fighter pilot hours?

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
...

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?

Depends on what Air Force you are talking about. I was reading the other day
where the average annual flight time in the Russian Air Force has been as
low as the 40 hour mark--and they don't have decent simulators to help make
up the deficiency. Supposedly, that average allows the younger pilots to get
in some 60 or 70 hours a year, while the older guys get stuck with less than
the 40 hour average. ISTR that some of the NATO nations (and I am not
talking the recent additions here) have annual flight hour numbers that
have dipped as low as the 80 to 100 hour figure; ISTR that even our ARNG
helicopter aviators are (or were a few years ago) required to get a bit more
than that each year.

Brooks


Thanks!

all the best -- Dan Ford

On Wed, 8 Sep 2004 13:18:37 -0400, Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Cub Driver" wrote in message
.. .

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?

Depends on what Air Force you are talking about. I was reading the other day
where the average annual flight time in the Russian Air Force has been as
low as the 40 hour mark--and they don't have decent simulators to help make
up the deficiency. Supposedly, that average allows the younger pilots to get
in some 60 or 70 hours a year, while the older guys get stuck with less than
the 40 hour average. ISTR that some of the NATO nations (and I am not
talking the recent additions here) have annual flight hour numbers that
have dipped as low as the 80 to 100 hour figure; ISTR that even our ARNG
helicopter aviators are (or were a few years ago) required to get a bit more
than that each year.

Do you have any figurews for USAF and RAF pilots? Does the number of
hours typically vary depemnding on type of aircraft flown? Also, to
what extent can good simulators replace flying time?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)

Also, to
what extent can good simulators replace flying time?


It still doesn't entirely replace flight hours, it only augments them. There
are darn few "good simulators" that can remotely compare to the real thing, and
this was over 30 years ago, in computing's dark ages. Even the 9/11 ****s had
to get genuine flight training and even then, they nearly tore the wings off
the second 767. Flying is not only complicated - its dangerous. Simulators
can't trick you all the way, so you are always missing some component of the
actual flight.

In the Navy, we had a minimum of 4 hours per month that we were required to
ride along in any capacity that we could. On some shore duty locations,
meeting that would take genuine effort, but I didn't encounter that situation.
I got 660 helicopter flight hours one year, and when I got back to the states,
my squadron scheduled my first mission as a sortie in the WST. I guess they
didn't see the irony. I slept through the entire "flight". Hey, how was that
for a simulation?

zzzzz...grumble...snort..Wa? GOBLIN GOBLIN...ahhhhh... freakin WST...snort...
snorrre zzzzzz

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.

On 08 Sep 2004 22:36:53 GMT, Krztalizer wrote:
Also, to
what extent can good simulators replace flying time?


It still doesn't entirely replace flight hours, it only augments them. There
are darn few "good simulators" that can remotely compare to the real thing, and
this was over 30 years ago,

Presumably they are better now than then.

in computing's dark ages. Even the 9/11 ****s had
to get genuine flight training and even then, they nearly tore the wings off
the second 767. Flying is not only complicated - its dangerous. Simulators
can't trick you all the way, so you are always missing some component of the
actual flight.

Simulators -- assuming a good mathematical model of the airplane --
should be able to correctly simulate how it would respond to
anything the pilot does. The visual part of simulation is mostly
solved these days due to good computer power. The hard thing, as I
see it, is simulating the effect of the aircraft's movements on the
pilot.

In the Navy, we had a minimum of 4 hours per month that we were required to
ride along in any capacity that we could. On some shore duty locations,
meeting that would take genuine effort, but I didn't encounter that situation.
I got 660 helicopter flight hours one year, and when I got back to the states,
my squadron scheduled my first mission as a sortie in the WST. I guess they
didn't see the irony. I slept through the entire "flight". Hey, how was that
for a simulation?

What's a WST?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: zen19725 at zen dot co dot uk)

It still doesn't entirely replace flight hours, it only augments them.
There
are darn few "good simulators" that can remotely compare to the real thing,
and
this was over 30 years ago,

Presumably they are better now than then.

The last simulator I was in was for the F-15 up at Edwards. Still a video
game, albeit on a GIfrickinGANTIC screen, compared to the real thing.


What's a WST?


Navy-ese for simulator - "Weapons System Trainer".

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.

Also, to
what extent can good simulators replace flying time?

Krztalizer wrote:
It still doesn't entirely replace flight hours, it only augments them.
There
are darn few "good simulators" that can remotely compare to the real
thing, and
this was over 30 years ago,

phil hunt wrote:
Presumably they are better now than then.
snippage
Simulators -- assuming a good mathematical model of the airplane --
should be able to correctly simulate how it would respond to
anything the pilot does. The visual part of simulation is mostly
solved these days due to good computer power. The hard thing, as I
see it, is simulating the effect of the aircraft's movements on the
pilot.

A very nontrivial challenge.

When positive G is modeled by inflating your g-suit and negative G
by inflating a "whoopie cushion" under the driver's butt or dropping
the sim a foot or two, that ain't very useful. Numerous crashes
have been attributed to pilots flying the airplane too soon after being
in the sim (Miramar had a mandatory delay between 'flying' the
WST and getting in a real airplane). Your body gets used to what
ought to happen to it in the Real Thing (tm), then gets confused by
the sim. Minutia such as rate of G application get missed by the sim
but have tremendous significance in flight.

Sims are great for buttonology and procedures, and can be a lot of
fun (and they can scare the hell out of you sometimes). But they do
NOT teach you how to really push the plane to its and your limits
(low-level flight in a non-permissive environment, for one simple
example), and that's the key to surviving in the Real World.

We've seen it again and again--try to save money in the training
environment and you guarantee increased losses in combat.


Jeff

On Fri, 10 Sep 2004 08:45:59 -0600, "Jeff Crowell"
wrote:

phil hunt wrote:

Simulators -- assuming a good mathematical model of the airplane --
should be able to correctly simulate how it would respond to
anything the pilot does. The visual part of simulation is mostly
solved these days due to good computer power. The hard thing, as I
see it, is simulating the effect of the aircraft's movements on the
pilot.

A very nontrivial challenge.

When positive G is modeled by inflating your g-suit and negative G
by inflating a "whoopie cushion" under the driver's butt or dropping
the sim a foot or two, that ain't very useful. Numerous crashes
have been attributed to pilots flying the airplane too soon after being
in the sim (Miramar had a mandatory delay between 'flying' the
WST and getting in a real airplane). Your body gets used to what
ought to happen to it in the Real Thing (tm), then gets confused by
the sim. Minutia such as rate of G application get missed by the sim
but have tremendous significance in flight.

Sims are great for buttonology and procedures, and can be a lot of
fun (and they can scare the hell out of you sometimes). But they do
NOT teach you how to really push the plane to its and your limits
(low-level flight in a non-permissive environment, for one simple
example), and that's the key to surviving in the Real World.

We've seen it again and again--try to save money in the training
environment and you guarantee increased losses in combat.


I agree to a point. It's a difficult task to simulate accelerations on
the body that occur in flight using some sort of six-degree of motion
ground-based gadget. It works fairly well in low acceleration systems
such as air transports, but not in high-g operations like tactical
aircraft.

But (you were waiting for that, I know), a lot depends upon what you
are trying to train. One can do a pretty good job of cockpit
procedures training without much high-tech whiz-bang. And, one can
teach instrument procedures pretty well with moderate tech sims. And,
if you spend the money, current state-of-the-art can give you a pretty
good aircraft pilot qual without ever burning a pound of JP-8.

It's when you get into the weapons employment phase that things get
confusing. Exactly as you describe, there's the proprioceptive cues
that are part and parcel of every highly qualified operators input.
You can't recreate those (yet) with the desired level of accuracy.
And, you can't--without huge investment--recreate the total combat
environment. You can't get the total combination of airplane, flight,
strike package, support systems, enemy counter, enemy sensors, enemy
IADS, electronics, etc. etc. etc. For that matter, you can't very
easily or economically do "war" in training.

One of the things we were working on with the ATF (F-23) program was
low-cost desk-top trainers networked with both dome simulators and
computer-generated entities to create a combat scenario. While the
fidelity was unbelievably low if compared to actual flight, the task
wasn't to teach airplane/weapon operation but to try to teach
situational awareness--that "big-picture" or sixth sense that good air
warriors carry in their heads.

Surprisingly, a group of Fighter Weapons School, Top Gun, flight test
and operational USAF/USN aviators quickly found that they could get
immersed in the battle and almost forget that they were sitting at a
25" video monitor with a stick grip mounted on a desktop.

I used to compare it to watching a football game on a small screen TV.
Once you start watching you will often forget how small the display is
and you're simply concentrating on the game.

Tactics, maneuver, weapons employment, flight management, navigation,
systems operations, etc. could all be practiced. The only thing that
was missing was basic "stick-and-rudder".



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org

In article ,
Ed Rasimus wrote:

One of the things we were working on with the ATF (F-23) program was
low-cost desk-top trainers networked with both dome simulators and
computer-generated entities to create a combat scenario.

For a look at a Swedish variant of this, see this:
http://www.flsc.foi.se/index_eng.html

It can be noted that one of the, if not the, most expensive
pieces of hardware are the system controller/throttles.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
"Failure requires effort. That's why some people never fail." -Bengt Anderberg

Subject: fighter pilot hours?
From: "Jeff Crowell"
Date: 9/10/2004 7:45 AM Pacific Standard Time

We've seen it again and again--try to save money in the training
environment and you guarantee increased losses in combat.


Jeff

Too bad Rumsfeld doesn't read this stuff.


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

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: fighter pilot hours?
From: "Jeff Crowell"
Date: 9/10/2004 7:45 AM Pacific Standard Time

We've seen it again and again--try to save money in the training
environment and you guarantee increased losses in combat.


Jeff

Too bad Rumsfeld doesn't read this stuff.

You have evidence that Rumsfeld is cutting flight training hours? If so,
provide it--if not, shut up, 'cause you are lyin' again.

Brooks



Arthur Kramer