HiFlyer

Actually, a mix of 500lb mk82s (the thinner ones) off the wing pylons, and 750lb mk117s (the fatter ones) out of the D-model's "big belly". They made a heck of a mess when they hit, especially if they came from a three ship, strung out beside each other about 400m apart and extending over a mile (roughly a 600-700m x 1200m rectangle). Occasionally they'd ask for BDA and I'd go down to look. The "assessment" was usually something like "On target...half mile by a mile of tree splinters and mud." Of course, they never told us what the target actually was, so the only accurate part was the tree splinters and mud. Due to my stupidity (turned Guard off earlier and forgot to turn it back on), I flew right through the bomb train once over Laos (in my OV-10) and "rode the surf" at about 5,000 AGL. Impressive!!

Generally, they only score the overall GPA from the degree-granting school. In some cases they may look at course completion, particularly for tech degree people, to see what specific courses you have completed to make you eligible for certain career fields (number of calculus courses, etc.).

Ahhh...the randomizer. I recall back at Beale many years ago that our Wing King got called for three or four no-notice tests over about a three month period.. He was actively looking for that guy, and not in a happy mood while doing so! Never found the guy and was introduced to the base's mainframe computer instead.

Those are very good scores, so congratulations. However, don't get complacent because selection board scores are a combination of about 15 separate items and the AFOQT/PCSM scores count for about 8-10% of the total (at least for the OTS boards, and probably similar weights for other rated selection boards). Make the rest of your package shine in a similar fashion.

No hard info on pilot needs...I don't see much change from the last few years. If you go to OTS as a civilian, you'll find out there which base you'll go to, and have a chance to volunteer for an ENJJPT slot in any are available (avg maybe one per class). As for preparing, start early getting ready for the AF fitness test (running 1.5 mile, pushups, situps, waist measurement close to 34 inches). Beyond that there really isn't anything specific to prepare for. The school is really set up to take bodies off the street and run them through the system.

15OT01 info from several seemingly reliable sources: 178 civ selects: 68 pilot, 56 CSO, 37 RPA, 17 ABM. Don't know the career field split, but another 50 AD selects (228 total select from about 550 applicants)

Then there's the bad puke story. I was flying a U-2 sortie down to Central America in the 80s when I started feeling sick and exhibiting symptoms of the bends. After a while I aborted the sortie (it clouded up under me and couldn't collect imagery anyway) and headed back to Florida, Soon thereafter I got violently ill and began throwing up in my helmet, which filled up to my chin/lower lip before I quit puking. It was a long 3+ hours before I got back to Patrick as I fought the sloshing vomit.. The nausea passed by the time I landed, but I wound up in the hospital because of severe bends symptoms. The Flight Surgeon nearly fainted when I unsuited and discovered that nearly every capillary from my waist to my head had burst and I looked like one of the "Blue Men" from Las Vegas! I don't recommend either experience.

I recall that back in the summer of 1972 I was with a group of 10 T-38s from Laughlin that were sent to Fairchild to provide rides to ROTC cadets at their summer camp. It was a pretty good deal, including the only authorized "take off with only half the fuel load" sorties I'd ever heard of. The idea was to fly cadet #1 on a 25 minute sortie around Eastern Washington, land, load up cadet #2 and repeat the sortie without having to stop and refuel. Each of us did four to six sorties each day. What I found so interesting was that even when would do some mid-altitude acro as we flew, and a few "high G" (5-6 gs) turns, not one passenger ever puked on the ride, except that upon returning to Fairchild, almost every cadet puked as we pitched out in the pattern at 2 Gs. That's about 25 kids over the week (for me), and at least 80% blew as we roled out of the pitch. I'm not sure why, but my riders weren't alone...all of the other IPs noticed the same thing. I guess they fought it on the ride, then relaxed too much when we got back. We ran out of bags by mid-week and had to scrounge up more from the 92nd BW life support shop. Luckily, we briefed them as the week went on to keep the bag in their hand as we came home so they didn't get the rear cockpits too trashed. Still, it was an odd occurance.

You might want to be careful about this. California property taxes are held down because of a law passed a few decades ago which limited yearly growth...the infamous "Prop 13". Unfortunately, it didn't do anything about spending, so funds to operate the state, counties and cities continued to grow significantly and required the combination of some cuts in public services and added taxes elsewhere and added to the states massive debt. I'm no tax expert but I suspect a sizable chunk of the overall tax burden simply shifted (to the 9% sales tax, for instance??) rather than being reduced.

I talked to an IP at IFT a few weeks ago and he discussed the IFT syllabi a little. There are three separate "courses", Pilot, RPA, and CSO: - Pilot is shortest, with a bit of a focus on airwork and patterns/landing, with some solo. About 3-4 weeks - The CSO syllabus is similar but slightly longer (a couple of flights) than the pilots. No solo but more emphasis on visual nav...IP flies while CSO stud reads the map and directs the IP pilot via visual references to maintain planned course and get to pre-selected points; he was not talking major difference in the course, but a few more flights focused on visual nav. Not sure if its using a Sectional or DoD TPC, but I doubt if the difference in the map is worth worrying about. He didn't comment on altitude, but I'd suspect 4-5,000' AGL plus or minus a little. No 500' low level if that's what you're hoping for. About 4-5 weeks. - RPA is longest course, with nearly a full PPL syllabus, including a solo out and back. About 7-8 weeks. The only other recommendation is to go to the DossIFS site (www.dossifs.com) and read it all carefully. Absolutely memorize the bold face and ops limits charts verbatim before you walk in the door...test on the first day! Some admin details need submission several weeks prior to arrival. Have your FAA Class III flight physical in hand, AF flight physical doesn't count (Doss is an FAA certified flight school, not an AF unit). It's all accessable via the web site. Good luck.

I doubt if you'll see much difference. They sometime throw in some new sections, but they're normally unscored for the first few years until they get a good baseline. The rest of the test may be slightly rearranged but its generally the same material. Take it and don't worry.

It varies lot depending on post-selection paperwork, how the physicals go (needed waivers), etc. but I'd expect 7-9 months to your OTS date, then straight to UPT base, sit for a month or two, allow five weeks for IFS (if you have to go), sit another month, then start UPT class for the next year. No guarantees, but that's a rough estimate with "normal" training schedule and delays.

- ANG units do their own recruiting. Find some units you are interested in and call them direct. - AD recruiters are supposed to help you get started, but local offices don't really recruit officers. They should be able to point you to their squadron's "Officer Recruiter", or Google "USAF Recruiting Units", find the one that serves your location, and call that unit. You may apply to an OTS board if you are within one year of graduating. If a local office is too busy, try going to www.airforce.com and using their site to get started.

Yeah, that's the impact of atmospheric diffusion of light and sometimes of being close to the horizon. It was NOT a flop at 70k...it was the biggest and brightest I ever saw. I've seen a number of comets, many of which were not even visible on the surface, and they are sometimes pretty spectacular. Also, being very high allows you to see "sprites"...lightning-llike discharges going up into the atmosphere from the top of megacells. They are a bit rare but also neat to watch. For some reason they seem to be more common in NE Asia and off the Russian north pacific coast, or that's where I saw them more frequently.

In my case (over 20 years in the U-2), I never paid much attention to looking up. Most of the flying was in the daytime, and looking up for much of a 10 hour flight is boring. Additionally, in a pressure suit, the helmet hurts the neck. I did see a few, but they were just moving lights. Now comets, that was different. Because most (95%) of the obscuring atmosphere is below you, that point of light with a very small and indistinct blur for a tail that you see from the ground is a very bright center with an enormously long and distinct tail. The most impressive was Kahotek (sp?) back in the mid-70s. That one was incredible...it covered half the sky!!

I was told that "expunged" cases are removed from view but are not removed from every data base, and that proper authorites with appropriate keys are able to examine records. Don't know the details. As for "better" I don't think it makes a difference for an OTS purpose. I know of lots of applicants with expunged cases who made it thru the process without a problem so I doubt if it will be an issue. If it were serious enough to be an OTS issue, it probably wouldn't have been expunged in the first place.

Nope, you still have to report them. The DoD sees records even if "expunged". Depending on what they were, how long ago they were, and your record since, you may still be okay.

Frankly, I think its less about political might and logic than simply money. I don't think the DoD has the money right now to buy Js for all the remaining Reserve units, and certainly not for the Guard units. If they don't already have Js in their pipeline, they'll keep their Hs for quite a while.

Interesting discussion about the experience issue, but nothing new. My father-in-law joined the Army Air Corps in 1939 (and went to Hawaii, where he was posted to Wheeler Field on Dec 7th) and retired in 1969. He told the same stories (post-WWII and post-Korea). I joined in 1967 and saw the cycle at least twice (post-Vietnam and post-Cold War) plus observing the current situation). In each case we seemed to survive. As one senior individual pointed out to me, developing all that experience is fine, but when one situation winds down, it usually takes a decade or so before we step in it again, and by then that 10-15 year experienced "old head" bubble is now at the 20-25 year point in their careers and either got out, retired or are serving in upper staff positions, of which there are relatively few. The few old guys left can't fill all the company-grade crew pig positions you need lots of bright and shiny young guys to fill.The old experience fills leadership and staff positions to try and pass on their "lessons-learned". It seems to me that most of the Captains and Majors that complain the loudest don't want to leave the cockpit to fill that role, so they don't serve much of a purpose in later years except to block up the rated pipelines; the young guys you'll need later can't get in and/or gain the experience. That's not a popular opinion in some circles, but that's the reality of it. That situation occured after WWI, and the result of not forcing out people left us entering WWII with a force of 40-50 year old Captains and Majors that couldn't effectively operate in WWII's environment (particularly in the Army, according to my father-in-law). It's an "up-or-out" system, implemented as a result of the problems revealed after WWI (I believe the Brits had the same problems), and if you really want an effective force at the ready for the future, you have to live with it despite its warts.

I didn't say we couldn't improve, I just said we'd never stop crashes as the poster commented, particularly from "when we get back to the business of flying them." Shit happens, knowing the correct way doesn't mean we'll always execute properly, stuff breaks, humans make mistakes. Strive to reduce, but don't expect absolute success.

The last board I was involved with (granted it was 20 years ago) the term "pilot error" was not is use. The term was "Operator Error", since the problem could have been the pilot, but also could have been the Nav, or the Load, or the Flight Engineer, or a human on the ground in some circumstances, etc.

Personally, I also agree Premise 3 is at least partially false. It should read something like: "It is important for the safety process and future accident prevention to identify specific human factors, when they are material to the accident, and the standardized taxonomy that should be used is the HFACS framework." Any human activity has some human factors, but I believe one of the keys to a good accident investigation is separating actual cause from things that are present but are "non-cause". Legislating causes because they are politically popular actually masks the serious issues that need to be addressed. As for the last sentence, we'll stop crashing airplanes only when we stop flying. It's an inherent risk that humans cannot remove. The goal is to reduce them as much as possible by fully understanding the human, environmental, and mechanical factors. However, mechanical failure, the physical environment, and human stupidity are not subject to absolute control. On the bright side, we've done a pretty good job over the last 30 years in bettering our designs and understanding the environment. The stupidity part remains a challenge.

Not exactly a first. The U-2 mascot at Osan (Oscar (the first), the black cat) was commissioned a 2nd Lt back in the late 70s, complete with certificate from the base commander, flight physical, and a ride in the U-2. We put him in a cage and secured it in the camera bay of the airplane, then flew him on a low sortie. There was a big ceremony and we loved it all, but apparently he didn't. Upon landing, the cage was removed, the door was opened, there was a flash of claws...and we didn't see him again for three days. The "good news" was after that, if he started to be an annoyance all you had to do was rattle his cage and he was gone for the day! He has since passed on to greater things, but last time I was there his certificate was still posted in the ops building

Go look at some day cats on Youtube or wherever, and you'll see the steam coming from the cat tracks on launches. I think its just the normal release lighted by the deck lights.

You mean the steam from the cat illuminated by the deck lighting?