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Follow motox3005's advice. Keep pressing, don't give up. Unfortunately, doing a support person's job for them will be good training for being an Air Force pilot.

I just want to second that following motox3005's advice is the best route. I also went through something similar.

Oops! My bad...I thought it was only the 38 guys who did that Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Unsure of the TX course. I am a current HC-J CSO at moody who flew the old P models for a few years as well. Training is almost identical for HC and MC. Ops tempo including TDY and deployment is roughly 1-1 with deployments being in the 4-5 month range. The mission changes with AOR. Mission was CASEVAC in Afganistan, and rescue alert elsewhere. In some AOR's it is easy to feel under utilized because they are primarily SOF. When the SOF guys do a high risk op, they usually have a SOF backup plan if it goes south leaving rescue as the backup to the backup, but we do get alerted and launched for pop up issues (i did one such mission on my last deployment, we were even the RV, left the helo's at home). In that AOR we also flew some overflow trash hauling missions since the single slick was not enough, and some overflow SOF infil/exfil/resupply since they often needed more airlift than they had. In more conventional AOR's that involve more fighter and bomber missions we pull airborne or ground alert for those guys as the primary rescue force. As far as flying opportunities, we honestly get less hours than the MC guys especially since there is a lot of alert time while deployed. At home, it seems the typical schedule will be 7x 5hr sorties per week, which should translate to 1-2 flights per week for most. As for job satisfaction, it depends greatly on your personality. If your satisfaction comes from being the center of the action and racking up hours, the HC may not be for you. For me the job satisfaction in this community comes from knowing that your presence makes all our guys safer, flying a highly rewarding mission that only occurs occasionally is needed, etc... I really enjoy the launch and have to plan the whole mission on the fly aspect as well. It does take a certain mentality to really love rescue. Valdosta, imho, is not bad. We are easy weekend trips from many awesome places, there are a few good restaurants and bars in town, the locals are very pro military, but it is definitely country living (pro or con depending on personal preference). If you are into cars there are plenty of activities from off road to autocross to drag racing, a few good gun clubs if you are into shooting, plenty of hunting opportunities. Morale at the squadron seems to be steadily improving. It seems that a combo of more utilization, many of the bitter types getting out/moving, and the new J capes are having a very positive effect on the community. It does seem that we are trending towards being more involved/utilized and getting more hours.

I'm kind of in the same boat as well with my AFRC recruiter not being the most responsive. I gave him all my documents/scores but I still need to take/schedule my MEPS physical /FC1 for the Unsponsored Boards. I was trying to see when the deadline was but couldn't find anything. At least you have access to your recruiter. Mine is on a base, so I can't just stop by unless I am sponsored.

Yet...

What the hell is wrong with you and your "coworker"?

If you put your feet on the desk and don't tie your boots (fold the sock over technique) while wearing the super comfortable Nikes, well there's the problem: I'm sitting at a desk.

Chiming back in after a couple years. I got selected at age 31. So if you are wondering, it is possible if you are determined to make it happen!

Kid, the best thing about being a pilot is you can do whatever you want whenever you want.

Dude! You should know better than to post about Spec Ops Fighter Pilots on this board!!!1 OPSEC

Good to know. I knew about the verbal orders thing, but that is a joke (at least at my base) as CTO requires a written MFR for verbal orders. What part of verbal do they not understand? But the self-approval thing may be an option, I did not know about that. I was thinking more of a normal route that allowed a military only chain of approval during squadron TDYs when everyone in the squadron is there but the civilians are enjoying their weekend.

I would like to see a system where two SrA and a civilian who only work 730-1630 don't have to approval orders for last minute TDYs. Maybe an alternate route that goes through the flight commander or the first O-5 in the chain to approve so I can actually get orders made during a 3-day weekend.

Simple answer: Get the folks that make TurboTax, TaxCut, etc. to make the replacement. These guys can make software that makes doing taxes relatively easy (I've never heard anyone under the age of 80 say they'd prefer to do taxes on paper), they can keep up with the constantly changing tax code, they can make the software so cheaply that they can give away for free, and they can make it interface with the federal system that puts $'s into my bank account. Heck, we could even get 2 or 3 of them to do it, and give them a cut off the backend. You choose which of the systems you want to use, that developer gets paid a percentage of your voucher (not out of your payment though). The more people use it the more they get paid.

Make it fewer pages! There is way to much separation of things that don't need to be separated. 1. Let me put in all locations, arrival/departure dates, lodging costs and per-diem on a single page. Give me a check box if one location has changing costs or special requirements and then i can revert to the current PITA way of doing it. ie: Location 1: Date Arrived: XX/XX/XX Date Departed: XX/XX/XX Daily lodging: $XX.xx Daily Per-diem: $XX.xx Special circumstances ? Y/N Location 2: .... 2. Put mileage / non-mileage expenses on the same page. Hell, put em in the same drop-down. 3, Stop telling me arrival/departure dates aren't authorized / stop isn't authorized / etc. If I arrived on a certain date, that's the date I arrived on. Obviously it was either authorized or required. Let it be! 4. Make it look like the paper voucher. The paper voucher didn't require help filling out. The digital voucher should be even easier. If it's not, it needs to be re-done. 5. Once the new system is designed find the lowest common denominator and have them run through the entire process. If they can't do it without help go back to the drawing board. If the program freezes/ crashes/ etc fix it before publishing. And do it on an old gov't computer running vista. Don't use the brand new Win 7 (or 8 or 9 by then) system.

I hear ya man...