National Power Academy

[flyguy06]

I am currently working on my Flight Instructor lisence. Eventually I want to be able to instruct at the National Power Academy. What it is like there?

I, being a military guy, envision a sort of comdesed version of the USAF's UPT. Where you have two students linked up with a CFI.

Is it at all military oriented or is just some students going out with a CFI like at an FBO? I am looking for a more military program.

[CFI_Ed]

It's normally planned for two students tied to the same IP for flying; one in front, and one in back.  Normal uniform is shorts and an encampment T-shirt due to heat.  There are only nine or so days for instruction so we do the best we can.  Not sure what you mean by a condensed UPT?  In regards to educational enviroment , psychological stress, or ...? 

Ed

[flyguy06]

No. no. nothing like that. I meant in its formality. Do have stand ups? Do they report to their IP's in a military fashoin? Or is it just "ok,lets go do our preflight" Just curious if its something I want to get involved with.

[flyguy06]

I wok with a non profit organization and Delta Airlines wher ethey sponsor a similar camp for two weks and take ten students. The goal is to solo them in 14 days. Lastyear, we soloed all ten. The year before i think they soloed nine if the ten

[NEBoom]

No. no. nothing like that. I meant in its formality. Do have stand ups? Do they report to their IP's in a military fashoin? Or is it just "ok,lets go do our preflight" Just curious if its something I want to get involved with.

Can't speak for the others, but the one held here in Nebraska is like the latter.  Informal all the way.

[DNall]

ours is as well, but it might be nice to add a little military to it. NBB is decent mix w/ wierd uniforms "for the heat" but they still have formations & a semblence of disciplined structure. That's an important part of flying.

[CFI_Ed]

No. no. nothing like that. I meant in its formality. Do have stand ups? Do they report to their IP's in a military fashoin? Or is it just "ok,lets go do our preflight" Just curious if its something I want to get involved with.

By chance, I was "asked" to be the Director for the Oklahoma Flight Encampment this year when the incumbent's (who was last year's Director) work and CAP's taskings increased.  I'll pass on the suggestion regarding the reporting in a military fashion to the IP to the staff (I like it).  Last year's Director thought that Powered Encampment strayed a bit away from military discipline and he wanted to change that for this year.

[DNall]

Well I tell ya, I think cadets would approeciate it a lot more. Especially if you tell them this is how it's done at UPT & they don't think it's about stroking the ego of the IP. If you're only doing 10-15-20 cadets I bet you can even get sizes from them in advance & get a flightsuit for each them from surplus. You may not want them flying in that four hours a day, but it's a nice bonus.

[Jolt]

I think I remember that the FAA had a limit on the amount of time a CFI could do flight training in one day (I don't particularly want to look it up, but I trust my source).  Is this ever a problem at NFA, sir?  I don't remember hearing anything about it at NFA-G last summer.

[CFI_Ed]

Well I tell ya, I think cadets would approeciate it a lot more. Especially if you tell them this is how it's done at UPT & they don't think it's about stroking the ego of the IP. If you're only doing 10-15-20 cadets I bet you can even get sizes from them in advance & get a flightsuit for each them from surplus. You may not want them flying in that four hours a day, but it's a nice bonus.

I'll ask about the flight suits.  It'll be way too hot to fly in those suckers though, but maybe as an incentive towards the goal of their private pilots license.

[CFI_Ed]

I think I remember that the FAA had a limit on the amount of time a CFI could do flight training in one day (I don't particularly want to look it up, but I trust my source).  Is this ever a problem at NFA, sir?  I don't remember hearing anything about it at NFA-G last summer.

As far as I know, the flight training limitation normally won't be a factor for NFA-P.  I'm more worried about the fatigue factor for IPs and students.  Flying in a 172 when the temperature on the ramp is 100+ degrees is not conducive to a effective flight training environment.  Flying a 1.0, doing a student seat swap, another 1.0; then debrief, get ready for the next lesson, fly  again; Lunch; do it again, then repeat one more time will wear out the students if not instructor by the third or fourth day.

[DNall]

Well I tell ya, I think cadets would approeciate it a lot more. Especially if you tell them this is how it's done at UPT & they don't think it's about stroking the ego of the IP. If you're only doing 10-15-20 cadets I bet you can even get sizes from them in advance & get a flightsuit for each them from surplus. You may not want them flying in that four hours a day, but it's a nice bonus.

I'll ask about the flight suits.  It'll be way too hot to fly in those suckers though, but maybe as an incentive towards the goal of their private pilots license.

Sure. We fly grids in Texas summer wearing them, and that blows, but it's safety gear. The kids would love them & they'd be great as UOD for the final banquet & wing pinning. Those kids aren't there to learn how to fly cessnas as a hobby. They're there for a stepping stone to a dream. You can reinforce that & create a lot of energy they'll carry back into their programs.

[Jolt]

It would be great, but the patches have to be individually printed (and it's human nature to sometimes make mistakes and spell things wrong and that's a pain), and someone has to do the Velcro/sewing.  I think that one thing a lot of the cadets like is being able to go for the week and not have to do the military things that they usually have to do all of the time.  We enjoyed being able to call each other by our first names and we liked just being a group of people with similar interests and not having to be cadets that were all business all of the time.  That's just what I observed though.

Otherwise I think flight suits are an awesome idea, sir.  They would probably work like berets work for NBB, except flight suits actually have a purpose and they're not just to show off.  Maybe one NFA-P (out of the three?) could test out if the cadets like the way the activity is run if it's modeled after UPT.  I agree.  Find a cadet or composite squadron out there that doesn't have at least one cadet that wants to be an AF pilot and I would be surprised.

Since it's too hot to fly with the suits on during the day, would it be possible for the cadets to wear them during the morning or late afternoon when it's usually a bit cooler?

[DNall]

I wasn't thinking of providing patches (which are mostly pre-velcro'd), & was refering to metal wings to pin at the end as appropriate.

Cadets get tired of wearing blues/BDUs after a while & hate the same boring stuff they do every night at Sq, which is not very military in the first place. Wearing a flt suit though, as well as some formatting from UPT, would go over quite well. Just a touch of formaility & structure to keep it efficient & keyed in. Some situational awareness & attention to detail activities, some opening/closing, reporting in & out, IPs getting together at teh end of the night to report he progress & issues for each student (that's real helpful). This is UPT we're talking about, not honor guard, it's not that military, but a little top gun element to push that morale into productive energy when they get back & show them the meaning behind some of the things that have to learn locally, that's all good stuff.

Far as needing to wear it. You should brief it as safety gear that should be worn during high risk flying but is hot & you need to be cautious of heat/hydration anyway. I wouldn't actually give it to them till the end though. Have it on their bunks at the end of the last day to change into prior to combat dining-in type even where you can pin wings as needed & hand out certificates & such.

[Pace]

I think NFA is exactly where it needs to be on the discipline scale.  If cadets want a UPT environment, then they need to go to SUPTFC.  Remember that one of the purposes of SUPT is to weed out the ones that can't keep up with the knowledge and stress/structure.  NFA is designed to teach cadets to fly by the most efficient means possible.  Adding stress isn't necessarily efficient.  The relaxed atmosphere between cadets and the IPs was what made the activity and learning so enjoyable and efficient.  Having gone to both SUPTFC (when it was AETCFC) and NFA-P (OK), I doubt as many cadets would have solo'ed at NFA had it been structured even remotely like SUPTFC.

However, I do like the flight suit suggestion, but that's probably because I hated wearing khaki shorts with a bright yellow t-shirt everyday.  I just wish I knew if I was going to have my CFI before summer so I could apply to one of the NFAs.  There's always next year...

[DNall]

I think NFA is exactly where it needs to be on the discipline scale.  If cadets want a UPT environment, then they need to go to SUPTFC.  Remember that one of the purposes of SUPT is to weed out the ones that can't keep up with the knowledge and stress/structure.  NFA is designed to teach cadets to fly by the most efficient means possible.  Adding stress isn't necessarily efficient.  The relaxed atmosphere between cadets and the IPs was what made the activity and learning so enjoyable and efficient.  Having gone to both SUPTFC (when it was AETCFC) and NFA-P (OK), I doubt as many cadets would have solo'ed at NFA had it been structured even remotely like SUPTFC.

However, I do like the flight suit suggestion, but that's probably because I hated wearing khaki shorts with a bright yellow t-shirt everyday.  I just wish I knew if I was going to have my CFI before summer so I could apply to one of the NFAs.  There's always next year...

I said NOTHING of adding stress. Cadets are not stressed by workign in amilitary environment, not in the slightest. Discipline is of key importance in flying, but I hardly mean you need to march anywhere or anything of the sort. The things I'm talkinga bot are highly supportive of the training environment you're wanting to create.

Here's the other thing though, I don't send cadets up there to work their way toward a pilots license for its own sake. It's a reward for hard work locally, it's a place where they are supposed to see practical execution of things that seemed silly when taught as basics at the Sq so when they come back they can tell a cadet that if they can't remember their right form their left while marching then is't going to be a bit of a problem when the controller tells you to turn & you got 10k other things going on at once. Discipline & attention to detail in a busy working envirnment, that's what flying is. Then when they get back with that set of wings everyone else wants they have tobe an example of what I want everyone else to turn into before they can reach this stepping stone, cause the dream beyond it requires what they learn with me. This activity exists to reinforce the development track they're on to turn them into something other than a pilot. Just saying for perspective.

[Pace]

I said NOTHING of adding stress. Cadets are not stressed by workign in amilitary environment, not in the slightest.

Create an extremely disciplined SUPT environment and that will be exactly what you're doing.  Many cadets will be able to keep up, but some will not; and for $800 there's no reason to add more discipline when the current level is sufficient.  The relaxed environment allows students to more closely interact with (and learn from) their CFIs and AGI.

I think this is yet another case of arguing over an idea someone threw out that'll never see the light of day since many of the CFIs I've encountered aren't former military IPs.

Discipline & attention to detail in a busy working envirnment, that's what flying is.

You're preaching to the choir.  I never said NFA shouldn't be disciplined, I said it shouldn't be as disciplined as SUPT.

This activity exists to reinforce the development track they're on to turn them into something other than a pilot. Just saying for perspective.

It does?  I never got that feeling while I was there.  I always thought it was to progress a cadet from scratch to solo in a short timeframe to jump-start them towards a future as either a pilot (civilian or military) or some career field in the aerospace industry.  By all means they should be using the skills they've learned as a cadet to apply to their training, but the activity itself is strictly about training cadets to be pilots.

[flyguy06]

I envision cadets reporting as a class in the early morning to attned stand ups. If you dont know what a stand up is , its when in class, the instructor asks a question such as "whaqts he engine out procedure". This are checklist items that must be meorized. You cant looki them up in th ePOH. Not enough time. So anyway, the student has to stand up at hi/her seat and recite the checklist. In the USAF if they get it wrong, they dont fly that day. I am not sugesting that for NFA but you could give the cadet an incentive for trying to get the answer right such as let him be the first to fly that day.

Another type of stand up question is procedures inthe traffic pattern (power setings, airspeed GUMP check and so forth) Make it fun and educational.

I wasnt thinking of flight suits due the heat. I was thinking more of BDUs., and nce they solo reward them with flightsuits (afterall, flightsuits are for aviators and until they have soloed technically they are not aviators)

I envision cadets waliking up to their IP, saluting and reporting ready to fly sir.

[DNall]

I said NOTHING of adding stress. Cadets are not stressed by workign in amilitary environment, not in the slightest.

Create an extremely disciplined SUPT environment and that will be exactly what you're doing.  Many cadets will be able to keep up, but some will not; and for $800 there's no reason to add more discipline when the current level is sufficient.  The relaxed environment allows students to more closely interact with (and learn from) their CFIs and AGI.

I think this is yet another case of arguing over an idea someone threw out that'll never see the light of day since many of the CFIs I've encountered aren't former military IPs.

I ddn't say extremely disciplined. I didn't even say AS disciplined as what's expected of them every other day of their CAP career. By no means would I want to create a weeding out process, which is by the way not what occurs at primary now. The couple items suggested are far less than what they do every single meeting night, and are designed to reinforce the learning environment.

Opening/closing formation? I think that already happens in a briefing room. Some GLPs to reinforce things like situational awareness & attention to detail... reporting in & out to the IP, which formalizes the times in which they are under the command of that IP versus the school commander... and the IPs getting together at the end of the day to discuss the progress of their students & maybe get advice form another instructor or at least let them know how thigns are going. None of that is remotely challenging for any cadet, and remember these cadets will have been in CAP for a while. They'll be inpired by something that makes it seem a little like military flight training, even if it isn't.

Discipline & attention to detail in a busy working envirnment, that's what flying is.

You're preaching to the choir.  I never said NFA shouldn't be disciplined, I said it shouldn't be as disciplined as SUPT.

Glad we're in agreement then.

This activity exists to reinforce the development track they're on to turn them into something other than a pilot. Just saying for perspective.

It does?  I never got that feeling while I was there.  I always thought it was to progress a cadet from scratch to solo in a short timeframe to jump-start them towards a future as either a pilot (civilian or military) or some career field in the aerospace industry.  By all means they should be using the skills they've learned as a cadet to apply to their training, but the activity itself is strictly about training cadets to be pilots.

I understand at the tactical level cadets get a jumpstart toward a pilot's license, and I'd love to expand that a good bit further.

Strategically though, the reason that we do this training is to improve the people going thru the training & the people they touch because of it, not the technical skill they learn while there. Kids don't understand why they learn drill or why they have to wear their uniform right. I mean if their nametape is sewn on wrong, that isn't going to stop them from finding a crashed plane right? But the attention to detail learned thru simple & sometimes meaningless tasks translates to attention to detail being second nature on not so simple tasks when people's lives & safety depend on it. I think above most anything else we could do with these folks that demonstrating the tie in between those skills learned in previous military training & the flight training they are going thru is huge. that makes them better cadets & better people who then come back & reinforce those points to junior cadets who are still trying to figure out why anyone cares if their uniform looks right or not.

I think if you can do a couple little things here & there to connect those dots for them while experinecing this stepping stone of flight training that you can do a great service to the cadet program & to the individuals lucky enough to attend one of these activities.

[Pace]

I envision cadets reporting as a class in the early morning to attned stand ups. If you dont know what a stand up is , its when in class, the instructor asks a question such as "whaqts he engine out procedure". This are checklist items that must be meorized. You cant looki them up in th ePOH. Not enough time. So anyway, the student has to stand up at hi/her seat and recite the checklist. In the USAF if they get it wrong, they dont fly that day. I am not sugesting that for NFA but you could give the cadet an incentive for trying to get the answer right such as let him be the first to fly that day.

Another type of stand up question is procedures inthe traffic pattern (power setings, airspeed GUMP check and so forth) Make it fun and educational.

I envision cadets waliking up to their IP, saluting and reporting ready to fly sir.

This is what I'm talking about when I say don't make it more disciplined.  Again, if cadets want to experience SUPT, they need to go to SUPTFC.

I ddn't say extremely disciplined. I didn't even say AS disciplined as what's expected of them every other day of their CAP career. By no means would I want to create a weeding out process, which is by the way not what occurs at primary now. The couple items suggested are far less than what they do every single meeting night, and are designed to reinforce the learning environment.

Opening/closing formation? I think that already happens in a briefing room. Some GLPs to reinforce things like situational awareness & attention to detail... reporting in & out to the IP, which formalizes the times in which they are under the command of that IP versus the school commander... and the IPs getting together at the end of the day to discuss the progress of their students & maybe get advice form another instructor or at least let them know how thigns are going. None of that is remotely challenging for any cadet, and remember these cadets will have been in CAP for a while. They'll be inpired by something that makes it seem a little like military flight training, even if it isn't.

I'm 99.9% sure we're on the same page.  That kind of discipline is characteristic of the one I went to and others that I've heard about.  I see nothing wrong with that, but it's a far cry from a SUPT environment.  I just caught what you said about making it more military disciplined in response to a suggestion for SUPT style training and wanted to jump in with my two cents.

Strategically though, the reason that we do this training is to improve the people going thru the training & the people they touch because of it, not the technical skill they learn while there. Kids don't understand why they learn drill or why they have to wear their uniform right. I mean if their nametape is sewn on wrong, that isn't going to stop them from finding a crashed plane right? But the attention to detail learned thru simple & sometimes meaningless tasks translates to attention to detail being second nature on not so simple tasks when people's lives & safety depend on it. I think above most anything else we could do with these folks that demonstrating the tie in between those skills learned in previous military training & the flight training they are going thru is huge. that makes them better cadets & better people who then come back & reinforce those points to junior cadets who are still trying to figure out why anyone cares if their uniform looks right or not.

I think if you can do a couple little things here & there to connect those dots for them while experinecing this stepping stone of flight training that you can do a great service to the cadet program & to the individuals lucky enough to attend one of these activities.

That's corollary to all training that cadets receive, but the NFA program in a vacuum is one dedicated to giving cadets a leap forward in their endeavour to becoming pilots.