Originally Posted by
mspano85
Some of the Naval Aviators were fast tracked into the war zones the first couple years of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I want to say I got the information from the Speed and Angels Documentary in 2008. I believe the one main character, Jay Consalvi, only had something like 200 hours when he was called upon to give some air support to a convoy that was ambushed by a well planned roadside bomb placement team.
As for helicopters. My buddies in the Army were deployed flying in the war zones with roughly 200 hours. Fresh out of Ft. Rucker to fire hellfires on targets. They were basically training in the Apache front seat as a Weapon's Officer. Learning on the fly.
Might happen in the Army help world but not in Naval Aviation tactical aircraft. Add in about another 100 or so at least and IF they were fast tracked (called Pri-A, which means graduating their fleet aircraft's training program and meeting the boat on deployment) MIGHT you be in action right out of the cage.
BDGRJMN - can you give us an idea of what newly winged pilots coming to the Strike/Fighter pipeline might be showing up with and what the average numbers of hours are now in the syllabus?
FlyBoyd - any input on total hours at winging now with the parred down (?) T-45 TST
As a point of comparison, I graduated with about 260 hrs.
Cutting out the T-2C phase was suppose to cutting the hours and time to train.