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T-38 ‘Talon’ training undergoing change
Published August 3, 2005
Part 1
1st Lt. Chad Fuller and 1st Lt. Steve Baker will pilot the lead ship in a formation of T-38A “Talon” jets for the farewell flyover above an Aug. 11 retreat ceremony at Laughlin Air Force Base. Two “goodbyes” will mark the occasion.
Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training graduates in Class 05-13 will receive their silver wings the next morning, the last group of trainees in the “A” model of the “Talon.” And, with the Baker-Fuller flyover, the T-38A will retire from the Laughlin flight line and air space.
But nostalgia is hard to find among instructor pilots and leaders in the 87th Flying Training Squadron for a technologically bankrupt jet, with engine thrust eroded by the weight of 40 years of repairs to the sleek airframe.
“Red Bulls” squadron members have welcomed, even embraced the “new Talon,” without a trace of disrespect for its predecessor, the less sophisticated “A” model. Still, the flyers make no effort to conceal their enthusiasm for what the T-38C can do that the T-38A cannot.
Baker and Fuller, both instructor pilots (IPs) in the 87th FTS, prepare their students with hours of flying experience, preceded by even more hours of classroom training and hands-on preparations in high-tech flight simulators managed by 11 contract instructors of Lear-Sigler, Inc.
The $2.5 million Operational Flight Trainer and the $1.2 million Utilization Training Device, both shortened to “the sims,” provide students with a reasonably realistic view of their flying world and the consequences of cockpit decisions.
Students climb into the driver’s seat replicas, now upgraded with all the technologies of the T-38C, and are switched onto images of takeoff positions on Laughlin runways, as only one example. As the pedals, throttles, stick and other levers and buttons are pushed, pulled and tilted into positions, the images respond to students’ actions just as the jet and the landscape around it would.
Instructors can introduce images of sky, horizon and jets flying nearby in two- and four-ship formations, all featuring realistic images of the landscapes Laughlin students will see when they graduate to the real thing with the IPs.
Monday afternoon, Baker patiently guided me through steps and procedures now routine to him and Fuller, both fully cross-trained in the almost unimaginable differences between the “C” and the “A” models. The finesse required is nearly as daunting as the vast amount of information students are required to absorb and deploy.
Both men are clearly delighted with the realism of the new T-38C sims. “This is a huge technological upgrade with much better graphics,” said Fuller. He and Baker chuckled ruefully about the T-38A-model sims, limited to images in “blue, brown and gray.”
But, the sims do not shackle student practice to Laughlin and its vaunted air space. The sims are programmed to allow students to “fly” to and “land” at Corpus Christi, Houston, and Roswell, N.M. as a few examples, and can be technically programmed to display and simulate any air space in the world.
Importantly, the students can also program their sim experience for orientation and practice on the terrain, runways and airspace of the bases to which they will graduate for the next phase of fighter/bomber training in “Introduction to Fighter Fundamentals.”
Recently announced Base Realignment and Closure Commission proposals would bring IFF training to Laughlin. That, say instructors, would also bring dome-shaped sims the size of a Hummer to the operations building sim center, with advanced technologies.
Lt. Col Om Prakash, operations officer for the 87th FTS, is nearly wedded to the T-38C. Eight years ago, Prakash was a test pilot for the developing version of the “Talon,” stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.
One of his tasks now is to help students bridge the training gap between the T-6 “Texan II” trainer, in which the young pilots learned the basics at Laughlin, and the upgraded T-38C “Talon.”
In both the sims and the jets, Prakash addresses the key ingredient in that mix. “The big difference between the T-6 and the T-38 is the speed. You still have the terrain, the ground, trees and all the other same features coming at you, but they’re coming so much faster,” Prakash said Tuesday.
He knows the upgrade of the T-38C engine was necessary, but the avionics, or instrumentation define today’s “Talon.” “Now we’re really flying a new airplane every day,” said Prakash. In particular, the “heads up display,” HUD, is the most dramatic improvement in the avionics system.
Thursday: HUD as performance booster.
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