169FE

11 days until Fundies, hooah!

HAHAHA, now that is awesome; classic one-liner right there.

Off to fundies and BFE here soon! SERE to follow at some point... By the remarks in this forum here it should be a BLAST! Any advice other than the run of the mill stuff?

Definitely can't argue that one; valid point. Well, hopefully I can keep the old school mentality going in to training and then with my National Guard Squadron. We fly H3s and I pray to the God of C-130s they stick around long enough for me to get some good time in the old bird. Like you said, it seems like the old school mentality is disappearing, back shop work is being farmed out to OEM manufacturers, and trouble-shooting now is basically, "If something does't work swap, drop parts and put a new ones in until the problem's fixed." That, or the little black box is doing much of the trouble-shooting for you. Anyways, what do I know what I'm talking about I am just a new guy. Hopefully it's possible to still be a respected old-school type of FE!

You aren't even kidding either. I've came from 10 years background in maintenance (not that this is a lot, but it's better than someone from a non-maintenance background with no knowledge of aircraft sub-systems or theory of flight, etc). I'm not quite sure when the powers that be decided to take pipe-liners in to the 1A1 field, or if it was just a brief exception due to the ops-tempo in the early 2000s, but anymore I believe the USAF is back to only taking FEs in from feeder AFSCs or those who have AP license, private pilot's licenses, or similar. I wish it would have worked out for you Prosuper. Crew Chief is still an essential role, hold your head high. That's true too. Common sense just isn't so common any more. Younger troops now are just not as hands on as they used to be it seems; everything is becoming automated, automatic, and it doesn't require any actual hands on work, trouble-shooting knowledge, and so much of the backshop stuff is being passed along to depots or vendors. I work as a Field Service Engineer in the civ world in addition to the Guard as an FE and it amazes me how much backshop work is farmed out now. Turnover is high, and all the 5-level worker bees or above seem to be hard to retain.

Two months, twenty-seven days until fundies! Can't wait.

Thanks for the input, Azimuth.

This might be a dumb question, but I don't know the answer and am looking to figure out: When I'm at training for FE, what all entitlements for pay am I provided? Of course regular pay... how about stuff like BAH, flight pay, family separation, etc. I don't leave for any of my training until September, but it'd be nice to get a beat on how my income will be effected when training full-time away from my full time job as a civilian. Thank you!

Sweet, this should be a blast!

Sounds like I've got nothing to worry about at SERE even if I'm in relatively decent shape after reading these replies about people not passing the course; haha. It should be an interesting few weeks! I've heard mixed reviews. Some say it's hard. Some say all you do is hike and sleep in the woods and get a little hungry. Some say the winter SERE is horrible, some say it's better because it's not muggy and hot and you can dress warm. I suppose it's all in the eye of the person who is there and how they handle the situations they put you in.

That's actually a really good point man, I really appreciate the insight. Though the cold and snow might seem bad you can always dress warm (or warmer and try to stay warm). I heard that the instructors are rather liberal in what you wear when out in the field, no? I imagine ground pounding longer miles in the summer or spring when it's rained a lot and your boots are caked with lbs of mud and that does seem pretty crappy like you are mentioning. Regardless, I'll push through either summer or winter SERE. How do you like flying on the -135? There's an old Crew Chief from Fairchild who works on my shop floor now. How do you like using the wingtip pods on the -135? I imagine most of your stateside refueling is done with the boom since almost all USAF birds are boom refuelers and Navy/Allied forces are the hose and drogue. Since I deal with the -10 in my full-time job quite a bit now I've always wondered how the boomers on -135s like the laying down style you use while refueling. Thanks for the replies man I appreciate your insight to the training.

Makes sense Azimuth, just thought there was an outside chance. BFE is a washout course crammed into a month's time. I hear it's a fire hose of information coming at you the whole time suited to weed out all the chumps who just want to wear a flight suit so... Well I'll continue my wait, be patient, and be ready when the time comes in Sept. It's look more and more like I'll have the absolute pleasure of doing a winter SERE out at Fairchild (yippy). Are you a Boomer on the -35, -10? Currently I'm a Field Service Engineer for the center line on the -10. Cheers.

Thanks for all the great information and knowledge everyone. It's been a while since I've updated on here while waiting for news, but now I have some! After a little waiting, I've received all signatures and have been approved with training dates to Aircrew Fundamentals and Basic Flight Engineer at Lackland AFB starting this coming September. It took me roughly from January to April drills in the Guard to receive the final thumbs up for training dates after my packet was submitted. The packet had to be signed off by a flight doctor at both base and states levels prior to the training dates. Just for FYI to any other Guard guys looking for timeline, altogether from packet submission until I leave for fundies is around 9 months (which isn't surprising to me after all the reading I've done) I just wish it could occur sooner! I suppose this will give me some time to get my life prepared and in order to be in and out of the house with all the training at different locations around the country (as well as kiss the old ladies behind a while prior to taking off for some on AC). Hopefully my survival schools and Airframe at The Rock line up well with the training dates I have already. Questions: Is anyone familiar with or have heard of training dates with already cut orders ever changing if a slot opens up? I was cut orders for the fundies and BFE already but wonder if they could ever be bumped up. Is it possible that SERE, water, and para occur prior to fundies and BFE still or do you think they'll line all survivals up right prior to Airframe at The Rock? There's probably a usual general order they send you to the schools in I would imagine.

Still waiting on final packet approval (Status 5)! It's been 2 months 10 days since my FCIII. The wait is killing me!