[QUOTE][I have...well without giving an actual total, I'm guessing close to 18,000 hours on Microsoft Flight Sim 9./QUOTE]

Holy crap...

That is a lifetime of commerical flying.

How old are you?
(Surely in your 60s....?)

hello guys
is there any airlines pilots here??

[QUOTE=NorseWagon;4118458]Well as ashamed to admit it as I am... I totaled up my hours last night and it came to 12,760. Even worse? I'm only 20 years old. I was home schooled for most of my life ( only about 3 hours a day) so I pretty much just spent the rest either on flight simulator or 'jr drag racing'.... :nix:

[QUOTE][is there any airlines pilots here?? /QUOTE]

Yup, there is a few of us here...NIA based B-757 pilot

Man, you need to get out more, escaape from virtual reality and smell the roses. The opposite sex is also out there and once you get going in that direction, no more time for sitting inside playing with MS Flight Simulator.

Good luck :D

[quote=NorseWagon;4118700]Haha oh I've done the whole GF BF thing, and it sucks. May not seem like it but I'm too self centered :v: I spend more of my time ripping our race cars into tiny pieces than on MSFS anymore so its a start!!

I'm not a pilot and never served in the military. Military aviation is just a huge interest of mine. I've thought about getting my private pilot's license, but have never acted on it to date. Maybe someday...

Been on this forum for years, but only got interested in aviation last year. Decided to get my PPL back in march '10. Been training since may and i have 44 hours total time in 152s and 172s, solo'd after 17 hrs total time. Love it to death, waaaay better than driving. Check ride a week from today, wish me luck.

wish you a good luck passing your check
keep us updat :)

Hello all, Australian CPL & ATPL here, training with RAAF, NASA, then worked for coastal survailance in Oz. Now semi retired in Indonesia but still enjoy the puddle-jumpers. beech 36 and aerostar.

Posted a while back in here, but to update, I'm now out at MCAS Miramar learning to fly the F/A-18C. Quite the improvement over the T-45C I must say! Cool to see a couple other Naval Aviators/NFO's around (as well as you AF types as well of course :) )

the von where about in aus you did your training ??

Thanks, learning the ins and outs of a 152 is not my idea of fun though. lol. I wish my checkride was in a more interesting plane, or even one that was younger than me lol.

That's overratted my friend. I like my airplanes aged like a fine wine :p:

haha the cessna i fly has like 9900 hours on the airframe O_O
Its been aged and ridden HARD! but i guess i would be more keen to like it if it had some sort of testicular fortitude. 110hp FTL

I passed, Woot!

Just found this section, I'm a Multi-Com pilot with a few thousand hours. Still trying to figure out how to make this hobby pay.

AMGpilot what type of A/C have you flown??

FlatlineEF9 congratulation on passing your check

Hornets don't age like fine wines... G-limits and then the boneyard are the aging process for the plastic jets (and aluminium ones, too!).

Though, for the Hornet, g-limits don't work well, so they usually skip that part. 3G breaks aren't all that much fun... and take up a lot of airspace!!

New jets are nice... my first squadron had 5 brand new jets from the production line (4 with sequential BUNOs). They didn't break and we rarely lost a sortie. On the boat we went 299 sorties in a row without losing one to a down jet. My second squadron wasn't so fortunate and, of course, my RAG time was the worst for old, broken jets.

I won't lie that mx is a battle for us, but we also have the oldest Hornets in the inventory here (@ the FRS/RAG) so that is certainly a factor. If you google (or are aware of) "center barrel replacement" you can see what is currently being done to bump up the life of these birds....pretty cool stuff going on at the depot anyway. As for G limits, we really don't use any (beyond the limiter) except for the FLE-red jets, and those typically dont fly dynamic flights. Double bubble only on the yellow birds, which pretty much makes the G-limiter agree with FLE/lifetime restrictions. With the MAW commanding General looking out over the flight line, SH breaks aren't really that "cool" to do here anyway.....350 into the break w/ the 10% rule works just fine and yields a pretty consistent abeam distance.

Gotta say, I think I was somewhere around grade school the last time there were new Prowlers rolling off the lines :)

So I'm guessing most of your Hornets are upgraded A models? Surely theres a old A+ model in there somewhere.

What do you think about that F-35 coming in within a few years?

We have a small handfull of A+'s (no A++ though), but primarily C/D jets, mostly earlier block.

F-35 should be a pretty amazing advance in technology....have flown the demo simulator a couple of times, and I was quite impressed, both in terms of the capabilities of the aircraft, as well as with the interface between the jet and pilot. I'm not counting on seeing it until maybe the end of my career, though if rumors are accurate, my community (legacy Hornet) may be the first to get it. That being said, I will probably without much question, transition to Super Hornets well before that becomes a reality.

How do you feel about its capabilities as a stealth combat fighter?

Honestly speaking, I don't think the F-35 is the right choice for the Navy, not that it isn't a good jet, but rather it doesn't fit what they're missing. With all this talk of sea-skimming anti-ship missiles, I think a long range stealth capable interceptor like the F-14 is really whats needed. The Navy, had (for 30 years) a low and high mix like the AF has (Falcon/Lightning and Raptor/Eagle), and I think we already have enough of the low-fighters with the legacy Hornet (even though I think the SH is all of what the original Hornet should have been).

Just kind of depends on what kind war we are looking to fight. If you look at current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Hornet (and SH) is exactly what naval air needs. Good CAS platforms, wide range of ordnance that we can carry, ability to fight our way in, put warheads down range, and fight our way back out in the air to air regime. Yes, it is a jack of all trades and master of none, at least in the sense that older legacy platforms were (ie Intruder as a bomb truck, and Tomcats as fleet air defense).....but, it is still pretty damned good at all of the above, and definitely not outdated in its capabilities. The most commonly publicized shortcoming is its lack of fuel, and I won't argue with that. If I put the throttles in the corner in max blower, I can run myself dry with 2 external tanks in very short order compared to the Tomcat or Phantom. That being said, we aren't fighting a whole lot of dedicated air to air these days in current conflicts. What we are doing is a lot of support of ground forces, and I'd agree that stealth is not really what we need in that realm. Gun runs, low and fast "show of force" passes, and the disciplined use of precision guided weapons are what we are really being called upon for. Yeah there are some anti-ship weapons out there, but again, that is more a threat for another kind of war. Tomcats were designed to knock out long range Russian bombers headed to devastate our carrier battle groups, and there just isn't that threat in today's wars. Not saying it couldn't again be a factor in the future, but its pretty hard to predict that. I'd say that the F-22 and JSF programs are our best guess as to what might be needed down the road in the next few decades. Then again, I'm not a policy maker, and I don't pretend to know what the big picture thinkers in Washington and elsewhere have in mind. Taken at face value, I'd say they are basically replacing that Eagle/Viper mix, and adding a few extra capabilities at the same time.

Helicopter PPL here, working on the commercial/CFI whenever I can find the time to fly.