exactly what the units need. Now we have
to adapt and change to the environment
of the new customer [squadrons] and
provide the same service.
‘You could say it’s in an experimentation
phase right now. You can design a syllabus
but you don’t really know if it’s successful
until a couple of years down the road.’
Macasek says that at that point you need
to re-evaluate and adjust as necessary.
‘We are trying to put out a trial syllabus in
the next year and we’ll send [the training
squadron] a class of students that have
gone through that new program.’
The USAF is keen to retain four pilot
training tracks, plus one WSO track, at IFF
stage. Macasek says expanding the variety
of these tracks is ‘di cult to manage’.
‘There is a lot of compatibility between
the di erent tracks with di erent sorties
for each phase of the program, so it’s easy
to schedule.’
A number of young ab initio Lieutenants
have already been selected for the F-35
and Air Education and Training Command
(AETC) is monitoring their performance asthey progress to the front line in order
to gauge how successful the current IFF
set-up is. ‘The squadron and the new
wingmen will provide us with feedback
as they progress through the [Basic]
B-Courses in the training squadrons.’T-X evolution
Macasek says the advent of the new T-X
aircraft will make it much easier to tailor
a speci c syllabus to the capabilities
of the student’s planned front line
platform. The new aircraft is planned to
‘download’ some of the tactical training
to a more cost-e ective level. ‘We’ve
fundamentally been training the same
way for a long time, so there’s a lot of
talk about a single aircraft track. That’s
how it used to be. New pilots ew the
T-37 [Tweet] then the T-38.’ He adds:
‘[You] add tactical capability at IFF stage
and just give them more problems to
solve such as di erent threat warnings,
a simulated radar, night- ying,
simulated aerial refueling. There’s a
lot of things that we can expand that31
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