Nark
Macho Superpilot
I'm a guard guy, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt...
As a guard unit we have a lot of old hats, that come up through the ranks and stay. With that said, we are shamed, publicly, for lack of tight formations. We brief 1-2 disks, on takeoff and landings and 3-5 en route. Call it what you want, but there is the dATM standard, then there is the unit standard. It show's when cross pollinating and we play with others.
@Lawman may or may not comment on working with us, but I think we aren't the "average" weekend warriors.
And holy hell, those skills are perishable. We have a bunch of senior 2-3's leaving and very green 1's and 2's behind us. The torch is being passed, and we're doing our best to set up those behind us to succeed.
...
So, there I was: with a brand new RL1 1LT. We're 3 of 5 as AMC, he's on the controls. We assault Camp Riply at 2am in some LZ. I've only "no-challenged" taken the controls once... I'm pretty sure the main rotors were perfectly timed with 2's tail rotor, as not to collide...
The good news is that if you don't have formation skills to begin with, there's no skill to lose!
As a guard unit we have a lot of old hats, that come up through the ranks and stay. With that said, we are shamed, publicly, for lack of tight formations. We brief 1-2 disks, on takeoff and landings and 3-5 en route. Call it what you want, but there is the dATM standard, then there is the unit standard. It show's when cross pollinating and we play with others.
@Lawman may or may not comment on working with us, but I think we aren't the "average" weekend warriors.
And holy hell, those skills are perishable. We have a bunch of senior 2-3's leaving and very green 1's and 2's behind us. The torch is being passed, and we're doing our best to set up those behind us to succeed.
...
So, there I was: with a brand new RL1 1LT. We're 3 of 5 as AMC, he's on the controls. We assault Camp Riply at 2am in some LZ. I've only "no-challenged" taken the controls once... I'm pretty sure the main rotors were perfectly timed with 2's tail rotor, as not to collide...
The good news is that if you don't have formation skills to begin with, there's no skill to lose!