T-45C Replacement

[HooverPilot]

Maybe similar to the idea of sending Marine Hornet pilots with a carrier follow-on commitment to a post-winging CQ?

How about:

• E-2/C-2 pilots graduate with their class having never been to the boat (like everyone else)... however, the procedures and techniques of carrier landings would have been taught from the first landing in the T-45.
• After winging, remain at Kingsville / Meridian and go through a focused CQ syllabus that finalizes preps for the boat, and gets them their 10 traps.
• Off to FRS success.

Just tell the AF guy to shut up if this is stupid.
I got to actually fly a few landings in T-2, T-45, F-18B/D/F (as well as watch a few in the TA-4J), and I sure wish I could have had the opportunity to try to land on the carrier. Frickin' fun... and cool.
And hard.

I think it’s a good idea you propose. I don’t doubt we can work through the problem, but I wanted to highlight the problem so we don’t commit to a path without addressing it.

 

[Swanee]

I had an interesting data point, ran a mission training a cadre to operate an upper tier drone, left (pilot) and right (ball operator) seat, and we had a mix of winged aviators and others go through the training. Out of 15 to go through the training, we had 3 fail. Winged aviators. Helo guy, Hoover NFO, I forget the other pilot's community.

The number one grad was a guy who was a DCO, worked as a flight test engineer in his day job. No mil operator experience prior to that. Lots of Xbox.

Being a good drone operator was all about being able to take the sparse input and build a worldview in the noggin, then act on it. Good stick and rudder didn't automagically transfer over.

I have had the same experience.

Staying ahead of the airplane in the drone world is a lot tougher than one would think, and has been the boon of many TACAIR guys coming to the world. If you get behind, you really can't do anything to speed up, and you really need to know the logic of the airplane's FCS so you know exactly what it's going to do when you tell it to do something.

A guy who struggled with the stick and rudder skills- but kept up with the mission is going to do a hell of a lot better in this world than the guy who skated by because they were a good stick, but were tumbleweed on the mission sets.

 

[ChuckMK23]

Could not find the the perfect thread for this tidbit - but there was a DAF wide briefing on USAF UPT Vision last week. T-6 and T-1 retired. Introductory flight training to be conducted in single engine piston platforms with instruction delivered by GA civ marketplace - to include earning FAA Private Pilot rating. Then to T-7 for tracks that today involve T-38. Everyone else goes right to sim in their operational aircraft to learn jet/turbine transition and multi-engine and then to the normal training syllabus for that make/modell/type. Target is to have this syllabus fully converted by 2035. Retiring the T-6 outright is surprising.

 

[Waveoff]

When does the Air Force break out platform selection?

I can’t ever see the Navy adopting this method. Especially since we just switched from GENAV IFS to NIFE with flight suit instructors (no idea how it’s going though, was IFS guy).

 

[Griz882]

Could not find the the perfect thread for this tidbit - but there was a DAF wide briefing on USAF UPT Vision last week. T-6 and T-1 retired. Introductory flight training to be conducted in single engine piston platforms with instruction delivered by GA civ marketplace - to include earning FAA Private Pilot rating. Then to T-7 for tracks that today involve T-38. Everyone else goes right to sim in their operational aircraft to learn jet/turbine transition and multi-engine and then to the normal training syllabus for that make/modell/type. Target is to have this syllabus fully converted by 2035. Retiring the T-6 outright is surprising.

Some enterprising contractor is going to create a “primary” school in Texas or such and make a fortune. I wonder if the new primary training will require a high-powered, complex aircraft or is something piston like this…https://blackshapeaircraft.com/gabriel/bk160-tr/ to do the job?

 

[TacticalTater]

More likely it will be some school with 100 C152 that all have 20k hours on them

 

[GroundPounder]

Hear me out on this...

 

[croakerfish]

View attachment 41405


Hear me out on this...

Took me a second on mobile to realize that isn’t a tandem cockpit.

 

[ChuckMK23]

View attachment 41405


Hear me out on this...

Its a shame they had to chop all these up!

 

[ChuckMK23]

U.S. Air Force Initial Flight Training (IFT) | CAE

www.cae.com

 

[wink]

Could not find the the perfect thread for this tidbit - but there was a DAF wide briefing on USAF UPT Vision last week. T-6 and T-1 retired. Introductory flight training to be conducted in single engine piston platforms with instruction delivered by GA civ marketplace - to include earning FAA Private Pilot rating. Then to T-7 for tracks that today involve T-38. Everyone else goes right to sim in their operational aircraft to learn jet/turbine transition and multi-engine and then to the normal training syllabus for that make/modell/type. Target is to have this syllabus fully converted by 2035. Retiring the T-6 outright is surprising.

Big jump from SE recip 50-75 hour private pilot still thinking at 125 kts to T7.

 

[taxi1]

Took me a second on mobile to realize that isn’t a tandem cockpit.

Yeah, I thought it was extremely tandem at first.

 

[ea6bflyr]

AF: “Who needs flight school when everyone selects RPA.” 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

[Mos]

Yeah, I thought it was extremely tandem at first.

Every flight briefing would begin with "I call dibs on big spoon."

 

[FLGUY]

Could not find the the perfect thread for this tidbit - but there was a DAF wide briefing on USAF UPT Vision last week. T-6 and T-1 retired. Introductory flight training to be conducted in single engine piston platforms with instruction delivered by GA civ marketplace - to include earning FAA Private Pilot rating. Then to T-7 for tracks that today involve T-38. Everyone else goes right to sim in their operational aircraft to learn jet/turbine transition and multi-engine and then to the normal training syllabus for that make/modell/type. Target is to have this syllabus fully converted by 2035. Retiring the T-6 outright is surprising.

The last time the USAF tried something this radical in T-6 UPT land, it crashed and burned spectacularly. -cough Pilot Training Next cough-. There’s a reason that said program (and Naval Aviation Next, AKA project Avenger) were both discontinued by the USAF and the USN. They both didn’t work.

And didn’t the USAF already look into the T-6 to F-16 concept and decided it was infeasible? This would be a similar jump in aircraft performance, no?