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Question right before aircraft selection


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I have aircraft selection coming up in September and was wondering if I could have a few questions answered before. I am primarily thinking 64, but I'm not sure yet. I have been deployed multiple times as a crewmember so I have some experience with having them for support. I hear that flight hours will be horrible during peacetime, as well as the community are a certain breed. Does anyone have any experience with how bad the flight hours are during peacetime in comparison to the 60 or 47?

 

Also my wife and I are going to try and do some research ahead of time of colleges around duty stations so maybe it will help me at the time of selection since you don't get much time to think about it. There isn't any website with a list of duty stations for each airframe is there?

 

Thank You!!

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  • 5 months later...

What if flight time is a mission requirement? It was for me, and in hindsight, it drove everything about my aircraft selection. I even had contingencies for track selection if my aircraft selection did not work out the way I wanted. I had more than a fair understanding of Army Aviation, and not flying would have sounded the death knell for my Army career long ago. I have been a big proponent of using mission as a selection criteria, but that doesn't nullify any other personal desires a pilot might reference to determine their choice. Some people just don't get to choose, so what does mission matter to them other than as consolation or sour grapes? I recognized after I was training in my aircraft that I would have flown whatever the Army told me to; but, flying was always the key for me. The less I would have flown, the shorter my career would have been.

CW4 (Ret.)

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Generally speaking, the 64 gets less flight hours than the 60 in peacetime. In practice, there's no guarantees however.

 

I'd say pick the 64 if that's really what you want to fly. I can verify that it's a challenge to learn it (the bag is no joke), gunnery is usually pretty fun, and it's intimidating looking which gets you lots of cool points. What you really need to be worrying about is showing up at your first unit (or second or third) and having your boss tell you that you're going to work at Division G3 running UAV ops for the next year which means no flying. Or branch calls to tell you that you're going to a BAE job for the next 2 years. In Korea. As long as you're in a flight company you're ahead of the game.

 

In the end, the army treats us all like garbage at some point. Be prepared for the worst case and everything else will seem pretty good.

 

For college, you might want to consider an online degree if you're pursuing a bachelors, that way you can work on it anywhere and use your TA to pay for it. Check out AMU, Trident, or ask around the ed center.

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I have aircraft selection coming up in September and was wondering if I could have a few questions answered before. I am primarily thinking 64, but I'm not sure yet. I have been deployed multiple times as a crewmember so I have some experience with having them for support. I hear that flight hours will be horrible during peacetime, as well as the community are a certain breed. Does anyone have any experience with how bad the flight hours are during peacetime in comparison to the 60 or 47?

 

Also my wife and I are going to try and do some research ahead of time of colleges around duty stations so maybe it will help me at the time of selection since you don't get much time to think about it. There isn't any website with a list of duty stations for each airframe is there?

 

Thank You!!

Your potential for flight hours will be more about timing, duty station and your company ATP rather than your airframe. You may go to a unit just returning from a deployment and not fly for 3-9 months or you may go to a unit deploying and get 1,000 hours in the first year. But really, it all equals out in the end. What I mean is, if I look at all the people I went to flight school with we all have averaged around 1500-2000 hours, some more some less, just depends on deployments and duty stations.

 

Honestly, the first 1,000 hours is going to take a long time because new guys don't fly that much but after you make PC it will accumulate exponentially.

 

This brings me to my final point, don't choose an aircraft for flight hours, because after a certain point you won't care how many hours you have but you will care what type of mission you are doing.

 

Another thing to consider, 60s get a lot of flight time but the medevac mission doesn't fly much at all. You may choose 60s and end up in a medevac unit never flying. This is why it is important that you choose the mission over the airframe, my 2 cents.

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  • 1 month later...

Yes, apaches fly with goggles. It's part of our required tasks. The ATM is the applicable reg along with the ATP.

Roger thank you. Do you maintain a civilian logbook? If so, how do you log your flight time (front seat vs back seat).

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How do you log your hours left seat versus right seat... Seems the same to me

It's not. 60 and 47 require a type rating per the FAA and the 64 does not. It's ambiguous and a gray area.

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And I don't even bother logging what seat I am in when I do the ULLS-A logbook after flight. AR 95-1 (appendix C) requires you to log what seat the pilot will be flying in on the 5484 (risk assessment).

 

As for the FAA, there is no way they care. Both seats have access to the flight controls.

Edited by akscott60
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You can log flight time in any military aircraft (61.51(j)(3)). Also the Army issues type ratings for the Apache so it's really no different. But if you're looking for NVG hours, you won't get many in the Apache. You can log NVG when you're using NVGs, but not when you're using the NVS, which is the primary night vision system for Apache pilots.

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Roger thank you. Do you maintain a civilian logbook? If so, how do you log your flight time (front seat vs back seat).

 

Your 759 will show front seat as FS and back seat as BS. They're listed separately.

 

All army pilots should have a separate logbook and bounce it off their army rollups monthly (or quarterly at a minimum). Even if you never fly after the army this will help you ensure you meet your minimums, which helps keep you out of trouble, keeps your flight pay going, keeps you out of an FEB, helps your flight schedule maker, etc. Your flight ops should have a spreadsheet for the unit that is posted and helps keep everyone honest and on schedule to meet the semi-annual mins.

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...... But if you're looking for NVG hours, you won't get many in the Apache. You can log NVG when you're using NVGs, but not when you're using the NVS, which is the primary night vision system for Apache pilots.

 

It depends. There was a time when I flew a lot of NVG's in the 64 (OIF 2005ish), but it presents some issues because you don't have the flight symbology and reticles for weapons. You can get pretty good at firing the gun if you use the bottom of the NVG tube as the aim point but it's far from perfect. The better solution is to fly with the HDU (NVS) in your right eye and an NVG tube in your left eye.

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It's not. 60 and 47 require a type rating per the FAA and the 64 does not. It's ambiguous and a gray area.

 

Type ratings are required to fly helicopters that weigh 12,500 lbs or greater in the civilian world.

 

The FAA type rating is not required to fly either of these helicopters while you are a pilot in the Army. Having said that, if you were to get out of the Army and go to work for a civilian company that flies the Boeing 234 which is the civilian version of the CH-47 then you would need a type rating in the Boeing 234. Columbia Helicopters is a company that comes to mind who flies these. Similarly, if you got a civilian job flying Sikorsky S-70's (civilian version of the UH-60) you'd need the type rating. Brainerd Helicopters is a company that flies S-70's. If you were qualified in the Army to fly the CH-47 or the UH-60 it's typically an easy matter to go to the nearest FSDO and show them your Army qualification and they will add the type rating for those aircraft to your commercial certificate (assuming you have that). But, the qualification the Army gives you is not in and of itself a type rating. The type rating is conferred by the FAA.

 

The reason the there is no such thing as a type rating for the Apache is because there is simply no civilian version of that aircraft. The Apache's max gross weight is well over 12,500, but there's no civilian operator to my knowledge flying AH-64's, therefore there's no type rating for them.

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Yes I understand all that. And now if you go 60s or 47s you get your type rating when you get your CPL/IFR cert at the completion of flight school (if you took the comp test).

 

The gray area (or at least muddy waters) was reference to logging PIC/SIC in the 64 versus 60. Is there even such a thing as SIC per the FAA since there is no civilian type rating for it (that requires two pilots). I am fully aware that the Army requires two pilots, but my question is what the FAA would say a front seater who is not PC for the flight would log in a 64. Would they "accept" the Army's two pilot requirement thus allowing the front seater to log SIC, or not.

 

I'm aware I am overthinking this, and the answer I am sure will vary FSDO to FSDO, but alas I am in close hold and have nothing better to do.

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Yes I understand all that. And now if you go 60s or 47s you get your type rating when you get your CPL/IFR cert at the completion of flight school (if you took the comp test).

The gray area (or at least muddy waters) was reference to logging PIC/SIC in the 64 versus 60. Is there even such a thing as SIC per the FAA since there is no civilian type rating for it (that requires two pilots). I am fully aware that the Army requires two pilots, but my question is what the FAA would say a front seater who is not PC for the flight would log in a 64. Would they "accept" the Army's two pilot requirement thus allowing the front seater to log SIC, or not.

I'm aware I am overthinking this, and the answer I am sure will vary FSDO to FSDO, but alas I am in close hold and have nothing better to do.

You may be overthinking it a little. :-) When I retired I simply counted all my PI time in an Apache as SIC time for civilian logging purposes. I have since been hired by three separate employers and none of them were the least bit interested in SIC time. Was never even mentioned in interviews. The only numbers that mattered were total time, PIC time, instrument time, and in one case multi-engine time was important and in another instance Night and NVG were important. Frankly, in all three instances neither of these employers even looked at my log book although I had my logbooks and DA 759 with me to back up the hours listed on my resume. Further, in taking my ATP checkride and type rating checkride in the S-92, SIC time was a non-issue.

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