Subject: Senior Pilot and Command pilot ratings
From: (Walt BJ)
Date: 9/4/03 10:41 PM Pacific Daylight Time
Message-id:

"Phineas Pinkham" wrote:
SNIP:Reflects the mentality of single seat numb-nuts versus the
professionalism
of multi-engine Pilots.
SNIP:

You write from ignorance, old man. It takes a lot of sorties to rack
up 1300 and 3000 hours in single-seat single-engine jets at 1:30 per
sortie. A lot of my classmates had to go TDY to the AEW 121s to get
enough time to qualify. I was lucky; I made it the hard way. As for
professionalism, a single-seat pilot has to do everything a multi crew
does - by himself. When I was picking up tired aging fighters from the
ANG for the Boneyard and taking the ANG new ones from North American
(LAX) I was operating in high density IFR areas - LAX, of course, and
then up in the New England area. No one changed my radio channels for
me, no one copied clearances for me, no one navigated for me or
figured out new ETAs for me when my route was changed by ATC. No one
backed me up on an IFR approach to a strange field. Oh, by the way our
minimums for these flights were USAF minimums. And nope, I didn't have
an autopilot.
Professionalism? Try night dive bombing or a night low level. By
yourself. Try a 5-minute scramble to a night low altitude intercept a
hundred miles out over the ocean on an unknown bogie running
blacked-out. Fly 250 miles north of Thule on a single engine. And how
often have multi-engine crews ever flown their airplane to its design
operational limits? How many times have they ever fought vertigo? One
'hood' ride to show proficiency in the 'unusual attitude' instrument
recoveries would turn most (not all) multi pilots' hair stark white.
(I knew a few who went from B52s to F4s and loved it.) Quite a bit
different from a canned computerized flight plan, a nice leisurely
takeoff and an autopilot cruise at a fixed altitude to a destination
with never a bank over 30 degrees, if that. Coffee at hand, you can
get up and walk around, doze while the other guy 'flies' the
autopilot, and even have a meal! And most multi crews have basically
only one mission - in the F4 we had air defense, air superiority, nuke
strike, close air support and interdiction. Oh, yes, refueling day and
night, not to mention side lines like formation flying in night and
weather (flying wing at night in the weather is one long battle with
vertigo!), missile/gunnery target tow, and for a few lucky ones test
hops. Now and then a nice long deployment where you could log lots of
hours between takeoff and landing.
Professionalism is easy to profess - the proof is in how well you do a
complex job. Now, which job is more complex?
Walt BJ


GREAT POST. REALITY AT LAST. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer