Beginners doing GUE fundamentals?

[DCN]

That is great news! Soak it in and please do come back and let us know how it went for you. You also may want to consider taking Rescue if you haven't yet.

Absolutely! We are looking forward to it. We haven't done rescue yet, we had planned on doing AOW in July.

 

[Tigerpaw]

Absolutely! We are looking forward to it. We haven't done rescue yet, we had planned on doing AOW in July.

Yes, take Rescue whenever you get a chance. You will learn skills to rescue your buddy or yourself if need be. It will make you more aware of your surroundings and situational awareness. GUE Fundies and Rescue will give you a good solid base whether you stay recreational OR decide to do technical.
While I didn't include AOW, that can be required before you dive in certain places so it is important as well. But yes take GUE - Rescue - AOW

 

[steinbil]

Yes, take Rescue whenever you get a chance. You will learn skills to rescue your buddy or yourself if need be. It will make you more aware of your surroundings and situational awareness. GUE Fundies and Rescue will give you a good solid base whether you stay recreational OR decide to do technical.
While I didn't include AOW, that can be required before you dive in certain places so it is important as well. But yes take GUE - Rescue - AOW

And once you're in the GUE system, you might as well take the GUE Rescue Primer and GUE AOW (formerly Rec 2) classes. But focus on Fundies for now, to get a solid foundation to build upon.

 

[Antonios (Holy Diver)]

Having been through Navy boot camp and Navy flight school, and multiple deployments flying combat jets from aircraft carriers, I can say this is basically true.

Boot camp involves a lot of hazing and yelling and physical abuse to separate the motivated from the non-motivated. The drill instructors make everyone miserable to get people to quit. Maybe 30% to 50% quit in boot camp. We started with 70 on the first day of boot camp, and only 19 completed boot camp 4 months later.

After boot camp, the yelling and screaming essentially ceases, and the flight program focuses on training to rigorous standards. Instructors want students to succeed. Maybe 5% to 10% wash out of flight school, often because of medical issues that preclude flying (e.g., air sickness).

The Navy has a standardized flight program called NATOPS. You can throw a pilot from one squadron into another squadron on a different aircraft carrier, and there won't be any hiccups because everyone operates the jet identically, and all procedures are identical.

That standardized NATOPS mindset is what attracted me to GUE in the first place. Unfortunately, GUE-F was more like boot camp than flight school, with abuse, hazing, ridicule - and very little education.

@Doc Harry I really feel sorry for that bad experience of yours, as I too had such an experience of a yelling, bad-tempered instructor in the past (from another
agency, although the agency had nothing to do with her character).Thankfully, my current GUE instructor was a really humble, mild person.

 

[DCN]

We actually just released a brand new elearning platform that is really amazing. It’s AI based and learns how you learn best and presents the information in a way that suits you best (reading, lecture, videos, etc).

We just got access to it, and it seems to be a great way to learn!