I may have missed it in this thread, but it's important to note that
flying requirements (civilian as well as military) have evolved into
event requirements, rather than hours. Obviously, 100 hours in a
transport or bomber (mostly cruise time) aren't the same as 100 hours
of air-to-air or air-to-mud time in a fighter/attack aircraft. I don't
know what the requirements are today, but when I retired from the USAF
in 1987, requirements were in terms of instrument approaches,
landings, weapons delivery events, sorties (of various types), not
just hours.

My recollection, vague though it might be getting, is that for a large
part of my flying career the basic USAF requirement was 120
hours/year. Nobody I knew (in flying posts) got so few hours. But
remember the days when you had to fly 4 hours/month for flight pay
(which was a factor mostly in non-flying billets)? When I was a
student in the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), we mostly got
our hours flying in the back of the local C-130 or C-133. Such a deal.
Later, wiser heads removed the flying hour requirements for pilots in
non-flying jobs.

But I digress. Event-driven requirements are obviously the way to go.

Jim Thomas


Robey Price wrote in message . ..
After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Cub Driver
confessed the following:

I fly about 50 hours a year and wish I could do more, just to stay in
the groove.

Could I have stayed current in a jet fighter, flying about 140 hours a
year?