Even in the late 90's it nearly took and act of congress to wash someone out. Gradebooks became "legal documents" suitable for lawyer scrutiny. I actually sat on an FEB that had Bud Day as a lawyer representing the subject flyer.

[quote=LivingInMEM;495183] They couldn't replicate combat to see how you dealt with stress, so they created the stress through the syllabusquote]


When I went through my Flt/CC replicated combat stress by being a complete Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde...complete nut job.

In my T-37 FLT we had a former Marine enlisted guy who was our StandUP EP guy..... he was also my assigned Primary Instructor... this guy LOVED to grab you by the O2 mask and bounce your head off the canopy...LOL. Luckily I didnt fly with him much.... I flew with a guest help guy from the student squadron..... but my two table mates.....holy crap those guys had a time. Ed C. did solo me..... and I had that picture of him getting out of the jet until a few years ago when I lost my home.... but I can still see him .... with that wry little Marine smile. UPT... both the best year of my life and the worst.

Webb 72-05. The AF needed a lot of pilots, so they ran ten training bases, six of them in Texas. Easy to get a UPT slot, and easy to wash out, especially in the T-41 or T-37 pre-solo. If you got past that, you had a good shot at graduating (over 50% made it all the way). Assignments went by class rank, but luck was still involved, since your class might get a great or a lousy "drop".
And yes, it was a great way to spend a year, even in Big Spring TX.

In my class (Reese 90-09), we had 5 of 25 wash out. Since then, I've done two three-years tours as a UPT instructor ('94-'97 & '00-'03), and I can't remember five guys total washing out.

Zach

I graduated in 1986. Although I think most people in my class were treated fairly, my perception was if you were a ROTC grad you were more likely to be in a position where you could hook a ride on a Monday and be on your way back to the civillian world on Friday. On the other hand, 2 guys in my class received intervention from G.O.s (their dads) that improved their situations. If you were a woman. . . well, no women from my class washed out. I'm sure it was just a coincidence. . . Actually, of the 5 women in my class, 1 was very good, 1 was above average, 1 was average, 1 was below average and 1 was a complete basket case. How she graduated I'll never know.

Fast forward 20 years to when I was an IP at Altus. There were indeed an over-abundance of SNAPs that couldn't deal with a critique of their performance without getting their feelings hurt or getting indignant. At times I was disgusted with them. I agree with what others have said about how hard it can be to wash a student out these days. We had a student go through then entire IP program only to fail, miserably I might add. Rather than send said student back to the unit, student got to go through the entire program again. Never would have happened back in the day. No way, no how.

Don't want to end on a down note: Many of today's students are brighter than ever and most have decent attitudes. As an added bonus, many of them are real patriots.

Interesting discussion.........it strikes me as one of those "I had to walk to school in the snow, up hill, both ways" when I was your age kid.

I was a tweet IP at Willie in the early 80s, did a staff tour at Randolph and finished up at ENJJPT (Sheppard) in the mid 90s. I can't remember any class I was ever with (including my own) where we lost more than 2 or 3 guys. ENJJPT was a little different since guys there were hand selected, but as the US SNR it was rare for me to sit on a board. In fact, attrition was worse on the european side. Plus, to the amazement of the Germans, the US always took the big prizes at graduation.

Now, I took early retirement in 95 and don't know about the SNAPs......so I'll take your word for them

As a recent graduate I would tend to to agree with you guys. But I have also wondered if it has been a change in the mindset of AETC (ATC). How big were the classes back then? How many classes per year? Most UPT bases now have 15 classes (Sheppard has 8) per year and about 25ish students per class. There are only 4 UPT bases now, compared to 8ish back in the day.

Talking with an old timer, it seems like the AF just threw tons of people into pilot training and was willing to accept a huge washout rate. That is clearly not the case anymore.

Some stats from my class: Started with 24, 3 washed out, 1 washed back and 1 was sent to T-44's.

Haaaarrrumph!!!!!!!

Another thought.........sorry I'm old, can't keep them all together.

I wonder if part of the problem my be with the number of IPs a student will fly with now that we have the reserve guys involved. "In the day" we really worried about IP continuity, especially if someone was in trouble. Two or maybe three IPs would enable you to spot trends and reocuring problems that multiple guys wouldn't. I think reserve guys with more experience is great, but it could also lead to the "carry" problem you describe? The old double edge sword.