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Well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted about flight school, and flight school posts are my most-requested, so I figure it’s about time for an update.
Since I last blogged about flight school, I finished the flight phase of NIFE, completed Primary in the T-6, and Advanced in the TH-57. It’s been a long 2.5 years, but I made it to the end, earned my wings of gold, walked across the stage, and started my new beginning as a Coast Guard helicopter pilot.
I put my blog on pause for a while because I was afraid of failure and having my priorities questioned. I also didn’t want to write about something until I finished it and could speak from the perspective of someone who’d made it to the other side. Now that I have, I’m excited to share some of the behind-the-scenes.
If you haven’t read the first few flight school posts, you can find them here:
The last few weeks of NIFE (Naval Introductory Flight Evaluation) consist of flying a Cessna 172. For 7 flights total, you learn basic flight maneuvers such including takeoffs, landings, touch-and-goes, turn patterns, stalls, and how to respond to emergencies.
You start with a week of ground school learning about the Cessna. This comes right after flight suit Friday when you feel like you’ve made it. They give you a stack of books (or electronic pubs) and it’s back to the grind. You’ll have a military instructor for this week, but the rest of the flight phase of NIFE is contracted to civilian flight instructors.
The “alligator closest to the boat” at this point is memorizing the emergency procedures (EP’s) and limits. It’s overwhelming at first, but there is a tried and true process, and you just have to put the reps in. The EP’s and Limits sheet for the Cessna is one page front and back. Take a blank copy, laminate it or put it in a page protector and use a dry erase marker to copy it. Erase your work and do it again. When you start to feel yourself gaining muscle memory, take away the answer key and try from memory. Check yourself and go again. It’s a tedious process, but it’s the best way to do it. This isn’t just an exercise to test your ability to memorize things quickly, it’s knowledge that could save your life on a bad day. Knowing it “cold” ensures that you’ll be able to recall the information in the air. When you fly, a large percentage of your brain is dedicated to the coordination required to control the aircraft in 3 dimensions, so only part of your brain power is available for recalling information and making decisions. This is the start of learning like a pilot.
Advanced learning trick I didn’t start until Primary: Toss a ball while you walk around and recite the EP’s and Limits. You might look like a crazy person, but it will help train your brain to employ your motor skills while recalling information.
After you get through the EP’s and Limits test at the end of that week, it’s on to the cockpit trainer (CPT). It’s basically an old-school simulator with no screens or buttons but you can sit in it and gain muscle memory. Here, you’ll practice checklists. The checklists you’ll be working with include start up and shut down procedures and some radio calls. The more you practice before the first flight, the more prepared you’ll be to impress your instructor and the smoother your NIFE flights will go.
Your first flight will be with your on-wing. Your on-wing should fly the first four flights with you, then you’ll have two “off-wing flights” with another instructor to give you another perspective and teaching style and ensure no gaps in training. These will be civilian flight instructors, ranging from 20-year-old CFI’s (certified flight instructors) to retired military pilots. The seventh flight is a check-ride with a military instructor to check your progress and for training standardization.
They aren’t looking for you to be a perfect pilot at this stage. They realize you most likely have less than 10 hours of experience flying an aircraft. What they are looking for is 1) that you don’t have a fear reaction or severe airsickness* and 2) that you can handle the pressure of the program.
*Some airsickness can be fixed with exposure or reduced with ginger and minor dietary changes. If it’s a problem that can be solved, they’ll work with you.
Of course, the grade sheet doesn’t explicitly say that. You’re graded on your ability to do the flight maneuvers and land safely, but they give you multiple opportunities as long as they can tell that you’ve been putting in the time to studying on the ground. I had some rough landings on the day of my check ride, but they let me use the entire allowable flight time to get more practice and get to the point of passing.
What a Day Looks Like
Each evening, you’ll receive a schedule for the next day. You’ll search for your name and see what time you’re scheduled. It can be anything from 6:00 AM to 12:30 PM. Each time block is 5 hours to include time for you and your flight partner (another student) to brief, each of your flights, and debrief time. Plan to be there about 30 minutes ahead of your brief time to get settled and prepare your brief. There is always information that you have to gather last-minute like weather updates and notices to airmen (NOTAMS). You’ll brief with another student and then decide with the instructor who is going to fly first. You’ll pre-flight the aircraft together. One student will be up front with the instructor and the student flying second will sit in the back. The first student will fly the “high work” and then go to an outlying field to practice touch-and-goes (landings and takeoffs). Once they finish their time, you’ll land, take a short break, then switch. The second student will do the low work first and then the high work. It’s good to switch up the order to get practice at the radio calls both outbound and inbound. After the flight, you’ll debrief with the instructor and get your grade card. If there is a reportable safety concern, you’ll be asked to take a survey to report it to the military side.
Tips for Success
- Chair fly – This will always be advice for pilots in training and throughout their careers. Like a musician has to practice at home, so do pilots. In the military, we call some of our checklists, “the Hollywood script” because when you have it down, it sounds like reciting movie lines. You have a physical checklist to reference, but you have to be able to translate the words into actions, read between the lines, and you are expected to flow through it smoothly. Same thing in the air – you need to know the steps for each maneuver without hesitation.
- Work with people but don’t rely on them – It’s important to study, chair fly, and practice with other students so you can see where you have gaps. The flight training environment is different from most other traditional learning in that it’s mostly one on one or two on one with the instructor. You don’t have a whole class to compare yourself to, so it’s easy to lose track of if you’re on track, ahead, or behind. The feedback you get from the instructor is a grade sheet that evaluates you against a standard, not against your classmates. However, assignments at the end of flight school are given by who had the best grades. I’m not saying to be competitive with your counterparts, I’m saying that you don’t want to be studying on your own and thinking you’re doing great when everyone else is sharing knowledge and performing better. When you study in groups, you have accountability to time, effort, and accuracy that you simply don’t have when you study alone. On the other hand, this is not the type of group studying where you can divide and conquer. If you study with the student you’re briefing with and decide to split the discuss items in half to prepare, you’re doing yourself a disservice. You might get away with it that day, but those topics and questions repeat themselves on checkrides and throughout flight school. There were also times where my flight partner got sick or had a family emergency last minute and they didn’t show up to the brief.
- Remember what the objective is – The thing about NIFE is that it was implemented to weed out people that can’t cut it in the military flight training environment before the government invests crazy amounts of money in training them. The Cessna costs a lot less per flight hour than the T-6 used for Primary flight training. There is a lot of pressure to perform perfectly because 1) most people who make it to this point are Type-A overachievers who put a lot of pressure on ourselves and 2) every event is graded. Try to give yourself some grace and remember that you are at the very beginning and bound to make mistakes as you learn.
Next Up
After the flight phase of NIFE, you’ll do a week of Physio. This week consists of classroom learning about physiological challenges pilots face such as hypoxia and G-forces, parachute training, and the dunker.
At the end of the week, you’ll start paperwork for processing out of NAS Pensacola and have your graduation from NASC (Naval Aviation Schools Command). Primary flight training for the Navy and Marine Corps takes place in Milton, FL or Corpus Christi, TX and for the Coast Guard at either Milton, FL or Fort Worth, TX. If you head to Milton, you’ll be able to check in the week after. If you head to Texas, they’ll give you time to move. Stay tuned to learn more about Primary and Advanced.
Learn More
- www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2944668/nife-lays-foundation-for-naval-aviation-training/
- https://www.cnatra.navy.mil/tw4/flight-school.asp
- https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/News-Stories/Article/2410597/new-naval-introductory-flight-evaluation-program-provides-modern-foundation-for/
- https://www.dvidshub.net/news/382581/new-naval-introductory-flight-evaluation-program-provides-modern-foundation-flight-training
- https://www.skywarriorinc.com/navy-ifs
Cheers!
Sarah
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