TRAINING WING SIX
TRAINING WING SIX trains and graduates approximately 450 United States Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and international students annually. Students from Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore represent approximately ten percent of the total. Like their U.S. counterparts, international students can be found in our entire training pipeline.
Currently, we have 20 T-39 "Sabreliners", 9 USAF T-1A "Jayhawks", 40 T-6A "Texan II", 8 T-2 "Buckeyes" and 5 T-45 "Goshawks" in our inventory. The T-2 "Buckeyes" are currently be phased out by the T-45 "Goshawks". Our instructor cadre includes Navy, Air Force, and Marine instructor pilots, Naval Flight Officers (NFO), and Weapon Systems Officers (WSO), as well as international flight instructors.
After completing Aviation Preflight Indoctrination (API), students report to Training Air Wing SIX for Primary Training in either VT-4 or VT-10. Here they will spend the next 15 weeks in academic, simulator, and flight training. Primary training commences with ground school, where the student is introduced to basic air navigation, T-6A systems, meteorology, flight publications, and emergency procedures. After ground school and following simulator training, the student flight officers are trained in the front seat and at the controls of the T-6A for their first six familiarization (FAM) flights. This portion of training is similar to the student pilot syllabus for learning the basics of flight, the landing pattern, navigation, and aerobatics.
Pipeline and aircraft selections are made at various phases of training. USN students selected after Primary, to fly in large, multi-engine aircraft, will report to the 562nd Flying Training Squadron at Randolph AFB, San Antonio, Texas. There, students complete advanced training with the USAF in its T-43 (militarized version of the Boeing 737) in about six months. Flight Officers winged at Randolph go on to the P-3C "Orion", EP-3 "Aries II", or E-6 "Mercury" (TACAMO) communities.
Carrier based and other tactical jet aviators will complete intermediate training with VT-4 or VT-10. Intermediate training includes airways navigation, instrument navigation, and visual navigation flights in the T-6A, T-39 and T-1A. After intermediate, students are selected for either advanced training with VT-86 or follow-on training in the E-2C Hawkeye at Norfolk, Virginia.
In VT-86 (advanced training), students fly the T-39 and T-2 aircraft. Upon completion of "Core" training in the advanced phase, students track to either "Strike" or "Strike/Fighter" training. If selected for the Strike pipeline, they will become Electronic Countermeasure Officers (ECMO) for the EA-6B "Prowler" aircraft and USAF Strike students will become WSOs in the B-1B "Lancer". Students in the Strike/Fighter program train to become Naval Flight Officers (NFO) or Marine Weapons Systems Officers (WSO) in the F/A-18F "Super Hornet" and the F/A-18D "Hornet" respectively. Air Force WSOs who complete the Strike/Fighter program are assigned to fly the F-15E "Strike Eagle." Navy and Marine Corps Strike and Strike/Fighter students complete their training in the T-2 Air Tactical Maneuvering (ATM) syllabus as the final stage of training before being winged. The T-2 "Buckeye" is currently being phased out with the last flight scheduled to be flown in September 2008. VT-86 is currently training instructors in the T-45 "Goshawk" in order to take over the training of the ATM syllabus beginning in October 2008. There will eventually be nineteen T-45s assigned to TW-6.