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The yearlong program trains new pilots for the US Air Force, Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, and allied nations.
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00:00This is Drop Night, a long-anticipated event where soon-to-be Air Force Flight School graduates
00:14find out what aircraft they will fly. But before they get there, they have to start here at Laughlin
00:25Air Force Base in Del Rio, Texas. Just nine miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, newly
00:32commissioned officers begin a year-long journey to earn their wings.
00:36The purpose of undergraduate pilot training is to give students experience in an aircraft
00:41and in the military aviation world. So usually they come in with a little bit of flight experience
00:47in the civilian world, and then we teach them what that's like to do that as a military
00:51aviator. The Air Force has grappled with a pilot shortage
00:55for the last few years. In response, it's working to streamline training to get new pilots into
01:02the cockpit faster without sacrificing standards. After graduating T-6s, within a year they'll
01:09be mission ready and could possibly see combat in less than 18 months.
01:15Pilots have trained at Laughlin for over 70 years, beginning in World War II when it was
01:20a training site for bomber crews. Today, it's home to the 47th Flying Training Wing, and it
01:27trains more Air Force pilots than any other base.
01:30It's pretty competitive, so it all starts either in OTS, ROTC, or any other commissioning
01:36source that they may come through. There they have to compete to be in the top half of their
01:40graduating class. Then there they'll get picked to become a pilot.
01:44To be selected, applicants must hold a four-year college degree, be commissioned as an officer,
01:49and pass a series of academic and flight aptitude tests.
01:55My degree in college was communication studies. I have a hospitality degree from the University
01:59of Central Florida. I know it doesn't translate, but during that time, I gathered about 2,000
02:04hours of flight instruction time. I got my private pilot's license in high school, and then I
02:10went to the Air Force Academy and did a couple airmanship things there. In general, I've been exposed
02:14to aviation pretty much in my whole life.
02:17It's been a lot of years. I'm 27 years old now, and I've been told no many times. I've
02:22applied several times to get into this program.
02:27All students begin training on the T-6 Texan II, a single-engine turboprop plane designed to
02:34teach the basics of military flying. But only top performers are selected to continue training
02:40in the T-38 Talon, a twin-engine supersonic jet that prepares pilots for the fighter jets
02:47they may fly in the operational air force.
02:50These are all the things that come on when we turn on the avionics master switch that are
02:55powered by the General Airbus.
02:57Before they enter an aircraft cockpit, students spend weeks in the classroom learning its layout,
03:04how to read flight instruments, and how weather systems will affect everything they do in
03:09the air.
03:10So we're going to provide the academic foundation, the theory that we think is essential for all
03:17high-performance flying that we do here, so that when they reach the simulator phase of
03:22training, they can practice that, and then it'll make a lot more sense by the time they
03:27get into the aircraft itself.
03:28You have to learn about the entire aircraft, how to fly it, where to fly it, and the procedures
03:33that follow that. It's a fire hose, so we're getting a lot of information all at once.
03:38The pacing is really tough, however, it's manageable, and we've been selected for a reason.
03:44So we're here to work hard, study hard, and move on to our bases.
03:48That's where you're pointed, that's where you go.
03:51Students spend about 100 hours in the academic phase of training before moving to the next
03:57phase, logging 50 to 60 hours across three types of simulators to develop skills in cockpit
04:06procedures, emergency scenarios, and instrument flying.
04:10The unit training device, the UTD, which is a basic cockpit with no visual outside references.
04:17It enables the students to practice their cockpit procedures, work on their checklists, and get
04:22familiar with the switches and controls. Then they'll upgrade to the instrument flight trainers,
04:27which is in a dark container with a simple video screen in front where they can practice developing
04:35those instrument skills for landings, for takeoffs, for basic instrument procedures.
04:40And then ultimately, the grand finale is the operational flight training, which is about 120 degrees
04:48of visuals where they can practice ground references, aerobatics, more advanced emergency procedures.
05:00Each student is paired with an instructor pilot, or IP, who evaluates their performance through each
05:06phase of training.
05:07So flying the sims, there's certain moments where it feels really real, your spatial orientation,
05:14how far you're off the ground. Emergency procedures, I had that sim last night, and it really picks up
05:20tempo and it's like, oh wow, this is actually happening.
05:24I was here previously as an instructor here in about 2014 to 2018, and it took students about 20 rides
05:30to solo, and now utilizing the immersive training devices, they solo in about half the time. So it's
05:35really accelerated their development and their growth, and ultimately we see a better product from
05:39T-6 is based on that technology. It's a one-to-one recreation of what is outside here at Laughlin.
05:45So we can practice on the simulators for hours on end, see what our visual references are, and then the
05:50first day we step in the plane, we can point out everything that we're familiar with up to that point.
05:54While simulators have sped up training, they're just one part of a larger strategy. The Air Force
06:01has struggled for the past eight years to meet its annual goal of producing 1,500 new pilots.
06:08There are multiple reasons why. There's always some event that happens, whether it's OBOG's event
06:12and the T-6. Laughlin had a hail event here several years ago that destroyed basically every T-1 that had
06:18to be rebuilt. At Laughlin, our IPs are working very hard, you know, typically flying two sorties per day
06:23to make sure that we can produce pilots to fill the cockpit that America needs to go defend our national
06:28security. One of the most dangerous challenges pilots face is spatial disorientation, a condition where
06:35the body senses can no longer accurately determine the aircraft's position, altitude, or motion.
06:43So if we're flying in formation through the weather, you're really, you're just staring at your flight
06:47lead's wing. You're not looking at any instruments. They are looking at their instruments, and you're
06:51just staring at their plane, and that can become quite disorienting. Tango 6-2, turn right heading
06:561-2-0, descend and maintain 6,000 feet. To help them recognize and recover from it, students undergo training in a
07:04spatial disorientation simulator. Yeah, so that was the Coriolis illusion, and in the aircraft,
07:10the Coriolis illusion occurs in situations where the aircraft is turning, rolling, you're changing pitch.
07:15Students also train with the Barony Chair, a spinning device that simulates the types of illusions that
07:21spatial disorientation can create. It's meant to reinforce an important lesson.
07:26Your senses can lie, but your instruments won't. When you're getting onto it, and then you inevitably
07:35hit your head, you broke two rules actually, so please be careful. We teach them local area survival,
07:41and we cover emergency parachute training.
07:45There you go. Not comfy. Let's help you understand. So what do we do?
07:51Thumbs down. Thumbs down.
07:52Bottle on the risers. Up higher.
07:54There you go. Now pull the bars.
07:56Bicycle. Okay. Pull, pull, pull, pull.
07:58Nice.
07:59But we go through a practical application of what's taught in the class, because obviously we're not going
08:04to have the opportunity to real world use this until it is a life or death situation, and this is a
08:11refresher training that you have to do every 36 months to maintain your current seat, because
08:16again, it's not things that you're doing every single day. You're going to lose that muscle memory.
08:21It's going to feel snug. You should be able to fit your fist between your chest and the chest strap.
08:26Squat and pull as evenly as possible, and it should now be easy to send them straight.
08:31Before students step into the cockpit, they need to be properly fitted for the gear that will allow
08:37them to withstand the intense g-forces they will experience in the air.
08:41They are going to get custom fit to a helmet, harness, g-suit. The harness is what is attaching
08:47them to their parachute and to their seat kit. The mask is going to provide them aircraft oxygen.
08:52The helmet offers basic head protection. It's also a device we use to mount things like their visor
08:59and their mask to their face. Deep breath in, hold, and exhale. You don't find any air leaking out from
09:10up here? You do? Okay. Go ahead and adjust your mask a bit. Every 120 days we'll check the fit to make
09:18sure everything's still fitting well. If they've gained or lost any weight, there's a chance we'll
09:22need to tighten or loosen the g-suit. Laughlin Air Force Base has a fleet of over 160 aircraft,
09:31103 T-6s, and 59 T-38s, valued at more than $800 million, requiring a $1.6 billion maintenance budget.
09:43And with three runways, it's one of the Air Force's busiest airfields.
09:47They'll be able to taxi. All right, help you all. Thank you.
09:50Approximately 450 student pilots are being trained at any given time,
09:55and their hands-on training begins in the T-6. Man, I love the T-6. She's kind of all-purpose,
10:01all-weather. She can go wherever you want. She's not the fastest or can she hold the most gas,
10:07but she goes upside down, she rolls, she pulls. You get all of the training that you would need in the
10:12T-6 to go off into any other aircraft, whether that be a fighter aircraft, a bomber, a tanker,
10:18or a heavy cargo plane. Once you punch that power up, it was definitely surprising. Lots of power,
10:261100 shaft horsepower compared to the Cessna 172 that you apply at a local flight school.
10:33Once in the T-6, students begin applying the fundamentals from the classroom and the simulators.
10:39This phase of training is broken into three progressive stages, transition, navigation,
10:45and formation. In transition phase, they're looking to pull a high G, high speed maneuvering,
10:50other things like that, versus the navigation phase. It's more so slow maneuvering, methodical
10:55process. For the formation phase, again, that high G maneuvering comes into play, as well as that slow
11:00maneuvering. The reason they call it the transition phase is because finally we're stepping out of these
11:05big boxes we call sims. And then once you hop into the jet for the first time, for me it's been a six-year goal
11:10of mine. So it's a great feeling to finally get control of the aircraft, feel the power, and learn
11:16how to become a military aviator. Training objectives today will be zero missed ground checklist items
11:21slash call-outs. Every flight starts with a mission brief. Maintain minus zero plus 100 feet on the
11:26localizer. Students will come to the brief. They've obviously studied before. We'll cover all the basics
11:32of the flight, so going through the weather, operational risk management. We'll have a brief overview of the
11:37plan that we'll run through so that everybody's on the same page, and that's standardized between all
11:42briefs. I woke up around 4 30 just to start reviewing the weather, start preparing for your flight,
11:48and just to make sure that you chair flew the maneuvers. Nothing's going to surprise you,
11:52and you want to become to the brief as prepared as possible. After the brief, the student and
11:58instructor pilots suit up for their flight, or sortie, and make their way to the step desk.
12:09Where an operations supervisor will assess their risk level for the flight. We write down everything
12:14that might be a risk factor for our flight, so if we didn't sleep well, if we're not feeling hydrated,
12:19if we have personal things going on at home maybe, and it's just to take a second to look at it,
12:24add up the points, be like, hey, are we safe to be flying? Does this make sense?
12:31So just started flying. We've been in formal for about four weeks now,
12:34but very first week of flying, having a blast so far.
12:44Our plan was just to go up, do some mower work, basic aerobatics,
12:48get the blood flowing, get the body pumping, and then we're going to head back and recover via a
13:04localizer. Localizer is an instrument approach you'll do, and we typically will practice in VFR,
13:10which is visual flight rules, and IFR, which is instrument flight rules. The reason we do that is
13:15to practice when the weather is terrible and you can't see the runway, that will give you the
13:20lateral course you need in order to get you down to the runway.
13:27Once you come back and start debriefing is when you have the time to kind of understand
13:32how I could do this better. The debrief is the most critical part to learning.
13:36We'll discuss, do we have any safety of flights, right? So anything where that could have been
13:41dangerous, we could have gotten in an unsafe situation or maybe something not totally legal
13:46in the air, right? So we'll talk about that and then we'll go through like, hey,
13:49do we actually meet the objectives that we set today? When you're on the ground talking with your IP,
13:54going over what you did and how you can make things better is when you really learn how to become a
13:59great pilot. These pilots that are getting ready to be wing pilots, do not forget how important
14:05your maintenance brothers and sisters are because without them you're not doing the mission.
14:09So today is kind of the start of our graduation experience where we get our wings. The tradition
14:15was to get someone who gives you the wings that meant something to you and got you here. And so today
14:19maintenance gave them to us. It's just kind of a symbolic thing to show that they are the ones that
14:23really supported us getting the graduation today. Going to Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma. So I'll
14:29train with the C-17 squadron out there. After this, I'm going to Little Rock, Arkansas for six months,
14:35learn how to fly the C-130H. And after that, I'm going to Cheyenne, Wyoming to fly for the Wyoming Air
14:40National Guard. Students selected for the fighter track remain at Laughlin for four to six months.
14:46I'm going to go fly the T-38, which is the next phase of training here. So I will stick around Laughlin for
14:53a little bit. The students we get for 38s are typically towards the top of their T-6 class. So
15:01higher performers and T-6s and people that want to go fly something fast and pointy. At the end of
15:08the day, at the end of the program, their scores goes into what's called a mass and they're ranked
15:13number one to the last person. And there's only a few slots for both T-38s and the major weapon
15:19systems and the top students get their top choices. While T-38 training follows the same
15:24structure as T-6, the pace is faster, the demands are greater, and the margin for error is smaller.
15:35T-38, you really got to be on top of your game. There's a lot of things
15:39that you have to be constantly thinking about and making decisions on. It's like, are you on air
15:44speed, altitude, and you're doing like maneuvering out of the MOA or anything. It's your G or AOA,
15:51what altitude you're at, where you are relative to the MOA, what your energy state is. Gas is a huge
15:57thing for us, very limited on that. It flies very different than a T-6, so they need to learn how to
16:02land it, how to take off, how to do all the ground operations and even get the jet started to begin with.
16:07So we'll start with those things. We'll start just flying out to some airspace, practicing loops,
16:11just simple aero, and just practicing landing, practicing landing in different configurations.
16:19As soon as we can teach these students how to just take off and land the aircraft, we're basically
16:24making sure they can get from point to point without getting lost or getting in trouble,
16:27and then we're going right into formation phase, which I think is really just the crux of the entire
16:31program. There are so many great benefits to formation flying. It simulates the stress and the
16:41fear of a deployed location, right? We don't have bombs coming at us, but we have to in some way
16:48instill the pressure from the outside world, and I think formation is a great way to start.
16:52So the 38 in formation itself is a little bit different than the T-6. The T-6 you've got about
16:5810 to 20 foot spacing between the aircraft due to the wing length. The 38 you got about three feet,
17:03so you're a lot closer, you're a lot faster, and there's a lot more going on that you have to pay
17:08attention to. No matter what aircraft they go on, they're going to fly some type of formation,
17:12whether that be two C-130s following two minutes behind each other, or if you have a boom sticking
17:17out the back of your tanker with a fighter aircraft rejoining to refuel. Good evening and welcome to
17:23Drop Night for 2508. So Drop Night down here at Laughlin is kind of a culmination for us T-38 students
17:31of about two years-ish worth of work. We're getting our assignments, we're going to figure out what we're
17:35going to do next. On my dream sheet were F-16 and F-35, both very capable jets and something that I
17:43would be very proud of flying. I am hoping to get F-35s and or F-15s, those are my top two choices,
17:50but we'll see a little bit later here in about five hours exactly what's going to happen.
18:05But not everyone gets the assignment they want.
18:13Some graduates will be selected to become first assignment instructor pilots,
18:17or FAPES. They'll spend four years training students to fly the T-6 or the T-38.
18:27So today's our graduation ceremony for our pilot training class. It's the final step where we get
18:32our wings, we get to pin them on, and we officially become pilots in the Air Force.
18:36How it feels for me is kind of surreal. My father was a pilot in the U.S. Air Force,
18:43my grandfather worked for the Air National Guard, and then my uncle was an officer in the Air Force.
18:48And having that history of, you know, my family members being in the military, it just kind of
18:53reinstates that drive that I had when I first set out to join the Air Force and when I first set out to
18:59actually push forward to be a pilot. It finally feels so good to be at this moment. We put in a
19:04lot of hard work over these last six, seven months, and to finally have it come to an end is bittersweet,
19:10but it's pretty fun. These newly-pinned pilots will head to their next base to begin aircraft-specific
19:19training. Some will fly tankers, others fighters, bombers, or cargo planes, but they'll all leave Laughlin with
19:27the same title, United States Air Force pilot.
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