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your damn straight MikeD. I will be thankful to fly any Air Force aircraft!! I'm really excited joining the best air force in the world and getting the chance to possibly fly. That would be the best thing ever to have such a badass such as yourself for an IP. I would probably be scared $hitless haha jk. Hopefully the T37 will still be around when I get there, call me crazy but I wanted to fly the thousand pound dog whistle outta tradition
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Tweet is a neat airplane; it's just seen it's days. I remember the ones I was flying at Laughlin AFB, TX. You'd review the aircraft's forms prior to the flight, and the page where the aircraft total time was located, the jets, on average, had about 32,000 to 36,000 TT, with the planes being a 1956 models (oldest) to a early/mid-1960 model being the newest. US tapayer really got their money's worth with these planes. Same story for the T-38s, just somewhat newer airframes.
Would be real neat to fly the Tweet out of tradition, but the T-6 is one heck of a plane. Never flown in one, but know some guys that fly them now, and they love them. Maneuverable as heck, very nice airframe; the only true drawback being the lack of side-by-side seating that did help with teaching in the T-37. Just makes instructing a little easier.
Regards instructing, there'd definately be no need to ever be scared of me as an instructor. Reason being, flying as much as I have in the AF, it's been an excellent opportunity to see varying types of people and how they fly, brief, work as flight leads, work as mission commanders, etc. I've seen some techniques I like, but mainly (since I have my own ways of doing business), I've gotten a lot of time to truly see ways I would NEVER be to wingmen/students. Truly poor techniques, etc.
A good example is flight briefings. Average time alloted for a flight brief is about 1 hour prior to "step time", or the time you walk to the jet. Alloted time is just that: alloted. It doesn't mean that's how much time you HAVE to brief. I see SO many flight leads and IPs that brief just to hear themselves speak, while most of the information goes in one ear and out the other of the pilot getting briefed. Especially when the focus of ANY brief should be the mission in the target area...map study, target area info/familiarization, etc; not wasting time briefing takeoff procedures, recovery procedures, air-air refueling, etc. That's all category 3 BS that any qualed single-seat pilot should know how to do; in other words, it can be briefed with one simple word: Standard.
My job is to teach. To get guys to understand stuff, not waste their time with useless info and needless intimidation. That's all AF Academy BS, I like to treat guys like adults and have them be able to concentrate on learning what's important, not worry about small stuff that has nothing to do with the mission. Reminds me of these idiot civilian DEs and even many military flight examiners who think their sole purpose is to find ways to bust people. Morons. Even when examining, I'd still try to take the time to both evaluate, and still teach, if needed, so the guy gets something useful out of the flight.
So many guys forget the basics of briefs:
1. Cut out the BS, brief ONLY what's necessary. Brief the mothehood first: ground ops, going to the mission area, returning from the mission area; then brief the mission area details itself. Don't waste time, and brief as standard what is truly standard.
2. Brief for TODAY. Don't waste time with generic stuff in the brief. Brief everything with TODAY's weather, TODAY's conditions, etc.
3. Tailor your brief to the person you're briefing. For a brand new guy, it's going to take a little longer covering some of the newer stuff; for a more experienced guy, more and more is standard, and one can almost press right to the meat of flight.
.....you know......just realized something.......I'm wasting
your time with my rant in the General Topics forum.............this really belongs in the CFI forum.......
My bad.