Those Crazy Poles!

[Hacker15e]

Back when I was a fighter lead-in instructor, the Polish AF purchased some F-16s and as part of the sale bought spots in the USAF training pipeline (around 2004/5).

Their first batch of "students" to show up to my program in the T-38 were highly experienced MiG-21 and MiG-29 pilots. They were not flying the same training course as US students fresh out of pilot training, but instead a considerably shortened course that took into consideration their previous fighter experience. Under ordinary circumstances, pilots with that level of experience would have gone directly to F-16 conversion training, but concerns with language differences as well as the differences between the US training environment and the Polish training environment led to the decision to also send these Polish AF pilots through the fighter lead-in course before heading to fly the Viper.

I remember being a Captain and taking a Polish Lt Col "student" with hundreds, if not thousands, of MiG hours out on a ride to the bombing range to teach/learn/practice diving "dumb bomb" deliveries. I didn't really know how many hours in fighters he had because we could barely even communicate -- his spoken English left a lot to be desired, and I had no way of gauging if he was understanding what I was saying, either. We did a lot of hand gestures, and using model airplanes mounted on sticks, and drawing pictures to get the instructional points across. I had no idea if he had previous experience doing air-to-ground work, as both the Fishbed and Fulcrum were generally used in just the air-to-air role. His previous flight grades had been good, though, so I just figured if it wasn't going well, at worst we could always just knock it off and go home (rather than continue to point the jet at the ground at low altitude at 400 knots and not know if the guy up in the front seat was understanding anything I was saying!).

After demonstrating one or two diving bomb passes, I gave control over to the student...who proceeded to fly bombing passes that were not only better than mine, but should have been filmed and preserved as textbook demonstrations of how to fly a diving bomb delivery. Not only was his previous experience obvious, but he had to have been a great MiG pilot back in Poland, too -- no wonder he was picked to be in the first batch of Polish F-16 pilots.

I desperately wanted to find a "Polak joke" in there somewhere, but instead I was just plain impressed.

If those are the types of guys flying for LOT, IMHO they're in good hands.

 

[xargos]

In Poland training is rigorous, medicals for candidates are harder(back then the government wanted to invest only in pilots that can be drawn into air force in the future) Equipment is relatively scarce, Avgas is more expensive than here (it matters if you solo in an AN-2).There are some great instructors and pilots with thousands of hours.Like you've mentioned, they are usually very humble.Poles are crazy about aviation,usually religious and funny.I guess without God and sense of humor it would be hard to bear the kind of history we have.

 

[Krasnall]

That might have been the case some 15 years ago, these days medicals and licences and just the same as everywhere else in Europe (or even less strict in some matters, like conversions from FAA). Equipment is quite standard (old Cessnas and new LSAs) with some An-2s left for dropping rabies bait-vaccinations once a year. AVGAS is more expensive than in the US but on par with other EU countries. GA is dying like everywhere else in Europe due to excessive regulation and taxation, commercial aviation is doing ok (LOT, a national "would-be-a-political-disaster-if-went-bankrupt" airline on EU-approved EU-illegal state support, while private companies are making profit) and the military is on a spending spree. The quality of training varies. In the military, fighter pilots are probably fine (especially on the F-16s) but elsewhere, well... not some much (C-295 in 2008, An-28 and Mi-24 in 2009, C-130 and Presidential Tu-154 in 2010). In GA the quality of training depends on the instructors, from ex-military you can expect similar attitudes as seen in the accident reports, fortunately most of the CFIs are either older aeroclub folks or young hour builders with master's degrees in aeronautics.