C-130H3 Flight Engineer

[DE727UPS]

A YEAR of flight engineer school? Does it really take a year to get your Flight Engineer training in the military? If so, why so long? Back when the airlines had flight engineers you could go from 1st day of ground school, to on the line, in about 3 months. Why does the military take 4 times as long?

Airline F/E's were already ahead of the learning curve as they had a great deal of pilot time. Also, the military has a much higher standard for F/E's based on the few I've met.

 

[Soku39]

A YEAR of flight engineer school? Does it really take a year to get your Flight Engineer training in the military? If so, why so long? Back when the airlines had flight engineers you could go from 1st day of ground school, to on the line, in about 3 months. Why does the military take 4 times as long?

Everything in the military takes 3 to 4 times longer than in civilian training. There's an entire rip of schools to go to when cross training. Added stuff like aircrew fundamentals etc.

 

[BravoHotel]

A YEAR of flight engineer school? Does it really take a year to get your Flight Engineer training in the military? If so, why so long? Back when the airlines had flight engineers you could go from 1st day of ground school, to on the line, in about 3 months. Why does the military take 4 times as long?

It took me two. A year in the pipeline of classes and a year of OJT.

I know an a current Engineer on MC-130Ps which are going away soon. I'm an Engineer on the C-5. I know several other Engineers, if you're curious.