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fighter pilot hours?



 
 
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  #11  
Old September 9th 04, 03:35 AM
Kevin Brooks
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"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.


Huh? Why would the Swedes need a "waiver", when they are not part of NATO in
the first place?

Brooks

--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/



  #12  
Old September 9th 04, 03:42 AM
WaltBJ
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Ed's numbers look pretty good to me. But another factor is what the
peculiar requirements of your situation is. I was a little miffed at
TAC because they used a six-month cycle in which you flew (not
necessarily in this order) air intercepts (radar work), air to ground
conventional, air to ground nuke, air to ground night, air combat
maneuvers followed by air combat tactics. Air refuling was mixed with
(usually) air to ground nuke and air to ground night. But the problem
was just about as soon as you got 'happy' with what yoyu were doing
the mission changed. The other thing was instrument cross-check. here
is where a good (!) simulator helps a lot, to stay sharp. In was once
caught out; I'd been off 90 days TDY and when I got back about the
second missionwas flying as chase on a pilot in the combat crew
training phase. The wx lowered and we had to make separate GCAs. I was
all over the place compared to my usual proficiency. The lesson was
duly noted and I started scrounging sim rides when I sensed they were
needed rather than dodging the box as if it were radioactive. FWIW I
needed 3 act rides a week to be able to fly act automatically. I would
guess that 3 good busy practices rides a month would keep you
proficient enough to fly around the pattern on a severely clear VFR
day. That means accomplishing the various training items you must keep
proficient in, like approaches, ILS and non-p, plus the VFR pattern.
This also includes, on the side, reviewing the flight manual
religiously and knowing the EPs and limitations exactly plus
'blindfold familiarity' with the cockpit - be able to reach out and
touch and identify without fumbling every gauge and control in the
cockpit. (Note that this will not furnish enough proficiency to safely
fly at night!)
The USAF beginning about 1965 had us write out the EPs out verbatim
before each and every flight. I consider this level of knowledge and
cockpit familiarity to absolutely necessary for any high-performance
flying. Unfortunately, as Ed points out, time per se isn't worth much.
The USAF for a long time tried to get DOD and Congress to buy off on
sorties rather than aircraft time as far as appropriations went. The
pols couldn't understand that approach, unfortunately, since maximum
performance flying eats up fuel and there goes the 1.5+ flight. Also,
a heavy emphasis on max performance leads to a lot of hole-boring near
the end of the month to log the monthly total and avoid nasty notes
from HHQ. That's why a couple squadrons I was in really liked to send
guys out on XCs over the weekend. 4 planes flying seven sorties each
in cruise mode at altitude boost the average time per sortie
significantly. One takeoff, climb out, cruise letdown and approach
wasn't a significant amount of training per sortie, but that 1:40
(F104) or 2:30 (F102) helped a lot towards the hour total. Made up for
those AB-heavy missions where the lessons learned were weighty.
(Learned some lessons on the XCs, too!)
Walt BJ
  #13  
Old September 9th 04, 03:52 AM
Kevin Brooks
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"phil hunt" wrote in message
.. .
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?


Can't find any (after a quick search) for fighter/attack aircraft, other
than in "relative" terms (using 1988/89 as a baseline value that is not
actually stated); you maye derive more info by reading the following more
completely:

www.comw.org/pda/afread02.html

Does the number of
hours typically vary depemnding on type of aircraft flown?


Apparently so; the above reference indicates, for example, that in 1994 the
C-5 pilots were averaging 133 hours per year, and C-141 pilots were
averaging 123 hours. I'd imagine fighter pilots, especially those of
multimission aircraft like the F-16, require significantly more hours to
remain truly proficient (as already mentioned by Ed and others).

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


You'd be better off asking that question of someone who has experience with
the latest high-tech sims. I doubt they are on par with actual flying
experience, but I also have little doubt that they beat sitting around
rereading flight manuals to kill time...

Brooks


--
"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)




  #14  
Old September 10th 04, 01:11 AM
phil hunt
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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)


  #15  
Old September 10th 04, 02:22 AM
Krztalizer
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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.

  #16  
Old September 10th 04, 10:21 AM
Cub Driver
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On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 12:01:35 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

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.


Thanks, Ed. That's about what I figured.

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

The Warbird's Forum
www.warbirdforum.com
Expedition sailboat charters www.expeditionsail.com
  #17  
Old September 10th 04, 11:37 AM
Urban Fredriksson
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In article ,
phil hunt wrote:

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


It started with Partnership for Peace.

And now, for example, SWAFRAP JAS 39A recently took part
in Dragon's Nest 2004 and will fly in Joint Winter 2005.

Most likely international operations we'll take part in
will be NATO-led.

You're right in that pilots not part of the rapid reaction
force don't need any waiver. (And given the current
economic climate it's not given they'd get one, the
SWAFRAPs have priority.)
--
Urban Fredriksson http://www.canit.se/%7Egriffon/
There is always a yet unknown alternative.
  #18  
Old September 10th 04, 03:45 PM
Jeff Crowell
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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


  #20  
Old September 10th 04, 06:13 PM
Ed Rasimus
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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
 




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