Warbird Information Exchange

McPeak doesn't want a plane his Dentist would fly...........so how come the screening project now flys Diamonds? Didn't know jaw breakers were excluded from buying them.

In 2003/ 04 Emery Riddle came in to the academy with Katanas and there was no problem. They choose to part company with USAFA in 06 (I think) and for a spell there was no powered flight program at USAFA. In the mean time the USAF awarded Doss Aviation a huge contract to do the general USAF screening at a 5 star facility located in Pubelo Co, they are flying Katanas there.

About a year ago Doss and a partner company was awarded the screening contract at USAFA known as the "powered flight program" and there they fly DA 40s. That's the current state of the screening program for the USAF and the USAFA.

_________________
"If its red or dusty - DON'T TOUCH IT!

Because McPeak is now decades past 'out of office'.

The reality is, the jumbled mess of flight screening programs (and lack of them) between 1998 and when the current Pueblo IFS started really made the USAF re-evaluate what it was doing.

Since the T-3s were grounded and EFS was halted, we've been though more or less four variations of pre-SUPT training:

1. No screening at all. For a couple of years, students were sent to SUPT with zero screening program.

2. Introductory Flight Training (IFT): After seeing what having *no* flight screening was doing to UPT washout rates, the AF decided they needed SOMETHING, so they sent students to FBOs to get their Private ticket.

3. Introductory Flight Screening (IFS): The AF decided it wasn't worth the cost of making students get their private, so they reduced the required number of hours, and dropped the PPL ticket from the program.

4. IFS with Embry Riddle: Late in the "FBO IFS" plan, the AF contracted with Riddle to do the Katana training at USAFA.

5. IFS at Pueblo: 5 years of flight screening taking place at FBOs made the USAF realize that there was more to flight screening than simply checking a student's ability to adapt to flying a light airplane. The second, and equally as important, element that the FBO programs did not screen for was adaptability to the AF training environment and methodology. There was just no way to do that with civilian CFIs teaching at FBOs across the country. The only way to have a "mini UPT" as a screening program was to have a single, controlled environment that was administered directly by the USAF....and that's where we are right now. Right back where we were 10 years ago, and just as it should have been the whole time.

Regardless of what you think of McPeak, his original concept for a new flight screener wasn't that bad or necessarily incorrect. Although the T-41 was a good, solid screener, there were pretty high UPT washout rates in the late 80s. There was a belief that adding aerobatic flying to Flight Screening might help this out. Remember, this idea was hatched before there was a tracked SUPT program and all graduates trained in the T-37 and T-38. There was a full aerobatic and formation flying syllabus for all graduates, regardless of airframe. There was data that showed a good number of washouts being unable to adapt to that higher performance flying environment.

If you are really interested, there are two very thorough histories of USAF flight screening available on the internet if you use your Google-fu well.

I don't have links, but I have the studies saved on my HDD if anyone is really interested in them.

It bothers me more that they went the PMC route for it. Why can't the AF just buy it's own trainers, why do we have to rely on PMC's so much?