After reading about this incident, and others resulting from potentially deadly control inputs from new students- gives me a whole 'nother level of concern for my son who's just been assigned to be a T-6 IP in the AF. Prolly not a fair analogy, as his future students will have had some flight training in IFT- but hey, I'm a parent...
Your son will be dealing with primary students; it's a fun but very laborious job. Did it for 3.5 years. Excellent TPIC gaining opportunity. High-quality time all around, considering in the civie world single engine turboprop time is generally derided as "low-quality" time.
The aircraft is very mild, as a primary trainer ought to be. Think of it as an oversized Bonanza with 1100HP up front. That's about how it flies and lands. 80 knot rotation, it's a cat B plane.
At any rate, the flying is exceedingly regimented, and the talent pool highly parsed through. In short, very very tight sigma. Outliers are even more rare and the program is very effective at identifying weak swimmers for attrition. The DoD doesn't have a problem dealing with sunk cost fallacies, nature of the beast.
As a new FAIP, your son will have supervisory eyes on him as well. It's a mentoring process all around, not just for student pilots. The level of responsibility is very high though, as first assignments go. It's an honor and great responsibility, one I hope he takes seriously.
I only had a few students lock up on me on it; one got his boot stuck on top of the pedal in the middle of a spin. That was fun. The dangerous part is not going to be lock-ups, but improper reactions during close formation flying (breaking in the direction of the wingman instead of away et al). He'll learn all about defensive IP techniques from my peers on the 559th side when he goes through T-6 PIT. He's in good hands.
