I have now officially started my ground training with the IAF. It has been 3 weeks since we started and we’re now about halfway done. In the past, the ground training was combined with the flight training and lasted a total of 6 months. Now that the ground training and flight training are separate, the time-line has been compressed for both. It’s amazing how much information we’re expected to learn in such a short period of time. Each week we have 2 tests and every day from 7am – 3pm (no lunch break) we have lectures on subjects like jet engines, piston engines, instruments, navigation, aerodynamics, airframe, meteorology, and aviation medicine. Most of my classmates only get 2 or 3 hours of sleep per night because of all the studying they have to do. The testing is also quite different as they have subjective and objective portions of their tests (they’re actually called papers here). The objective portion of the papers has T/F questions as well as multiple choice and fill in the blank. You might think that sounds reasonable, but get this, you can actually get negative marks for a wrong answer on the T/F and the multiple choice. What I mean by negative marks is if you don’t answer a question, you lose 1 point, but if you attempt it and get it wrong, you lose 1.5 points! The T/F questions have one, two, or three words or phrases underlined, so if the correct answer is false, you are also required to correct the underlined “wrong” portion. In some cases, it may be that all three phrases in a statement are wrong and must be corrected or it may be that only one word is wrong. Basically, what this means is T/F is no longer a 50/50 guessing game, but an actually test of whether you know the specific answer. This might not seem too bad, but when you add in the types of questions and the specificity required to answer them right, it’s amazingly difficult. It doesn’t help that oftentimes the questions use words or terms that are very obscure. Fill in the blanks aren’t any easier, although there are no “negative markings”. The fill in the blanks often require rote memorization of key phrases or otherwise unknown words. As for the multiple choice, it’s your standard multiple guess type test except for the “negative markings” part. The problem I’ve had is that it’s very hard to pass on answering a question, so I take the risk. More often than not, it ends up being very costly for me. Maybe eventually I’ll learn from my repeated mistakes and start exercising better judgment and discernment!
That’s enough about the tests. I won’t go into any more detail about the specific subjects we’re studying except to say that it feels like we are trying to cram a semester’s worth of aerodynamics, thermodynamics, astronautics, physics, meteorology and a number of other subjects into one week. I haven’t seen this many laws of such and such or equations and derivations in a long time! For a Legal Studies major, this is a bit over my head!
Here’s a bit about my class. There are actually 2 courses taking these ground subjects together. One has just finished their flying training and my class is yet to begin. This means that the class is double what it normally is—64 students! I am also the only “foreigner,” so I get called on more than my fair share. It wouldn’t be so bad if I actually knew the answers! It’s also challenging because in addition to my difficulty understanding the accents, the instructors are not the only one’s teaching. Probably more than 50% of the lectures are given by students and many students’ struggle effectively instructing when the subjects are things like the forces affecting gyroscopes or Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. Nearly every lecture requires a difficult conceptual explanation and/or the solving of a complicated derivative. The instructors often intervene to try to clear up any doubts (as they are called here), but it seems they even struggle to provide clarity on certain topics. I feel sorry for the guys in my class who are studying day and night to try to get by. It is such a stressful time for them because we have something like 12 papers and only 3 failures are allowed. That may seem like a lot, but trust me; studying the subjects we are in such great detail makes any passing grade a good one (even if passing is only 60%).
I’ve been very blessed to have met some wonderful people during my time here. It is such a diverse and interesting group. They are from all over India – north to south and east to west. They’re also from all services – Army, Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force. Of course the AF has sends the majority, but this course is recognized by the other services as India’s premier pilot instructor training. It seems the AF guys have a bit of an edge because they’ve been studying this material for longer, which makes it all the more difficult for the guys from the other services. Also, there’s a mix of transport, fighter, and helicopter pilots. Thus, the flight training is conducted in a number of different locations. My class is comprised mostly of Hindus, but there are also Muslims, Sikhs, and Catholics (and I may be the lone Protestant!). So there you have it. Apart from the fact there are no women and I’m the only foreigner, it’s a pretty diverse crowd.
What I’ve really enjoyed about these guys is how they’ve been so welcoming of me. I really am honored by the way so many of them have made an effort to reach out and get to know me. They often ask for my opinion on the course or what we’re studying and are interested to hear what I think. They also ask me questions about my training, what life is like in the U.S., or how the USAF does business. I’m also learning much about the customs they follow—both military and civilian. I can’t imagine a more unique assignment because it really is a complete immersion. Did I mention that I’m the only USAF officer doing an exchange with the IAF?
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