Can the Air Force train new pilots without planes?

They’re gonna try. Worlds greatest military power that’s ever existed and we’re strapping our new pilots into VR goggles to teach them how to fly multi-engine combat aircraft. You can’t make this shit up. What’s next, is the Navy going to teach seamanship exclusively from stone frigates? Are the Marines going to teach amphibious assaults by having boots play Call of Duty on their iPhones?

From Air Force Times;

Airmen are gearing up for what could be the most consequential move in military pilot training since the Air Force was created in 1947: teaching students to fly without stepping foot in a real airplane.

The new program, known as “Air Mobility Fundamentals-Simulator,” is the Air Force’s next step in a yearslong attempt to modernize pilot training without sacrificing quality. It’s also an opportunity for the service to embrace more cost-effective technology and retire its 30-year-old fleet of T-1A Jayhawk trainer jets.

But experts warn that turning out experienced pilots is more complicated than trading an airworthy cockpit for a replica.

There’s a lot of value to a simulator, but there’s something fundamentally different when you’re up in the thin air,” said Heather Penney, a retired Air National Guard fighter pilot who now researches defense policy at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. “There’s no do-overs, there’s no resets.”

Here’s how it works: The first military aircraft a new student touches is the T-6A Texan II jet, as part of the undergraduate pilot training curriculum. Earning pilot’s wings in the T-6 takes about seven months, at which point a trainee is selected to continue on the fighter-bomber track or the mobility track.

About 900 students are picked for mobility-track pilot slots each year. Those airmen, who train to fly cargo and tanker aircraft as well as special operations and intelligence-gathering planes, typically spend about five months in the T-1 — an intermediate step toward their operational unit.

Those who pass the T-1 course then move on to learn about their assigned aircraft.

Starting in January, the interim step — known as specialized undergraduate pilot training — will use only simulators to teach more advanced flight skills in 75 days. That includes the current T-1 simulator and a newly designed, more generic virtual-reality cockpit from Redbird Flight Simulations.

“For the types of things that they do in the T-1, a sim is a great place to do that at a much lower operational cost,” Josh Harnagel, marketing vice president at Redbird, told Air Force Times.

There’s much more at the source. I assume this is the Redbird simulator they’re looking at. It’s their top of the line model, and we’re going to go with nothing but the best, right? Though the article talks about VR headsets, which are not these motion simulators.

Simulators are great, and there’s a ton of stuff you can learn in one. The cost savings alone compared to actual seat time is immense. I just can’t see how cranking out pilots that have never flown can be a good idea. It’s not like these mistakes are paid for in blood. At least not the blood of the people making the decisions.

Category: "Your Tax Dollars At Work", Air Force