Reply #94: WHAT? You are out of your mind

[bdab1973]

I am a military pilot, and what you just posted is very far from the truth.

First, I had to finish Initial Flying Training, where I had to get 50 hours in a Cessna 172. I had to have a CIVILIAN instructor sign off that I was ready to learn to fly jets. I then attended Undergraduate Pilot Training, and spent 6 months flying the T-37 Tweet, then another 6 months learning to fly the T-1A Jayhawk. Each day, they would pick students at random and stand them up in the infamous "stand-up", and give you a scenario that you'd have to work your way to a safe conclusion. If you missed a step, or said something procedurally or factually incorrect, you got sat down and couldn't fly for the day. If you screwed up 3 stand-ups, you got to see the commander for possible elimination. If you failed three daily flights, same thing...had to been seen by the commander for possible elimination. If you failed a checkride, you had to fly with the flight commander...if he failed you, you had to see the squadron commander. At the end of each phase, I knew both the T-37 and the T-1 like the back of my hand.

Then following that, I attended formal training in first the C-21, and then 4 years later transitioned to the C-130. The C-21 is a Learjet 35 and the first half of the course, we attended the same training course civilian Learjet pilots attend at CAE in Fort Worth, TX. Then, on top of what civilian pilots get, we had to go to Mississippi for another 3 weeks of actual flying training. When it was time to upgrade to Aircraft Commander (PIC), we had an in-house unit upgrade where we had to fly 5 flights in the left seat as acting aircraft commander under the supervision of an instructor...when that was done, we had to undergo an OME, or Operational Mission Evaluation, where our "co-pilot" was a flight examiner. We flew what's called a "local proficiency sortie" once a month...that included 2 hours of shooting precision/non-precision/circling approaches, VFR patterns, partial flap landings, and single-engine landings and go-arounds. Part of the local proficiency sortie included reviewing systems for 2 hours with an instructor. When it was time to upgrade to instructor, I attended CAE again for another 3 weeks (on top of going to CAE every year for refresher sim training, just like the civilian Lear pilots). I taught other pilots on the LPS sorties, and taught systems probably 2-3 days a week. How often in your corporate career did you sit and teach/talk systems? Or how often did you go take your airplane and shoot approaches for 2 hours for practice? Probably not often. We also did OSTs, or Off-Station Trainers, and these were usually tailored to get our pilots trained on specialty airfields, or high-altitude airfields. We would run 2-3 of these trainers a year, allowing all of our pilots to get experience flying into mountainous airfields with complex climb-out instructions and gradients, as well as international OSTs to places like Quito Ecuador and Teguchigalpa Honduras. Neither of those airfields are for the faint of heart or for inexperienced crews...both are special cert fields for airlines...and we trained our pilots in places like that. If we were a bunch of idiots as you imply, then I should be dead by now.

The C-130 training took me 6 months, and involved approximately 70 hours of flight training and 3-4 weeks of simulator training. I am an evaluator pilot in the C-130 now, and I know that airplane inside and out...how it all works, how the engines work, how the props work, how the electrical system works, how the hydraulics work...I can tell you where the one-way check valves are in the hydraulics system and why it's there. I can explain to you all the rules and procedures for flying in the weather. Any of our pilots could explain to you what various aerodynamics and performance-related things are...for example, our minimum control speed in the air on 3 engines, why the #1 engine is the critical engine, what defines refusal speed, critical engine failure speed, minimum field length for max effort takeoff distance, etc etc etc. We are trained to be very disciplined and very well trained in our aircraft...you can't fly a C-130 in a formation of 8 other airplanes at 300 feet AGL, and airdrop pallets onto a small drop zone, and do that successfully time and time again with very few accidents, without knowing what you're doing.

We are VERY well trained and to insinuate that we're "automatons" that have "little understanding" of our aircraft is an insult and inaccurate. We have very high standards for our pilots and other crew positions. There is a reason why airlines will hire a military pilot with much less flying experience than most civilian-trained pilots. I know you are a "former" corporate pilot, and I'm guessing you don't have a military background or else you wouldn't be so ignorant. The military trains its pilots to a high standard. There are always a few bad eggs and a few idiots out there...but we generally sideline them and make them permanent copilots...their careers usually don't go anywhere. But the vast majority of the people I have flown with while in the military are very professional, well trained, and great pilots. I would challenge you to put yourself in that position and imagine if you were not well trained...it just wouldnt work.