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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]That's a fast track for ROTC/Guard duty to make Capt at 4 yrs. And with relatively few hours. [/quote]

She was active duty. I made captain at 3.5 yrs.  4 yrs is about average for active duty unless things have changed [/quote]

At your level of competence at that point, would you have been put in charge of something comparable?[/quote]

DP
Active duty goes through the ranks faster. 
Young captains fly in war all the time. [/quote]

The problem seems to be communication ATC(and within the helicopter) and the altitude of the helicopter. The senior pilot was talking to the ATC. I don’t think he repeats back the plane is landing on runway 33. If he did not acknowledge runway 33 he may not have associated it as important or unusual. Landing on 33 means they would have had to look left(plane moving east to west) to pickup the incoming plane. If you look south(down river) you would see planes lining up to land for the main runway. You would identify the plane down river as the income plane and not look left. Runway 33 is not used much.

I could see the senior pilot based on his experience thinking all the landing planes follow the river and land on the main runway running north to south. If you fly the corridor as a helicopter pilot that is what you would normally see. Chances are you could go your whole tour and never see a plane land on 33. It will be interesting to see if he passed that information to the qualifying pilot. Who knows if a military helicopter pilots knows runaway 33 at national. They do not land jets there.

The altitude thing is puzzling. You can drift up but the senior pilot should have corrected that. For a pilot with 1000 hours who has flown the corridor 200 ft by national is a hard rule. 350’ is almost double the altitude ceiling. It would be very noticeable by any qualified pilot.

By the way 150-200 hours a year is a good amount for active duty not in a war.[/quote]

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