Scooter14

If you end up at Vance, they will submit your paperwork when you are done, it's tough to game the system at an AF base, since the whole mystical "timeline" is based on when the class finishes as a whole. On our track select day, a couple of our Navy/Marine brethren did not get their slots because they finished inside of a week before track select, and it wasn't back yet. We had 1 USMC jet, 1 Navy jet, 1 Navy T-44 (height issue - too tall to fly anything but a P-3) and the rest helos. I think a couple more jets came down the next week. Like Riddler said, it's all timing.

Nah, the other nav was from Louisiana, and he would do Crock Pot cookin' on the jet. He'd put all the ingredients together on the groud, then plug it in on level off. 2-3 hours into the flight it would be done. 8 hours into the flight the chili would kick in. 12 hours into the flight you'd be back in the terminal area, hoping to land in time.

C'mon now, we all gotta start somewhere. Bergman, remember those flights on my first Combat Sent trip a few years ago? Those ranked pretty high up there on the list of interesting experiences in the jet.

The link Linda sent can also be accessed through the Baseops.net homepage, NIMA Flight Pubs online or something like that.

Glad to know I'm not the only person out there who was less than stellar in the ol' echelon turn.

CH, that's a killer story. Nice tribute to all who came before us. My final area solo in Tweets was mine. It was a Friday, third period, sunny, with a very scattered cumulus deck up to about 8000 feet, about 75 degrees out (the Enid summer was starting to wind down, thank God) winds 350/10, runway 35 in use. I walked out to the jet, got all situated, saw a couple of classmates taxi by, waved, got flipped off by the IP's (jokingly, of course), and went out on my way. The fear of imminent death, "work south IMMEDIATELY" and surface to air tacos was not present, but I was confident in the abilities and procedures I had been going over for the past few months. Nothing really special happened in the air, but I knew that it was the last time this future heavy driver was going to get the keys to the jet and go out on his own for a very, very long time. The air was smooth, the visibility was awesome, and I had a blast. I came back to the pattern a little early just to fly the overhead a few more times, and landed, walked in right about at release time, went to the club and had some beers with the guys in my class. I don't think I stopped smiling until Sunday afternoon. [ 15. March 2005, 21:46: Message edited by: PAB ]

Westhampton NY

I like how they stare at you when you ask them a question after it took them 5 minutes to get to the window. I guess you can't pause Tetris, you just have to finish the level before you can assist the crew with the ARCT.

For me, my playing time suffered. I played lacrosse, and we went club to varsity my junior year. My coach expected everyone to be 100% committed to the team, like we were D-1 football players or something. Well, lacrosse wasn't gonna pay my bills, especially as a third line middie, but Uncle Sam was. I missed some practices, and I'm still pulling splinters out of my a$$ from riding the pine. Of course, the coach was an asshole, too. But, both my rommates played and we had fun despite the coach, and I'm too damn stubborn to quit anything anyway, so I stuck with it.

Dammit, man! Is nothing sacred anymore? Now all the UPT studs are gonna want to fly it.

If it takes a crew to fly an airplane, and the word aviate means "to fly", wouldn't all those involved in aviation be aviators? Scoobs, Every year, the AF times, DFas, Airman magazine, etc. publish pay tables for the military. One of the tables is called "Drill Pay" which basically is your pay for "one weekend a month" or 4 four hour Unit Training Assembly (UTA) periods. Multiply whatever rank you use as an entering argument by 12, menaning every drill weekend in a year. Multiply that times 2, because aircrew get 48 Additional Flying Training Periods (AFTPs) a year, which is 12 a quarter, or 4 a month, which is the same amount as your UTA periods. Go to the monthly Active Duty pay chart, find the same rank, and divide that number by 2. There's your "two weeks a year". Now, that's roughly the bare minimum any ANG flyer will get. If you use up your AFTPs, you will need to get Active Duty days to fly, which will give you 1/30th of your monthly pay, housing, flight pay, etc. Trips will normally be AD days, and they will also bring in per-diem (travel pay), which varies anywhere from $3.50 a day to over $100 a day. Desert deployments will get you $150 a month hostile fire pay, even if you only are in-country one day that month, as well as a combat zone ta exclusion, which means you don't pay income tax that month. So, as you can see, it's a complex equation. Most units like to see a flight a week, so if you are going to school, you could run it like this to max your pay... Take a night class one day a week, or set it up to be available to fly once a week. That'll typically get you 1/4 to 1/2 of that "drill pay" I was talking about. Do your 1 weekend drill, then be available for trips Xmas break. When the summer comes, volunteer for that 45 day rotation to the desert. That takes care of the 2 weeks a year, but those 2 weeks of AD days are still available, since you did your AD on CENTCOM's tab. Then, use those other days when you get back and now you've gotten 2 months of AD over the summer, take a break, then get ready to hit the books in September and tell all your friends what you did last summer. This is a very generic post, and there are more intricacies to the pay system, but if I went into every detail, we'd be here all day. This will give you a general idea of what to expect. Oh, there is a mil pay calculator on the Baseops homepage, check that out, too.

Not entirely true. The nav in the RC is the liaison between the mission crew and the drivers. The nav is constantly working timing problems for AR, and also to make sure the aircraft is where it needs to be, when it needs to be there for on-station times, exit times, vul times, when-you're-told-to-be-there times, etc. We're talking specific points or areas on the track, not just in a constant bank circular orbit. The EWOs need the jet to be exactly where they want it to be in order for them to execute their mission. The nav puts it there. You may have your whole plan worked out, saying, I'm gonna hit point A, then B, then C, back to B and then hit the exit point at 1700Z. You set your airspeed, you've got it plugged in the box, you put your whiz wheel down, you think you are MONEY and they call up from the back "We need an IMMEDIATE turn, NOW!" Might as well throw it all out the window. Up until very recently, the nav was the only person on the aircraft who could program the INS. The pilots only had a screen, no control head, so if you are cleared direct anywhere, the nav's gotta put it in, nobody else can. Yes, the EWOs (and the rest of the back end crew, forgive my overgeneralizations here) are the mission, but the front end gets them there and keeps them there. Granted, were not terrain following or doppler notching, but in most cases, the RC can't afford to be "a few miles or so off." with the front end crew "not doing a whole lot."

Granted, we all went through some degree of hardship to get into AAS, but I don't think we ever turned anyone away. If they wanted to join, we put 'em through the semester o' fun, and then we accepted them. Then we took 'em to NATCON New Orleans, 1995, baby! I don't care how many planes CAVOK had flown by then, I had a blast!

It doesn't matter how much you study for the Nav check, beacuse I don't think anyone's mastered "friggin' everything" yet. I had an unnamed former Gucci pilot who went on to fly FRED for my nav check about 10 months ago. Good guy, but I hadn't quite gotten this far in the reading yet. Here's he gouge, even though you won't get him 'cause he's gone... -What's the morse code identifier for the letter "I"? You must know it, you TIM every ILS freq, right? -When does the UK go to Daylight Savings Time? :confused: Tune in next week for the answers 04-10 M Flt OUT! ;) [ 28. February 2005, 22:56: Message edited by: PAB ]

Depends on what's going on in the world, obviously. Units bid on trips every year and try to spread them out accordingly. Some units bid more, some less depending on what they have ging on (airbridge, Block 40 conversion, runway closures, etc.) Some units bid and can't fill all the lines, so they call other units for help, which is how I got to Guam last month. Right now, we have some alerts, about a trip a week, and the normal daily schedule. I'm kind of a bad person to ask, since I'm on an Active Duty MPA tour right now and haven't truly "bummed" yet, but from what I see, you could get the following typical schdule in any given tanker unit: 1 drill day (2 SUTAS=2 pay days) 1 flight a week for three weeks (3 AFTPs and 3 SUTAs=6 pay days) 1 24 hour alert a week x4(8 days pay) 1 week trip = 5 days pay+per diem 4 hours of CBT's = 1 days pay Special project for the DO = 2 SUTA's - 2 days pay So, you can make about 2/3 to 3/4 of what you would make on AD. This is simplified a bit. The SUTAs and AFTP's pay flight pay but no housing allowance. The alerts, I believe, pay mileage and BAH Type II, since they are Active Duty days, as does the trip. Obviously, the trip pays per diem as well. That's just thie tip of the iceberg. I imagine the opportunities would be similar in any Mobility unit, with the trips, lengths of flights, etc. Again, I am pretty new at the Guard pay system, and I was fortunate as a part timer to roll from my formal school orders to an AD tour. The master Guard Bum around here is AirGuardian. When my tour ends, I can only hope to be as talented as he is. 'Course, he did sit around Maxwell for waaay too long before his single digit days long touch and go at Altus (where I was sitting around waaay too long)... Wait, I just read the above post...you're a technician now? You're one of them? The Dark Side has been joined once again (Me, nah, I'm not jealous :rolleyes: ) [ 27. February 2005, 22:18: Message edited by: PAB ]

A lot depends on the unit as well. We have mandatory drills in the winter to avoid them in the summer. Also, we'll do one mandatory day a weekend sometimes and save those two other RUTAs for later in the month. Being a mission ready crewdog requires a lot of ground trainng as well. Annual stuff like Chem Warfare, Survival, parachute stuff and other requirements listed in your friendly AFI 11-2MDS-Vol 1 for continuation training will be covered. Remember, the guys administering the training (CE, Life Supprt, etc.) are Guardsmen, too. Easier to get everyone in one place at one time. Most units I have come across expect a flight a week out of their traditionals. I'm actually not sure what my unit wants, but I'm max available right now, and they usually fly me once a week. [ 27. February 2005, 19:33: Message edited by: PAB ]

In the Coast Guard, it depends on the size(sts) of the vessel. The bigger the boat, te bigger the paycheck of the individual in charge. My bro is a LTjg (O-2), he's an XO of a 110 foot ISLAND class cutter. His CO is a LT (O-3). If he was on an 87' cutter, he'd be the CO. Anything smaller is commanded by a CPO. He was previously on a 225' JUNIPER class buoy tender, and I think his XO was a LCDR (O-4) but selected for the next grade.

C'mon now! We're flying 200,000 lbs of s**t and sheetmetal at the ground at over 150 kts with ~18" between those big, beautiful F108 engines and terra firma. I've never flown anything faster. Yeehaa! What was the Tweet...100kts, 110 50% flap and 120 no flap? The TONE started at 110 and went down 2 kts every 500 lbs or so. (Correct me if I'm wrong on these.) [ 26. February 2005, 10:35: Message edited by: PAB ]

Yeah, TLAR is a highly scientific, highly educated analysis of your aircraft hurtling at 150 knots through space and time on your final approach. Hmmmm, That Looks About Right... Slightly more advanced than the WAG

Sundowner, Your high school geometry teacher called. He wants his pocket protector back. Does anyone use TLAR anymore? [ 21. February 2005, 23:19: Message edited by: PAB ]

Do E-2/C-2 guys have to carrier qual in the T-45?

HD24, You know me, how could I resist giving you some grief about that ridiculous post. [ 14. February 2005, 14:58: Message edited by: PAB ]

The always tactful, never caustic HercDriver 24 wrote: Oh, I'm sure no Arkansas natives will take offense to that at all. It's like saying, no offense to the C-130 guys out there, but turboprop pilots are barely one step above the Urinal Cake Dispenser at the airport. Oh yeah, no offense to the Urinal Cake Dispensers, either :rolleyes:

THAT was awesome. Thanks for that one, Mambo. Classic.