Leaderboard

RF-4C 1. Ops tempo: Outstanding. Best kept secret. Basically a flying club. As a 1Lt it's your airplane with great responsibility; "All we ask is bring it back in one piece." Flying is mostly low level single ship to where ever YOU and your WSO decide to go that day. Not flying, review your film from previous day, do a tour in the RSU, perhaps a little studying in the vault, shelf check at the BX. TDY's and deployments minimal and considered a good deal. AAR training every couple of months. Night AAR is always scheduled with a full moon. If stationed in Germany always save a little fuel for the fur ball with whomever is trolling along the Rhine. 2. LIfestyle/family: Could not be better. Home every day by 5. No working weekends. If stationed in Germany most have a rental Swiss chalet for the winter skiing months. 3. Community morale: Excellent. Surprising amount of fellow pilots UPT DG's. Some turned down fighters to fly Recce. Everyone works and pulls together. 4. Advancement & Future of Airframe: Terrible, once Recce always Recce according to MPC although I managed a 4 yr OA-37 assignment to DM. (another flying club). NO future dedicated manned Recce airframes. 5. Preferred PCS locations: Zweibrucken, Alconbury, Bergstrom. Oh crap, just got up from a nap. Dreaming it was 1977 and not 2017! Sorry guys, you missed a great time in the AF. 10 years AD then off to a legacy airline.

So, there I was. No shit. Middle of an ORE at Shaw, first of three sorties for the day turning ACT x ACT x RED. I was a brand new CMR #2, all thrust, no vector; I'm a pitbull on a fvcking leash. Brief and ground ops were uneventful, up to the point where PFL (wussy flight lead) calls Ops and tries to cancel due to isolated VCTS. Fvcking FAIPs. Ops recommended he grow a pair so we took off and headed west. After precisely 69% of the vul covered, with a clean picture and most of my missiles expended, the SOF calls on AUX - mushroom cloud overhead; we need to divert to WRB. PFL quibbles, something about it being his turn to cook dinner that night. Those of you who know MatMac are aware: this is no joke. Anyway, Georgia is a state where (up to that point) I had yet to slay so I tactically declared BINGO and reached back with my right hand to make sure my helmet bag contained my trusty mark-1 divert kit: deodorant, toothbrush and a box of rubbers. On vectors to WRB I've got snowplow called up and I wisely aimed for every rainshower I could... On the ground, we talk to TA about turning our jets. Well, I talked to TA. PFL was on the horn with his wife and then PF Chang's ordering food so he didn't get in trouble. Turns out TA will take 3 hrs to turn the 8 jets so we go to the bowling alley to get lunch. This is where the fun starts. It's summertime, so school is out. I spy a group of four lovely ladies (who were looking for heroes) on lanes 6-9. I give PFL a 5-spot and directions to order a burger, then I go anchor by the ladies. Turns out the outgoing blonde is the wing king's daughter and the others are her friends from the nursing program who happen to be visiting during the summer. Shitty food is consumed. Numbers are exchanged. I depart for Base Ops with digits and the hope of a road trip some upcoming weekend. I proceeded to do the most thorough pre-flight inspection of my life. Low and behold, I find an EMS bit ball had popped after landing! Sure, if I had noticed it on my post-flight then maybe they would have had time to send dudes from Shaw to fix it that day. Not likely though. Now, everyone knows that flight through precip is likely to trip one without any real problems, so PFL comes over to survey the situation. He closes the panel and asks what I'm gonna do. I give my best pep talk about how happiness comes in small doses and opportunities to be true heroes are rare. His response: "I know dude, that's why I need to get home. I'm only allowed two TDYs a year, I don't want to burn one in WRB." SQ policy was to divert as two-ships but I sit idly by with a shit-eating grin on my face as 7 jets blast for home and I walk off to the Qs, helmet bag thrown over my shoulder. Aftermath: he told me the lettuce wraps were particularly good at home that night. Me, on the other hand - I got back the following afternoon and was completely spent. 4 nursing students not worth burning one of your allocated TDYs on? For me it was, and all it cost me was a phone call to my neighbors to take care of my dog. Well, that and I did have to replenish one divert kit.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Keep on him. I would reach out every week. If you are local, a face to face visit always helps too.

Sorry to hear about your loss of a toothbrush.

You don't sign a Form 8 saying you agree with it. You sign a Form 8 saying you've been debriefed.

Well that won't buff out.

why don't you PM them with your questions, dipshit?

I had two separate friends in June and August get theirs through in 5 weeks. No waivers or anything. But I suppose priorities can change in a short period of time.

Dude...you got hired. Friggin' show up to drill and get your shit done. The guys hired in on my board who aren't willing to commute aren't nearly as far along in the process because they don't show up to drill. It's all about face time with the right people.

New guys take note. This is how you tell a story.

A little tidbit of information that’s not really well known. A waiver has been passed that allows afsc 18s to fly as a mission system officer on the RC-26. Mostly meant for the two bases where rpa and the RC26s are co-located, but might work elsewhere. I️ thought I’d drop that little nugget here. Cheers!

Anything I add would be quibbling.