dream big

Ugh sounds so familiar. break break.. Don't blame these LTs for talking about the airlines during MQT....fear deeply for the state of the Air Force that we have young soon to be copiglets/wingmen already thinking about the airlines. God we are so f8cked

Great attitude. Not sure why specifically you wanted T-38s but part of the reason many want it is to put bombs on the bad guys. There are a few opportunities to do that in the T-1 track (gunships, AFSOC in general.) Best of luck to you

Funniest response I've seen here in a while.

More than the previous SECAF who was pretty much worthless

Lots of hideous strippers and the local men try to start fights with you just because you are American. But there is a beach, and good burgers.

Nailed it a few months after IP school: "your job isn't to fly, oh by the way why didn't you contribute to the squadron chili cookout?" well maybe that's why most of our copilots can hardly land the plane. Heaven forbid we are actually tested in a real combat situation.

His speech to my SOS class was god awful, he probably single handedly validated most of the CGO's decision in the room to leave this failing force ASAP. Someone asked the question about a pilot shortage and his response in a nutshell : "there is no pilot shortage, stop your whining." Noted General sir.

Go guard/reserve...seriously! you still get to fly military airplanes, you still get to serve your country, all without the added bullshit (depending on the unit.) Yes guard units have their own issues but generally as a military pilot who actually likes to fly and eventually instruct you will be much happier.

We had a 1LT go to AC school at Yokota.... many guys are going under two years from inprocessing. No, some are not ready, hope they do okay on the road.

Any guard/reserve bubbas on here that can speak to how WOs are utilized in their units? I understand it may vary by airframe.

Big f*ing +2 man keep in mind this patch was the first patch working in the squadron in over 3 years...less than half a year getting the squadron back to a tactical mindset and off he goes. FYI I'm pretty sure he's going to punch asap. There goes more talent out the door. Well done big blue.

Yokota

Our patch wearer got back from weapons school in January, a few months later he went off to the wing to be an exec. Now the squadron lost their only patch. That's what is wrong with the Air Force.

We are already seeing this at the squadron level. Our DO asked each shop to rank order our additional duties. They are going to rack and stack them and just make a cut off, below which additional duties will no longer be done and the commander will accept the risk. There is absolutely zero reason for a young LT/wingman/copilot to be worried about equipment manager, building custodian, records custodian, whatever bullshit additional duty in place of being the best aviator they can be. That's LRS/CE/FSS/etc's job. Mission first.

C-130H at Yokota Take all this with a caveat since the C-130H is going away and being replaced with the J (same mission, just no engineer, navigator and much more advanced systems.) Also, I'm at Yokota which is one of the best flying assignments in the Air Force, so what I say will not necessarily mirror Little Rock or Dyess. Maybe Ramstein.. 1. Ops Tempo/Deployment: We don't deploy anymore but the ops tempo is absolutely crazy. This is cool if you like to fly like me, not so cool if you value family life. That being said most families love Yokota/Japan. Tight knit community here and the Japanese are absolutely wonderful people (although robot like.) We fly about 30 local lines a week, and about 20 off station missions a month as a squadron. Not to mention, exercises (to awesome places like Thailand, Guam, Philippines.) Life is busy. Young guys can expect to fly their asses off and I'm sure that will continue with the J transition. Captain-Major types, still expected to fly the line often (which is great,) but also manage a flight, 18 additional duties, MC for an exercise and be in-charge of the air-show. One thing that sucks about the H is that it breaks ALL the time. Very frustrating to go try to fly the line and the plane has a 3 hour ETIC thus your line cancelled. Your 2 day off station can turn into a 30 day real quick. Not too bad if you are single and like being on the road but very unstable. 2. Lifestyle/ Family Stability: As a young guy it is awesome. I've been to 80% of the countries in Asia in the C-130. While we don't deploy, we go to some very challenging, remote airfields that really put your PIC skills to test. We go to Nepal often and as a bro of mine would say: "there is no way to legally take off out of that place." Mt Everest is 29,000 feet and we can't even climb that high. As I mentioned, most families love Yokota, all families live on base and single dudes/dudettes live off base. 3. Community morale: The base sucks, plain and simple. Worst support service I've ever seen. Not knocking on any one individual, I know many great dudes in comm/finance/etc. but as an organization the base is horrendous. People care more about keeping track of resiliency training/SAPR/w/e than launching planes. 4. Advancements & Future of the airframe: Future? Guard/Reserves or go J. Most H guys are going J so that's cool. Advancements? We get a lot of opportunities here that you won't get elsewhere. Young captain as mission commander of a combined/joint exercise with Philippine/Korean/Japanse/Aussie C-130s flying together in formation? Hauling cargo and people into third world countries? Dropping Cambodian paratroopers out of an American C-130 and planning the whole thing? A lot of advancement. 5. Preferred PCS locations : Yokota or Ramstein. Dude, at the end of the day, I love the C-130. We get to travel the world like our C-17/C-5 brothers but yank and bank like our fighter bros, 300 feet of the ground, in formation, to an assault landing or throw shit out the back like our bomber bros. It truly is the best of all worlds.

Are you kidding me? And this is why 99% of the senior captains/majors I know want to GTFO ASAP.

Is McDew the dude that took away the C-17 pilots' wings even after the FEB recommended retention (while McDew was either 19th AF/CC or AMC/CC)?

Which base? ...I kid I kid!

Well the first week of SOS ended smoothly, and then a physical brawl broke out as everyone was leaving the O-club, something about someone's wife...?

Just my personal experience with him: the guy is pure gold, solid leader who gets it.

This is the kind of crap key leaders are wasting their time on? Still not surprised. For the record I am a minority pilot

FWIW, the best C130 instructor I ever had WAS the guy teaching tactics in the bar to LTs, he was also the wing exec yet one of the most proficient pilots I've met. He's a school select now and a U2 driver. Not sure why being tactically proficient and getting promoted/checking boxes is mutually exclusive.

Rugby players are generally bros, I wonder at what point he became such a tool. I can't wait for him to become AMC/CC a decade from now. That would be on par.

2, I found him to be an awesome dude. Very charismatic and always interacted with everyone, including us young LTs at the time. I think he will be a solid wing king especially after Rhat.

Amazing, but busy. We have more hours than we know what to do with. Expect to fly several times a week locally. Tons of off stations: mostly Guam and Kadena but the occasional Thailand, Hawaii, New Zealand and Maldives trips drop. In the spring we go to a ton of exercises. You're still expected to do your ground jobs so it gets busy. Current leadership is fantastic though.