Combat aircraft

‘Then comes an hour-long check ride,

consisting of simulated emergencies and

maneuvers including the ‘squirrel cage’,

which consists of a loop, a half-Cuban,

an Immelmann and a split-S, before

more landings. This quali es them for

solo  ight.’

‘The following 22 multi-aircraft  ights

then provide the requisite skills in two-

ship, four-ship and night formation  ying.

Items covered here will be the human

factors of what it’s like to  y close to

another jet [such as depth perception

and closure rates], the breaking and

joining procedures, a section approach,

section take-o s and touch-and-go

rejoins, for example, as well as night

carrier landing patterns. Again, it’s all

about building muscle memory at

this stage. We want surprises to be at

a minimum.’

Fighting and bouncing

Having got to grips with the basics of

how to  y the T-45, the second major

phase of the course sees students

learning the key elements of combat in

a jet aircraft. ‘We’re now going to teach

them how to  ght with it and give them

the baseline fundamentals of tactics

that can be built upon at the  eet,’ says

Kellgren. Importantly, phase two includes

Disciplined rules of flying

Once they’ve had that ‘good start’,

students are expected to re ne and

expand their skills, as Kellgren explains.

‘They then try to incorporate ‘ball’

control and generally keeping it on the

[Fresnel] lens until touchdown. Later on

they’ll get full brie ngs from a landing

signals o cer [LSO] on how to  y ‘the

ball’ e ectively using those tried and

tested methods. They can be a little

high, but they should never go low. If

they are low, we will verbally identify

the deviation, but they have to learn

this by themselves. If there’s a safety of

 ight situation then of course an IP will

intervene — we can tell just by the seat

of our pants whether they’ve engaged

too much power or not enough, but

the student hasn’t got those senses yet.

Right now they just have to memorize

numbers and raw mechanics and

these can be reinforced by their own

experience down the line. It’s like driving

a car. I ask my students a question like,

‘how many feet do you start applying

your brakes before you hit a red light?’

They’ll answer something along the

lines of, ‘I have no idea, I just know — I

apply the pressure as it stops.’ That’s a

way in which we’re going to teach them

to  y. It comes with experience. It’s

about iteration after iteration in order to

build an intuition later on.’

‘One of the toughest

regimes we instill is the

application of full power

on landing. If you cut the

power to idle once you’ve

caught the wire, you’re

immediately disquali ed’

LT ADRIAN KELLGREN

Above right:

‘Fighting

sticks’ and

diagrams

help teach

the basics of

air combat.

Rich Cooper

Below:

Phase

two’s strike

element sees

the T-45s

regularly

detaching to

NAF El Centro

to make use

of the great

weather and

ranges.

Scott Dworkin

UNIT REPORT | TRAINING AIR WING ONE

http://www.combataircraft.net January 2018

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