UPT Survival
 

A lot of people on here ask about getting hired, I'm wanting to know about surviving UPT and not washing out. Is someone like my self with a 3.0 for my degrees, CFI, in school for my A&P, prior service, pretty good AFOQT and PCSM scores and for the moment single, likely to make it successfully through UPT and earn my wings? What are some things that I can do to assure my survival if I'm hired with a unit? Hard part is getting hired, but it's a little harder making it through if I'm correct. Thanks for any info, and I apologize if this has been asked before.

Think the MSP 130 unit is hiring

You realize it will be tough, and you have flight and mil experience--huge leg-up over some folks you'll be in class with.

I agree that the hardest part will probably be getting hired. You seem to have a good attitude, though. UPT is a tough program, but you seem to have the tools to succeed.

It's a cliche, but the program is half (or more) attitude. If you do happen to hit a rough patch in your training, they will bend over backwards to get you through it if you have a good attitude.

They can teach a monkey to fly, as long as he has a good attitude. Afterall, they gave me wings:)

Keep your ears open, your head down, your mouth shut. Pretend to forget what you know from your CFI days. As a minimum, try to downplay that you have prior time if you have to mention it all. Listen to your IPs, study with your buddies, try to be a good dude and have fun. As others pointed out, keep a good attitude, especially when you have momentary setbacks, and you can make it through.

Here's the key to not washing out: never hook any rides.

Good luck!

Depends on History and Track
 

JSF Boat:

When I was a student (1983), everyone went T-37 to T-38. 30% of my class washed-out or quit. The bulk of the washouts were in T-38s, which is a different-kind of landing airplane. The quitters were mostly in the T-37.

Today, about half of all students go T-1, and half T-38. In the last 10 years I think I've only seen a handful of people wash out of the T-38 (maybe 2-3%)....but for fighter follow-ons, I would guess a good 15-20% wash out of IFF (follow-on T-38 training prior to Fighter training).

I don't have specific details, but I have heard almost no one has ever washed out of T-1s. It is my impression the washout rate is less than 1%.

I have seen students with credentials such as yours do extremely well, and also do extremely poorly. Some of the poor-performers had great attitudes, but (for example) couldn't adapt from a familiar 120-kt mindset to a 480-kt mindset.

It takes dedication and persistence. but the final answer is most people make it through the regular course. It starts getting tough with fighter-prep.

If you get to go, good luck and have fun. I still consider it one of the best years of my life.

Success in UPT = Attitude

I did see a guy in the class ahead of me wash out in T-1's.

Duece130 - EXCELLENT advice about attitude and how to act in the training environment. Don't take this to mean don't ask questions or be active in your learning and sit in a corner; it means LEARN the material in way that the military wants it taught/learned. Don't hide your prior experience. I flew a first flight with one guy who I knew must have had some prior experience outside of the training command just because of the way he ran the checklists on the very first flight!

So true UAL. Some of the guys that have struggled the MOST have come from different communities in Naval Aviation. In the current class we have a replacement pilot who comes from the Navy E-6 background, but he has never flown in this environment and he tells me that it is daunting for him - especially the CAs we are currently training and working with the JTACS. He may be struggling with the material and the tactical flying, but his ATTITUDE is off the charts and I enjoy trying to help him through his struggles because you can see how much he wants to learn.

USMCFLYR

I had another APCer PM me about going through UPT w/ lots of civilian time and we had a few posts back and forth. Much of what I sent him applies to your question:

A much more likely issue could be that most of the aircraft young, civilian pilots acquire significant flying time in are slow, simple light aircraft (Cessna 152, 172, Piper warrior, etc.) Those aircraft have approach speeds that aren’t much faster than a car on the highway and cruise at slightly over 100 knots. From my experience, pilots spend much of their training learning to anticipate, react quickly and “stay ahead” of the aircraft. If all of that training prior to UPT has occurred in the ~100 knot regime, then their “mental clocks” get calibrated to reacting and planning at that speed. I think for some “high timers” it can be very difficult to re-calibrate their mental clocks to the higher speeds used by the trainers in UPT. A zero time guy in UPT doesn’t know anything different and just adapts to the speeds.

For pilots taking the fighter track, they are into the T-38C after only 6 months of UPT. You fly that aircraft at 300 KIAS around the VFR pattern, on the initial portion of high altitude instrument penetrations, on radar vectors, basically all the time until you put your gear down. Some guys are never able to get ahead of that aircraft.The only personal experience I have with this is the reverse situation. After 10 years of flying fighters, I went to get my ATP in a Seminole twin. I was completely out of my element with no twin recip time and less than 30 hours of single recip time more than 10 year earlier. The only thing that allowed me to be successful was the fact that the darn plane was so slow. I was so used to thinking and planning instrument approaches at 300+ knots, that it was impossible for me to get behind. My mental clock was working 3 times faster than I needed it to in a Seminole. I can see how it would be very difficult in the opposite situation.


I’m sure many high time pilots get comfortable in the aircraft they have accumulated their time in up to that point. With 1200 hours, I doubt you have to spend hours “chair-flying” before you go up. I realize every civilian student and instructor could be different and not all are like I describe – but many are. Study and training habits built in civilian flying may not work well in UPT. Many civilian student pilots go up with their instructor and are told what to do. They have little pre-mission planning and the instruction is fed to them piece by piece by their instructor as the training flight progresses. They spend their training flight reacting to their instructor, to their aircraft and the flying environment.

UPT students are taught to anticipate as much as possible from the start. It’s not possible to spend an entire training sortie reacting – you will get behind the jet quickly. UPT students go through a pre-mission brief with their instructor which involves detailed instruction on each event. Once they take off, the students are expected to orchestrate the mission with minimal inputs from the instructor. They talk on the radio, stay within the confines of the MOA, fly the planned profile, events and maneuvers using entry parameters, altitudes, speeds, power settings while the instructor monitors and offers instruction if necessary. It’s a challenging approach and it requires hours of study, chair flying and repetition to get really good at it.


Advice:
Keep the details of your previous flying experience to yourself. If you’re asked about it, keep it short and to the point. Don’t advertise you have lots of civilian time to your classmates. If it ends up helping you, great, you just look like an above average student. Why you’re above average isn’t really that important.

Try to learn everything the way they want you to learn it in UPT. Avoid questions about things just because they seem to be done differently from the way you used to do it. No one’s going to care how you used to do something or want to hear why you think your old way might work better.Don’t expect any of your prior time to help you. Be happy if it does, but don’t go into it thinking it will. Overconfidence will hurt you in many ways. An instructor who senses you think you know it all is going to eat you alive. It may also lead you to think you may not need to spend much time preparing for your training events.

Chairfly – Chairfly – Chairfly!! Repetition is your friend (whether you’re a high time civilian or zero time newbie). You absolutely have to prepare before every mission. You cannot show up for a training flight and expect to “wing it”. Some guys in my class sat in a chair with a “stick” (plunger or some other simulated control stick) and flew every mission through. Others just mentally walked through the flight – whatever works for you. You must rehearse checklists, starting procedures, radio calls, taxiing, takeoffs, cruise, aerobatics, instrument procedures, formation, emergency procedures – everything. The less time you spend during an actual flight struggling to figure out what comes next, what you need to say on the radio, how you’re going to handle a problem or even a routine event will mean you’ll have more mental capacity (i.e. “brain cells”) available to deal with the unexpected or just be thinking way ahead of the aircraft.

One final thing – remember to have fun. If you approach every ride in UPT (whether it’s a check ride or not) as an opportunity to fail, you’ll be miserable. Be prepared, be confident, ready to learn and look at each flight as a chance to excel, have fun and show them your stuff. UPT can be a really great time if you don’t spend every minute worrying about busting a ride. Work hard, play hard and live/eat/breathe flying for the year you’re there. Your one and only job is to learn flying and get really good at it. There won’t be many times in your USAF/Guard career when your only responsibility is flying.
If you end up getting selected, enjoy it. Good Luck.

Some things do not change. My UPT experience was 43 years ago. I instructed in the T-38 following UPT, was a FAC in Vietnam, and flew the F-100 in a Guard unit. What "Adlerdriver" is telling you is on target WRT to attitude, study habits, and "Chair Flying"--it's how I got through UPT. The game is the same--Cooperate and Graduate. These principles also worked very well throughout thirty years with Northwest Airlines.

As an IP, I sometimes had a student plan and fly a "round-robin" flight at 600 knots ground speed. This was an excellent prod for those doing well with the standard syllabus but who were inclined to relax as a result. It is just as easy to get in a 480 knot rut as any other. The jump from 120 to 480 won't be the only challenge you face. Use what you know already, but don't rely on it to get you through.

I found the prior experience to help in some respects like not being AWED at being airborne the first time. I had never flown a turboprop before but on that FAM-1 when those wheels lifted off I still felt excited but controlled excitement! Also - I was comfortable talking on the radios (thanks to an instrument rating and A LOT of VFR flight following while learning to fly). Basic aircraft control was as hard and in the simulator on the very first Basic Instrument flight when you are holding an altitude and airspeed and making 30 angle of banks turns the instructor opened up the sim, asked if I had an instrument rating already, I said "yes" and we moved on to BI-2.
I helped my class during instrument ground school and we had study nights over pizza and beer.
Quickly though you are in areas which I doubt many have experience. Many civilian pilots don't have much experience with aerobatics or formation flying (and I don't mean within a 1/2 mile) or precision landings (the beginnings of flying the ball)

USMCFLYR

I agree that the large jump in speed can cause an experienced civilian pilot to get behind the aircraft, but when that does happen, they should have less to do to catch up. They won’t be thinking about flying techniques they learned a few weeks ago. The structure of the flight should seem familiar even if the pace isn’t. After sometime, they should be able to recalibrate their clocks, because the military isn’t the only place where a pilot goes from 100 kts to 300 kts. My uncle was never a military pilot, but when he had around 1000 hours, be began to fly a friend’s L-39, and he said it took some getting used to, but it was not impossible.

I will hopefully be going to UPT within the year and I have thought a lot about if my civilian time will help me, and I think it will. I think the people with prior time who washout don’t never think that they could have trouble in flight training, so they never contemplate the challenges they will face when they step out of a small prop and into a small turbo prop or jet. I know it will be difficult and I will leave my previous attitude about flying at the door and accept a completely different style. Hopefully that will work. Plus, increasing the rate on my flight sim may help too.

When I started looking into the AF again, I did just what you said to see if I even had a chance of making it. I took an aerobatics course and ended up liking it so much that I wanted to take more, but the school closed doors after I finished 12 hours. Also, it helped having an instructor familiar with military aerobatics who showed me the difference between competition aerobatics and military. Why don't you fighter pilots want to make a symmetrical loop when dodging Migs and SAMs :rolleyes:? Formation flying was a little more difficult, because there aren't too many pilots who would do it or that I would want to do it with, but I found one and we did about 6 hours.

I’m not saying that I am an expert in formation flying or aerobatics, but now when I go into the T-6 it won’t be my first time upside down or so close to another aircraft that can see the other pilots sweat. I think USMCFLYR said it best, if you come in with time, you won’t be AS overcome with adrenaline and things like radio communication and instrument scans stay the same regardless of the plane you are in.

A lot of us academy guys who killed ourselves in academia over 4 years never really spent a lot of braincells on flying until we went to UPT; we weren't all soaring IPs or on the flying team. Then we ran into the super-prepped CFI-types--usually the soaring IPS and flying team types were sent off to Euro Nato to battle between themselves for supremecy. maybe things are the same? They (the CFIs, former airline pilots, etc) usually did pretty well but like everything else it equals out after a while. don't waste your time and money being so focused on one thing, you may regret it later. I'm actually considering leaving flying behind at this point and finishing up a PhD.

I don't blame you for hedging your bets, but personally I'm glad I've got something else but flying in mind at this point, and put in the groundwork in that allowed a move to something else(i.e. some academic work at the BS and MA level). good luck.

The most important thing is to get hired, otherwise all the rest never gets put in play. At my old unit, I'm retired from the ANG, there is no way in to a UPT slot without already being in the unit. You need to enlist, drill in your position for about 1-2 years and then you are considered for a UPT slot. Thankfully, I never had to do that but it has been the case for years. I would first find a unit that will be flying airplanes, and not UAV's, find a place nearby that you can earn a living and hopefully like the place somewhat, and then visit the Operations Squadron DO for an interview. It is a pretty daunting task, but most give up before they even try. Stick to them like glue, and find a mentor. It will happen for you. Best of Luck!

No - just going faster is certainly NOT the hardest part of switching gears. I mean those VLJs have people going from new piston pilot to small jet pilot in now time it seems!

One big difference in the type of training that we are talking about is above and beyond the takeoff from Point A and land at Point B (besides the challenges one can face from the portion of flight). Our students solo in the Hornet after 4 flights, probably 6 hours, after 2 familiarization flights (including a little aerobatics) and 2 instrument round robins (standard instrument stuff obviously); then they spend the next 8-12 months learning how to EMPLOY it.

Listen, study hard, accept the military's way of doing things, apply your own airsense when appropriate, HAVE FUN, and learn all you can about your aircraft and its' mission. If you do all of that - you are going to have a BLAST!

USMCFLYR

Btw - I'm taking my own advice very soon, just in reverse order :o

That's not how it is anymore. Most units are taking guys from off the street. I'd bet over 90% of ANG/AFRC pilots were not prior E in the unit that hired them. I know that well over half the ANG/AFRC guys I know had no prior service at all.

I flew Tweets for a few years, including a period when IFT was shut down--so we were getting a lot of folks who'd never touched the controls of an aircraft. And the usual guys with tons of hours here and there. So here's my perspective--I've never seen prior time hurt anyone (other than folks walking in bragging about their ratings, "my technique," etc).

Up to the first check ride, there was a huge range of ability in the students. That's where the guys with prior time had a clear advantage. After midphase though, the differences cleared out. I had classes where the number 1 guy/girl was a zero timer and the last place guy had hundreds of hours.

So my point there, while I haven't seen prior time hurt anyone, I also don't think it helped anyone much either.

I wouldn't spend that much time/money on flying. If you just enjoy it, great, but don't expend those resources thinking it's going to help you much in UPT.

In your case, seems like you had some good concerns about UPT, and you spent the time/money investigating those phases of flight, gave you a good feeling, and some confidence. So that's money well spent. Don't know I'd keep doing it though.

I'll go with sputnik - after about 6 - 8 weeks its all pretty even.

Not sure I understand that last bit. If a person loves flying, then they love flying. If you enjoy it, why not keep doing it while you wait for applications to go through?

I don't know if you were talking about me, but I did not really get all my flight time for the AF. I wanted to go into the AF ever since I could remember, so I started training for my PPL in high school, but an inaccurate medical exam early in my AF application seemingly closed the door on that option for me. Instead, I discovered civilian aviation, but when my instructing career slowed down, I learned that my first exam was not performed properly, so I tried again.

Your points do have merit though. I think it would be insane if someone invested as much money and time as I have to prepare for UPT if they have no interest in a civilian career. Those efforts would be much better spent improving the other aspects of your resume for the military.

Watch out for the local women, especially in Enid.

If they tell you they are on the pill, do not believe it.

Boats,
So why are ya not going into Naval Aviation? Gonna have to change the name <g>
Simply put, just be willing to learn the way being taught. Atttiittuuude.
Most of us have the monkey skills. When used to teach landings on the boat, used to tell 'em what I had been told, "Can teach your grandmother to land on the boat" if.... "just be willing to learn the way being taught. Atttiittuuude"
and... concur on navigatro's advice

I agree with most who say it's all attitude. I went to UPT at Webb where there was a girl behind every tree. I watched the "wings" from the class board disappear as guys who were much better than me left the program. Most couldn't adapt and wanted to do it their way.

While a newbie before even starting academics I couldn't wait to wear my new flightsuit. the problem was I hadn't been issued flight boots yet--no problem, off to the O club with flightsuit and black gum shoes (really didn't know any better). A group of 37 IP's saw me and went ape crap over it. Instead of getting upset about being laughed at I bought a round of beers for them--best three bucks I've ever spent in my life. I was placed on a table in the stag bar ( a real stag bar) and had a "hymn" sung to me. Those guys bent over backwards for me from that time on.

Moral; have fun, LISTEN, do it their way, and never ever get too full of yourself!! REDWAVE:)

Keep a good attitude and NEVER study on Saturday! <-----advice given to me by an old pilot at my base before I left for training....served me well!

I was working on getting into the Navy as well. When I went to take the apptitude test, the computer was down, and tried to call the recruiter back, but haven't been able to reschedule the test. I should be more aggressive.

I might add, to survive UPT, do not urinate on the wing commander's lawn, no matter how drunk you might be. It's not impossible to recover from, but it won't be easy. That's what, er, "my friend" told me.

It also isn't easy, but possible, to recover from urinating on an Korean Exchange Officer; even if it does make the matter into an INTERNATIONAL incident!

USMCFLYR
;) - No - it wasn't me.

Just joshing ya <g>, Had orders to Vance AFB for UPT but ended up a tailhooker in the Navy. Have many great friends in USAF/ANG/USFAR/USA/USMC/USCG. They all seem to enjoy the flyin' mochines. We all bellyache about our respective services with our own types yet like siblings, trash anyone that besmirches our own service. <BG>
Go figure. Any home you get yourself in will require the same grit, determination and attitude discussed. Good luck!