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Vance for Primary??

BACONATOR

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Student controllers are everywhere. After they finish their MOS school/A school they are Air Traffic Controller Trainees - and then they head to their duty station where they continue to learn. It was always funny to be shooting a PAR and hear the stud get totally messed up/turned around, and then hear a very, very calm voice (that was always louder than the stud) come up on freq and say "Leroy 05, turn right heading 230 descend and maintain 3000"


So what you're saying is that by going to Vance you don't practice what you will do 90% of the time on instruments/landing at the boat in the Navy...

Or better yet, be on a flight on a SUPER busy day, finally get to the PAR thinking you're good to go only to have some sweet little voice talk you down, start screwing up, give you a turn in the wrong direction to a correct heading, then have a BIG burly man's voice come on without introduction and give you the right correction and then suddenly you remember that the PAR freq is discrete so yes he must be talking to you... helmet fire extinguished....for now.
 

billiken2002

Member
pilot
I understand that AOA approaches are emphasized for the jet guys...but from my Corpus primary experience, I can count the number of AOA approaches I did on 3 fingers; so I wouldn't say that I was so far ahead of the game than guys coming from Vance.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
I understand that AOA approaches are emphasized for the jet guys...but from my Corpus primary experience, I can count the number of AOA approaches I did on 3 fingers; so I wouldn't say that I was so far ahead of the game than guys coming from Vance.

Which is an interesting point. I don't know if it was an in-squadron Stan thing or if it was coming from higher above, but often times at AIMs, we would get reminded/chastised for not a) doing enough AOA approaches and/or b) not documenting how a stud did on AOA approaches, while in the PA syllabus. The front office, which has always had a Jet guy in it in one form or another, wanted to make sure it was something they could see/evaluate when it came time for selection recommendations.
 

hornsfan

happy to be here
pilot
I understand that AOA approaches are emphasized for the jet guys...but from my Corpus primary experience, I can count the number of AOA approaches I did on 3 fingers; so I wouldn't say that I was so far ahead of the game than guys coming from Vance.

True, but in my limited experience with the T-45, AoA approaches feel nothing like they did in a T-34, so I think its a wash. The challenge flying the jet is in managing the mushy controls and engine spool-up time that comes with flying a jet at high AoA. In the T-34 the power response was near instantaneous. Whether you fly AoA or Airspeed in the T-34 I dont think really matters because you have to learn a totally different a/c when you get to advanced.


Question: does anyone else fly AoA or is that purely a jet/E-2 thing?
 

hornsfan

happy to be here
pilot
I'm kind of tired of hearing how my training was sub par and lackluster because I went somewhere outside of a red and white plane (or is it orange and white? i still can't figure out what to call that color).

I wasnt trying to say Vance instruction was inferior, in some ways it sounds harder. But if you go AF-style for primary, theres going to be some difficulty when you have to adapt to Navy practices/procedures. Im sure if I went to advanced in AF land I would have trouble adapting to them. But, if you dont think its that big a deal then I guess its a non-issue.

The AF way of training is meant to be a pain in the ass.

That is precisely the problem.
 

Purdue

Chicks Dig Rotors...
pilot
So what you're saying is that by going to Vance you don't practice what you will do 90% of the time on instruments/landing at the boat in the Navy...

In Primary at Vance I got to fly three AoA patterns, all on the same flight. I never really got the hang of it... and we were not allowed to come within 50 feet of touching down.

I got to do three PAR's to a CLOSED AIRFIELD with a controller at an adjacent field talking me down to no lower than 1000 feet. I did all three on the same flight, after a 8 hour fly day at the end of a cross country.

I had no idea how a TACAN worked until the HT's. It's very similar to a VOR approach, just with a crazy "lobed" antenna.

None of these things are very important to me... but the one thing I would have liked to see engrained in my training a little more is what WAVE-OFF LIGHTS are... I still haven't ever seen those...
 
yep. since SNA's are incapable of learning how to do new things once they get that NSS and selection taken care of in primary, and since i'm sure none of these things are covered in advanced, i guess I'll never learn these techniques. my lack of navy primary training has set me up to fail when I try to snag the 3 wire in my P-3 at the boat in the soup.

To be serious, PARs were practiced often in my sims, especially if you had time left over, and I made a point to get my Out and Backs down to fort rucker so I could do a good number of them vice the three we were required to get on XC.

And everytime I rolled off the perch after having a NAVY IP teach me how to actually fly an AOA pattern, I was playing the AOA indexer for that sweet on speed donut coz it made the landings oh so choice, so I'm not feelin that underprivileged.
/quick threadjack
Wahahah. The Air Force calls them out and backs! :D

Now, you're definitely not set up for success - don't even use the correct terminology. Javoll!
/end quick threadjack
 

Pags

N/A
pilot
None of these things are very important to me... but the one thing I would have liked to see engrained in my training a little more is what WAVE-OFF LIGHTS are... I still haven't ever seen those...

Invariably, the only time you'll see wave-off lights are while goggled behind the boat.
 

Tom

Well-Known Member
pilot
Contributor
Or the IP, trying to be sneaky, calls up the RDO/Wheels Watch and request waveoff lights on final.
 

UMichfly

Well-Known Member
pilot
None
That's the good thing about having the VHF head in the front cockpit. Just "accidentally" set the wrong freq. "Hey, do you have Brewton on VHF?" "Oh, oops, sorry Sir, I've got 122.82. I'll set that right up for you." :D
 

sevenhelmet

Low calorie attack from the Heartland
pilot
LOL, you guys are funny. Because deliberately having the wrong freq in your radio and resetting it while flying the pattern is SO much easier than waving the damn thing off when you see the WO lights...

Pssst... don't make it harder than it has to be!
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
That's the good thing about having the VHF head in the front cockpit. Just "accidentally" set the wrong freq. "Hey, do you have Brewton on VHF?" "Oh, oops, sorry Sir, I've got 122.82. I'll set that right up for you." :D

I'm sure your instructor appreciated that. Those freqs really do get used productively, I promise.

LOL, you guys are funny. Because deliberately having the wrong freq in your radio and resetting it while flying the pattern is SO much easier than waving the damn thing off when you see the WO lights...

No kidding. If you have the SA to be up the wrong freq, just be up the right freq and listen for when he makes his call.
 
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