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Flight School and basic Army Regulations on flying


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Hey all,

 

So I've just been doing some thinking and wondering what flying will be like at Rucker. For those who have gone through civilian fixed wing training, what kind of stuff is similar or different. Will there be solo flights, both local and cross countries? How far do they usually consist of? Getting my commercial license I did a lot of cross countries. Some were 50NM, some were 100NM, and one was 250NM. Is it similar and do you get to chose where you go or does that get chosen for you. That kind of leads to the question on how much freedom do you have when you're flying, is everything completely laid out for you by your IP or by some curriculum on where to go and what to do or can you chose some things?

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Just finished my UH-60M MTP transition today at Ft. Rucker. I can't speak to the primary/flight school 21 flying, but I have gone through 2 AQCs and 2 MTP courses in the last 6 months. One was at EAATS in Ft. Indiantown Gap and the other three were at Ft. Rucker.

 

The flying is WAY different in AQC. The rules for approaching RTs (landing zones) and stage fields are quite different than you may be used to in general aviation. It is much more structured. About the only choices given were "Do you want to go to Andalusia today or Florala?" We did no real cross countries in AQC. The furthest we went was Montgomery on an IFR flight plan in the UH-60M. IFR you will stick mostly to a few fields within about 30 miles.

 

As for the MTP courses, you pretty much hover at north/south tracking (Lowe) or fly counter clockwise around a box in the maintenance test flight area, pulling engines back and testing systems. Then you get gas at Troy, do more checks, fly to Andalusia or Florala, get more gas, eat lunch, switch students, blah blah blah

 

In short, the IPs have things pretty well laid out for you. You may be offered some options as you get further along and start to do cross countries. You pretty much have to fulfill the commercial rotary wing instrument requirements with respect to flight time, cross countries, instrument time, etc.. during flight school because you come out of there eleigible for a commercial rotary wing instrument FAA license (minus the $ for the actual equivalency test).

 

If you are interested in what Navy flight school was like 20 years ago, I could fill you in on that, but I'll leave the flight school 21 stuff for some of these younger guys to pontificate on.

Edited by Rob Lyman
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The Army has AR (Army Regulation) 95-1 which is Flight Regulations. Alot of things are similiar to the FAA rules, for instance Basic Cloud Clearance for VFR flight, Airspace, things like that. The Army does do a few things different, like Oxygen requirements, but they are all outlined in AR 95-1. No where near the size of the FAR's. Aerodynamics are aerodynamics.

 

Solo Flights, there are 2 in Primary, both of which aren't really "solo" flights. Your stick buddy will occupy the other seat, and off you go to do 3, and only 3 traffic patterns. Yippee says the cowboy.

 

As for Cross Countries, the Army doesn't give a flyin' poop about logging XC time. The FAR's define a XC in a helo as anything over 25NM, and you will log it as such for your CIVILIAN log, but the Army doesn't care. Most of the flying you will do at Rucker is cookie cutter, same stuff different day. You will have very very limited freedom. Basically, your IP tells you "I don't care how you get there, but you will go to XYZ airport tomorrow, plan it"

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