When Navy Lt. j.g. Robert Cannell was preparing to enter undergraduate pilot training, he volunteered to take his initial instruction at Vance Air Force Base, rather than at a Naval Air Station.
“I had one of the instructors at Pensacola (Fla.) tell me when I volunteered to come to Vance, ‘I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,’” Cannell said.
Cannell soon discovered that the decidedly negative impression of the only Air Force base where sailors and Marines learn to fly right along with airmen was not entirely accurate.
“After being here, I found out the rumors are never as extreme as the reality is. I’ve enjoyed my time here. I’ve seen a lot of the state. I guess Oklahoma’s really not that bad,” said Cannell, who will return to the state in about six months to serve at Tinker AFB.
The Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training has been conducted at Vance since 1996. Between 110 and 120 Navy and Marine pilots annually train in the skies over Enid along with their brothers and sisters in Air Force blue.
Life on an Air Force base is something of an adjustment for sailors and Marines, and not only because the nearest salt water is hundreds of miles away.
“The foundation is basically the same, as far as military service in general,” said Cmdr. Kevin Delano, commander of the 33rd Flying Training Squadron. “But there are definitely some differences.”
The first difference Delano said he encountered was “The Air Force has a whole lot more instructions.”
The Navy issues aviators the Naval Training and Operating Procedures Standardization manual, which, he said, “Basically says ‘Here are the things you can’t do.’”
In contrast, Delano said when he arrived at Vance, he received a box big enough to hold a case of copy paper “Just full of instructions.”
“It takes a while to absorb the material that you’ve got to figure out before you can start diving into the job and figuring things out,” he said. “It was a challenge, but it was good.”
The Air Force way of doing business isn’t better or worse than that of the Navy or Marine Corps, Delano said, just different.
Navy and Marine flight training, he said, is “much more hands-off.”
Navy and Marine primary students prepare on their own prior to each flight. They are briefed before each sortie, they fly, they are debriefed after they land, and they are finished for the day.
Air Force pilot training is much more regimented, with students required to spend some 12 hours per day in the flight room, in the air or in simulators.
“You are occupied that entire 12 hours,” Delano said. “It’s a completely different mindset in the two philosophies of how you do things.”
It is not an easy adjustment for veteran pilots, said Navy Lt. Brian Murray, an instructor with the 33rd FTS. Prior to coming to Vance, Murray and Delano attended Pilot Instructor Training at Randolph AFB, Texas. There, Navy and Marine pilots are immersed in the Air Force way of teaching students to fly.
“It was certainly an eye-opening experience,” said Murray. “They throw us into the Air Force environment, and basically it’s sink or swim. When I was there, I didn’t enjoy it, but now that I’m through, it was a great experience.”
Murray admitted some of his Navy buddies are envious of him. When instructor pilots complete PIT at Randolph, they are qualified to instruct students in all three phases of undergraduate pilot training — the contact, instrument and formation phases.
“In a Navy instructor program, you may not ever get to the instrument qual (qualification),” he said. “I think my two-and-a-half years here have been a lot better experience overall.”
Air Force students daily go through “morning standup,” in which an airman will be asked to stand, then will be quizzed on emergency procedures. The student, under the gaze of instructors and fellow students, then must correctly talk his or her imaginary aircraft out of the faux emergency to a safe landing.
“It’s pretty brutal, I think,” Murray said. “It’s the stress of that type of environment.”
In contrast, Navy and Marine students don’t face standups and being peppered with questions about emergency scenarios, but must deal with simulated trouble while flying with an instructor.
“A good majority of our training is done actually in the airplane,” Delano said. “It’s a different philosophy.”
Murray said when he first arrived at Vance, he didn’t understand the Air Force’s training methods.
“At first, I didn’t understand why we didn’t train in the aircraft. I thought it was doing the students a disservice,” he said. “That was until I had more experience here and saw what the students do in the flight room with the standup scenarios that we give them. It’s a proven method, and I think it works, too. It’s just different.”
One positive result of the Air Force’s 12-hour training days, Murray said, is students learn to rely on their colleagues for help and support.
“Class unity is really impressive here,” he said. “That’s something the Navy training program doesn’t really have. When you’re flying (in Navy training) you might not see half your class in the day.”
Murray characterized Navy and Marine flight training as “the big boy program.”
“If you come prepared, excellent, if not, you’re out of luck, it’s not kind of crammed down your throat,” he said. “You have a lot more freedom in the Navy training command. There are pluses and minuses to both. It’s definitely a positive thing the way the Air Force runs it.”
For his part, the man in charge of Vance’s joint training, 71st Flying Training Wing commander Col. Russ Mack, said the officers involved, no matter their service, are benefiting from the experience.
“We are the only Joint Specialized Undergraduate Pilot Training (JSUPT) wing in the Air Force, and having Navy and Marine Corps pilots in training integrated into classes with airmen at Vance reflects the joint nature of today’s military,” Mack said. “These officers are building relationships today that will last them a lifetime, and as aviators they will be working as joint partners over the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq or other parts of the world, so it is important that we build these relationships here today, so we’ll work together even better when called to do so.”
Murray said Air Force students at Vance enjoy a benefit their colleagues at other training bases don’t — the daily interaction with Navy and Marine students and instructors.
He said when Air Force students are deployed, “They are going to come across Army, Marine Corps, Navy. Just the joint mindset here definitely gives us an advantage over what the guys experience in an all-Air Force training environment.”
The Air Force, Navy and Marines speak a different language. When Delano first arrived at Vance and was hungry, he asked for directions to the “gedunk,” the place where snacks are sold aboard a Naval ship. The Air Force calls them snack bars.
“Those are little things that are kind of comical at times that we bounce back and forth,” Delano said. “There are hundreds of different things like that, acronyms and things that you are just not used to since it is a whole different world.”
Looking at the Air Force from the outside, Delano said he was envious.
“In my view, everything the Air Force had was newer, nicer, better,” he said. “To me, they all seemed slightly pampered. They had plenty of money to do everything they need to do and we (the Navy) were just scraping by just to make ends meet.
“Obviously, I realize that is not necessarily the case. They worry and stress out about similar things. But you build up these images based on what you see.”
Conversely, Ensign Stanton Sollenberger said Air Force students are envious of him and his fellow sailors and Marines.
“Some of the guys are maybe a little bit jealous that the location of the training bases are on the water,” Sollenberger said.
The joint training environment, Delano said, helps break down any interservice barriers that still exist.
“Really, we’re no different,” he said. “We’re wearing a different uniform, we have a different chain of command, different leadership up to a certain point. We may have some cultural differences and maybe train a little bit differently, but when you get down to it, we all are American citizens. We’re all striving for the same thing.”
Delano said one thing common to all services is the quality of the people.
“Every single individual here is extremely solid,” Delano said. “They work incredibly hard, they all are very professional and do their job very, very well. If you were to take all the uniforms off them and put all Navy uniforms on, I wouldn’t know the difference. The character of the people here is no different.”