UPT Next

[kaputt]

4 hours ago, Flev said:

My opinion (for as little as its worth) is that students should still get time in a higher performance aircraft before T-7's. Maybe something light and turbocharged? Going from bug-smashers to a "tactical" jet would be quite the jump.

The Army uses this as its initial fixed wing trainer. Grob 120TP, Contractor Owned/Contractor operated. Single engine turbine, half the horsepower, and half the cost of a new T-6. 
 

CAE has also been giving a T-6 like syllabus to the Irish Air Corps in the same aircraft/location. 
 

Contractor instruction can be done right if set up appropriately. Can the Air Force manage that though, who knows 🤷🏼‍♂️ 
 

 

[LookieRookie]

3 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

It's a real shame they won't be in the seat to suffer the consequences when that numerically self-evident non-starter of a COA naturally dies in the NICU.

not if there is a second buy that boeing makes all its money back with

[Clark Griswold]

19 hours ago, Pooter said:

I don’t think you’re in any danger of eating crow. Name a time programmed UPT syllabus hours increased at any point in the last decade. I’ll wait. 
 
And if anyone thinks that’s gonna happen especially when we have a shiny new trainer that’s more expensive to operate, I would love to have some of the drugs you’re on. More likely is they’ll send heavies to a sim only track after the contractor IFT or whatever the hell it is, and the 38 track will have hours cut based on some stupid argument that the t-7 training is higher fidelity somehow.

Yeah that’s a good point but if they’re going public eventually with that as a proposal then I think there’s hope how much is debatable
This really is not crazy but the devil is in the details likely
My two cents:
100+ hours for PPC with instruments
20+ hours for ME with x-ctry tng
30+ hours for acro, form and spin/upset recovery
T-7 for 50+ hours
Graduate


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Edited August 3 by Clark Griswold

[Inertia17]

Flying instruments at 120kts in GA and at 300kts in a T-7 is a considerable jump. How many airline guys with a couple thousand hours have you seen struggle in a T-38? Will it work for a select few? Sure. But for 1500 a year...doubtful.

[hindsight2020]

Here's the problem green suiters never seem to understand about this tired "contractor deus ex machina" COA. Every.single.time the question gets posed in the real world (and it has, ad nauseam) it boils down to the same self-evident retort: "Where and for how much?".

And the answer continues to be the same: "No thanks." The contractor undergraduate training pipedream cannot be scaled to the requirement, unless and until you get rid of the unholy Trinity: Laughlin, Columbus and Vance. 

I'd give details of what it takes to staff the place, but I don't want to doxx myself, plus I'm not even sure some of the stuff I've dealt with is fully JTR-kosher anyways, so 1 2 3 4 fifth. "Senator, that hooker was dead when I got to the gangbang....." 😄 

BL, it is my lived experience that what you people want, cannot be had for what your bosses are willing to pay. A few townie-married check o the month types willing to teach "back waivered" UPT in a Grob are not going to save this enterprise.

If you don't move the enterprise to metro USA, that COA is DOA. Reality.

There's zero political will to move XL and CB. Reality. 

The number you get is equal to however many green bags you can non-volunteer to do the job for 3 years at a time + the aggregate cost of 7-day opts. Reality. 

[Clark Griswold]

1 hour ago, Inertia17 said:

Flying instruments at 120kts in GA and at 300kts in a T-7 is a considerable jump. How many airline guys with a couple thousand hours have you seen struggle in a T-38? Will it work for a select few? Sure. But for 1500 a year...doubtful.

My guess is after this as yet hypothetical GA aircraft training phase and on to the T-7 there would be a sim and FTD to build up the synapses for fast jet experience, I don't know this for a fact but the T-7 probably has more reasonable speeds than the 38 with larger, modern wings, fly by wire and such for transition from descent to approach / pattern speeds.

Will it rage all the time at 300 KIAS going from A to B below 10k, maybe but methinks it can go slower than the Talon and unless higher than required speeds are used as a stress inducer it will be in the pattern in the 200+ something like a T-45 is my guess.

That's faster for sure than a GA but probably not a bridge too far for most.  I see your point that GA is slow pitch softball and there about to start getting 75+ mph pitches but at some point they gotta jump in the deep end.

1 hour ago, hindsight2020 said:

If you don't move the enterprise to metro USA, that COA is DOA. Reality.

There's zero political will to move XL and CB. Reality. 

The number you get is equal to however many green bags you can non-volunteer to do the job for 3 years at a time + the aggregate cost of 7-day opts. Reality. 

Truth.  As an airline guy but retired now if you got a base at or at a reasonable driving distance from ATL, CLT, DFW, IAH, PHX, DEN, MIA, etc... you would get the ARC to man this with zero issues but you would need an equal or greater exchange of missions / jobs for those bases you mentioned...  my unsolicited suggestions would be to put bombers back at CBM and an RPA / AFSOC mission DLF, END not sure but if king for a day I'd put two aggressor squadrons there with a GCI unit, call it good. 

Edited August 4 by Clark Griswold

[DirkDiggler]

13 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

Here's the problem green suiters never seem to understand about this tired "contractor deus ex machina" COA. Every.single.time the question gets posed in the real world (and it has, ad nauseam) it boils down to the same self-evident retort: "Where and for how much?".

And the answer continues to be the same: "No thanks." The contractor undergraduate training pipedream cannot be scaled to the requirement, unless and until you get rid of the unholy Trinity: Laughlin, Columbus and Vance. 

I'd give details of what it takes to staff the place, but I don't want to doxx myself, plus I'm not even sure some of the stuff I've dealt with is fully JTR-kosher anyways, so 1 2 3 4 fifth. "Senator, that hooker was dead when I got to the gangbang....." 😄 

BL, it is my lived experience that what you people want, cannot be had for what your bosses are willing to pay. A few townie-married check o the month types willing to teach "back waivered" UPT in a Grob are not going to save this enterprise.

If you don't move the enterprise to metro USA, that COA is DOA. Reality.

There's zero political will to move XL and CB. Reality. 

The number you get is equal to however many green bags you can non-volunteer to do the job for 3 years at a time + the aggregate cost of 7-day opts. Reality. 

Lotta really good/true words here.

  I just retired and am about to start the simulator contractor life at the FTU for my airframe.  If there had been an opportunity to fly and instruct at UPT as a civilian (contractor or GS) I'd have been very interested (not interested in the airlines) but I'm not doing that at CBM/DLF/END.  It's just not in the cards for me post-AF.  I didn't mind being at what some would consider less than desirable locations while I was in but after retirement I'm looking for a good place to live in a location where my wife can travel easily for her career.  None of the current UPT locations provide that.

  As a side note on this topic, I'm not sure if this is new to the AF but it was new to me.  As my retirement date approached I kept getting emails from AFPC (think it was them) asking me to consider taking a GS job at Randolph teaching sims remotely.  Apparently the AF is having trouble getting enough blue suiters to live in CBM/DLF/END that they're offering guys the option to work at Randolph and instruct sims via VTC to the students at UPT bases.  I feel like that would be less than optimal training for the students but that's where we're at today.  

[hindsight2020]

3 hours ago, DirkDiggler said:

I didn't mind being at what some would consider less than desirable locations while I was in but after retirement I'm looking for a good place to live in a location where my wife can travel easily for her career.  None of the current UPT locations provide that.

  

You and me both. Currently wrecking myself and the home life with a hypercommute/geobachelor shtick to get me to the finish line. Couldn't move the family again, they're thriving. It's not their fault I'm a forever teenager who can't get his sh$t together and do something else outside lighting afterburners for the crowd on out n backs and victory rolls with a shit eating grin. My wife's a saint. Digressing.  

I too have stiff armed the airlines for the entirery of my reserve career, but the pivot to .civ is coming for me either way. Family comes first and I'm tired of tethering my life to sunbelt usaf locations. I'll figure something out when we reach that fork in the road. 

Doing this job for as long as I have has been an honor. I wouldn't mind finishing out the last 10 doing what I was already doing. But let's get real, they're never going to move the enterprise. Water meet bridge underpass. 

At the end of the day, my theory of the case is that at the policy setting level, they're not really serious about fixing anything. This is all just political store-minding and perfomative calistenics.

As to what's likely to happen to this enterprise as the T-7 rolls in behind schedule and under fleet count? @Pooter called it pretty much to a T on his previous post above. I second his prediction. 

Edited August 4 by hindsight2020

[LookieRookie]

The T-7 is easier to fly than the T-38, but it is still is a fast mover.

FWIW, I think IPT to T-7 a dumb idea. AETCs risks were all about losses to production but never anything about students morting themselves. There are also a lot of MAF dudes (no offense to them) making these decisions that have never flown fast jets in their life.

And hindsight, for those of us who know you, your writing style doxx’d you years ago. hah

Edited August 4 by LookieRookie

[hindsight2020]

3 hours ago, LookieRookie said:

And hindsight, for those of us who know you, your writing style doxx’d you years ago. hah

[jice]

On 8/4/2024 at 6:13 PM, LookieRookie said:

FWIW, I think IPT to T-7 a dumb idea. AETCs risks were all about losses to production but never anything about students morting themselves. There are also a lot of MAF dudes (no offense to them) making these decisions that have never flown fast jets in their life.

This. For two reasons. 
 

1) Somebody who has never been in the fast jet business doesn’t natively understand the risks in fast jet administrative or tactical flying.

2) At some point as a theoretically ideal (but resource constrained) readiness posture approaches imminent conflict, the administrative and tactical curves cross. Ex: If war is going to happen tomorrow and I’m expecting double digit attrition by the enemy in each pulse, the smart put is on tactical tasks rather than administrative tasks.  If I can save 10% of my force through weight of effort on tactical training while sacrificing 2% to administrative risks, I come out ahead… that varies across fleets, roles, locations, etc. etc. etc. 

Unfortunately, we’ve not actually had that level of thought about risk in our pilot training or operational training enterprise. We tend to live on the “your mission is my motherhood” (who touched you in the motherhood, @hindsight2020? [good natured ribbing intended]) or “admin is assumed, the tactics will save you” camps, per command/commander. 
 

Edit to add: we may have had that level of thought… but I’ve never seen it. If somebody has, please point me to it. 

Edited August 6 by jice

[JeremiahWeed]

On 8/3/2024 at 9:01 PM, Inertia17 said:

Flying instruments at 120kts in GA and at 300kts in a T-7 is a considerable jump. How many airline guys with a couple thousand hours have you seen struggle in a T-38? Will it work for a select few? Sure. But for 1500 a year...doubtful.

IMO, in many cases it's those "couple thousand hours" that actually become the problem for those "airline guys".  Once a pilot has that many hours flying in an environment considerably different and coming at them more slowly (in terms of general airspeed and timing of flight events), many are going to struggle to ramp back up to T-38 speeds.  Their mental clock has been set and it can be more difficult to change that.  Contrast that with the zero (or very low hour) UPT student who really doesn't know any better.  They just do what they're told (like Forest Gump field stripping his weapon in record time - "Because you told me to Drill Sergeant"). We had a 3000 hour commuter pilot in my class who barely made it through the -38 phase and ended up lucky to get a -130.  Meanwhile fungos like me with 25 hours in a cessna to start are killing it in the -38 and heading to the Eagle.  There were a lot more of us low time guys who had no issues than high time guys doing the same.  Something to be said for learning it the AF way from the start.  I think the transition from GA to 300 kts in a T-7 (or -38) isn't that big a deal as long as that student is kind of a clean slate and not tainted with a bunch of "experience" that's not really going to help in the long run.

Edited August 6 by JeremiahWeed

[Lord Ratner]

51 minutes ago, JeremiahWeed said:

Meanwhile fungos like me with 25 hours in a cessna to start are killing it in the -38 and heading to the Eagle.

What went wrong?

[Clark Griswold]

If the T-6 is getting longish in the tooth and they want a single trainer in the AF to earn wings in then why not switch to the PC-21 for UPT?

More capable than a T-6 but cheaper than the T-7

GA training for basics, throw money at it to get quality CFIIs ($150k+ a year with longevity bonuses), PPC to AMEL training w/instruments

PC-21 syllabus focused on acro, form and mission training (comms, timing, procedures, etc). Mo’ power and performance but affordable enough to run 1500 studs x 60 hours

T-7 for IFF, Aggressor, T-birds and ANG light fighter program / FMS

T-6s transitions sts to an RPA companion training aircraft program, RPA pilot training program, staff flying program, utility aircraft

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[JeremiahWeed]

5 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

What went wrong?

o

Awww, you got me. 

[Clark Griswold]

Airplane porn, PC 21 in USAF colors

 

 

[wikz]

On 8/4/2024 at 6:13 PM, LookieRookie said:

The T-7 is easier to fly than the T-38, but it is still is a fast mover.

FWIW, I think IPT to T-7 a dumb idea. AETCs risks were all about losses to production but never anything about students morting themselves. There are also a lot of MAF dudes (no offense to them) making these decisions that have never flown fast jets in their life.

wait, sorry ive been off BO for a little due to BMT, but you mean to tell me that the AFs' plan to train the fighter track in the future is to have all students go to IFT, fly the katana, and straight to the t-7?

would the timeline for UPT be cut short or are they just switching to more sim focused training?

it seems like the t-7 won't be operational until 2028 and the t-6 is going to be retiring in a couple years. is that correct? 

Edited August 24 by wikz

[LookieRookie]

5 hours ago, wikz said:

wait, sorry ive been off BO for a little due to BMT, but you mean to tell me that the AFs' plan to train the fighter track in the future is to have all students go to IFT, fly the katana, and straight to the t-7?

would the timeline for UPT be cut short or are they just switching to more sim focused training?

it seems like the t-7 won't be operational until 2028 and the t-6 is going to be retiring in a couple years. is that correct? 

no, ipt is different than ift. ipt is full faa checkrides.

 

ya this is years out.

[wikz]

3 hours ago, LookieRookie said:

no, ipt is different than ift. ipt is full faa checkrides.

 

ya this is years out.

ahh gotcha. thank you.

from what ive read while skimming the past few pages (TLDR) is that they're gonna have civilian instructors for ipt and their is no aircraft chosen to train on yet?

 

[WheelsOff]

TLDR: you can thank (ret) Gen Wills for all this…💩

[CaptainMorgan]

TLDR: you can thank (ret) Gen Wills for all this…

Yeah, fvck that guy


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