If you ask an Army flight school student about the toughest part of flight training, you could get any of a number of answers. Some people just have a hard time in instruments. Others never really internalize how to fly tactically, less than 50 feet above the terrain using only a map and the seat of your pants to get between points A and B. Quite a few people resent the amount of effort that must be put into creating those maps, though that’s pretty much a one-time expense of some 30 hours. Most people, however, will tell you that the real effort is in memorizing 5 and 9.
For every significant piece of Army equipment, there is an Operator’s Manual explaining in detail how it is to be used, how it works, the basics of maintenance, etc. In the aviation community, these Operator’s Manuals are referred to as Dash-10s, because each of their official document numbers ends that way. For example, I am currently looking at TM 1-1520-237-10, which is for Black Hawks.
The internal format of a dash-10 has been standardized for ages. There are nine chapters, each with a clear purpose. Chapter 5 is Limitations. Chapter 9 is Emergency Procedures. Combined, they total just over 50 pages in this TM; a tiny fraction of a book two inches thick.
The thing about 5 and 9 is that they must be memorized. Only the underlined portions must be memorized verbatim, but everything must be at least paraphrasable at a moment’s notice. Representative examples follow:
From chapter 5:
MAIN TRANSMISSION OIL PRESSURE
_____ to _____ PSI precautionary
_____ to _____ PSI continuous
_____ to _____ PSI idle and transient
It doesn’t seem too hard to learn to fill in the right numbers (65, 130, 30, 65, 20, 30) on a written test, or spit the whole thing out orally. The fact that there are some 40 or so limitations similar to this one seems only an obstacle that can be overcome with time. It’s annoying, but not all that difficult.
The real challenge comes when we get to chapter 9:
UNCOMMANDED NOSE DOWN/UP PITCH ATTITUDE CHANGE
If an uncommanded nose down pitch attitude occurs:
1. _____ - _____ _____ _____
2. _____ - _____ _____ _____
3. _____ _____ _____ _____-_____ _____ - _____ _____ _____ to arrest nose down pitch rate
4. MAN SLEW switch - adjust to 0 at airspeeds above 40 KIAS and full down at airspeeds below 40 KIAS
5. LAND AS SOON AS _____
If an uncommanded nose up pitch attitude occurs:
1. _____ - _____ _____ _____
2. _____ - _____ _____ _____
3. MAN SLEW switch - adjust to 0 at airspeeds above 40 KIAS and full down at airspeeds below 40 KIAS
4. LAND AS SOON AS _____
Every blank of the above is a particular word; one that must be memorized verbatim without hesitation, paraphrasing, or uncertainty. The entire procedure, and some 40 others like it, must be memorized in their entirety.
It works out to a fairly significant amount of memorization, and pilots in the advanced portion of training are expected to walk into the first day of classes prepared to pass a test on the material. In primary, they work you into it, only require you to memorize a few a day; they take it easy as that’s your introduction to flight school. By definition, everyone in advanced training has been waiting around since primary; they get no such leniency.
Actually, there is some amount of leniency on that first day’s test: it is graded as a normal test. If you get a question wrong, it counts against your score, but so long as you achieve your 90%, you still pass. By the end of training checkride, any error on 5 and 9 is an automatic failure. Tests to that standard are conducted yearly at a minimum for the rest of your army career.
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