B-O-double-Z

I haven't posted here for a long time but saw this topic and wanted to weigh in on it. Rainman...sounds like you are doing well in your second career. Congrats! Hope all is well with you and yours. Tell our mutual friends I said hello. The company I work for is currently hiring pilots. It's a great company (privately owned) with twenty-plus years experience delivering on military and OGA contracts on multiple continents. We have very solid management and culture and enjoy a great reputation with our customers. --$100K plus/year --Work half the time...six weeks on and six weeks off. --Fly commercially first class to work. Keep the miles. Lots of them... --Real world mission --Secret clearance required with ablility to aquire TS prior to start --Civilian Commercial/Instrument/Multi-engine required Most of our pilots are recent ex-military. Big boy job. Lots of the cool stuff of flying for the military...without most of the BS. I am still able to fly part-time for the AF Reserves while doing this job. Very military friendly culture. Great job for somebody transitioning out of the military. Some guys work here for many years...some for a short time and move on to other civilian careers. PM me if interested. Bozz

You can't "retire with 20" as an ART. You have to be at least 56 and have at least 20 years in the program to get the federal civil service retirement. If you quit the ART program after 20 (but less than 56), all you are going to get is an small Air Force Reserve retirement, based on your points, when you turn 60. Like you...I'd suggest he take the ART job. He can quit any time and go to the airlines if he wants to. But, if you go all the way to ART (civil service) retirement, you'd be joining the airlines at 56+...the last thing I'd want to do... but, to each his own. Bozz

Young enough to go to the airlines after retiring as an ART...? YGBSM. I'm not trying to discourage the ART career (I am one), but the retirement age for an ART is 56. To me, that is hardly "young enough" to have any viable second career in the airlines. Sitting in the right seat in my late 50's, with no hope of ever having any seniority, wouldn't be my idea of a good time. The good news about being an ART... 1. It is pretty high paying job. 2. If you like to fly the Air Force's toys, you can continue to do it long after your active duty peers are retired. 3. Ultimately, the combination of a civil service retirement, Reserve military retirement, government 401K, and Social Security, can make the retirement very lucrative...you just have to wait a long time to get it all. 4. Though you are limited in the amount of vacation time, you can pretty much take off work, within reason, whenever you want. What I'm getting at is, if there is something significant that you want to attend (kids sports, family weddings, funeral etc.) you can almost always work it out with your schedulers. If I can make it through the gauntlet, and continue to fly until I'm 56 as a fighter pilot, the last thing I'd want to do after that is go piss around as a chickenshit airline co-pilot.

Thanks for the good advice guys. I'm still debating whether to try to do this under the current constructs or wait, "betting on the come," that they'll extend CFI to military instructors soon. Are there any companies that "teach you the test" for CFI...like they do when you go get your ATP? I wonder if these guys at Accessible Aviation could help you knock the whole thing out in a few days? I'm assuming they have an FAA testing station there. I'll call them Monday. Bozz

GBock, I had heard about the proposal to have an FAA equivalence for military instructors. I didn't realize is was this close to being a reality. I'm not in a huge hurry...it is just something I've been interested in doing for a few years. Maybe I'll call a FSDO an see if they know what the status of proposed rule change is (I'll make sure I have a sharp pencil ready to stick in my eye to relieve the pain of talking to them if needed). As far as calling CFI an "add-on," I am probably am using the wrong terminology. My desire is not to have some flight school or instructor try to start me from scratch. I have a buddy who recently took his Multi-Engine, commercial, instrument ticket to a flight school and told them he wanted to have single engine privileges. They tried to tell him he needed go through a 40 hour private pilot (all the same sh!t as somebody who's never flown). For now, I thought there might be somebody who could recommend a civilian instructor (maybe like a former military guy) who could prep me quickly and help me get the check-ride/testing with min hassle.

Need some advice on the best way to get a CFI rating added to my pilot's license... I think technically, I need to take a written test (maybe it is an oral, not sure), have an endorsement to take a CFI check-ride, and pass a practical. I'm an ATP with multiple ratings and type-ratings, and military instructor. I came up through the military and never did any civilian instructing. I do a lot of GA flying and want to have the ability to instruct civilian flying on a limited basis (some tail-wheel training & private pilot instruction for my kids and my friends kids). I don't mind spending some money, but I don't want to get dicked around for weeks or get tied up with some dumb-ass flight school that won't understand that I just need an "add-on." I'm in Shreveport, LA. I can do the training in my own planes if needed. Any suggestions on how to approach this. Bozz

The Air Force doesn't have much of a sense of humor these days when it comes to impromptu fly-bys. The approval process has become very rigorous. There's no way this is an approved aerial demonstration. Most official fly-bys these days are similar formation, limited to one pass, and usually at 1000' agl. The only exception is if you are part of a demo team--and then, every aspect of your performance is scripted, practiced methodically, and approved by leadership. I'd say these guys are screwed. It has nothing to do with whether or not what they were doing is dangerous. It has to do with a lack of flight discipline.

You will probably acclimate to it. DO NOT tell anyone that you grayed out at 4.5 g's. If you fail to be able to cope with g's, it will become an issue in the long run. For now, on your first exposure in the aircraft, don't worry about it. Anticipating the g's is the most important thing. It is easier to withstand the onset if you are flying the aircraft. When somebody else is flying, you can get behind on your straining, because you don't anticipate it as well. If your IP is worth a shit, he'll know that is it normal and keep his mouth shut, anticipating that you will adapt. If you get the medical folks involved or tie the flight commander's hands...good luck.

I'm an A-10 patch wearer and I went to AIS. When I went, I did so because the unit needed somebody to teach the IRC and because I wanted to go TDY to Randolph for three weeks. I didn't really know or care whether the course was going to be worth a sh!t. In retrospect, I enjoyed the course, and learned a few things. The best part about it was that the class was diverse. I learned more about how other weapons systems operate, and made some friends and contacts, which was valuable to me. In my career, I've seen some appallingly bad examples of airmanship from A-10 guys. Some of it had to do with lack of understanding of ATC procedures, and how to manage a formation on an IFR clearance. I had to teach a safety seminar yesterday (yes...I've been to safety school too, so I guess I'm double-gay). Here are some of the highlights of A-10 crashes for the past 15 years. You can see we aren't immune from bad airmanship or poor instrument skills. --Pilot takes off on a VFR clearance in poor weather. Can't maintain VMC, so tries switching to an IFR clearance while directing other members of the flight. Becomes spatially disoriented and crashes into the ground. (weapons officer) --Pilot misses a non-precision approach (radar tape shows that the pilot did a horrible job flying the approach). He holds, they change runways, he comes back in for a precision approach. While on the dogleg, turning to intercept the ILS final, he becomes disoriented and continues turning and does what amounts to a split-S into the ground. (This guy was a high-time A-10 pilot) --A-10 pilot lands on wet runway. He doesn't seem to be able to stop. Approaching the end of the runway, he ejects. Airplane goes into the infield, still running. Firemen shut down the engines which were running at mid-range. Pilot never pulled them to idle. (fairly low time wingman) --Pilot compressor stalls engine during Air-to-air engagement. Pilot continues to fly with failed engine for over a minute without knowing his engine is failed (he has his speed-brakes out too, by the way). Finally realizes that the plane isn't flying so well (falling out of the sky) and he now can't get his speed brakes closed (hydraulic system lost with the right engine and not enough air-load on the SBs to get them in with the emergency retract). Pilot ejects. (upgrading weapons officer at Nellis) --Pilot in good weather at night on NVGs reacts to an in-scenario threat call. While maneuvering defensively, does a split-S into the ground from something like 7-8 thousand feet. Spacial D or loss of the horizon at night on goggles. (mid-time flight lead) --Pilot loses engine shortly after take-off, rushes back to land without performing the single-engine landing checklist. Stalls aircraft on final. Ejects. (Full Colonel) --Pilot loses engine on approach Forgets to put speed brakes in while flying on one engine (we fly with speed brakes out normally configured with two engines). Aircraft stalls. Pilot ejects. (high-time weapons officer) --Pilot loses sight of leader while maneuvering in steep terrain. Instead of calling blind, mashing the throttles to max, and climbing to gain sight, he stays at low altitude, slows down, then takes a wrong turn into a container canyon. Pilots ejects right before the airplane smashes into terrain. (low time pilot) There are lots more. These of just some of the good ones. I'd say go to every school you can that has to do with flying (especially if the Air Force is paying for it). Fly everything you can get your hands on. Get your civilian ratings even if you have no aspirations of a civilian flying career. You'll learn some things in the process. If you are going to be a pilot, you might as well be a good one.

That's not a bad article. The guys quoted are doing a great job keeping the ball rolling. The current cockpit (A-10A) is an abortion with all the "strap on" capability that was added after the fact. A big part of my job is teaching F-16 pilots how to fly and employ the A-10. They are continuously amazed a how crappy the cockpit is. I have to agree. There is another A-10 modification that the AF Reserves is set to purchase before converting to PE. It is a Smart Multi-Function Display and some new HOTAS to give us a Data Link and better Targeting Pod interoperability. It has been delayed and I'm now ambivalent about it. I can see a scenario where we get the interim upgrade just in time to turn around and upgrade to PE. That is a pain in the ass in the FTU, as each change ripples through all of our training syllabi.

You have your facts a bit backward... There were no deals cut for Chad that would have allowed him to go "straight to the pros." He went off to flight school thinking that he'd have to serve the obligatory 8 or 9 years that was the norm back then. He never totallygave up hope of playing in the NFL, so even when he was in the military, he kept himself it top condition. In 1992, he was able to get out of the Air Force because there was a draw-down going on. All you had to do to get out, for about a two year period, no matter how much of your commitment was remaining, was fill out a form. He didn't just quit the AF on a whim either. Once he knew that he could quit, he arranged a workout with the Cowboys, who had spent a late round draft choice on him in 1988, just in the hopes that he'd be able to get out at some point. He blew them away at the workout, they offered him a contract, and he then quit the AF. The rest is history...he played nine years in Dallas and has three rings. If he had been able to get out after graduation, he'd have been a first or second round draft choice. The four years he spent in the AF cost him millions, but he was proud to serve and never regretted having to take a circuitous route to the pros. He could have turned down flight school and been assured of getting out in five years, but he didn't do that. Like most other AFA cadets of his area, if he was going to be in the Air Force, he wanted to be a fighter pilot. He achieved that too.

I played 4 years of college football in Div 1A. We won 36 games including three bowls. Beat Texas, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, etc. I've started flying A-10s nineteen years ago and I'm still at it. Like I said in my post in this thread...sports don't make you a better pilot, but beig in a fighter squadron is a lot like being on a sports team. Having a strong personality and lots of confidence will serve you well in the long run. You can develop those things playing sports. If not in college, many of the top guys I've flown with were successful athletes in high school. I don't want to overstate the case, because there are certainly a lot of highly successful fighter pilots who have never played sports. It seems like a lot of fighter pilots were good baseball players too.

I'm not sure if playing a college sport makes you a better fighter pilot, but... There is a lot of similarity between being on a serious sports team and being in a fighter squadron. I don't think you have to play sports at the college level, but being good at some sport, at some level, especially a team sport, seems to be a good primer for success in a fighter squadron. It is competitive environment. There is a lot of peer expectation and accountability. You have to be confident and display grace under pressure. It helps to not be a pvssy. I don't think that many civilian workplaces compare to being in a fighter squadron. In a way, it is a refuge from ever really having to grow up. If you have a good boss, you can (and should) conduct yourself like a kid on a sports team. You have a very similar dynamic and ethos. There are your natural leaders, your talented slackers, your hard-working over achievers, your locker room lawyers, your quitters, your steady solid contributers, your cry babies, your guys who are just doing it for their dads, your pretty boys, and your crazy bastards. In fighter squadrons, there are some great teams and some sh!tty ones. ...and by the way, Robin Olds (who was a pretty good fvcking fighter pilot) was a standout football player at West Point. Him, Him.

Your concerns are legitimate. It would be a shame if you didn't go to UPT because of the current operations tempo. There is a chance that by he time you go to UPT, then finish FTU and Mission Qual Training, things could be different. I hope they are. The last five years are not the norm historically. There was a time, when instead of being the world police, we trained for war against other militaries, and deployed to places where people sort of liked us. I don't know if those days will ever return. I'm just saying...be careful not to base your decision on a snapshot in time.

This whole thread is a little disturbing... For a Lieutenant or Captain, the only thing the OPR "bullets" from you need to do, is remind your rater of the additional duties or projects that you have done since the last OPR. Your rater will decide if you performed them "expertly," or "amazingly," or "outstandingly." Here's a little tip for you all. None of the queep that somebody makes up about you (or that you make up about yourself) is going to mean shit on your promotion board. The only thing that matters, ultimately, is how you are stratified in your peer group on your PRF. For all intents and purposes, your promotion is either on ice, or DOA, before your PRF ever leaves the wing. As a young rated officer, the most important thing you can do is become an expert in your weapon system, be competent, well prepared, accept responsibility, upgrade as soon as you can with no bull-shit excuses, and handle whatever little chickenshit additional duties you are supposed to do. Be a good fellow and show up for work and do your f*cking job without constant excuses about your wife's doctor appointments, or your need to take your kids to daycare, or why you can't fly that tough night mission because you are feeling a little "cruddy." Don't be a pain in the ass to the scheduler. Make yourself available to fly. If you are a lieutenant, and trying to find you around the squadron is like trying to find Jimmy Hoffa, you are gonna be on your Operations Officer's shit list. Most of the successful officers I've been around, O-6 and above (and I work with senior officers from active duty, guard, and reserves every day), haven't spent too many brain cells worrying about their OPRs. They just showed up to work with a hard hat and lunch pale and did their job for 20+ years.