fighter pilot hours?

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