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by thrill
1283 days ago
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Hmm, it's been awhile for me - I entered military training in 1980. ("In those days, wearing an onion on our belt as was the custom" - sorry :), I initially trained with a bog-standard civilian instructor at our local college (for those in ROTC) for about 20 hours, with most of us soloing after 10 hours and mostly being judged on simple airmanship and attitude. I paid for the next 20 hours myself with a different instructor and happily learned to fly off a tiny little grass strip and got my private. At UPT I think I had around 20 hours in the T-37 to first fly solo, and probably less in the T-38, since we had probably 100 hours by the time we go to the higher speed jet. We didn't do a whole lot of solo as I remember because there were specific agenda items that needed to be covered dual (formation work, instrument work, etc.), rather than just giving the kids the keys to the jets and letting them wander around the country. I recall that I graduated with about 175 hours, plus perhaps 100 hours of simulator time. The training all together lasted a year and was a full-time job with a flight or two every other day or so, plus lots of academics. I couldn't properly comment on the scheduling of the flight schools that are run for civilian pilots, other than to think they've got a decent track record and certainly meet whatever the FAA minimums are - the basics of flying indeed are pretty much the same and having 1000 hours of reasonably solid time already would be pretty good for the new aircraft experience training you're really getting, I'd think. Having the personal budget of both time and money to pursue training without rush or struggle is going to be the best thing you can do for yourself if that's within your control. Edit: to add a little to this since I started thinking about it, while the total flight time seems fairly low, we would go fly in absolutely any weather short of an actual thunderstorm, and the IPs for the most part made the students do the flying/navigating/communicating/planning/etc. Flying close formation in drafty clouds with pounding rain would humble a low-time pilot, and occasionally it'd be bad enough to get a grunt out of the mostly drowsing (it seemed) graybeard in the backseat. My last assignment in the AF was to go teach UPT (at the base I learned at), and hoo boy, did I see that the vast majority of the stress that the students underwent was mostly self-induced and the flying was about as basic as we could do - it just seemed (and was) hard for the students because we all were so, to paraphrase a great philosopher, unknowing about our unknowns. Anyway, I'm sure you'll do fine learning to fly the L-39. It's a popular and comparatively affordable jet airplane I understand and looks like fun. |
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How different are the T-37/38s from common civilian trainers like the 172? How good were the simulators back then (I haven't use any sims outside of consumer stuff so I have no real point of comparison)?
What do you mean by pursuing training without rush or struggle? Looking at the cost of fuel and rental for the first thousand hours, let alone the cost of the jet with new TFE engine, I'm much more scared of stretching out the training so much that I'm always rusty.
> to add a little to this since I started thinking about it, while the total flight time seems fairly low, we would go fly in absolutely any weather short of an actual thunderstorm, and the IPs for the most part made the students do the flying/navigating/communicating/planning/etc. Flying close formation in drafty clouds with pounding rain would humble a low-time pilot, and occasionally it'd be bad enough to get a grunt out of the mostly drowsing (it seemed) graybeard in the backseat.
That sounds scary - I've been taught so far that bad weather is one of the leading cause of GA fatal accidents thunderstorm or no. Were your trainers or the jets themselves just better at withstanding adverse weather? Or are we civies too risk averse? I can't imagine doing it in close formation.