fighter pilot hours?

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

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

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

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

"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/

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)

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.

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

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?

[quote=Jim Thomas]
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.

Did you mean Convair C-131? I crewed for two years as a Douglas C-133 navigator, and I don't think anyone but assigned or attached crew members got time in the C-133. It was used for heavy logistic airlift only. Besides, sitting in the rear of a C-133 would have been excruciatingly uncomfortable. The noise and vibration were INTENSE.

For more info on the C-133, check my web site:

http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/c133bcargomaster/home.html.

My definitive C-133 history, Remembering an Unsung Giant: The Douglas C-133 Cargomaster and Its People, will be out in April 2006.

Cal Taylor
The C-133 Project