beardy wrote:
I don't subscribe to the theory that a basic trainer has to be challenging to weed out the incompetents. The syllabus and goals have to be challenging.
Now sit down and prepare for a shock,
beardy, but I agree entirely!
Teaching stick and rudder skills on Tigers or Chipmunks isn't all that relevant in today's RAF. It was when the Service flew things such as Hastings and Shacklebombers, perhaps. The JP was very strong, very as tough as old boot. Viceless and a great all round training aircraft. One thing I found pointless was the introduction of 300KIAS low level navigation trips, thanks to the pointy-jet heads at CFS. The aircraft bounced around like a pea on a drum, control loads were heavy, it drank fuel - but worst of all the standard technique for correcting time errors was almost impossible to achieve. At every turning point the speed washed up unless you went to full power in the turn and held it until you'd regained 300KIAS - this often meant exceeding max continuous and caned the engine.
The Lightning / Buccaneer / Phantom / Jaguar / Harrier era required Advanced Training on a complex, tricky aeroplane, so we spent much of the time making sure it didn't kill us with constant STUPRECC drills etc. Whereas once the Service moved to aeroplanes that had been designed to fly without difficulty, the Hawk was much easier to fly but the applied flying training became more relevant and demanding.
Solo GH consolidation in the JP over 8/8 cloud, with no navaids apart from Rebecca / Eureka and UDF was character forming even if the aeroplane was easy to fly.
Tucano inverted spinning? Why? No other front line aircraft was cleared for such a manoeuvre - if centralising didn't work then it was time for an M-B let down.