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

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)

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