. The days of T-34C form solos, HT ONAV and AIRNAV and 3x FAM solos!

JG promotion in the FRS!

 

[FlyNavy03]

ENS winger under Reagan - ahhh those were the days! Plenty of ENS wingers across the board. The days of T-34C form solos, HT ONAV and AIRNAV and 3x FAM solos!

JG promotion in the FRS!

That is awesome! It's also funny that even back then you could see a group in Khakis and know exactly who went to OCS just by looking at who's wearing shirt-stays.

 

[DanMa1156]

What's the one bottom right person wearing black socks and shoes?! Heresy I say! (I also just noticed one of the FRPs is as well up front!)

 

[FlyNavy03]

What's the one bottom right person wearing black socks and shoes?! Heresy I say! (I also just noticed one of the FRPs is as well up front!)

True story:
When I went through we were highly discouraged from sporting brown shoes or boots until we had our wings. So I showed up for watch at the FRS one day wearing black and the XO saw it and made me go immediately to the NEX to get brown shoes. He even made me write it down in the logbook. So if someone finds the 2006 duty log from HSC-3, somewhere there is an entry that says something like, "0930 - SDO departs for NEX to purchase brown shoes", and "1000 - SDO returns, now wearing proper footwear."

 

[DanMa1156]

True story:
When I went through we were highly discouraged from sporting brown shoes or boots until we had our wings. So I showed up for watch at the FRS one day wearing black and the XO saw it and made me go immediately to the NEX to get brown shoes. He even made me write it down in the logbook. So if someone finds the 2006 duty log from HSC-3, somewhere there is an entry that says something like, "0930 - SDO departs for NEX to purchase brown shoes", and "1000 - SDO returns, now wearing proper footwear."

I believe it! I saw a similar event happen with the XO of 3 and one of my buddies wearing his Ike jacket!

 

[sevenhelmet]

True story:
When I went through we were highly discouraged from sporting brown shoes or boots until we had our wings. So I showed up for watch at the FRS one day wearing black and the XO saw it and made me go immediately to the NEX to get brown shoes. He even made me write it down in the logbook. So if someone finds the 2006 duty log from HSC-3, somewhere there is an entry that says something like, "0930 - SDO departs for NEX to purchase brown shoes", and "1000 - SDO returns, now wearing proper footwear."

I recall things being similar- at some point it went from “no brown footwear for you, shitstain!”, to, “Why the F aren’t you wearing brown boots?!”

I think the switch was sometime in advanced. I was wearing brown boots when I went to the ship for the first time. In the FRS I wouldn’t have been caught dead in black boots. I still don’t own any.

 

[FlyNavy03]

I recall things being similar- at some point it went from “no brown footwear for you, shitstain!”, to, “Why the F aren’t you wearing brown boots?!”

I think the switch was sometime in advanced. I was wearing brown boots when I went to the ship for the first time. In the FRS I wouldn’t have been caught dead in black boots. I still don’t own any.

Yep. It felt sort of wrong when I started flying for the Maryland State Police and had to wear black boots. Granted, I didn't get my first set of brown boots until halfway through my first sea tour. They just weren't issuing them at the time.

 

[ChuckMK23]

What's the one bottom right person wearing black socks and shoes?! Heresy I say! (I also just noticed one of the FRPs is as well up front!)

ROTC guy, later fellow HC-6 squadron mate. Later, went from Navy to rather distinguished career with FBI.

Edit - you were referring to the shoes only person in the pic - no idea. This was 1988 and the transition to brown shoes for aviation designators was still in motion. And getting appropriate shoes was a challenge at most NEX locations.

For whatever reason, the take-up was slower with USNA and ROTC folks. Issue flight boots often sucked as well.

AOCS dudes were early adopters of brown shoes with CNTs.

On the boat, it was flight boots and wash khaki. Starch, lots of starch.

 

[ChuckMK23]

@FlyNavy03 looks like the Army has decided to pull trigger on a trial program for Initial Entry Rotary Wing pilot training. Peeling a volunteer group from starting flight school in the H145/UH-72 Lakota and diverting them to University of North Dakota to do a syllabus in the turbine R66, then return to Ft Novesel and joining their peers in advanced stage syllabus.

That makes all services engaged in "trying something else.."

 

[CommodoreMid]

ENS winger under Reagan - ahhh those were the days! Plenty of ENS wingers across the board. The days of T-34C form solos, HT ONAV and AIRNAV and 3x FAM solos!

JG promotion in the FRS!

View attachment 42027

You’re old.