Reservists add major adjustment to T-1 training

  • Published
  • By Frank McIntyre
  • 71st Flying Training Wing Public Affairs
VANCE AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AETCNS) --  Four or five months after graduating from Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance AFB, students from the T-1A Jayhawk tanker and airlift track may very well find themselves flying over the not-so-friendly sky in support of the war on terrorism. Two members of the 5th Flying Training Squadron here help pilots train to be better prepared for flying in a hostile environment.

T-1 instructor pilots Majors Doug Stouffer and Randy Tiedt created a new process to add simulated threats to the low-level routes students fly over the local area.

However, creating the new process was anything but simple.

"The maps weren't out of date, they just didn't allow for changing scenarios," Major Tiedt said. "Without that flexibility we had no way to mirror scenarios of the real world."

Previously during planning, the students used a laminated map to mark the low-level routes. The maps were reused many times and often were covered in smudges left from erasures of previous routes.

The end product was the result of the two Reserve majors spending countless hours on promoting instructor and student training of the Portable Flight Planning Software.

"The 32nd FTS commander (Lt. Col. John Hokaj) came to us with a vision of how he wanted the training to go with a more realistic training product," Major Stouffer said. "In a combined effort between the Reserve unit and some of the active duty who have recent combat experience, we were able to make that vision a reality."

"We want to provide a better product to those who receive our students," Colonel Hokaj said. "With an early exposure to the reality of combat, we instill a combat fighter mindset in our future pilots and build that culture from day one of training."

By taking advantage of available technology, the new method allows students doing mission planning the use of a computer to bring up a map "to see it, use it and change it to come up with a product they can take into the airplane and fly," Major Stouffer said.

"This simulates what a tactics shop in theater does, where the pilots get this type of product handed to them at briefing time," he said. "Having seen it here, the future pilots will be better able to decipher it when they are given it in a real-world situation."

The new system works with Falcon-View, described by its manufacturer as "a non-proprietary government off-the-shelf application for analyzing and displaying geographical information crucial to the warfighter."

Because the new process had to be kept within the constraints of the T-1 training syllabus, much of Major Stouffer's new programming was directed to making the process user friendly. The new PFPS was then installed on squadron computers, with the user-friendly interface for the students and IPs to use.

"In addition to training students, this helps a lot of the first-term instructor pilots too," Major Tiedt said. "The first assignment instructor pilots came through the program without any exposure to PFPS maps like these. It gets them up to speed as they act as tactical officers would, briefing on the different types of threat in the theater."

One of the FAIPs who knows the benefits of the new program is 1st Lt. Jon Cato, who has been with the 32nd FTS since June 2004.

"The new low-level program does two things which I feel are essential to success at the next level of many military aircraft training; it provides a stronger familiarization with the Falcon-View program and shows firsthand how low-altitude-threat avoidance is applied in the operational Air Force," Lieutenant Cato said.

"I have personally witnessed a dramatic change in students' understanding of how to manipulate FalconView to reflect the type of mission being flown that particular day," said Lietenant Cato, the 32nd FTS' executive officer. "This program indirectly causes students to apply a greater understanding of the T-1A Flight Management System, ultimately exposing them to the fundamentals and application of 21st century navigation systems (technology)."

"As a student in UPT, I remember vividly not knowing half as much about threat avoidance, Falcon-View and low-level tactical operations as the current 32nd student knows. The 'do it yourself' guide created by Majors Stouffer and Tiedt is extremely self explanatory and has been my reference since it was developed," Lieutenant Cato said. "The program is currently up and running and by its fast-paced implementation, I expect to see more good things in the future that will inevitably become beneficial to both students and FAIPs."

"The T-1 low-level program accomplishes two things," said Col. Richard Klumpp Jr., 71st Flying Training Wing commander. "First, it makes it much quicker to produce a low-level chart, from 30 to 40 minutes down to less than five. This gives the students time back to study other issues. The other benefit is that it operationalizes the low-level training, incorporating threats into the mission planning. This gives the students a leg up at their follow-on training and helps instill a combat mindset early on.

"Changes like this are the intent of Air Force Smart Operations 21. We produced real-time savings, a modest cost savings and a significant quality improvement in the low-level product and the JSUPT students," the commander said. "They are going to Altus and showing graduates from other bases how to get the most out of the PFPS software."

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