UPT Bases

[Grizz]

Who cares what you fly..you just can't get better than Del Rio by the Sea-O.
DLF 86-03

 

[RJP]

You guys are way too uptight.

 

[Swede]

Glass = overrated. If you can shoot a good approach with the tweet toilet bowl, then you can fly any panel designed after 1919. I applaud your decision to seek out this worthy primary trainer.

Pilot training went to hell when the first aircraft that was not a T-37 or T-38 became part of the program. Every USAF pilot deserves a shot in the T-38. The thought process was "If you can fly a '38, in a pinch you can fly anything in the inventory". It's true. The T-38 was and is a challenging jet to operate correctly. A bonus - it looks better than a buckeye, and chicks dig it when you go cross country.

 

[HueyPilot]

If you can shoot a good approach with the tweet toilet bowl, then you can fly any panel designed after 1919.

Exactly. Figuring out a glass cockpit is easy.

 

[spanky2]

CBM rocked...then...not sure about now.

Water skiing, fishing, hunting, multiple pizza buffets for starving Lt's, all-you-can-eat Ten Tom catfish for more starving Lt's, bad wx, easy xc to FL, had to buy beer on Sat cause you couldn't on Sun, the W, the list goes on...

CBM 81-08 and former Live Oak controller

 

[Tweetdrvr]

I agree with Yahtzee choose family anytime you get the chance, you never know when the AF will implement OP Deny Christmas for the umpteenth time. When I was AD AF, I was always pretty far from home so there was always a little pressure to make it home for the holidays which cost time, money and leave. Those that were a 6-10 hour drive from home could go home on any three day weekend or get home to family and still be in that vaguely defined local area pass and not leave zone over the Christmas to New Year's lull in the Ops Tempo without having to deal with airline hassles. That freed them up to do things they wanted like skiing and tropical trips when they took leave.

The glass in the T-6 is overrated. Take a look at the pictures on baseops.net of the instrument panel. The T-6 has digital representations of traditional analogue round dials. There are no Multifunction Displays, there is no flight director, it is all raw data flying. I struggled with the scan in the RJ and that was after having flown the T-6 as an IP for almost a year. The T-6 really won't help you adapt to the glass of the C-17 or any modern airliner. Yes it has a GPS, but the GPS is really not emphasized in the early phases of contact. You still have to stay in your area, clear for traffic in the pattern, fly the final turn on speed and do traffic pattern stalls and slow flight. No GPS can help you do that. When you go cross country, you can't load an approach or play with the green screen magic the little box provides unless you know where you are and where you are going to be in the next 5 minutes unless the plane is trimmed and you have SA. You can learn to work an FMS/INS/GPS nav system in follow on training when you know how to fly a plane and talk on the radio, you can't get to follow on if you don't learn the basics. The T-6 has a lot of capability that is not used in primary, GPS being one of them and fuel efficiency to do more complicated longer T-1 type missions or longer more complicated 4 ship formation training being the other. If we go to a modified UPT where the T-6 is used for an intermediate phase before going to T-1s or 38s then we have already spent the money for a capable trainer. Just as a side note, the T-6 can do nearly everything. The RAAF uses the PC-9 for their entire pilot training program then sends graduates straight to follow on training for their major weapon system.

The Tweet is tried and proven. The T-6 is new and shiny. But what matters is how hard you work, chairfly and bond with your classmates. You only get out of UPT what you put into it. Both airplanes have their merits and lessons to teach fledgling aviators.

Go to Vance, be close to family and whatever happens is fate, grab it by the stick and rudder pedals and tame the beast, you will do fine.

Good luck and fly safe.

 

[psysicx]

It sucks for the helo guys.Being a Tweet IP they have a couple thousand hours jet pic which looked good for the airlines.

 

[Jax12]

For what it's worth

I have a few friends who started tweets last year during the summer. All of them said that they would have preferred to have flown the Texan solely because of its air conditioning.

 

[hawg2hawk]

Ah, Tony and Huey,

Just the responses I'd expect from guys that never flew single-seatandinstead got helos and tankers. Whatever. Used to be that guysworkedtheir asses off to get to SPS to get a fighter. Times havechanged andnow they seem to be more worried about cool glass cockpitsand what theColumbus, MS nightlife is like.

Bottom line. Be happy you GET to UPT.

I agree with the last sentence. Not so much with the first one.
As a side note, if your community has a D-model, I'd take it easy on the single-seat talk.

 

[RJP]

I agree with the last sentence. Not so much with the first one.
As a side note, if your community has a D-model, I'd take it easy on the single-seat talk.

Point taken. But actually the community only had an A model. The only true "single-seat" jet.