kontiki
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Kontiki
Still applying google-fu about the dotted flight path
The good days were the F-16 days!
Doing a HI approach can be a good excercise in approach briefing. Some of these approaches have higher than normal descent gradients to make the at-or-below altitudes, and when you're flying at Cat D or E speeds, you better have your lead radials all figured out before you start.
Yea forgot about the F16s. That approach probably leftover from those days. Not sure A10s get that high on a local hop lol.
I always thought fuel efficiency was the point of them. Stay high until close in and then descend pretty much at idle the whole way down without any 'step down' level offs on the way, particularly during the transfer of control from Center to Approach. Many years ago the phraseology "penetration" was actually used. Being cleared for "penetration and approach" would be used sometimes. Sometimes there was no intent to fly the Approach portion but just get down and do a GCA or go to initial and do the overhead.It's a DoD FLIP Hi-penetration approach. Mil only. We hardly do them in anger anymore as they're fuel inefficient. I shoot these weekly, and yes we haul the mail. 300KCAS is the standard, and the one at the home drone starts circa FL240. They're very uncommon in operational use outside of training.
It's a handful for the students. They require prior study and even then they still eff them up wholesale. The mental math at 300KCAS downhill is the biggest challenge. A funner way of keeping my 6 month FAA IFR currency I must admit.
Penetrations were used a lot in the 1950s before there was any en route civil jet traffic. Even after the civil Jets came along, they were usually above the flight level for beginning the penetration. These approaches were useful for the early century series fuel-limited fighter airplanes.And keeping your enroute aircraft away from them is a lot of fun on a busy day. . Need to have those distances and altitudes down pat.
This one sucked on a busy day. Runs right through your Hilton Head arrivals and departures. Then from 10 DME to the TACAN it blows through your overflights along V437. Then as you go outbound and teardrop in at 3,000, you got to keep your overheads and GCAs out of the way. VFA-106 students did them all the time. Fun times.
http://155.178.201.160/d-tpp/1704/00916HTY23.PDF
When I was a young Lt going through UPT, this was the Gold standard of hazing approaches in the T-38. You'd be flying this Hi-penetration at 300 knots inside a canvas bag*. This was work, but when you landed out of this, you could at least you conquered the "Widow Maker" at Roswell. The FBO even sold T-shirts with this approach on it to UPT students who survived long enough to make it to the lobby. Good times!That looks like a really fun approach
Wow. All kinds of at or aboves, at, and at or belows. That looks like an approach that was built before there was Radar there.When I was a young Lt going through UPT, this was the Gold standard of hazing approaches in the T-38. You'd be flying this Hi-penetration at 300 knots inside a canvas bag*. This was work, but when you landed out of this, you could at least you conquered the "Widow Maker" at Roswell. The FBO even sold T-shirts with this approach on it to UPT students who survived long enough to make it to the lobby. Good times!
*The view-limiting device in the T-38 wasn't foggles, or a helmet visor like students would use in the T-37. They installed a large canvas bag in the rear cockpit that you would slide over your head and just being sitting in the seat with all this bag around you.
When I was a young Lt going through UPT, this was the Gold standard of hazing approaches in the T-38. You'd be flying this Hi-penetration at 300 knots inside a canvas bag*. This was work, but when you landed out of this, you could at least you conquered the "Widow Maker" at Roswell. The FBO even sold T-shirts with this approach on it to UPT students who survived long enough to make it to the lobby. Good times!
*The view-limiting device in the T-38 wasn't foggles, or a helmet visor like students would use in the T-37. They installed a large canvas bag in the rear cockpit that you would slide over your head and just being sitting in the seat with all this bag around you.
That sounds awesome.
Having said that, I don't quite understand the hazing aspect. Seems to me a student doing this HI IAP under the canvas in a T-38 successfully, was proving his mettle.
We don't do Hamburger Helper Hands up in here...
View attachment 53128
When did 3Ks become part of UPT?
Or is this referencing some sort of "Fluid Maneuvering" or "Extended Trail" sorta-mock BFM setups from late in the formation blocks?
I've only been outta teaching UPT 38s for about 4 years, but even using BFM-like terms (e.g. "3K setup") was righteously taboo. That would be excellent if that changed.
Is there a translator in the house?
Gotcha.We are both expressing our frustration at arbitrary limitations placed on USAF pilot training by AF leadership for frivolous CYA and tribal reasons.
We are both expressing our frustration at arbitrary limitations placed on USAF pilot training by AF leadership for frivolous CYA and tribal reasons.
Nobody in the real world would call that "leadership", they'd call it "bureaucracy".
But having been a military brat and around military folk my whole life, I get why someone would say the L word. Mostly self-preservation. ;-)
Around fellow AF people, I use the word "management" instead of "leadership" just to get under their skin, since "leadership" is such an ingrained cultural term regardless of if those people are actually acting as such.