Does Civil "Professional Pilot" training significantly help with AF UPT?

akmountaineer

akmountaineer

Well-Known Member
I'm in the process of picking up a UPT slot, but it's extremely important to me that I'm well prepared for the fast paced learning environment and make it through the course. I'm going Reserve, so competition for the best scores in the class is not my concern, I just want to make sure I complete the program. I'm considering liquidating my assets and dropping my entire life savings on one of the "Professional Pilot" training courses available from one of the large flight schools that offers training up through CFI, CFII, and MEI with around 200 hrs of twin time. My question for people who have been through the Air Force UPT program is: Is it worth it? Would this type of training help significantly with UPT, or is the AF curriculum different enough that it probably wouldn't be worthwhile?

Thanks for any advice.
 
akmountaineer said:
I'm considering liquidating my assets and dropping my entire life savings on one of the "Professional Pilot" training courses available from one of the large flight schools that offers training up through CFI, CFII, and MEI with around 200 hrs of twin time.

Thanks for any advice.
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Yup, you mind as well, cause you'll never get to AF UPT after you fail the next drug test FROM THE CRACK YOU'RE SMOKIN'.
 
Absolutely NOT. The AF wants you trained ITS way, not FSA's or (gasp) ATP's. Some instrument training might be useful to give you a leg up, but more than that may induce some negative transfer of learning which could actually worsen your chances of making it through UPT.
 
I didn't know I ingested PCP/LSD this evening. I thought I saw that he wanted to liguidate all his assets to get multi time that the gov will pay for later anyway. I must have been hallucinating.
 
akmountaineer said:
Is it worth it? Would this type of training help significantly with UPT...?
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NO!! UPT is built around teaching studs with little to no experience (requirement for a PPL is for screening purposes.) The AF will teach you their way, which will be in direct opposition to what you would learn in a "professional pilot" course. At best, it would be a huge waste of money to do this, at worst, it might actually cause you to wash out of UPT.
 
I'm not in the AF but if you want to prepare yourself I would get with some pilots in your unit and start gathering study material and piece together a smart book or something. It probabably won't make much sense until you start flying. Some good stuff to start on would be non-flying topics such as weather and aerodynamics, if you have that down it will give you more time to study more performance related stuff, systems, or at least give you more time to hang out at the pub.
 
Alright, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here who actually TEACHES AF UPT, so I'll give you the straight poop. Unlike what a bunch of people above me have posted, having extra flight time WILL NOT HURT YOUR performance at UPT. In fact, it will help, not hurt your UPT experience. So would a school like ATP or one of the others HURT you....NO. It would probably make pilot training a heck of a lot easier, and it certainly wouldn't get you washed out.

However, (AND THIS IS A BIG HOWEVER), that extra time is NOT a requirement, and you don't need it!!

You definitely don't need multi-engine, turbine, or any other kind of high performance "time" to get through. It isn't going to help that much. You certainly don't need to "liquidate all your assets", and like every one else has already said, and I wouldn't go to a professional pilot school like ATP or anything unless you just have extra money to throw away. These schools wouldn't hurt you, but they are probably a waste of money, since you will be receiving that training again for free (in fact, you'll be receiveing BETTER training, IMHO). Very few pilot training candidates wash out. Those who do, usually wash out because they don't want to be at UPT very much, and therefore don't study enough.

Yes, UPT is stressful, and yes it is a difficult program. When you are here, you will need to devote a lot of time to studying.... But that's true even for guys who come in with Instrument ratings or previous airline time.

SO INSTEAD.... Save your money, and continue to rent cessna's or kitana's or whatever you've already been flying and go out on those $100 hamburger trips. Practice stalls and falls, fly to places you've never been before, or if you have a lot of time before you start UPT, maybe get working on your instrument rating.

Or don't... Most of the student's I teach have 50 hours or less of total flying experience in their entire lives, and they do just fine. I got through UPT with less than 20 hours before I showed up. What you really need to do to pass UPT is to devote your entire life to the program from day 1 until the day you graduate. Study hard that whole year, and you will do just fine.

Lastly, if you REALLY are looking for a head start, you need to look at things that are T-37 or T-6 specific (depending on which training program you are taking). If you are going to Laughlin or Vance you are going into the T-6. Going to Columbus it's a 50/50 chance between tweets and T-6's for the next 1-3 years, and then it's all T-6's. If you are looking for stuff to study check out www.baseops.net and look at the column on the far right of the website. They've got some good stuff there about both the tweet and the T-6, but some of it is old and some of it is incorrect.

AND SAVE THE LIFE SAVINGS... The USAF doesn't pay well enough to just be throwing that money away.
 
fish314 said:
Alright, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one here who actually TEACHES AF UPT, so I'll give you the straight poop. Unlike what a bunch of people above me have posted, having extra flight time WILL NOT HURT YOUR performance at UPT. In fact, it will help, not hurt your UPT experience. So would a school like ATP or one of the others HURT you....NO. It would probably make pilot training a heck of a lot easier, and it certainly wouldn't get you washed out.

.
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First off fish, you may be pretty sure of that, but my 950 hrs in the T-38 as a IP and EP at Vance and Edwards might disagree with you.

Second, I at one time had a student with a CFII who was close to washing out because he simply refused to fly control and performance instruments, preferring to chase needles instead. He was good at it too, until something distracted him (nothing like that ever happened in the T-38, did it?) and then he would be all over the sky. It took him finally admitting that he needed to relearn how to fly instruments before he turned the corner. He's not the only example of civilian training that didn't work well at UPT that I ever saw, just the most extreme.

Finally, you give out advice based on your experience, I'll give out advice based on mine. 'Kay? You don't have the corner on "straight poop" you know.
 
I mostly agree with my good buddy and former tanker cohort Fish. Again, reinforcing a lot of what he said, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY on a "professional" pilot training program. Having a few hours of civilian flying going in will suit you just fine.

One important thing I want to talk about - several people have alluded to taking some instrument training flights to help prepare you for UPT. I think some introduction to instrument flying in the civilian world would help you, but only to a degree and here's why. I'm not a UPT instructor, but I was an AF pilot and am presently and airline guy and still a CFI/CFII on occasion.

Civilian instrument training takes a different approach to how the AF teaches. As such you may have some negative transfer and difficulties learning. Case in point, one of my classmates in UPT was a former CFI and CFII and he had a lot of trouble initially in the instrument phase, When we asked him what was up his explanation was that it was an entirely different way of doing it from how he was taught. Having seen/done both methods I prefer the AF way, but to each his own.

To sum it up, I would suggest taking only a flight or two just to get a basic feel for flying using instruments but not much beyond that. I think you still have to go through a modified IFT program requiring around 20 or so hours in a Cessna before you can start UPT anyway, perhaps you could ask them to throw in a little more than the basic "here is your six pack for flying instruments" you get going for your PPL. Make of it what you will.

Besides, Big Blue will make sure you are assimilated properly once you get to your I rides in UPT.

Hope it helps, and good luck :)
 
The FAA method is primary/supporting, the USAF way is Control/performance, also known as set your attitude and power and see what the performance results are. Sounds like known pitch and power to me.
 
I've taught a few pedestrians to fly jets myself, so I'll pipe in with my 2 cents' worth.

;)



Any advantage that one might have from having previous experience in civilian aviation will only last, in my opinion, about 4 to 6 weeks - - TOPS. By that time, everyone is pretty much even.


Now, having said that, I'll warn you that having previous experince can be a HUGE liability if you approach your learning from the point of view of someone who "already knows." You don't know. You won't know. You may be more comfortable in the air initially because of your experience, but there is no way you will know how the Air Force trains, and what will be expected of you. As MDPilot pointed out, if you are resistant to learning things the Air Force way because of your vast civilian experience, you're begging for trouble, and for failure.



I agree with fish314's suggestion. If you have time to kill, and you want to prepare yourself for what's ahead, surf over to www.baseops.net and start memorizing Boldface and Ops Limits. Again, any advantage you gain by doing that will be gone in the first few weeks, but at least you'll be saving yourself a buncha money! Put it in mutual funds.




.
 
[Hijack]
I realized I typed that wrong when I made my explanation so I removed it - sounds like you might've read my reply before I fixed it MD. You are right of course, it's control/perf vs primary/supporting. The other interesting thing to note is that it seems the civilian side is beginning to acknowledge the control/performance apporacha bit more these days. I spoke to a couple other CFIIs a while back who were actually teaching studs that way as well.

Now if I can just get people to understand a /A airplane equipped with an RMI is perfectly capable and LEGAL to go direct to a point/interception by doing a fix to fix...

[/Hijack]
 
Sorry MD, in the first part of my post I came off sounding like a jackass. I apologize. I certainly didn't mean that to come off as strong as it did. As for experience levels, I won't get into a pissing match with you comparing flight times, who taught where, etc. I just saw several posts that started off something like, "I've never been in the USAF, BUT...", which is why I started mine the way I did. Like I said, I came off sounding like a jackass, and I apologize.


My main point in the whole post was this...

Negative transfer (or learning in "wrong" the first time) is a small issue, I think. For most (but not all) students, the more experiene you have prior to pilot training, the easier time of it you have... there are exceptions, though, as MD pointed out, and for some people the negative transfer thing can be a BIG deal.

But even if a professional pilot school like FSA or ATP didn't have that drawback, there is still the money issue. It makes no sense paying thousands of dollars for training just to "get ready" to go to MORE training. Especially when you are talking about, "spending my life's savings", and a lot of that training is just stuff you are going to need to re-learn at UPT anyway because the Air Force teaches it different.

So either way, MDPilot and I agree. Professional pilot schools are a waste for someone who is going to UPT. We just think they are a waste for different reasons.

(Sorry MD... once again, didn't mean to sound like a dick! It just sounded like a whole bunch of guys who hadn't ever been to UPT giving advice on "what it's like").
 
Rocketman99 said:
[Hijack]
I realized I typed that wrong when I made my explanation so I removed it - sounds like you might've read my reply before I fixed it MD. You are right of course, it's control/perf vs primary/supporting. The other interesting thing to note is that it seems the civilian side is beginning to acknowledge the control/performance apporacha bit more these days. I spoke to a couple other CFIIs a while back who were actually teaching studs that way as well.

Now if I can just get people to understand a /A airplane equipped with an RMI is perfectly capable and LEGAL to go direct to a point/interception by doing a fix to fix...

[/Hijack]
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Most civvies don't know what a fix to fix even is, lol.

I went to UPT with 4200 TT, and still when I was there I was a stud like the rest of my classmates working on the cooperate/graduate train. I took what I knew, applied what I could to make life easier as well as pass-on/help the struggling classmates (we started with 33 and graduated 18). This particular outlook took the best of what I knew that could help me, balanced with the knowlege that I need to learn what the AF is trying to teach me.

Remember, you don't graduate, your gradebook does.
 
fish314 said:
Like I said, I came off sounding like a jackass.
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Soo tempting... :p

Anyway, so now we have several AF guys in this thread saying that paying to go to a pilot factory program isn't worth it. Seems to me like proof enough to forego that idea for the soon-to-be UPT student. You can save your money and spend about only 300 bucks of it taking the mil comp exam and getting an FAA commercial multi instrument certificate when you graduate from UPT.
 
There you go, MikeD, TonyC! I agree, experience can help a lot, but like MDPilot and Rocketman both said, it can also be a liability if you let it shut you down to accepting further training.

I think all of us have agreed, though, on the fact that you don't need a school like ATP or FSA to get you ready for USAF pilot training. Save the money.

As for the fix to fix thing, our stan-eval folks have pretty much come out and said that they're not exactly legal for US to do, either, but they are part of the syllabus and a good skill that could be useful some day, so keep teaching them! Oh well. At least the AF helps cover your azz a little when the FAA tries to violate you.

EDIT: Sorry Tony. Originally I had TonyW, not TonyC in that first sentence. Wrong Tony!
 
fish314 said:
As for the fix to fix thing, our stan-eval folks have pretty much come out and said that they're not exactly legal for US to do, either, but they are part of the syllabus and a good skill that could be useful some day, so keep teaching them! Oh well. At least the AF helps cover your azz a little when the FAA tries to violate you.
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Whoa, paradigm shift!!! I'm gonna have to give a call and get the scoop on this one...but not right now.
 
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