Questions about flight school

MckeeC · June 3, 2016

I have a couple of questions for those of you who have went through or are going through flight school.

Can you have a desktop, laptop, or tablet?

Do you use EFBs or is it all paper?

What's a "normal" day/week like?

How much time is spent in the ground school portion compared to the simulator or actual flying time?

Do you get a lot of free time or is most of the time there spent learning, flying, or studying?

Is a normal week Monday-Friday? Saturday?

Are you in base housing or can you live off base?

Can you go off base at all?

I'm sure I could think of more questions but these were some I had off the top of my mind. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

Sapper · June 3, 2016

I have a couple of questions for those of you who have went through or are going through flight school.

Can you have a desktop, laptop, or tablet?
Do you use EFBs or is it all paper?
What's a "normal" day/week like?
How much time is spent in the ground school portion compared to the simulator or actual flying time?
Do you get a lot of free time or is most of the time there spent learning, flying, or studying?
Is a normal week Monday-Friday? Saturday?
Are you in base housing or can you live off base?
Can you go off base at all?

I'm sure I could think of more questions but these were some I had off the top of my mind. Thanks in advance for any feedback!

The majority of these questions have been answered and are discussed frequently.

It is a PCS move, you can live on or off post. Lots of studying and normal(ish) work weeks. Most people recommend relaxing on the weekend and pick studying back up on the Sunday nights.

During flight school you are not "locked down".

Again, search around before asking a lot of questions as all of this information is out there.

MckeeC · June 3, 2016

Sorry, I've been on these forums for years and read nearly everything. I've seen some of these answered but I wasn't able to find them in a quick search.

cwil7280 · June 4, 2016

You'll be issued a laptop computer. There were times I brought my mac into academics to take notes when my issued computer took a sh*t and nobody had issues with that. I never carried a tablet in the 67 but I know a lot of people that did. In the 47 course about half the class flies with a tablet on their kneeboard. My IP even reads the checklist off his iPad instead of out of a paper copy.

I'm not sure if EFB is referring to pubs, but if it is, you will carry paper copies of all your IFR approach plates, FIH, sectionals, etc that are needed for your flight. In 67s I carried all my paper pubs, in the 47 course I carry a tablet with all that stuff on it.

Generally academics will be from 0730-1030ish then flight line from 1100-1800ish, after which you go home and study. In 67s we rotated from morning flight line to afternoon flight line every week. Expect roughly 1.5 hours of flight time a day in the sim or aircraft. You will fly more in the aircraft than the sim, except during instruments. Depending on your advanced airframe and the portion of training you're in, your schedule will be longer and shorter than this. Right now in 47s we have no academics, but we spend that extra time planning the missions for the next day.

Work days are Monday through Friday. Unless you fall behind schedule by an insane amount, I don't know of anyone who has flown Saturdays, especially in primary. Word on the street is that the Apache guys occasionally do, but that's because their helicopters are like always broken and they have a hard time getting them off the ground over there.

Again, you can live on or off base after you complete WOCS.

After WOCS you can go off base whenever you have free time.

Creep0321 · June 4, 2016

One section in primary with me had some bad weather the week before primary check ride and had to fly Saturday morning but that's all I've heard.

MckeeC · June 4, 2016

You'll be issued a laptop computer. There were times I brought my mac into academics to take notes when my issued computer took a sh*t and nobody had issues with that. I never carried a tablet in the 67 but I know a lot of people that did. In the 47 course about half the class flies with a tablet on their kneeboard. My IP even reads the checklist off his iPad instead of out of a paper copy.

I'm not sure if EFB is referring to pubs, but if it is, you will carry paper copies of all your IFR approach plates, FIH, sectionals, etc that are needed for your flight. In 67s I carried all my paper pubs, in the 47 course I carry a tablet with all that stuff on it.

Generally academics will be from 0730-1030ish then flight line from 1100-1800ish, after which you go home and study. In 67s we rotated from morning flight line to afternoon flight line every week. Expect roughly 1.5 hours of flight time a day in the sim or aircraft. You will fly more in the aircraft than the sim, except during instruments. Depending on your advanced airframe and the portion of training you're in, your schedule will be longer and shorter than this. Right now in 47s we have no academics, but we spend that extra time planning the missions for the next day.

Work days are Monday through Friday. Unless you fall behind schedule by an insane amount, I don't know of anyone who has flown Saturdays, especially in primary. Word on the street is that the Apache guys occasionally do, but that's because their helicopters are like always broken and they have a hard time getting them off the ground over there.

Again, you can live on or off base after you complete WOCS.

After WOCS you can go off base whenever you have free time.

Awesome! Exactly the answer I was hoping for! Thanks a lot for answering all of my questions. It's making me even more excited to start!

One more for you. During flight school I'm assuming you learn all of the basic maneuvers and such but you mentioned missions. I'm a civilian currently so when I think of missions I think more of what you may be doing in the real world rather than a flight practicing a couple basic maneuvers. So eventually during training do you start practicing more real world scenarios or missions?

01CelicaGTS · June 8, 2016

Awesome! Exactly the answer I was hoping for! Thanks a lot for answering all of my questions. It's making me even more excited to start!

One more for you. During flight school I'm assuming you learn all of the basic maneuvers and such but you mentioned missions. I'm a civilian currently so when I think of missions I think more of what you may be doing in the real world rather than a flight practicing a couple basic maneuvers. So eventually during training do you start practicing more real world scenarios or missions?

Flight school is all about learning basic maneuvers. These are referred to as "base tasks" in the ATM (Aircrew Training Manual). You will not do any "Mission Tasks" while you are in flight school. However, once you get to your advanced airframe, you might do a little bit. It depends on your airframe. In 60's the only additional task that we did was multiship flight. All of the "mission tasks" will be trained at your unit. Again, that's just for 60's, not really sure about other airframes.

MckeeC · June 8, 2016

Flight school is all about learning basic maneuvers. These are referred to as "base tasks" in the ATM (Aircrew Training Manual). You will not do any "Mission Tasks" while you are in flight school. However, once you get to your advanced airframe, you might do a little bit. It depends on your airframe. In 60's the only additional task that we did was multiship flight. All of the "mission tasks" will be trained at your unit. Again, that's just for 60's, not really sure about other airframes.

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I'm mostly curious about the 60's and 47's as that's my goal. So currently when you get to your unit is the majority (or all?) of your flying done for training? Are you ever actually preforming missions? Sorry if these seem like basic or silly questions. Just curious as to what to expect in the future.

cwil7280 · June 9, 2016

The "missions" that I'm referring to are all for training. The only "real" missions we do is fly the WOCS students out of their field training occasionally, and do a small exfil/infil flight for the Rangers in the ranger school in Florida. I've never flown that mission so I can't say a lot about it, but I'm pretty sure the 60 guys get tasked with the "ranger mission" occasionally as well.

01CelicaGTS · June 9, 2016

Awesome! Thanks for the information. I'm mostly curious about the 60's and 47's as that's my goal. So currently when you get to your unit is the majority (or all?) of your flying done for training? Are you ever actually preforming missions? Sorry if these seem like basic or silly questions. Just curious as to what to expect in the future.

I guess that depends on your unit. In general, most of the flying you will do stateside is "training". However, you will be training "mission tasks". It all depends on what is on your unit's METL, and what is on your CTL. So, although you may not be doing an actual air assault with dudes in the back, you will be training as if you do. You may or may not be slinging a HMMWV under your aircraft, but you will train on sling loads with a block under the aircraft.

Some of the TDA units do a lot of "missions", since they aren't deployable. I'm in a TDA unit and I would say 80%-90% of my flights are in support of "missions". Most of our customers just happen to be schools (Air Assualt, Ranger school, Pathfinder school, RSLC, ARC, I-BOLC, etc.), but occasionally we fly for the 75th Ranger Regiment, the Silverwings Exhibition Team, or fly the CG around. So, although they are missions for us they are in support of the customer's training. We have real dudes in the back, real HMMWVs under the aircraft, and real dogs going down the FRIES rope (that one's fun!). Many of the TDA Medevac units support the local area they are in as well as the base or training area they are assigned to, so they do real missions all the time too.

Unfortunately, I haven't been to a CAB yet so I don't know exactly how many "real" missions they do when they aren't deployed or at NTC/JRTC, but I think most of what they do is notional when they're stateside. I could be wrong. I would imagine that the ground units would want to do some training with aviation units, so there may be some of that going on. Again, I'm not really sure.

The "missions" that I'm referring to are all for training. The only "real" missions we do is fly the WOCS students out of their field training occasionally, and do a small exfil/infil flight for the Rangers in the ranger school in Florida. I've never flown that mission so I can't say a lot about it, but I'm pretty sure the 60 guys get tasked with the "ranger mission" occasionally as well.

That is true. At least when I was there. Every couple of Blackhawk classes got the Ranger student mission.

Lindsey · June 10, 2016

Still true, except now it's the M model course that gets the Ranger mission. I got to be flight lead for ours and had a friggin blast.

MckeeC · June 10, 2016

Again thanks to you all for your insight! It's exactly what I was looking for. Getting more and more excited to start this journey!

Tough Actin · June 20, 2016

Not sure where to ask this so I'll just put it here...

I have about a month between BCT and WOCS, E-6 transfer from the Navy, do they usually authorize a PCS move with dependents before WOCS or do they defer until after?

I know after WOCS you can live where ever, just curious about before.