Standups at UPT

[Sneedro]

I will be heading out to UPT within the next year hopefully. I have been looking into what it entails, and am curious what the standups are like, what is involved, how long a standup usually takes, and how often do students "fail" them. Thanks any info.

[C17Driver]

Length depends.. I've seen standups last a total of about 30 seconds before the STUD got sat down and I've seen one take about 2 hours. (That was a fun day!)

[ 07 February 2004, 16:49: Message edited by: C17Driver ]

[Guest C-21 Pilot]

I remember standups being a complete pain in the ass, both in the T-1 and T-37. They involve putting you in the plane under different flight parameters (on the ground, inverted, in a bank, rolling takeoff, etc) with various weather conditions. You'll usually know before the setup of the EP what you are gonna get just by the way the setup was initiated....if you are IMC, then expect some sort of electrical malfunction where you have to shoot an approach at minimums (instrument and procedural knowledge is key). VMC, expect everything else (bleed air malfunctions, fuel system problem, etc)

In the T-37 portion, the IP's would let you sink until you had to eject or you died, which I didn't think was a very constructive way of doing things. They generally lasted about 30 minutes, but I'll admit I lasted only about 45 seconds once for stating a boldface wrong.

In the T-1, though, you had a bit more airmanship under your belt, and you had another dude with you in case you were heading down the wrong path. Your thought process is what is actually being "graded", because woth both folks up there, you can just read from the Dash-1 verbatim.

This is where I thought the best learning happened while I was at pilot training. You have to rely solely on your understanding of regs, T.O.'s, communication, etc.

From what I heard, the T-38 standups where quite similiar to the T-37, but then again, I didn't go that route.

[Guest AirGuardian]

Ooooh, now you're kick'n my memory cells around with some good nightmares. Only one clear cut stand-up I recall like it was Yesterday!

IP - "So now what do you do Stud?"

Stud - "After accomplishing the boldface, I uhhhh, then uuuhh..."

IP - "Sire 21 - Take Heading 245 back to your seat, SIT DOWN!"

IP - "Next!"

[Toro]

T-38s are pretty much the same as T-37s. Only thing to add is that sometimes a dude would get stopped and sat down part way through the EP. He may have screwed it up, he may not have. The IP giving the EP (USEM) would call and somebody else and tell them to pick it up where the first guy left off, or go back and change anything he wanted. That's a little stressful if you're not sure exactly what the dude screwed up - especially if he did everything right and you go back and change something for the worse.

[Guest AirGuardian]

Well that would just suck if he had made it past the bold face... I never backed up beyond the boldface in 37's if they weren't sat down quickly after it... wrong for me to assume they did it right, but I didn't need the work(or so I thought, hmmm!). Nice little addition there Toro, good point - alot more deer in the headlights I'm guessing.... That'll keep'm awake!

[Hacker]

Originally posted by C17Driver:

I've seen one take about 2 hours. (That was a fun day!)

Mother F*cker please! What are the details on this one? Jeez, just hook the guy and get it done with...or did the entire class suck (sts)?

[Toro]

Originally posted by Hacker:

Jeez, just hook the guy and get it done with...or did the entire class suck (sts)?

I remember the worst standup I ever saw: 99-12 if memory serves me. We went through the entire class on an EP the instructors knew was difficult, but not that tough. Antonius...sit down. Antuna...sit down. Harrison...sit down. Penewit...sit down. Haskin...sit down. If I remember correctly, it was Eaglin who finally pulled through. Sound familiar?

[C17Driver]

No, the one that took forever (2 hours) was in TOnes. The USEM and FLT CC decided that the class wasn't "putting themselves into the situation" real time. (ie, glossing over stuff) So they decided to make it real time. I think the two guys standing read over 50 pages of the dash 1 to the class. And what sucks about it, it was something simple, like high oil pressure of something like that. (so no bold face)

[Hacker]

Originally posted by Toro:

I remember the worst standup I ever saw: 99-12 if memory serves me.

The class was probably fine...I'm betting it was the USEM that sucked.

[Beaver]

Not hard to believe that Antonius started it off on the wrong foot. Aw Hell!

[JimNtexas]

I was a mere nav, but we did have standups at was then called UNT.  We had one guy in class who told us on day one to call him ‘Diamond Jack’.

He was from some yankee state, wore lots of jewelry and like to wave his Amex card around while telling us how rich he was.

He got stood up on one of our first flights.  I don’t recall the question, but I have vivid memory of him shaking like a leaf, stuttering, with a deer in the headlights look.

He washed out very quickly out of what was in retrospect notthat tough a course.

[nsplayr]

[Breckey]

16 years has got to be a record.

[Scooter14]

Yeah this has got to be a thread revival record!

[Homestar]

4 hours ago, nsplayr said:

 I wonder where @Sneedro is now.....

[contraildash]

I think I read this 3 years before I went to OTS.....

[Bergman]

UPT studs right now were 5-6 years old when this thread was started.  Damn we are old. 
 

[Scooter14]

UPT studs right now were 5-6 years old when this thread was started.  Damn we are old. 
 

This thread started when my oldest kid was 4 1/2 and I was a T-1 student.

He commissions in May. Your math checks.

[Majestik Møøse]

The internet is weird. And it’s only going to get weirder as we get older. Imagine responding directly to one of Robin Olds’ forum posts bitching about finance.

[Vito]

In my class, CBM 87-04, we had a guy essentially wash out because of a standup. He was a strong student up to this point. We were in the first weeks of T-38’s and the Stan EVAL section sent a representative to “sit-in” on our morning stand up, to observe. Since this stud was pretty solid, he was chosen for the stand up and he royalty fu#@ed it up! He was quickly sat down (it was an automatic bust and grounding for a failed stand up in my class) Our flight Commander asked the visiting Stan EVAL observer to step outside for a minute. As he left the room, our Flt CC chewed the stud out and ripped him a new a-hole, telling him he embarrassed himself, us, the IP’s and everyone in the civilized world! We never saw our CC so mad. The next flight he took, he busted, then he busted again, went to an 88 ride, busted that and failed his 89 ride and was gone within a week of his stand up performance. No lie! Sad thing is, he would have been a solid pilot, but he couldn’t handle the onslaught and wrath of the CC and IP’s.

It was a different time.

[Bigred]

On 1/19/2021 at 7:11 PM, Vito said:

! Sad thing is, he would have been a solid pilot, but he couldn’t handle the onslaught and wrath of the CC and IP’s.

It was a different time.

I mean, if he couldn’t handle the stress getting yelled at, how could he handle the stress of flying a combat aircraft? Sounds like he wasn’t so solid of a pilot. 

[FLEA]

12 hours ago, Bigred said:

I mean, if he couldn’t handle the stress getting yelled at, how could he handle the stress of flying a combat aircraft? Sounds like he wasn’t so solid of a pilot. 

Different stressors. Ive met a lot of people who honestly just couldn't handle the idea of being inadequate. They were groomed for success their whole life, never failed, and when it actually happens, they have no comprehension of how to embrace it and use it to improve themselves. 

I don't think combat would have got him later on, but at some point debriefing is going to be a problem. You have to know how to take critiques in this line of work. Take the CAF for instance where even when you meet all of your objectives on the surface you will still spend nit noids of time discussing how to do it better. 

 

[slackline]

50 minutes ago, FLEA said:

Different stressors. Ive met a lot of people who honestly just couldn't handle the idea of being inadequate. They were groomed for success their whole life, never failed, and when it actually happens, they have no comprehension of how to embrace it and use it to improve themselves. 

I don't think combat would have got him later on, but at some point debriefing is going to be a problem. You have to know how to take critiques in this line of work. Take the CAF for instance where even when you meet all of your objectives on the surface you will still spend nit noids of time discussing how to do it better. 

 

Agreed on the fact that the two don’t correlate.  Think about the fact that we’re all basically kids in pilot training as well.  Getting singled out by someone you, ostensibly, look up to like your Flt/CC in pilot training is nowhere close to the same thing as the stress of combat where we’re basically taught to have (while respecting their ability to kill you) disdain for the enemy.  That’s a complete failure of leadership on the part of the Flt/CC back then.  That’s quite a bit of “hindsight is 20/20” on my part since we don’t know the details of the situation from back then.  Maybe the Flt/CC saw something in the kid that was a red flag?  Who knows.  

By and large, UPT was way more stressful than coming back with holes in the bird and Winchester on the guns ever was.  

[Bigred]

1 hour ago, slackline said:

Agreed on the fact that the two don’t correlate.  Think about the fact that we’re all basically kids in pilot training as well.  Getting singled out by someone you, ostensibly, look up to like your Flt/CC in pilot training is nowhere close to the same thing as the stress of combat where we’re basically taught to have (while respecting their ability to kill you) disdain for the enemy.  That’s a complete failure of leadership on the part of the Flt/CC back then.  That’s quite a bit of “hindsight is 20/20” on my part since we don’t know the details of the situation from back then.  Maybe the Flt/CC saw something in the kid that was a red flag?  Who knows.  

By and large, UPT was way more stressful than coming back with holes in the bird and Winchester on the guns ever was.  

I guess agree to disagree. The kid couldn’t handle being told he was all jacked up and imploded. I think it’s a good thing because who knows how he’d handle life after flight school.