“If you take someone who went through
F-100 Super Sabre training years ago and brought them back here to Randolph Air Force Base today, they would immediately recognize our syllabus. Maybe that’s because it’s perfect, or maybe it’s because we just got comfortable with the way we do things. I’d argue that it’s the latter. When students arrive for pilot training they are presented with the exact same tools as they have received for decades, an aircraft checklist, and a poster of the cockpit. We can do better in 2021!”
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The broad effort is known as
Pilot Training Transformation, and under it are a series of different efforts. Wills emphasizes that this wasn’t a panel of high-ranking Generals that worked out the plan, it was down to a group of officers of Lieutenant Colonel rank and below and their charter was to see if it was possible to train a pilot in half the time of the current system, meet the same standard, and potentially bypass parts of the legacy system where possible.
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The broad
Pilot Training Next (PTN) effort was a big experiment. It has led to a number of initiatives, with the principal one now known as UPT 2.5. This is applying some of the key lessons from PTN at both the 12th Flying Training Wing at Randolph as well as at the 71st Flying Training Wing at Vance AFB.
UPT 1.0 is seen as being the T-37 Tweet and T-38A Talon era, with 2.0 being what the USAF runs today, the T-6A, the T-1A Jayhawk, and the T-38C. “What we are doing right now with UPT 2.5 is very much an interim step,” explains Wills. The USAF is eagerly awaiting the new Boeing T-7 Red Hawk that will ultimately replace the T-38 in the advanced jet training role and Wills says this aircraft will eventually give rise to the ultimate UPT 3.0.
The USAF ran three experimental PTN classes, with an aggressive plan to accelerate and improve some of the existing standards in pilot training. One of the initial aims was to evaluate if students could train on the T-6 and then go directly to a Basic Course (B-Course) on a frontline type at a Formal Training Unit (FTU). The first two PTN courses flew the T-6A, however, the USAF’s 20-year-old Texans are suffering from avionics obsolescence issues, with no Head-Up Display (HUD), no Flight Management System (FMS), and they are considered to be in desperate need of an avionics upgrade. So for the third class, the Air Force borrowed T-6Bs from the U.S. Navy, which feature a fourth-gen fighter cockpit layout and a HUD.
“We
upgraded the software in the T-6Bs so we have a radar emulator, radar warning receiver, and a moving map, so the T-6B cockpit looked much like a Strike Eagle cockpit. Class three flew that airplane. We have now graduated 42 total students out of PTN, the last few are just finishing up their FTUs and the first graduates have been in operational units for just over a year,” explains Wills.
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One of the biggest changes under UPT 2.5 is that
pilots now earn their wings after graduating from the T-6. Some may see this as a controversial move. “If you look at the attrition rate for students failing training, we lose around 7.7% in the T-6 phase, just 1.5% in the T-1, and 0.9% in T-38s. The reality is that historically once you pass the T-6 phase, the vast majority of students earn their wings. We believe that the increased complexity in UPT 2.5 will result in shifting the historical attrition from T-38 and T-1 training to the T-6.
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One area in training where there has been a big change is related to a
pending decision on whether to retire the Beechcraft T-1A Jayhawk. Wills says: “The T-1 has been with us since 1992 and the type has never had depot-level maintenance. It needs re-engining and over the next five years, it would cost us $1.1 billion to operate. The success of Pilot Training Next combined with the impending recapitalization bill on the T-1 has us planning for a future without the T-1.”
Pilots earmarked for Air Mobility Command (AMC) or heavy Command and Control and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C2ISR) types undertake the UPT 2.5 T-6 course and then go through a three-month simulator-only T-1 course. “Students will undertake a course focused on preparing them for air mobility and crew aircraft. They will learn crew coordination, threat and error management, complex emergency procedures handling, en-route navigation, ICAO [International Civil Aviation Authority] procedures, and the many other complicated aspects that our AMC crews must master to be successful.
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While a T-6-only course has been proven to work by PTN, retaining a fast jet element in training is the ultimate goal — the jump from the T-6 to a modern fighter is acknowledged as being a big step. However, the ambition in the near term is to eliminate the pilot training element of the T-38 course and make it all skewed toward Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals (IFF).
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Reforge is an Air Combat Command-driven proposal that could have a profound effect on the fighter pilot training process. AETC may retain some sort of T-7 qualification phase, but essentially the new
Reforge concept would effectively migrate IFF over to Air Combat Command (ACC), but undertaken in T-7s that are attached to the FTUs.
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Students would fly a version of the T-7 for 12-14 months and learn how to be a fighter pilot, and once they reach the 250-300 flight hour point they would do a transition course to their respective fighter type,” Wills says. “Essentially, it would mean that the T-7s would migrate to the FTUs, enabling new pilots to learn basic fighter pilot concepts in an airplane that costs considerably less to operate than a frontline fighter type.”
“Co-locating the T-7s with the fighters means those young students will have the chance to fly with and against the fighters that they will ultimately fly.
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The T-38 was built to train pilots for Century Series jets and Wills calls it “very unforgiving,” adding that it takes a lot of time to learn the basics of operating it. “The T-38 taught you how to do a lot of the mechanics of flying yourself, so to become a great F-15C pilot you need to learn how to handle the radar, handle the sensors manually, and process the communications.”
“A type like the F-35 automates a lot of that. I mean, an F-35 Basic Course from Luke Air Force Base just went to Red Flag at Nellis and slayed the opposition.
The T-7 should allow us to get past the basics quickly and pull more FTU tasks forward. It means that when we release someone to the FTU they will be really ready. It should also allow those FTU courses to be the same length, but we can add more of the really advanced tactics.” In turn, it should allow a pilot to become combat-ready far quicker once they reach their operational squadron.
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When it comes to fighters, Wills says that it’s
not practical to adopt a system where all pilots go from T-6 to FTU at this time. Right now, AETC doesn’t have the right T-6 for the task. “
If we had T-6s with a glass cockpit and modern tools, we’d be more likely to say “let’s do this.” Given the worldwide pilot shortage and chronic lack of fighter pilots, it’s certainly in our interest to find new ways to meet requirements, and our T-38 fleet is increasingly difficult to maintain.
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Accelerated Path to Wings (XPW) is a program to
train pilots in UPT solely in the T-1 Jayhawk. Students fly 17 hours in the Diamond DA20-C1 at the Initial Flight Training Center at Pueblo Memorial Airport in Colorado,
before moving directly to the T-1. The first class took eight students, six of whom were brand new to aviation, while two already owned a Private Pilots’ License. The first phase in XPW includes academics where students learn general aviation terminology, after which they go directly to the T-1 aircraft, skipping the traditional route of flying the T-6. At the 12th Flying Training Squadron’s simulator branch, the students developed extensive training profiles, allowing them to practice and be certified as proficient in the aircraft.
Once students make it through the required simulator training, they go on to fly in the T-1 under the guidance of the 99th Flying Training Squadron team.
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“Fundamentally, in
seven months versus the usual 12 months we graduated seven of the eight, and the last student will graduate imminently,” Wills explained. “They look exactly the same as any other T-1 student pilot, except they didn’t fly the T-6 at all.
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“We also have what we call the
Civilian Path to Wings. This is about bringing a student on board and applying an assessment methodology to determine whether they have the competencies we need and then vector them according to scale. We have broken it down as Qualified, Well Qualified, and Extremely Well Qualified. We teach them Air Force Fundamentals, some simulator work, and
vector them for the heavy aircraft, not for fighters.
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Alternate Path to Wings aims to partner with Aviation Accredited Bureau International (AABI) schools such as Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, although the USAF is not exclusively partnered with any specific schools at this time. The USAF is developing plans to assess these students upon completion of their flying school. If they meet the required competency level, they would proceed to an Air Force fundamentals course and then straight to the Formal Training Unit
for a Mobility Air Forces, Special Operations, or Command, Control, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C2ISR) platform.
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The
USAF is overhauling its rotary-wing track too. Traditionally, students have flown the T-6 before moving to helicopters, but Helicopter Training Next ultimately accelerates their path to training on helicopters at Fort Rucker in Alabama.
Experiments have been run with sending students straight to the TH-1H Huey at Rucker, and other groups have trained with a civilian contractor before heading to the TH-1.
Это просто нонсенс, - тут как раз такой случай, когда запас лишним не бывает в принципе.
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