Scooter14

I think scoobs is a spy, or he will eek out a living as "unauthorized biographer" to the baseops.net nation.

Bishop, Try this: https://www.ebaumsworld.com/kittycannon.html It won't get you good grades, but it sure made me feel better.

Hey, I had a choice on track select night. Keep drinking at the club while most of my buds took off for Pensacola to go fly fighters (or RC-135's, which is like a fighter, only better)because I sucked at Capt. Zavacki's Tweet Low Level Hell and barely made it out of Airmanship phase, or keep drinking downtown and say "I sure hope I see Huch and Bergman and my nav school buds again someday!" so much that you all end up back at Offutt with me a year later. Boy, was I glad to see you guys again!

Beav, I have seen ANG ALO advertisements (like the NY ANG and the NC ANG ASOS ads on baseops.net) that will consider any rated type person. I completely understand how being a fighter or bomber guy, especially with air to mud experience would be beneficial, but are the requirements different from AD to the ANG/reserves? Just curious.

Nah. I still have 7 hours and 32 minutes till my alert is over and I can start drinking again. Of course that will put me at 0600 local, but it'll be noon somewhere, right? I'll keep checking back periodically as I wait for Bergman to bite (sts). [ 19. April 2005, 21:30: Message edited by: PAB ]

True statement, Hacker. F***ing non-desert-deploying RC-135U guys thinking they were "in the shit" Yeah, you heard me Major cool avatar moderator boy! (You said correct you if you were wrong ) [ 19. April 2005, 20:17: Message edited by: PAB ]

Yeah, they are anal about it, too. I stuck an american flag sticker on my helmet, and next time I picked it up, the sticker was respectfully stuck on my laminated helmet bag nametag.

https://www.e-publishing.af.mil/pubfiles/af...1-2kc-135v1.pdf Table 6.1

Mine says Instrument airplane, so I should be able to fly any IFR capable airplane into the weather. No helos, airships, gliders, etc. only airplanes with one or more engines. Am I correct in this assumption? That's what the folks at the FSDO told me.

AFI 11-202v3, GENERAL FLIGHT RULES 6.3. Spectacles, Contact Lenses, and NVGs. (Not applicable to ROA operators) 6.3.1. Spectacles. While performing aircrew duties, crewmembers must use only Air Force provided spectacles and sunglasses. The Improved Aircrew Spectacle (IAS), including sunglasses, is ordered as the Air Force Flight Frame. The HGU-4/P is authorized only if the IAS is unavailable. 6.3.2. Contact Lenses. Crewmembers who want to wear contact lenses must consult with their unit flight surgeon and meet criteria and follow guidelines outlined in AFI 48-123, attachment 17. 6.3.3. Spare Sets. Crewmembers who wear corrective spectacles or contact lenses must carry a spare set of clear prescription spectacles on their person while performing aircrew duties. This being said, most guys I know in the heavy world wear their own glasses, and carry the IAS with them as thier spare pair. I wore the issued IAS specs and kept the spares on my person in Tweets. The IAS glasses fit over my O2 mask better than my day to day glasses anyway.

I try not to do math in public... Take the 28 year O-5 (or O-6 if he's a full bird) pay chart, then look at the housing allowance rate for his rank with or without dependents, add 'em together, and there you have it, within a couple grand or so. www.dfas.mil has all the charts. [ 04. April 2005, 13:02: Message edited by: PAB ]

That's tough to answer, because there are so many variables. It depends on how often you deploy, get tax free money, HFP, family sep, how much your rent/mortgage is compared to the housing allownace you are authorized, whether or not you get the bonus, whether or not you get the '05 Mustang or you stick with your '98 Ford Ranger that's already paid off, etc. Look at the pay charts, flight pay, etc, then look at your expenses, student loans, car payment(s), thngs like that. That should give you an idea. Make sure you take advantage of the TSP, open a Roth IRA for yourself, make it all direct deposit, and pay yourself first. If you leave it all in your checking account, you will spend it on stupid bullshit. Many people have many opinions of where it is best to put your money. Talk to your buds, the cadre, watch out for First Command (although I think they have been neutralized), PAY YOURSELF FIRST, and don't rack up a lot of debt. Being debt free is nice, especially when you go to buy that land.

Interesting... [ 03. April 2005, 09:27: Message edited by: PAB ]

The KC-135 was built for one main reason, to get the bombers to downtown Moscow. Remember, in 1957, it was state of the art. That's why Gen. LeMay bought so many. Sure, the KC-10 is great for cargo, and it can up and haul a fighter unit lock, stock and barrel, but if I understand correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong) does not have the quick response starting capability of the -135 and never sat SAC alert for that reason. Hopefully, the future tanker will be as tough and as numerous as the -135 and as versatile as the KC-10, with it's huge cargo area, receiver air refueling capability and built in drogue system separate from the boom.

It's possible, but totally impractical. We always use tankers.

I don't think it's right that you no longer have that nav slot. I would talk to the cadre and see what they can do. Don't take no for an answer, but be respectful and use good officership. You should not be penalized for this. People wash out of UPT and get nav assignments. This is bullshit.

Hey, I did an OEF trip May-Jul 2002, and that was the ONLY time I got to see Souda (granted, we lost an engine over the Med and had to land there, or I never would have gone there) Five days with a broken jet in Crete in July with all of the Germans and Norwegians on holiday topless at the beach...it did not suck! But you are correct, you will spend lots of time cleaning sand out of your crack. Amen, brother. I just had to give some props to my old squadron, I guess I can calm down now that I'm in the ANG. I guess the sibling rivalry never ends, does it? Let me know how track select works out, good luck on that T-44. BTW, shouldn't you be walking around a mock up pattern saying things like "VFR Entry", "Perch Point Breaking out" and "Left base, gear down, full stop" right now? AFUPTStud, if you are a Vance guy, you've got some IPs with very recent RC experience in the 32nd and the 8th with you, good dudes. Have your buddy talk to them as well. I'll PM ya. [ 27. March 2005, 19:51: Message edited by: PAB ]

https://www.6srw.com/ https://www.silent-warriors.com/ https://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/rivet_joint.htm These will get ya started with the unclass aspects of the missions. https://www.shemya.net/KC-135.html The best book on the -135 ever (note the RC-135U on the cover) To piggyback on what my young former student (blkafnav) was saying, the RC-135 mission is one of the best out there. There are three types, the RIVET JOINT (RC-135 V/W), and the ones mentioned above. Odds are, you'll end up in the RJ due to numbers of tails (16 RJ, 2 CS, 3 CB), and that's perfectly fine, since the 38th and 343rd are also excellent squadrons. You'll hear the argument over and over..."Oh, the 45th is where you want to be"..."Oh yeah, the 343rd sucks, you want to be in the 38th." Don't believe the hype. I was all stressed out over this since the guys I went to nav school with were in the 45th, and they told me that it was the best and all the others sucked. They were wrong. Go where you are told and it will all work out. You can always cross-flow over to the other squadron, but almost nobody does, because you end up attached to your particular mission/squadron/group of buds. True, the RJ deploys to more limited locations, but the schedule is done up well in advance. You'll see Al Udeid, play an integral role in OEF/OIF, Kadena, Mildenhall, Souda Bay, and on occasion Diego Garcia. The CB/CS guys are often on a beeper - no booze, no leave, just sit home and wait for it to go off. Sure, they go to Alaska and stuff, but with a family, it was way easier to be part of thr RJ community. I was almost exclusively RJ (with a couple of CS trips to Kadena), and I saw Kadena, Mildenhall, Saudi (pre-Al Udeid), Souda Bay, and Oman, as well as Hickam, Eglin, Pease, Fairchild, Eielson. Oh, and Nellis (the RJ plays here, not so much the CS/CB) The RCs are what's known as LD/HD, low density, high demand. They don't fit into the AEF rotation so good, so they end up gone a lot, but then again, everyone is gone a lot, so it doesn't matter. As for pilot stuff, the Aircraft Commander is the final say in the mission, but he/she works very closely with the nav (to keep him out of trouble), the TC (lead EWO of the three you will have on board the RJ, or the 9 you'll have on the SENT) and the AMS (the head enlisted crewmember who heads the crew of 10-15 intelligence operators) to get the mission done. You will have access to 99% of what is going on back there, and it's incredible stuff. The biggest thing I miss is not having the SA of what is going on. In the RJ, you'll know who's doing what at all times, and you have a front row seat. Sometimes you'll be part of a whole big package (sts) with everyone relying on your crew to provide intelligence and threat warning, and other times it will be just you, alone, unarmed and unafraid, operating thousands of miles from your TDY base. Your friend is lucky. The RC usually falls pretty low in the UPT class, because people equate it with AWACS and Tankers and everyone wants a C-17, blah, blah, blah. I had no idea what it was when I got assigned there as a navigator, but I had a blast. Good people, good mission, good town to be in (Omaha beats the hell out of Rapid City, SD, Abilene and Grand Forks, ND, I'm sure). Advancement-wise, you can stay for 3 years, then try for AETC, AFSOC, or AWACS/JSTARS, or you can move up the corporate ladder and do Training Flight, Stan/Eval and then instruct in the FTU and never have to sell your house. You can go to Kadena or Mildenhall for a 3 year tour as well and still be part of the 55th Wing. You will rack up hours. I got 2500 in 6 1/2 years. Yeah, we don't do low-level, and a lot of time is spent going from A to B and back to A, but remember, you can fly an orbit for 9 hours or you can fly from Charleston to Ramstein, but you're still droning for 9 hours either way. RC's don't deal with 17 hour ground times, either. We go there and stay for a while, somtimes quite a while. If you have any questions about the mission, the town, jobs for spouses, where to get drunk, which casino will best take your money (it's a toss-up) etc, let me or Bergman know, we both worked in the RTU and can get you what you need. Oh yeah, and they have the big motors now, too. You know what they say about bigger engines... More thrust. [ 27. March 2005, 18:47: Message edited by: PAB ]

...or, be that guy who borrows your friends car and get the tickets in his car. Just kidding. Are these Campus tickets or are they municipal tickets? Is there a difference?

Wow. That sucks. :( I wonder about "trickle down" effects. I know Air Refueling is in demand right now, and obviously, suporting deloyments, airbridge ops and air defense will keep us employed, but a lot of our day-to-day training work is supporting the various ANG fighter units in the Northeast (since that's all we got around here, no more AF Active Duty). If they make all of our little buddies into balsa wood and pusher props, then who will we train against? :confused:

...and you said **** in the interview, too, which I'm sure helped. Hey, look at it this way, it's either Block 30 Vipers to 48 year old E models in 2002, or it's Block 30 Vipers to fresh off the line, still has that new-control-van-smell UAV's. Oh, and New York is not part of the Northeast. We don't want 'em. [ 25. March 2005, 08:36: Message edited by: PAB ]

Scoobs, Yes, but it's not as bad as he made it out to be. You get graded in subcategories on your flights and sims. These are the MIF grades. That stands for Maneuver Index File or something likr that. These categories range from your mission planning to your preflight to any maneuvers required on that flight, to your Emergency Procedure scenarion and your General Knowledge. The grades are U (Unsat/unable), F (Fair), G and E. When you accomplish an item, you will be graded against the standards. Each standard lists tolerances for airspeed, time limits, etc, depending on what it is. If you are not within the standard, you will get a fair or an unsat for that area. To advance to the next block of training, your solo or your checkride, the MIF required will typically be a "Good" (Maybe a Fair in the beginning, I think your landings needed to be a Fair level before your initial solo) and you will need to attain that level of proficiency by your end of block ride to advance. Which leads me to my point, if you are doing your very first simulator at UPT, what are the chances that you will be able to do your preflight, takeoff, fly approaches and land to the level of the standards? Not very good, which is why he was marked Unsat in those categories, but got a "Good" overall grade. He did not Unsat the flight. Nobody will fault you for that. Where you will get faulted is for continued substandard preflights, mission planning, Emergency Procedures and General Knowledge. These are things you can control. You can practice preflights from day 1 in the cockpit procedures trainers (bamboo bombers). These are mockups of the T-37 cockpit, so you can go through and visualize everything and flip the switches in the right order to get the memory thing going. Mission Planning, EP and GK is also a measure of how much effort you are putting into it, and how much you are working with your classmates. Finally, few people will get the Good or Excellent grades on all of their items until just prior to their checkrides. The reason is (and I'm a little fuzzy, but you'll get the idea), that once you achieve the required MIF grade, if you do not perform to that level on subsequent rides, you will regress, and that generates paperwork. So, if you have ten rides to achieve a Good landing, and you grease it on ride three, you probably still won't get above a Fair until you demonstrate continured profiiency. Not a knock on you, it protects you from unwanted ass-pain.

Hey HD, I have no civilian job and am living in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. I'm incredibly fortunate to be activated right now and getting a full paycheck, but there are friends of mine who are not. I did my 8 years AD time, I did my over 400 days deployed in the first 3 years as a CMR nav, and now I am in the ANG for the opportunity to be a pilot, to have stability without the frequent PCS moves, to raise my kids in the area I grew up in to be close to the family they have missed out on the last 5 years I spent in Omaha and Enid. I choose to serve. It does help my income (hell, it is my income right now), but I could be making a hell of a lot more money doing something else, and so could my wife. Like Tentoad mentioned above, I fly at least once a week, am expected to keep the same level of knowledge as my AD counterparts, but when I'm back on part-time status, will only receive a fraction of the pay. We don't get full per-diem wherever we go, either. We get the same as you. Oh, and by the way, the ARC pay system is so ****ed up, you won't even see your HFP or CZTE until you get back. I just got my last two weeks of pay from Altus (1-15 Oct 04) last week. If anyone is telling you otherwise, they are full of shit. We are a team, dammit. You can't do your job without us, and we can't do our job without you. As the BRAC approaches, you're gonna see more blended wings, etc. I'm not trying to belittle your job. You are in a combat zone right now. Godspeed, and I hope you stay safe, but look up and down the ramp at the places you go. Look at the tails of the aircraft. Count how many say ARNG, ANG, AFRC, etc. I am on BRAVO alert right now. When that C-5 or C-17 brings those pallets into theater, they got there because guys like Tentoad and myself are refueling them before they coast out. There is a lot that goes on in the world besides Gulf War II, and people still need to do those jobs as well. Exercises, Noble Eagle, Counterdrug, Pacific Regional Stability, etc. We all spend time away from our families, some of us get shot at, some of us don't. That's not the point. The point is we are all expected to uphold the same standards. It's Aviation Carrer Incentive Pay. Not Active Duty Incentive pay. Besides, it's not coming from your paycheck, so what the **** do you care? Dude, you've got my number. You can piss me off with only three lines of text that took me 5 seconds to read. It usually takes my wife at least 5 minutes to piss me off like this.

Our shcedulers sent this link out with the weekly schedule. How much can it hurt to write a letter to get an extra $7800 a year? It's gonna be tough, but it is true. I know Active Duty guys who fly once every 4 weeks or so, (not by choice-they are usually holed up in some thankless Wing job) where as our part timers are flying at least once a week, plus the alert tours, and getting 6/30ths of the incentive pay. I think the point of sending this out o the deployed units was to get them on board for when they come back, and to have every state/unit represented. Sure, they get it all of they are on Title 10 orders longer than 30 days, but when they get redeployed, they are slugging it out like the rest of us.

The dispatcher road is a long one, much like going from a commuter up through the ranks into the major airlines. You'll need to slug it out before you get picked up by the big boys, especially in this age of cutbacks. I don't have a lot of experience in this genre, but I had a couple friends get their tickets and look into the hiring process. But, navs/WSOs/EWOs/Base Ops folks/WX personnel and Air Traffic Controllers can take a short course usually. Do a google search if you are interested.