VMFA187

All, I’m an USMC F/A-18 IP on terminal leave with the desire to TX to the AFRES/ANG. I was offered a position with a fighter unit but need a medical waiver. Does anyone have some guidance on who I should speak to about the process ahead? Much thanks for any assistance.

Nothing like coming in for the 500kt break after doing a 4vX with three of your best friends against PL-12 shooters!

Say what you will, and perhaps you’re a better pilot than I. My SA is degraded and my recall is less accurate when I’m not operating all of our displays and systems exclusively and the one issuing targeting. But I always appreciate a solid TG reference!

It’s not as bad as you think because all pilots are trained to be single seat and all the jets are mech’d the same - You can safe the back seat and do the entire flight in a two-seat Delta safe’d up. We always conduct a 3-5 minute TCC brief if we’re flying with a WSO to hammer out responsibilities. Bottom line, a great WSO can be an immense help in a complex CAS or AI environment but an average or poor WSO will be a significant degradation to SA at all times. For A/A, I don’t think even a great WSO provides an added benefit.

Two seat Hornets conduct FAC(A), all other missions are shared. OCA, DCA, CAS, SCAR/AR, and AI. Yes, both single and two seat jets will be assigned to a single squadron. Yes, I believe that is how it will go - Depending on what jets maintenance has up will determine if WSOs go flying. All USMC Hornet pilots go through the RAG (FTU) as single seat pilots. Once they get to a fleet squadron (whichever squadron needs a new pilot) determines if they then fly in a single or two seat Hornet. A pilot can transition back and forth between single and two seat squadrons as his career progresses. That’s how it has been traditionally. RTB, I’m looking at federal law enforcement. Was incredibly interested in Guard fighter units as a Hornet IP but had a medical hiccup 1.5 years ago that might put that in question.

In the Marine Corps Hornet community there are single and two-seat squadrons. Our East Coast Hornets and now all going to composite single and two seat squadrons. This is not occurring because of a better way to manage flight time on the few flyable airframes, but simple because there are not enough company grade officers to fill all of the ground billets so WSOs are now going to squadrons where there will likely be no jets for them to maintain currency simply to do ground duties. Picked up my DD-214 this morning.

The tail hook being extended on short final corroborates the stories I’ve heard saying it was initially a single engine approach. Taking a trap is SOP anytime we’ve lost an engine.

Years of overuse and a replacement that is over a decade late...

I think it has something to do with general work ethic. We have had the same lady work at the front of the simulator building for probably 20 years and she generally has a pretty decent read on all the students. She was talking to a few IPs and mentioned how she's noticed a significant decrease in practice time that studs are putting in when they're not hard scheduled when compared with just five and ten years ago. That being said, I do think the students have more to learn than I did only seven years ago. Most of my A/A syllabus was notch-to-defend with a brief into into drag. For PGMs I had one flight devoted to GBU-12s and 38s. They're introduced to significantly more than I was at the same point in my career.

That’s about the performance levels we’re seeing at our fighter fleet replacement squadrons, or FTUs. Performance markedly lower all around than what was typical 6-10 years ago.

I need to know this as well.

That article went viral in USMC fleet squadron ready rooms. Our leaders are either manipulating facts to a point rarely seen or just straight up lying. We have a fleet F-18 squadron deploying in less than three weeks with an average of 2-3 hours per pilot in the last 30 days. They had a single flyable jet Friday. Flyable, not mission capable.

I'm surprised you guys haven't begun to target separating Navy and Marine Corps fighter pilots. There are a huge number of dudes with gold wings dealing with all of the problems you guys are, who get zero bonus and average about 3-5 flight hours a month. I am by no means trying to say you guys don't have it bad, just bringing to light that there is an experienced pool of dudes many of whom would almost certainly agree to transfer to a similar platform if they simply got to fly more, let alone got a (small) bonus.

I agree with you. Its not worth the cost when you evaluate what you must give up for VSTOL capability. But it does give you some nice flexibility in very specific circumstances.

No argument there. We would've prevented the massive decrease in flight hours across the board in the TacAir community which has occurred since 2012 if we had purchased the Rhino as a stop-gap - Could have picked up some additional nice capabilities as well. We went all in with the F-35 and the Marine fighter community is getting absolutely decimated with retention issues because of the resultant delays. I know the AF has their issues, but if you combine all those with the fact that dudes are flying four to six times a month on top of all the other "Every Marine a rifleman" garbage and its not hard to understand why dudes don't want to do this anymore, or at least in this uniform. Concur, the F-35 does provide us a significant increase in capabilities... As should a plane that is decades newer than the ones it is replacing. It just could've been "more" without VSTOL. Doubtful. I don't think the USMC has nearly enough influence on the Navy for that. That being said, there is an advantage that will hopefully never be realized in having the ability to stage fifth gen assets on something other than just the big deck carriers with VSTOL when our adversaries are proliferating ASBMs like the DF-21/26.

Still disappointed we didn't just opt to buy As and Cs and leave the B completely out of the project. I don't know anyone who has placed B > C when they've put in their request for TX.

Saw this posted elsewhere. Anyone able to vouch for its accuracy?

Springer, she sure is cocked up at that speed. Can’t imagine she liked a 1C fight very much, but I bet it was a hell of a lot of fun.

... As long as the ejection seat works.

I'd take the chance. ... Or were you referring to OBOGS issues?

Would've killed to have flown fighters at any point from the '50s through the '80s.

Piss away. Everyone pull out your #skyart and let's get to measuring. While I agree, the benefits of training to A/A are magnitudes greater than any other type of mission set when it comes to developing all aspects of a pilot in fighter aviation. So while some communities may be on the B-team (or C-team if you look at USMC legacy Hornets) when Chinese hordes launch, training to that level and mission set has immeasurable benefits.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s an easy item to cover in the brief - “Don’t use your ing left hand to fix your position.” And they’re pretty decent about it. Sure, they’re always 800-1,000 lbs below lead, but that’s more on account of sawing the throttle throughout all phases of flight. The Navy has 10 or 15 tacform flights in the T-45 devoted solely to... Tacform. The geometry is the same in the Hornet.

Throttle management should be a discussion for classes, chalk talks, and briefs. Every F-18 Cat 1 knows not to select Max to fix a sucked position, and they’ve never flown in an aircraft with AB prior. A trainer doesn’t need AB, awesome to have, sure. But certainly not required. I’d rather them get trained up on a synthetic GPS based radar to learn the proper division between form, sensor, and comm before showing up in a true fighter.

Sounds like something from the first of the series of Matrix movies. Would love to know more how they plan to do something like this with an 18 year old. Playstation and XBox involved?