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The new guys we are getting out of FTU can barely fly as it is! They get 6ish flights and take a checkride. Then show up back home and get 6-9 more flights. That is obviously with the full-up T-1 syllabus. Typical USAF thinking...save hours on a $1000/hr jet...only to spend more hours on a $10,000/hr jet a few months down the road. Idiots.

Correct. I'm purely an AETC instructor and Recce guy. When I was teaching UPT studs, we weren't teaching them to be "fighter pilots" in 4th and 5th generation fighters. We were giving them the foundation that would bring them success in their follow-on assignment... whether it was a 4+ gen fighter... or a B-1, B-52... or as a FAIP. Our goal was to get them to earn their wings. Not to be a dick, but it seems you don't have 7 years in AETC, 4000 hours in the T-38, a solid understanding of what the UPT syllabus is supposed to do, and how to execute it with a 22 year old with less than 100 hours of flying time when you get him. When teaching said 22 year old how to fly the T-38 in formation, we worked on basic station keeping, the rock-bottom-basics of maneuvering, and a myriad of other basic tasks that would have you rolling your eyes in boredom. But those building blocks are what the CAF has asked AETC to give them in the product that we graduate. Stanley understands that when he parks the throttle(s) in the northwest quadrant, the fuel flow goes up. When he becomes your FTU student or MQ wingman, you can emphasize just how much he actually loses in his afterburning fighter. In UPT, we are also unable to teach him about 20 mile tactical spread using a data link. Or anything that has to do with using a radar. YOU will have to do that. I'm busy teaching him how to put the thing-on-the-thing-on-the-thing; do a loop; master a 30 knot rejoin; have the SA to monitor his jet; and... yes... do Ops Checks. You see, those Ops Checks are a building block item, and the FTU will no doubt add more to that regimen of discipline. As BeerMan says, we don't use the afterburner much in UPT. And certainly not enough to make a difference in their follow-on FTU performance... no matter if it is a fighter, attack, or bomber platform. I have no idea how you derive that the fact we have an AB in the T-38 changes the quality of the UPT graduate. But let's say the T-50 gets selected as our follow-on trainer: do you think the UPT syllabus will have them tapping burner regularly because they need 17,000 lbs of thrust on a student sortie? One final point. The French fly the Rafale, the Brits fly the Typhoon, and the Canadians and Aussies fly the Hornet. None of them use an AB-equipped aircraft in their UPT syllabus. Somehow, they manage to make it work. I'm thinking that, if DoD gives us a great trainer with no AB, we will do just fine.

A colleague who is F22 pilot for the Virginia ANG had honor of flying a Phantom at Eglin. He flew the aircraft we had at the reunion. Here is the F-22 pilot’s thoughts on flying the F-4: I flew your jet a couple days ago (see attached). I had a little trouble getting the engines started, so I climbed out and shoveled some more coal in the back; after that she fired right up. Ground ops were uneventful, although I couldn’t figure out why the cockpit smelled like body odor, Jack Daniels and cigars…and that was BEFORE I got in it! By the way, what’s with the no slip crap on top of the intakes, it’s like you have permanent icing conditions due to that spray on rhino truck bed liner on top of the aircraft. It’s no wonder you needed so much coal (I mean thrust) to get airborne. Take off scared the sh*t out of me. I lit the burners at brick one and 2 miles and 45 minutes later we were ready to rotate. After barely clearing the tree tops, the gear came up and I climbed away at a VERY impressive 2 degrees nose high. In case you don’t remember, “Trim” is your friend in the F-4 (pretty sure it’s also a good friend on the ground too). Once I got her up to speed and a moderate altitude, we were ready for the G-Ex. Two G-turn’s later and I’m sinking like a rock…the F-4’s energy seems to bleed like Holyfield’s ear in the Tyson fight! After the G-Ex it was time to do a little Advanced Handling Characteristics (AHC) and by “advanced handling” I mean the same crap the Wright Brothers were doing back in 1903…just trying to keep it airborne. The jet flies much like my old man’s station wagon used to drive…You turn the wheel (push the stick) a few inches and nothing happens, then all of a sudden the steering kicks in, inertia takes over, and all HELL breaks loose! You’re pretty much along for the ride at that point and only gravity has a real say in your lift vector placement. “Checking 6” was really quite easy…. because you CAN’T! Scratch that off the list of “Sh*t I need to do to keep myself alive in combat today”. Breathing, however, was surprisingly easy in the F-4 when compared to that of the F-22 (thank you Lockheed)…LOX works, who knew! I think I may have burned my legs a bit from the steam pouring out from behind the gauges. Where are my 6 mini-flat screen TV’s, I’m lost without my HD jet displays (editors note: actually, I’m an analog guy stuck in a digital world too…I really do like the “steam driven” gauges). After the AHC, I decided to take her up high and do a supersonic MACH run, and by “high” I mean “where never lark nor even eagle flew”; but not much higher, a foot or two maybe. I mean, we weren’t up there high-fiving Jesus like we do in the Raptor, but it was respectable. It only took me the width of the Gulf of Mexico to get the thing turned around while above the Mach. After the Mach run we dropped to the deck and did 600 kts at 500’; a ratllin’ and shakin’ we will go…. I though all the rivets were going to pop out. Reference previous station wagon analogy! Very quickly we were out of gas and headed home. As I brought the jet up initial, I couldn’t help but think that the boys who took this thing into combat had to have some pretty big brass you know whats! My first F-4 landing was a little rough; sub-standard really by Air Force measure… but apparently “best seen to date” according to the Navy guys. Did you know that there’s no such thing as an aerobrake in the F-4? As soon as the main gear touches down, the nose comes slamming down to the runway with all the force of a meteor hitting the earth….I guess the F-4 aerobrake technique is to dissipate energy via denting the runway. Despite an apparently “decent” landing, stopping was a whole different problem. I reached down and pulled the handle to deploy the drogue chute…at which point a large solid mass of canvas, 550 cord, metal weights and cables fell out and began bouncing down the runway; chasing me like a lost puppy and FOD’ing out the whole runway. Perfect. I mashed down on the breaks and I’m pretty sure at this point the jet just started laughing at me. Why didn’t you warn me that I needed a shuttle landing strip to get this damn thing stopped? All kidding aside, VERY COOL jet! Must have been a kick to fly back when you were in Vietnam! Just kidding!

B-1 at Oshkosh

Ahhh, how many times have a heard this one. I get it and agree that A/A cant be neglected but I’ve seen primary mission capes suffer because mis prioritization. In the USAF I’ve worked with squadrons who are barely familiar with some A/G mission aspects that are far more likely to occur than A/A given their hardware/location but they hold onto their “heritage” to their detriment. It gets worse with (many) the Europeans who over emphasize the A/A mission and have very little legit focus on A/G. Step into a European LFE and its A/A centric with all A/G simulating 1984 WW3....then laugh when they are unable to do anything resembling SCAR, opposed CAS, CSAR, work with a FAC or stray from the black line AI. And god forbid you ask the A/A to support the A/G mission. Point being, this mis priority of training emphasis is all over the place from UPT skills up to and through huge NATO exercises. Get a trainer that can train for the future. The T-38 was designed for century series fighter prep.

Sims NEVER are a suitable substitute for the airplane. Even if they simulated the handling of the airplane EXACTLY, nothing can simulate the environment properly. You simply can't simulate a 12 jet overhead pattern, or getting vectored off a STAR going into a Class B primary in the WX. That's where you build airmanship. Talk to any airline guy. Those are some of the best sims in the business and I've never heard any airline guy describe their sims in much more favorable terms than we describe ours. They're good procedural trainers and will get you ~80% there, but it's that last 20% that makes the difference between knowing what you're doing and just hoping you don't get an opportunity to show what you don't know.

No mention of getting caught out by adverse yaw? He obviously didn't do it 'right'.

What? It was awesome...

Someone needs to make a god damn decision with conviction and big brass ones and make it happen....their career be damned . Too much talk and studies and talk and more studies. Act.

We did. The T-100. That in no way means it will be the choice. Again, those of us who live in the land of what things are and understand the nuances of politcs, understand that the T-50 is all but on rails here, unless Boeing can dig up dirt on Lockmart and stall it out.

Everyone is shouting about which jet is better when we really need to be talking about what the requirements are. Find the jets that meet those requirements, buy the cheapest one.

glad I'm not the only one who noticed...

100% disagree. And no I don't work for Textron, but I can tell you first hand, the jet is farther along and has more capability than any of the other OAX applicants.

@gear3green congrats best of luck!

BTW Prince Saleem needs more cigarette breaks and 12 more 87 rides. He's on the 2 year UPT program. Also he won't make formal brief Monday because he's got some Tinder dates in Dallas on Sunday and he doesn't want to drive his Maserati back in the dark. He may make 3rd go if Allah wills it. As-salamu alaykamu vanilla face.

The problem is they haven’t tried retention yet. If I have to read another stupid article about the AF offering a “massive” bonus increase, I’m gonna die. They keep touting that $455k bonus without saying that it’s over 13 freaking years, when you’ll be working for half of your base pay for the last 5 years of that contract... yeah, what a deal. Push the bonus up to $100k/yr if you care about retention, AF. Because we all know all of the QoL initiatives are complete bullshit and will not happen.

Correct me if I'm wrong... but the Lightspeed Zulu's are not TSO Certified. The Bose A20's are. Nice, readable post, by the way.

Since when has the AF cared about later?

The T-38 is TIRED, that is a given, it must be replaced NOW. That being said, I don't think a 9G $30 MILLION trainer is the answer. Having been forced to look at the "numbers" as a OSD staff weenie, I am not convinced a pseudo F-16 will hold up and bear the fruit you want. Most current fighters are programmed to fly 250 hours a year at horrible FH costs (F-16 = $22,000 an hour, F-15 +$41,000 and hour, F-22 = $68,000 an hour), and I truly wonder if this aircraft can sustain 500-600 hours a year. I fully understand that folks going to fighters particularly 5th gen aircraft need to develop the ability to maneuver dynamically under high G, but I wonder is that a function of UPT or IFF? Most of the bomber folks going through UPT track through T-38's, why in the world do they need a 9G trainer other than the cool factor? If I were as you suggest king for a day, I would likely have several aircraft in the mix including a jet like Scorpion that has a 7G envelope and has business jet like efficiency AND reliability. I would beef up IFF and make it longer while equipping them with a jet like the T-50 in a program the truly develops fight pilots, not a top off of UPT skills for everyone. One of the constant bitches I hear on here is guys need time in the seat. You will not surge a jet like the T-50 and we certainly can't afford 1,000 of them to make the numbers good. If we bought something like Scorpion at a cost of less than $20 million that can EASILY fly 1,000+ hours a year at less than $10,000 a flight hour you now have the ability to build airmanship and experience. The other thing about a jet like Scorpion, you can easily put a radar in it and software that mimics what is found in our 5th gen jets. The young SNAPs can now go fly for hours practicing the muscle memory required to employ today's high end capabilities. Think about it, on a standard 5th gen training sortie how often are dudes flying high aspect BFM? And how often are they driving around in the bozosphere at 3-4 G practicing long range employment or air to ground weapons employment. Again, I am NOT saying we don;t need a high-end 9G capable trainer for our fighter folks, I just don't think we need that as part of the UPT program. We need a paradigm shift that allows us to train the best aviators in the world within the economic constraints we are dealing with.

I flew with him as a young nav and ran into him again as a 38 stud at DLF. I saw him in the hall not 15 minutes before we stepped to fly on Monday and we talked about hopefully flying 4-ship together for old times sake. One of the most gregarious, over the top, talk your ear off for hours larger than life guys I've ever known. F*ck, this one hurts. I'll miss you brother.