-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
P-3s--What's the community like?
- Thread starter MPrice07
- Start date
This. Navs get a grand total of 7 flights before they graduate.
I wouldn't say there's a problem with the quality of the instruction at 30. I just think there needs to be more of it. I understand the airframe limitations, but we could definitely improve as a community
With regards to that link, I think someone is just bitter. There will always be douches who get good deals and good guys who get screwed. The whole golden path thing is just a byproduct of high retention and low dh select rates. It sucks, but could it be a temporary thing?
Sent from my Eris using Tapatalk
I agree on the bitterness part, but there are some points to be gleamed from there. Simply doing things for the sake of doing them is not the answer and it never hurts to question why the way things are done as a sense to improve them.
You're right, the quality of instruction is actually really good and there's a lot of experience there, but there is no where near enough of it.
You're right, the quality of instruction is actually really good and there's a lot of experience there, but there is no where near enough of it.
The golden path is fucking retarded. You learn about "big Navy" by doing COORDOPS with the CSG/ESG, not by taking 3 years to play SWOdaddy to V1 on the boat. 3 years out of the plane does not a good pilot/TACCO make. Guys made command on that path, and now view anyone else at the board with suspicion because "it was good enough for us...why is this guy any different?"
People are naturally inclined to believe they were right, and want to see people who think like them and act like them succeed so they can reinforce their rightness, so the golden path/golden children come up through the ranks and screen. Not a hard fact to figure out, but it wastes a ton of talent. For instance, the DH with 4000ish hours in a P-3 who's getting out because he can't rid himself of the non-golden path stink (among other reasons). Good thing we have tons of NFOs willing to jump in their graves in this community. Can't wait to see how it improves when we throw some VQ retreads in the mix.
People are naturally inclined to believe they were right, and want to see people who think like them and act like them succeed so they can reinforce their rightness, so the golden path/golden children come up through the ranks and screen. Not a hard fact to figure out, but it wastes a ton of talent. For instance, the DH with 4000ish hours in a P-3 who's getting out because he can't rid himself of the non-golden path stink (among other reasons). Good thing we have tons of NFOs willing to jump in their graves in this community. Can't wait to see how it improves when we throw some VQ retreads in the mix.
^^^^ Preach it, brotha.
So, JO tour, VP-30, Shooter tour will make me a better DH and CO than JO tour, VPU, Super JO? I just don't buy it.
So, JO tour, VP-30, Shooter tour will make me a better DH and CO than JO tour, VPU, Super JO? I just don't buy it.
Some of us older guys have said it often before, but it's worth keeping in mind: it doesn't matter how good you are in the plane. Sure, it doesn't hurt to be a good stick or tactically proficient, but it is far from the most important factor. And in some communities, some of the "best" qualifications are reserved for the chosen ones, so they won't always be a good indicator of which guy is the best in the cockpit (or tube, as the case may be).
This is true - in our community, stick skills are secondary. There is value, I believe, in doing other things outside the plane. As much as I hated being sent to Japan, I did learn a lot about the big navy and my "expertise" in the plane was directly injected into the tactics developed for several plans. I'd like to think that my operational experience and input made the plans better - certainly a lot of people bought off on the plans... If you don't have people who have operated going to fill jobs developing plans, policy, and strategy, then you're going to get crappy plans, poor policy, and ineffective strategies. You wouldn't want me as a P-3 guy planning TacAir missions, and you don't want a TacAir guy planning ASW, or a SWO planning anything.
Since I was "sent forward" (P-3 skipper double speak, trying to make it sound like a good deal), and since I went to another shore tour after that on a different staff, my skills in the plane have atrophied significantly. The planning I do now in a joint billet is completely unrelated to ASW or anything MPRA - though occasionally I do get asked a question about ASW. I'm not sure there is a huge amount of value to the P-3 community with me going to a joint job as a JO, but I didn't take this job for the community's sake. Joint is directed by law, however, so eventually an officer will have to learn how to speak Army and Air Force to help integrate the Navy's capabilities into a seamless operation (in theory). This is a good thing, though painful.
I'd still like to see a program that allows officers to stay in the plane for as long as they would like, achieving a level of expertise not seen today. This is how they do it in Australia, where you can choose to stay operational your whole career, but you won't make it past O-3 or O-4 - but that's OK. If you want to be a skipper or higher still, you need to do the same staff crap we do. Of course, this would probably reduce the pool of P-3 officers going into the higher ranks and there is something to be said about having a community specific presence at higher levels to protect your platform.
From my perspective, very little when it came to actually teaching or the syllabus. The big difference was the mind set or attitude. The west coast & VP-31 were much more laid back and had a "let's kick ass but let's have fun while doing it" where the east coast & VP-30 were more SWOish. It's hard to quantify but if you weren't having fun out west, you weren't doing it right where as if you were having fun on the east, you were being questionsed about what you were doing....
A small example: during my DH tour at Jax, it was just unfathomable to me that everyone (fellow DHs and XO/CO) objected to my being on a first name basis with the JOs as it would have been to a west coast guy that the east JOs always called DHs sir or Commander. There is a time and place for everything and the JOs know who's boss, but that was the east coast way. Similiarly you didn't see many JO shenaniagans towards the DHs or XO/CO on the east coast and they were always amazed when I told them what JOPA did out west. I believe that this is one of the few areas the west made some headway against the east but from what I see, it's still no where near the horse-play we had out west both in the squadron and between the squadrons.
I also remember a west coast VP Admiral telling us one Friday night at the Moffett Field O'club that the problem with drinking and driving was that we didn't practice it enough. There was an east coast wing commander there at the time that was gagging with self-righteous indignation. Our Admiral told him to get over himself, pull the stick out of his ass and get drunk.
He's spot on... identifying a lot of things we've all thought and packaging them in one place.
MasterBates
Well-Known Member
So of course, some CAPT in MPRW tasked a CDR at a squadron/staff to get a team of LCDRs and sniff out who it is..
So he can be "Rewarded". (with an IA and a shit FITREP)
So he can be "Rewarded". (with an IA and a shit FITREP)
I agree, and that kind of thing is hard to quantify.
Almost all of the JOs that went from 31 to 30 had completed the IUT syllabus at 31, and some had extensive FRS instructor experience. Even so, we were all required to get CNAL checkrides, which isn't that big a deal, but in some cases the evaluators really went overboard. (I have to admit, I think that this was mostly, maybe exculsively, on the NFO side.) The 30 guys wanted to prove that they were better than the newbies from 31, and it really created some hate and discontent. There was also an incident between a 31 guy and a 30 guy (both pilots) that ended with an apology at an AOM to the individual and the wardroom; the friction was caused by the different styles between east and west coast VP.
VP-30 did something for all new instructor NFOs that 31 didn't do, and I never understood why 31 didn't do it. A new NFO instructor at 30 had to pass both a TACCO and a NAV checkride. The TACCO check was straightforward, because that's what you were proficient in coming from your fleet squadron. New FRS instructors were generally rusty as NAVs, but that's primarily who they would be teaching, so it was important to shake the cobwebs off and make sure the new instructor was good to go. At VP-31, only a TACCO checkride was given.
This already exists. It's called "the Reserves," or if you don't have a job on the outside, it's called "FTS" or "TAR" if you habla.
Ha! well, i was thinking something a little more main stream... But the reserves is a good gig and they always seem to need people.
they were always going to have to. its been posted here before, but you can not start an active duty squadron with just a bunch of senior dudes. there may have been some rumors going around to the contrary, i suspect it was just some dudes trying to puff themselves up a bit.
squadrons need FNGs to make coffee, take nut shots from nerf footballs, and gain operational experience so they can be turned around and become FRS instructors.