# Airtime before students get on the Harvard?



## Enraged Looney (25 Aug 2005)

Hi!

I was wondering how many hours do aspiring pilots log before they get to Moose Jaw and drive the Harvard?

How many hours do they spent on the Slingsby?

 ???


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## Inch (25 Aug 2005)

Around 30hrs, though I didn't fly the Slingsby, someone else can confirm this.


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## Enraged Looney (25 Aug 2005)

Geez! 30 hours and then you get on a 1000 hp bird? Oh well, I guess the ww2 pilots did the same. But what an opportunity compared to the civilian cursus.


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## Inch (25 Aug 2005)

1100hp.  

The pace is intense, I just broke 500hrs total time including my civvie time, over half of that is turbine and 100+ is on the 20,500 lb Sea King.


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## Sf2 (25 Aug 2005)

20-30 hrs on the slingsby, depending on how well you do, and if you fast track due to previous flying experience.

then 90 on the harvard, again, could be more, 90 on the jet ranger, then wings.

I just broke 800 hrs total, with about 550 on the griffon


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## Strike (25 Aug 2005)

Looney,

Mind you, if you intend to "drive" the Harvard, you probably won't log too many hours.   ;D



> how many hours do aspiring pilots log before they get to Moose Jaw and drive the Harvard?


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## Enraged Looney (26 Aug 2005)

Strike: LOL... I wrote "drive" in reference to the expression "18 drivers" used to talk about F-18 pilots...

Inch: Don't want to be indiscreet, but did you have civilian hours before your recruitment, and if so how many?


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## pipstah (26 Aug 2005)

I just did a grand total of 26.4 with the firefly slingsby on the last PFT course. For the new PFT course it will change a little because they will have somes simulator time... It can go faster if you are on advance course. I was on the normal course and generally people can finish the  course from 26- 30 hours. Depending if you get any extra duals or make any solo or not.  Hope it helped ya


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## Zoomie (26 Aug 2005)

Congrats on passing PFT Pipstah - now your flying training can begin in earnest...


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## Inch (26 Aug 2005)

Enraged Looney said:
			
		

> Inch: Don't want to be indiscreet, but did you have civilian hours before your recruitment, and if so how many?



I had an Aviation Technology Diploma, a Commercial Multi IFR licence and 225.1 hrs, 27.2 of which was multi, but I went 3 years without flying before starting in Moose Jaw.


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## Bo (26 Aug 2005)

I'm sorry for hijacking this thread but I also had a couple questions:

1. What percentage of accepted pilots (who have completed IAP/BOTC)   actually earn their wings?

2. With no prior flying experience, will you be limited in what you can ultimately fly? Is it recommended to get some flight hours in prior to Moose Jaw or is that included at all during OJT?


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## dardt (26 Aug 2005)

I was curious, how would you describe the flight knowledge / proficiency (basic flight maneuvers, navigation, meteorology etc..) of the average student coming out of PFT with the said 26-30 hours described above. How would that compare to say the content learnt in doing a civilian PPL ?


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## Crimmsy (26 Aug 2005)

To answer Bo's first question: hard to give precise numbers of course, but for me, 20 out of 29 on my PFT course made it through that, and most people who start Moose Jaw will make it through. I found prior experience to be helpful on PFT,but it is not absolutely necessary. I went into Portage with a PPL and 70 or so hours. I don't think it makes much difference in Moose Jaw whether or not you have civvy time, since clearly a Harvard is a bit more airplane than a 172. 

Dardt, the PFT syllabus isn't too similar to the PPL syllabus. Of course the basic aircraft handling, stall, slow flight, etc. is all the same, but cross country navigation isn't taught, and some basic aerobatics is included. In the classroom, as I recall, the aerodynamics course is a bit more thorough than on the civvy side, and meteorology is fairly comprehensive. Again, no cross country procedures in ground school. Air Law focused on the military rulebooks, not the CARs. It's been a while, so I can't really recall anything more specific than that.

Edit: Just wanted to add that I had a 2.5 year gap between PFT and Moose Jaw and in that time I didn't get any stick time and I didn't feel that I was disadvantaged a bit by that.


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## Astrodog (26 Aug 2005)

2.5yr gap!! is that because of the new training a/c coming online causing lag or is that an average chunk to sit out?


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## Crimmsy (26 Aug 2005)

Actually, it was not as bad as I may have made it sound - I was ROTP so I did PFT after my second year of university, then did OJT after third year, and after I graduated I did more OJT until my turn for Moose Jaw came. It turned out to be an eight month wait after I graduated, but some of the people who graduated with me only waited a month. As a matter of fact, the first one to finish up out of that group got his wings this afternoon.

There was a short delay because (as I recall) the fleet was grounded for a short time in the spring of last year, which caused my start date to be bumped back by a month, but the rest of the wait was just due to where I happened to end up on the waiting list.


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## pipstah (27 Aug 2005)

For PFE, it surely helped people who had somes on PFT. I have a degree in human sciences wich is not related to math or sciences... i even have a friend has a degree in music... There's a great gap between PFT and Moosejaw. Someone on my BOTP course (St-Jean officer cadet course) has done Moncton college so he doesnt have to do Portage. He's still waiting for his Moosejaw date since december 2004... I completed my PFT this summer and I dont expect to get on Moosejaw until next year if I'm lucky. Of course during that year i will do all the others courses like AMT, BSERE and Sea Survival... if you have the chance to do somes OPME go for it... I did two of them and my SLT at St-Jean. Somes untrained pilot on OJT decide to complete their university degree or go for a master degree. It really depends on the place you are attach posted. I'm lucky because at my squadron, the pilots are very easy of approach and they like to pass their knowledges and give alot of tips. They trying to get us involved the most they can so we can see and liiving the military pilot life.  We got somes somes OJT who decided to transfer to our squadron because they were'nt allowed to do anything and well like i said, we are untrained pilots so sometimes and at somes units we are not getting a warm welcome... Depending on the working climate they can see us more like problems and paperworks than handsome or helpfull... its case by case and each person is responsible of his own working climate. Personnally, I always try to learn something new after each day of working. I ask questions, I try different flight, I go on IF flight even if its super boring at time but I ask alot of questions to figure out by myself how it works. I talk with the pilots on any subjects and with flight engineers too. I think its the least thing  i can do because i want to keep my motivation high and the waiting is pretty long and I want to have good time at job if I can call that a job because I like it so much that even when i do overtime ( forgot we cant do overtime in army...we are pay all year 24/24    )  I enjoy it.  This is my little carreer path as for now. Being on parades during the summer and seing those guys getting their wings is for sure a moral booster... for exemple: one of the multi guy got his wing this summer... he waited 1 year after he completed his BOTC... then a year and a half for Moosejaw... for his multi course he had to wait 2 years... just in waiting he passed 4 years and a half in the airforce...  seeing how proud he was of getting his wing was moving. In total that tooked him around 6 years to get his wing... now he has to do an another course for the hercules... after that you have evaluation on this... on that...it never stop! You always learning and improving! Thats my point of view


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## Enraged Looney (29 Aug 2005)

"In total that tooked him around 6 years"  

My God! I never thought it could be so long! And the seven years of duty start just after one gets his wings?


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## Bo (29 Aug 2005)

I'm sure his case was an exception....at least, it better be  :threat: I'm hoping that it won't take longer than 3.5 years (No SLT for me since I'm bilingual).


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## Inch (29 Aug 2005)

I had 5 years in when I got my wings. Though a year of that was college plus 8 months of SLT, it goes fairly quickly once you're on course. Keep in mind though that these aren't 8 week courses. Moose Jaw takes 7-8 months, 6 if you're lucky (no birds and great weather), and AFT can take up to 6 months as well. Add PFT on to that and I'd say 2 years is very optimistic, 3 years min and more than likely it'll take 4 years after you throw in BOTC, SLT, PFT, BFT, and AFT plus a few months here and there between courses.

And if you think it ends when you get your wings, you're in for a big surprise. Open and closed book instrument exams annually, IRT (instrument rating flight test) annually, you'll have SET (Standards, Evaluation and Training, IIRC) exams semi annually as well as an annual proficiency check (APC). At some point you'll be upgrading to a higher category and there's written and flight tests for that. Then there's all your career courses based on which path you take. As an MH pilot, I have to take Maritime Warfare courses, Electronic Warfare courses, Basic and Advanced Air Officer courses, etc, etc.

But don't worry boys, I wouldn't trade it for the world, I absolutely love my job.


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## Astrodog (29 Aug 2005)

Inch said:
			
		

> And if you think it ends when you get your wings, you're in for a big surprise. Open and closed book instrument exams annually, IRT (instrument rating flight test) annually, you'll have SET (Standards, Evaluation and Training, IIRC) exams semi annually as well as an annual proficiency check (APC). At some point you'll be upgrading to a higher category and there's written and flight tests for that. Then there's all your career courses based on which path you take. As an MH pilot, I have to take Maritime Warfare courses, Electronic Warfare courses, Basic and Advanced Air Officer courses, etc, etc.



  ugh...  get to the LCF and aviator glasses!


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## Bograt (30 Aug 2005)

Astrodog said:
			
		

> ugh...   get to the LCF and aviator glasses!



It's fun to look the part, but there is something important missing on the left chest side.


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## Sf2 (30 Aug 2005)

and if you become a Griffon Pilot, you get to do LOFT!! (Land OPs Famil Trg) - where you get to play war for 3 weeks and go on a med because you twisted your ankle doing a night ambush.....


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## Inch (30 Aug 2005)

short final said:
			
		

> and if you become a Griffon Pilot, you get to do LOFT!! (Land OPs Famil Trg) - where you get to play war for 3 weeks and go on a med because you twisted your ankle doing a night ambush.....



I bet you'd like NETP (Naval Environmental Training Program ?) just as much, we spent a whole week learning how to paint and mop and a few other things you tend to pick up with a little TI, now we're getting flooded for 3 days, 2 days of NBCD and then 3 days of firefighting.


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## WannaBeFlyer (11 Oct 2005)

This thread is another example of how valueable army.ca is to newbies and hopefuls. Great thread guys & thanks for the info!


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