US Army crap

I could easily give you dozens of questions that are asked on every type rating ride that are senseless to memorize and later in life become "memorized numbers soup". It's just the way it is everywhere, not just the Army or the other military services.

BTW, for number two, the answer is for planning purposes to include tactical instrument flight.

Okay, I was guilty. I realized one day how stupid it was. I mean pilots were worried enough without some cranky IP in the other seat asking them aerodynamic principles of a fully laden African swallow. Or the ohms put out by the DEC (actual question I got on a check ride). Or the oil pressure of the oil in the tail rotor gear box in the OH-58D (question my wife got- no indicator nor any reference in the -10). Let's see... green lights good, yellow not so good, red bad. Let's worry about real world flying and not balling things up. At least they don't ask the 17 step emergency procedure for a transmission problem.

I don't even think most people realize that we have an ADF in the Hornet, let alone its useful range. Came in handy when I was flying jets without link 16/MIDS and lead and I split up and had to rejoin later. I had one IP look at me like I had a third arm growing out of my head when I told him I grabbed a long count off him and pointed my nose towards it for a quick join up. I can't think of anything else worth knowing about something like that, if I can't do something with it in the cockpit.

When I was in Korea I think the ADF was all some of the Air Force aircraft had for IFR navigation (Mike can confirm this). Unless, of course, you include doppler.

A guy I know used to fly Apaches and he said all they had was an ADF. I don't know if he was pulling my leg or what, but I found that hard to believe.

Dude I'm in UPT. I don't even want to be reading this thread right now.

God that's stupid. That's "nice to know" information, but essentially worthless in the airplane. I know some of the useless things to know, pride myself on trying to keep up on that sort of thing - in reality, its pointless. Some of the stuff asked about the 1900 in ground I was happy I knew "what's does the hydraulic system pressurize up to?" - "2775" I regurgitate. Frankly, the gear either come down, or they have to be pumped down, or they don't come down. Knowing things like that, or the amount of heat it takes to activate the fire light are irrelevant. If the fire light comes on, I look out the window and if I'm on fire I shut it down. If I'm not on fire...well, then I have a choice to make. Sometimes this stuff gets over complicated.

Some did not even have that. I think that was initially just the ones they used for instrument training. My wife flew the OH-58D and I don't think it had an NDB. I think they made up some AHRS approaches for it at each installation, otherwise the IMC recovery was to try and get an ASR/PAR.

Wow, those are worthless questions. But they're going to make me look really smart tomorrow at work.

I like the oil pressure in the tail rotor gear box question... as you probably remember the -60 has a splash-type oil system in the t/r gearbox and doesn't have an oil pressure, really. It's a fun trick question.

Green lights good, except that oddity in a -60 and it's transmission oil pressure. Has to remain steady in the 45-55 range (45-60 for Limas) or a write up is required but 30-65 is in the green. And a sudden drop of 10 psi or more requires a write up - how often am I supposed to be looking at the dang transmission oil pressure!?

I always thought these trick and gotchya questions (thanks Sarah Palin!) were bizarre when most guys couldn't even pass a 5 and 9 test unless they're in their APART window.

Check this...we are required to know by heart our immediate action checklist for training every year. It contains both memory and non memory items. So let me get this straight...when the crap hits the fan what is the likelihood that I will confuse a memory item with a non memory item and start flicking switches when I'm not supposed to? Totally uncalled for. Why is it people love measuring certain body parts....

The exceptions are those that pilots should have to memorize- that way there is a greater chance they will actually remember those things that are important.

This reminds me of what it was like 20 years ago when I was a 727 F/E. What's nice (and surprising) is how much they have dumbed things down over the years. I have to know two airframes and two versions of each airframe, so maybe it's that complication that has resulted in things being simplified. But the numbers and checklists that we have to memorize are 10% of what they used to be. I like it cause in the heat of battle who is gonna remember that stuff anyway?

[IP draws a circle]
"ok...tell what happens and when on this N1.."

He was looking for "rotors turning by...min of xx psi by...min for opening the throttle...." and repeated it for the airspeed and temp gauge. For my brain, it was agreat way to organize and correlate all those limits.

Think my favorite E-6 "stump the chump" question is, "Where are the 13 special screws and why are they special?"