Well, ladies and gents, 2.5 years after graduating from America's favorite service academy I got my soft wings today! For those that don’t know, soft wings refer to the wings on your nametag. You will usually have a few days to a few weeks before your official winging date (sort of like the lag time between finals and graduation in high school/college). So in the interim, completers are awarded our soft wings to show our completion status. We cannot wear our actual Wings of Gold on our dress uniform until our official winging date. As a soft winger, you are treated like a winged aviator (i.e. the flight school funny business is over). However, you are administratively still a Student Naval Aviator until your official winging date.
I was asked in a PM to discuss my roadmap for success going from MIDN 4/C Usnavy2019 to where I am today. I feel now is a good time being officially done. I will caveat all of this and say that these are my own views and not reflective of any official guidance. Additionally, flight school is very much in a state of flux right now (new programs, new aircraft, new and recurring issues, etc.). So my flight school experience will most likely be in the days of old relatively soon.
Anyway, here goes part two:
Plebe Summer and Plebe Year
Plebe Summer is just something you need to get through. Don’t worry if you didn’t do well. I didn’t but I thrived once the Ac Year came. The opposite can happen. Plebe Year should have you worried about three things: Giving yourself a good foundation academically, physically, and militarily, forging friendships in and out of company, and talking to officers in Aviation (and any other jobs you are interested in). If you start off on the wrong foot as a Plebe, it is by no means the end of the world. It is just easier to maintain good performance instead of digging out of the hole. Your major does not matter too for selection. Aerospace Engineering majors get selected just as much as English majors. There is no QPR adjustment for STEM majors, so do something you like, but also can maintain a decent QPR in.
You should also be a good person because it makes life easier, people want to be around you, and people will help you out when you need it. Be the person who helps someone because people will remember if you don’t. You don’t need to really go out of your way to be a good person, just don’t be opportunistic or self-centered.
My big foot stomp here is talking to officers. You will have Naval Aviators and NFOs in Bancroft, in the classroom, and on athletic team staffs. They all would rather sit down with a MIDN who wants to learn than do whatever line of sight tasking they got hit with that morning. Most officers will not be there by time you are up for Service Assignment, but they can introduce you to other officers in that same community. There are (at least were) some Naval Aviation themed like squadron fly-ins (sometimes the squadron doing the flyover for the football game will come and give a talk over free soda and pizza) and panels on things like women in Naval Aviation and enlisted sailors and Marines in Naval Aviation. Attendance isn’t tracked, but if you keep showing up, people will remember your face and name.
Youngster Year
More of the same as Plebe Year. You have some extra time on your hands so that means talking to more officers and see if you can join VT-NA (the aviation club). Continue to seek out more opportunities related to Aviation. For PROTRAMID, DO NOT be worried if you puke or get airsick in the back of the T-34. ~60% of flight students get airsick to some degree at some point. Heck, winged aviators and NFOs get sick sometimes too. Humans were not naturally made for flight. You get some flight physiology training and I think it is very interesting to learn how flight affects the body.
I remember taking the ASTB during Youngster Year too. You just need to qualify. Not too much you can do to prepare for the test outside normal stuff (getting sleep, water, etc.). That said, those who are gamers/flight simmers tended to score a bit better. If you get a mediocre (but qualifying) score, don’t worry. I got the minimum for SNA, but had no issues in flight school.
2/C Year
For your enlisted cruise, try and request an aviation-capable ship. This will allow you to see flight operations and interact with pilots. I was on an amphib that had air traffic controllers (ACs). I spent a good deal of my time talking to the pilots on ship’s company and the ACs. Nothing is better than watching and hearing the Air Force slamming their Ospreys on the deck while drinking coffee and chewing sunflower seeds.
You should have the basics of being a mid figured out, so guess what you can do… talk to officers!
Pre-Comms will also happen here, so you will get your initial medical screening. You will get slated for PRK if you need it (I did). I also needed an asthma waiver since I had it as a child. This is where BMU will start the process for any waivers you might need. I’d like to note that aviation medical standards are more stringent than DoDMERB standards. I met the standard for DoDMERB, but any history of asthma is DQ for aviation. Have no fear though, plenty of Aviators and NFOs are on waivers. Each case is unique, so I can’t comment on what conditions get waivers, which ones don’t, etc.
Firstie Year
Try and shoot for either Powered Flight or an Aviation Cruise. Powered Flight will give you a taste of the intensity of flight school and you will get actual time at the controls. An Aviation Cruise will give you taste of Fleet life in a squadron. Aviation Cruises are a mixed bag. Some will be great and others will be less than awesome. Take it with a grain of salt because some squadrons put on a dog and pony show and others view MIDN as a nuisance (not your fault, but the squadron might not have the time/aircraft/people to give you a great experience since they still have operational demands).
Come the Ac Year, putting in your preferences into MIDS will happen pretty soon after Fall Reform. Putting Pilot/NFO as your first choice is pretty crucial to getting it. However, put what you truly want. There is no gaming the system. The house always wins if you game Service Assignment. You’ll do an aviation interview with a pilot/NFO (you can do multiple… I did three). These are used as an opportunity for you to say why you think you’d be a good fit and to address any issues (bad academic semester, major conduct offense, etc.). The interviewer will then do their write up and that becomes part of their record. It is usually not a make or break, but a good write-up could give a marginal record the nod. This is where knowing officers comes into play. You can do it with any aviation officer and they can write “MIDN Timmy has been meeting with me for years and is extremely motivated to serve in Naval Aviation.” That’ll stand out as someone with continued demonstrated interest. Also, most senior officers (CDR and CAPT types) either sit on the selection board themselves or are friends with those that do. I’m not saying knowing someone is a shoe-in (you have to do your part), but it is a whole lot harder to not select a good candidate you know personally or your trusted friend knows personally. Reputation is a big deal in Naval Aviation.
Hopefully, Service Assignment Day delivers you a certificate with some type of wings on it. Congrats. Celebrate for a bit!! Wear those mini wings on your Working Blues with pride. Next comes Practicum and medical. Practicum is sort a class on Naval Aviation. You’ll talk about everything from platforms, to the best bars in Pensacola and everything in between. You’ll also do your long form (full) flight physical to make sure you are good to go medically. After that, talk to some more officers and finish the year strong (decent grades, PRT scores, and don’t get a conduct/honor offense)! Officers of every platform are at USNA, so start picking their brain about what they liked about their platform and what they didn’t. Talk to enough people and you’ll start to pick up on the little personalities/cultures of each community.
Graduation and TAD
Congrats! You have the best deal in the Navy! You are getting ~$60K a year to be an intern somewhere. It doesn’t matter where you go, but enjoy it and try and learn something from it. I worked Powered Flight, so I saw how to run a flight schedule and what happens when things don’t go to plan. I also worked with the JAGs during the Ac Year and I saw how a court-martial worked (I was a bailiff for a sentencing hearing), what a brig looked like (did a prisoner transport), and saw the all the behind the scenes stuff JAGs do on a daily basis. Great PRODEV!
NIFE
I previously described the general program of NIFE in my first post. NIFE will give you a fair amount of time on your hands while you’re waiting to class up. Use it wisely. By all means, continue a hobby, start a new one, go to the beach, etc. Also, crack open the pubs. Do you need to know every single thing? No. However, being familiar with the material will allow you to be able to recall stuff faster and focus on small details. Most of the questions people miss is due to small little details. The questions can be specific or weirdly worded in an attempt to screw students up. And like I said earlier, the difficulty in the program is the speed and volume of the material, not the difficulty. I’d rather be reviewing that learning the material for the first time in that situation. There is some “I BELIEVE” button pressing mainly because concepts are sometimes oversimplified. This plagues engineers a bit more than humanities since the way it is explained is not always technically the most correct. You are tested on the material taught.
The way you study might not be the same way you studied in school. I was a big flashcard guy in flight school. However, I never used flashcards at USNA. Be open to different ways of doing things and remember, while you are competing with others, cooperate to graduate. Maybe your friend explains a concept in a way that clicks and you know something they don’t. Guess what? Both of you learned instead of you both going into the test with a knowledge gap.
NIFE is sort of like your Plebe Year where people are looking to see if you can hack it. NIFE is just a get through program. It is high stress, but once you are done, that goes away.
Primary
This is most likely the biggest hurdle in flight school. You not only have to have the knowledge (and a lot of it), but you need to be able to apply it while going 200 KIAS in a high-performance aircraft. The knowledge you need to know and apply is more complex and also broader in scope. Stuff not applicable to the Cessna from NIFE will suddenly become a factor (like airspeed limits within certain airspace for example). Knowledge assessment is primarily done through the brief. Some are quiz-esque and some are a discussion. Instructor dependent. However, the brief is arguably more important than the flight. If you crush the brief, you’ll get some grace in the plane. Good briefs have led students to a pass on a bad flight that otherwise would have been an UNSAT if the brief was average/poor. The same theme here: do what you need to do to learn stuff. One thing I added to my arsenal was calling the engineering support desk. I was a poli sci and fly guy, so engineering schematics are not my forte. Talking to the engineers made things make a lot more sense (and you learn some stuff the instructors might not even know). Also, keep refreshing yourself. There is so much you need to know as a pilot and you will lose some of it if you don’t look at it. A big thing is EP quizzes. You have to take some for your events and they can be your lifeline in a brief (IPs will usually give them if you are struggling… pass the quiz, you pass the brief, but fail the quiz, fail the brief). I did one every week and I never had to worry about it. Failing a brief is the cardinal sin of flight school (outside of lying and actual legal trouble). Failing a brief means you didn’t show up prepared (i.e. your part of the deal). That reputation will stick with you for a bit and your next few briefs might be a bit more intense. That said, if you have questions on knowledge, ask early and often. If you ask a question in the brief, that shows you’ve looked at the material and you care about learning it. My pro tip for the brief and life is to try and find some commonality with your instructor. It gives you something to talk about in the plane when there is down time, it might get them on a tangent which means less quizzing, and you can foster a relationship with that instructor for the future. This is people business after all! Try to also be familiar with the discussion items for a flight or two ahead. It might get brought into the brief the flight prior and it looks good if you know it. It also will save you when you have a quick turn (land late and an earlier brief the next day). Being ahead on knowledge is never a bad look. This might take some weekend study, but it is all worth it!
My take on gouge is that it can be good, but more often than not, it is not complete. IPs can sniff out someone who only studies gouge and it is a bad look. Ask for gouge early and often, but use that to focus your study efforts and break out the source publications. Nobody can ever say the pub is wrong. Also, expand your horizons outside of the source pubs. The FAA has a lot of good publications like the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, the Aeronautical Information Manual, the Instrument Procedures Handbook, etc. Websites like Boldmethod break down a lot of concepts very well. YouTube also is a gold mine for resources from flying approaches to complex engineering concepts. Use them and abuse them. If you can pull outside references and mention them in the brief, IPs will be impressed.
Now the plane:
It is okay if you are bad at it. It is okay if you get airsick. If you are hustling, the instructors will pull out all the tools to get you through. Most people adapt to the plane in a few flights. If you have more severe airsickness, then the airsickness rehab program will fix you up. It is ran by flight docs and you pretty much ride the airsickness chair (called the spin and puke or just the chair) and focus on not puking. So, you are pretty much training your body to not feel nauseous/puke when it encounters that type of motion. It has something like a 98% success rate, so do not let airsickness or fear of it stop you from flying for the world’s greatest Navy/Marine Corps.
The plane and the sim events are mostly just reps and sets. How do you get those extra sets? Practice sims! You can work on everything you want from landings, to emergencies, to high work (maneuvers in the air). You aren’t graded, nobody is watching (besides your buddy running the console), and you can focus on weak points and make those connections for yourself. This goes along the lines of knowing yourself. I am not a natural stick, but I love flying and I wanted to be good at it, so I was always in the sims in my off time. I mainly practiced stuff during the weekends. I focused mainly on the stuff I was learning at that time and if it felt good, I’d look a bit ahead. Practice sims are an 80% solution. You will still have stuff to work on in the plane, but it’ll polishing rather than fundamental issues. That’ll bode well for your grades. Remember, you are mostly graded on how quickly you meet/exceed the standard compared to your peers. Those who practice will obviously meet it faster. I always shot for 4’s (you can do it correctly by yourself). Some people who want really good grades and stress about how many 5’s they get (exceeding the standard). 5’s are subjective and are only awarded for superlative performance. Some IPs don’t believe in 5s, and a 4 means you are good at the maneuver. Why stress when you can do it right consistently?
TLDR for both: Know yourself and how you learn, practice early and often, and be ahead. It might take sacrificing some free time if you want to be good.
Now, the social aspect. Primary is very stressful because you are being evaluated on everything, you are still “a pledge,” and you are competing for your platform against others. You also have your own standards. You also don’t know how you are doing until you are done or someone pulls you aside and says you’re not doing so hot. Even though you are competing with one another, still cooperate to graduate. Talk about stuff. Soft study (talking about a concept or something you saw on flight or in a sim conversationally) is very salient. You can pick out a lot of good stuff from those conversations. Don’t be a Blue Falcon. Some people get unnecessarily competitive and hide gouge from people or whatever. Sure, you don’t have to send a mass email every time you get some gouge, but don’t hide stuff/mislead people if you see someone struggling or you are asked directly about something. Your fellow students are not really hindering you from getting your first choice. At the end of the day, your own performance and needs of the service will dictate where you go. Hopefully, you get your first choice and regardless, grow where you are planted. Every platform does some wicked cool stuff. Speaking of platforms, this one of the most talked about subjects in the flight school rumor mill. Take what students have to say with a grain of salt. O-1s and O-2s don’t know a ton about the Navy/USMC even though we like to think we do.
Primary (and flight school in general) is emotionally draining. It has been a roller coaster. One thing that helped me was having a mentor. Believe it or not, IPs were students once. The best IPs remember what it was like to be a student so being able to go to someone with issues from performance to life in general will pay off in spades. I found an IP who was really welcoming, relaxed (I flew with him once), and was from the platform I wanted. He helped through my rough patch in Primary and I still keep in touch with him to this day. I ended up selecting the platform he was from, so he has been really good about answering questions and giving me the nitty gritty.
Advanced
You have foundational level knowledge on a lot of aviation topics. Some of it will be an expectation at this point. I found there was shift from you are trying to get into the club, to an atmosphere of you are the future of X community. You are treated more like an adult and there is less motherhood (people checking in to make sure your stuff is squared away). I’d equate this phase to Firstie Year. You still have to do all the mid stuff, but you are looked upon more (and expected to act like) future officers (winged aviators in this case). Instruction is a lot more technique based too. In Primary, the pattern will be broken down cookbook style. In Advanced, they will tell you the parameters and basic things to shot for, but they leave it over to you and your IPs to figure out a technique that works for you to accomplish it. This is your third iteration of flight training (counting NIFE). You should have an idea on how to learn the aircraft, the surrounding rules and procedures, and how to be a flight student. Grades don’t matter as much here. The focus is teaching and passing the event. You still might have selections for stuff like platform (like F-35 vs F/A-18)/coast, but those are bit more minor compared to selection out of Primary, in my opinion. Pretty much, stay the course, keeping doing what you did to succeed in Primary and you will get your Wings of Gold!
As always, happy to field follow up questions! I haven't forgotten about the pictures, either
@Capt MJ! I'll post once the ceremony actually happens.
