Primary Flight Training

Upon completion of Aeromed, the next stop for flight students is Primary, the first actual flying of IERW. After months of basic officer and preparatory courses, the flight training truly begins. The first few weeks of Primary are some of the busiest and most overwhelming of flight school. Instructors often talk about drinking out of a fire hose; they say that for a reason. The schedule involves either morning class followed by afternoon flightline or morning flightline followed by afternoon academics. Academics begin with  systems classes which start a few days before the first day at the flightline. This allows students to gain a basic knowledge of the TH-67 before they begin to fly. Once both academics and flightline are in full swing, things start coming hot and heavy. With morning flightline the day will begin with a bus ride to the airfield at 0500 and academics will end somewhere between 1400 and 1600. Afternoon flightline starts with academics at 0730 in the morning and ends around 1730. Evenings will be filled with lots of studying. A word of wisdom to the wise, get a 5&9 study guide as early as you can and start memorizing. Students must know all limitations from chapter 5 and all underlined steps from chapter 9 verbatim. The rest of the information in chapters 5, 8, and 9 does not need to be verbatim but the basic concepts need to be nearly memorized as well. Students who wait till they being flying to try to learn all of this will be swamped. By having it all memorized ahead of time, Primary will be much less hectic and a lot more fun. There are two checkrides during Primary, P1 and P2. The P1 is just to make sure students are progressing as they should. Some weak students get set back a class for more time, a very few get eliminated if they just can not fly. The P2 checkride is much more intense and is likely to be the hardest checkride of IERW. Upon completion of the P2, students move on to Instruments.

Aeromed

The first true portion of flight school is Aeromed. In the past, this was the most failed course in the entire training sequence of flight school; however, the program has been modified and, with the changes, all of the flight students in my section passed without too much difficulty. The course is only a few days long so, if possible, get the materials a couple days before you begin the course so you can become familiar with it. The way Aeromed is currently taught is interesting. The classes aren’t so much teaching as they are an extended quiz session. Over the course of the day, each student will be called on to answer a question concerning the material assigned the previous night. As a result, the course is essentially self taught with the instructors there to ensure the students have covered all the assigned material and to fill in any knowledge gaps. Two study aids that proved helpful were Quizlet and Study Blue. Quizlet has a number of readymade sets of flashcards for Aeromed. Even if you are not give the course materials prior to your class, learning the answers to these flashcards will give you an excellent head start. I had a slight preference for Study Blue. It does not have pre-made flash cards but, rather, allows the student to make the exact cards they want. It also offers an app that allows the cards to be used on a smart phone.They both have their pros and cons; try them and see which works better for you. The course goes by quick so study hard and do well.

Bubbles

Bubbles, those dreaded down times between portions of flight school! While there are still some bubbles, many have been reduced and nearly eliminated. Students used to take 18 to 24 months to complete their training and might wait in bubbles for months between portions of training. Now, nearly all flight students are done in less than 18 months with many being done in just over a year. The longest bubbles at this time are about a month in length. So, what should students expect during a bubble? The Army tries to make use of their soldiers and students can expect some taskings. Most are sent to either Funeral Detail or the SERE Detail. A majority of the Funeral Detail is taken care of by the warrants who gained prior experience between WOCS and BOLC. That leaves a lot of the LTs for the SERE Detail. Students who are assigned to Funeral Detail will spend a couple hours a day practicing (after their initial couple days of learning what to do) and will go anywhere within a three or four state region around Alabama to provide honors at funerals as they are needed. There is usually lots of time off but funerals kind of have a way of being unplanned. The SERE Detail students will have a set schedule, but it will be all hours of the day; SERE does run 24/7 after all. For both details, there is time off, however, getting a pass can be a nightmare as it has to be approved by the detail and by B Co. Pass or no pass, there is plenty of free time to study or make up some time with the family you’ve hardly seen during the blocks of training.

Army Aviation Via ROTC

There are a number of paths into Army Aviation. Because of life goals, the path I chose was the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps. The ROTC  program is designed to train college students to commission as officers in the United States Army following graduation. Participation in the program adds an additional time obligation of 5-10 hours a week throughout the school year. Following graduation, cadets are commissioned and serve at least four years of time on Active Duty , or in the Army Reserves or National Guard. Cadets branching into Aviation have a six year obligation due to the extra time involved in flight school. While it is easier to branch Aviation in the Guard or Reserves I chose Active Duty in order to avoid juggling a civilian job and military duties. I began my Army career in Fall 2007 at Maranatha, a small school with a satellite ROTC program out of UW-Madison.