straight on to Hornet OPCON.
“That was a little bit of a different
path for me. Not many people get to
do that, it was pretty eye-opening for
me, just seeing how the ADF fits into
the whole world military machine.
That was my first exposure to that.”
Today, when not working up
or performing his Hornet display,
Traylz’s ‘day job’ is as an operational
flying instructor at Williamtown-based
2OCU, where he is currently finishing
the instruction on his first group of
students.
The Gig
Traylz didn’t apply for the job as
different weather conditions and cross
winds, and emergency procedures.
After learning the routine in the
sim, the next step was to get in the
real jet to refamiliarise with the
edge of the envelope handling of the
Hornet, including high power output
handling, low speed, high speed, roll
rates, and high angle of attack (alpha)
performance.
“So, you go out and do that by
yourself first. And then, the next ride
is with the instructor in a (F/A-18B)
‘tub’ where I took Wardy in the back
seat. He was monitoring my display
sequence, giving instruction as I’m
going through the routine, and giving
feedback after the flight,” Traylz
explained.
“We’re not doing it down at low
level to start with. We started off using
a base altitude of 5,000ft to allow for
any errors in the display sequence.
It’s all under strict guidelines, and
then as the flights progress, you step it
down by 1,000ft at a time until you’re
doing it at 1,000ft above the ground,
where you do another check ride.
Then you go out and you do it to the
base altitude so all the way down to
the minimum altitude for the display
at 200ft.”
The step-down work-up took
about six weeks, after which Traylzdisplay pilot, but was both surprised
and honoured to be offered the role in
late 2016.
“I was standing around with the
boys at a barbecue and the CO of
77SQN came up to me and literally
said, ‘Uh, by the way, congratulations’.
I was like, ‘What?’, and he said, ‘You’re
taking over from Bung starting next
year’,” Traylz recalled.
“He had put in an application for
me and it got offered to me. Not many
people in their right mind would
say no. It was offered to me and I
absolutely wanted to do it.”
Long before he flew his first display,
Traylz was linked up with two former
Hornet display pilots, SQNLDR Aaron
‘Wardy’ Ward and SQNLDR Phil
Eldridge, who mentored him through
the work-up.
“It was about a six-week course for
the display work-up, which involved a
lot of reading. There’s a lot of standing
instructions to get your head around,
a lot of new numbers, emergency
numbers, relearning the flight manual
etc before you even get into the
simulator. We did probably about five
simulator rides where I got checked
out with Wardy who mentored me
through that.”
The simulator work-up also
included performing the routine inTraylz started flying the F/A-18
Hornet in 2010, and today is an
operational flying instructor
(OFI) at 2OCU.MARK JESSOPA new display pilot will work up
the routine in a simulator and
then fly it at higher altitudes
before flying the first live
display.MARK JESSOPDisplay pilot