A aviation & planes forum. AviationBanter

If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Go Back   Home » AviationBanter forum » rec.aviation newsgroups » Military Aviation
Site Map Home Register Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

fighter pilot hours?



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old September 8th 04, 06:13 PM
Cub Driver
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default fighter pilot hours?


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?

Thanks!

all the best -- Dan Ford
email: (put Cubdriver in subject line)

The Warbird's Forum
www.warbirdforum.com
Expedition sailboat charters www.expeditionsail.com
  #2  
Old September 8th 04, 06:18 PM
Kevin Brooks
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


"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



  #3  
Old September 8th 04, 07:01 PM
Ed Rasimus
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 13:13:02 -0400, Cub Driver
wrote:


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?


You would have to add some definitions and parameters to get a
definitive answer.

Could you fly the airplane? Probably if you had been properly
qualified and gained some experience. If you had flown a lot
previously and maintained high proficiency, you could probably avoid
killing yourself with that level of flying.

Would you be mission capable? Depends upon the mission and the
availability of effective simulation. If you had good mission
simulator support you could remain reasonably competent with that
level of currency.

Today's airplanes are easier to fly than in the past, but today's
weapons systems are considerably more complex and enemy defenses are
more layered and require better force integration to defeat. At 140
hours per year you might be quite good if all of your flying was
..9/sortie air-to-air of high intensity--provided your mission was
1-v-1.

If your 140 hours was ten monthly cross-country flights, droning along
from A to B, you probably won't be combat effective.

And, a lot would depend upon your innate talent. If you were a
"natural" you could be a lot more "current" than if you were a bit
ham-handed.

Fly your 140 hours in a three month period and you'll be very good at
the end of the period. Then, you can come back up to speed quite
quickly when you resume next year. Fly your 140 hours at 12
hours/month, two 1.5 hour flights per week, and you'll just barely be
minimum qualified unless you've got a backlog of experience to draw
upon.

IMHO.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org
  #4  
Old September 8th 04, 09:08 PM
Urban Fredriksson
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:

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


Usual NATO requirement is 180, but the Swedish air force
got a waiver from that because our training areas are much
closer to the airbases. So I'd say it's possible if you
can use them well.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
1) What is happening will continue to happen
2) Consider the obvious seriously
3) Consider the consequences - Asimov's "Three Laws of Futurics", F&SF, Oct 74
  #5  
Old September 8th 04, 09:50 PM
Mark
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Really nice to have your range near by/adjacent to the airfield. For an
air-to-air guy with a training range very close, 140 hrs would have you
flying about every other day. That said there are lots of other things to
be done in terms of being 'current' in all aspects of the mission (even
air-to-air specialized units). In particular there would be instrument
flying requirements and air-to-air refueling missions. This eats into your
140 hrs; so the time actually spent honing your air-to-air skills would be
down to a couple of times a week. Still not BAD, but on the fringe (IMHO).

20hrs a month is a more realistic number to take care of all the bits n
pieces

For a mud-mover (F-15E, F-16 type) you'd be looking at needing more hours to
really keep proficient. Most missions average 2 hrs (rather than the 0.9 to
1.2 hr average for A2A)

Mark


"Urban Fredriksson" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:

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


Usual NATO requirement is 180, but the Swedish air force
got a waiver from that because our training areas are much
closer to the airbases. So I'd say it's possible if you
can use them well.
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
1) What is happening will continue to happen
2) Consider the obvious seriously
3) Consider the consequences - Asimov's "Three Laws of Futurics", F&SF,

Oct 74


  #6  
Old September 8th 04, 10:17 PM
phil hunt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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)


  #7  
Old September 8th 04, 10:23 PM
Robey Price
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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?


Sure...if your mission was very limited. AFR 51-50 training
requirements would be fairly easy to meet. F-102 units didn't have AAR
squares to fill, no low levels, only one weapon the AIM-4...(TX ANG
was not a nuke unit) so no Dart or strafe requirements, and no ACM
back then. That leaves formation takeoffs and landings, intercepts,
instrument approaches and SFOs (simulated flameout landings). Do-able.

But like Urban mentioned, when I showed up in USAFE in 1981, NATO
standard was 180 hours minimum. USAFE F-4 guys were averaging 240-300
back then, F-15 guys a bit less ISTR 200-250.

If you had to drop bombs, strafe, fly night low levels, air refuel,
use NVGs, employ HARMs or PGMs, maintain some honest air-to-air
proficiency...140 hours wouldn't hack it today. With that little
flying you'd only be a MS (mission support) wienie and not a full up
MR (mission ready) pilot.

Robey


  #8  
Old September 8th 04, 11:07 PM
phil hunt
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

On 8 Sep 2004 22:08:51 +0200, Urban Fredriksson wrote:
In article ,
Cub Driver wrote:

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


Usual NATO requirement is 180, but the Swedish air force
got a waiver from that because our training areas are much
closer to the airbases.


Given that Sweden isn't in NATO, why would NATO care what Sweden
does, and why would Sweden care what NATO requires?


--
"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)


  #9  
Old September 8th 04, 11:36 PM
Krztalizer
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

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.

  #10  
Old September 9th 04, 02:45 AM
John R Weiss
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"phil hunt" wrote...

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?


USN minimum is 100 hours/year. That's way too low to actually maintain
proficiency.

15 hours/month is about minimum for proficiency; 300 hours/year is reasonable.


 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
AOPA Stall/Spin Study -- Stowell's Review (8,000 words) Rich Stowell Aerobatics 28 January 2nd 09 03:26 PM
AF investigators cite pilot error in fighter crash Otis Willie Military Aviation 0 January 9th 04 10:55 PM
Questions Regarding Becoming a Marine Fighter Pilot. ? Thanks! Lee Shores Military Aviation 23 December 11th 03 11:49 PM
USAF = US Amphetamine Fools RT Military Aviation 104 September 25th 03 03:17 PM
Effect of Light Sport on General Aviation Gilan Home Built 17 September 24th 03 06:11 AM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:50 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 AviationBanter.
The comments are property of their posters.