How do you feel about your airframe and mission?

[FishBowl]

Any E-8 Pilots/crew wish to share their insight? I don’t know of any here at UPT. I just dropped them out of T-38s. 

[Springer]

RF-4C

1.  Ops tempo:   Outstanding.  Best kept secret.   Basically a flying club.  As a 1Lt it's your airplane with great responsibility; "All we ask is bring it back in one piece."  Flying is mostly low level single ship to where ever YOU and your WSO decide to go that day.  Not flying,  review your film from previous day, do a tour in the RSU, perhaps a little studying in the vault, shelf check at the BX.   TDY's and deployments minimal and considered a good deal.  AAR training every couple of months. Night AAR is always scheduled with a full moon.  If stationed in Germany always save a little fuel for the fur ball with whomever is trolling along the Rhine.

2.  LIfestyle/family:  Could not be better.  Home every day by 5.  No working weekends.  If stationed in Germany most have a rental Swiss chalet for the winter skiing months.

3.  Community morale:  Excellent.  Surprising amount of fellow pilots UPT DG's.  Some turned down fighters to fly Recce.  Everyone works and pulls together.

4.  Advancement & Future of Airframe:  Terrible, once Recce always Recce according to MPC although I managed a 4 yr OA-37 assignment to DM.  (another flying club).  NO future dedicated manned Recce airframes.

5. Preferred PCS locations:  Zweibrucken, Alconbury, Bergstrom.

Oh crap, just got up from a nap.  Dreaming it was 1977 and not 2017!  Sorry guys, you missed a great time in the AF.  10 years AD then off to a legacy airline.                         

 

[LonghornAirman]

Are there any other HH-60 pilots that would care to contribute? The one that did above on page 3 seemed kind of half assed. I'm interested in maybe tracking helos, so more info from a Pavehawk pilot would be real helpful.

[JustHangingOut]

Any C-17 guys have any words for us?

[Snooter]

11 hours ago, JustHangingOut said:

Any C-17 guys have any words for us?

Tacrep JB?  

We're gone a lot.  Between disaster you name it, channel/contingency missions to Afghanistan/Iraq/Turkey/Kuwait/Jordan, Presidential golf weekends and trips to wherever, locals to make up for the one that got cancelled three weeks ago because the president wanted to go golfing, during the hurricane. Turn around to finish up your deployment checklist so you can hang out at the Deid for 3 months.  Return home and hit up SOS after you get recurrent in airdrop.  Get back from SOS to find out that congratulations you will be going to AC school in two months then PCSing to Del Rio in 6 and Randolph will be an out and back TDY to save money... 

 

 

 

...Still the best deal in the Air Force.

[JustHangingOut]

10 minutes ago, Snooter said:

Tacrep JB?  

We're gone a lot.  Between disaster you name it, channel/contingency missions to Afghanistan/Iraq/Turkey/Kuwait/Jordan, Presidential golf weekends and trips to wherever, locals to make up for the one that got cancelled three weeks ago because the president wanted to go golfing, during the hurricane. Turn around to finish up your deployment checklist so you can hang out at the Deid for 3 months.  Return home and hit up SOS after you get recurrent in airdrop.  Get back from SOS to find out that congratulations you will be going to AC school in two months then PCSing to Del Rio in 6 and Randolph will be an out and back TDY to save money... 

...Still the best deal in the Air Force.

That's quite a work load!

Any comments on the reserve side from anyone?

[the g-man]

Tacrep JB?  
We're gone a lot.  Between disaster you name it, channel/contingency missions to Afghanistan/Iraq/Turkey/Kuwait/Jordan, Presidential golf weekends and trips to wherever, locals to make up for the one that got cancelled three weeks ago because the president wanted to go golfing, during the hurricane. Turn around to finish up your deployment checklist so you can hang out at the Deid for 3 months.  Return home and hit up SOS after you get recurrent in airdrop.  Get back from SOS to find out that congratulations you will be going to AC school in two months then PCSing to Del Rio in 6 and Randolph will be an out and back TDY to save money... 
 
 
 
...Still the best deal in the Air Force.

Sounds about right.

[extender10]

Son of C-17 pilot during Iraq supply bridge/OIF/OEF at McChord.  Can confirm gone very often.  Now I'm going to UPT.  Father-son relationship back to 110%.

[Hodor]

On 11/9/2017 at 1:31 AM, extender10 said:

Son of C-17 pilot during Iraq supply bridge/OIF/OEF at McChord.  Can confirm gone very often.  Now I'm going to UPT.  Father-son relationship back to 110%.

Wow...C-17s are old now. 

HH-60 side: Aircraft: Tired. Mission: Good.

[Woody11]

Any MC-130J folks here? 

Happy Veterans Day 

[McJay Pilot]

The MC-J  comes with an awesome mission set, but a really high ops tempo. You're gone a lot, but you get to work with a lot of skilled folks across the SOF community.

[dream big]

We haven’t heard from any A-320, 737, 757, 767, 777 guys on here at all...some input on your “mission” and QOL would be appreciated! 

[YoungnDumb]

They're all too busy hitting on the stewardesses and enjoying the good life.

[JeremiahWeed]

On 11/13/2017 at 2:23 PM, dream big said:

We haven’t heard from any A-320, 737, 757, 767, 777 guys on here at all...some input on your “mission” and QOL would be appreciated! 

Ok, you asked.

Fedex 777.  Mission is to make the company billions and for me grab some of the crumbs to the tune of $250K a year as a co-pilot(First Officer).  Typically work 12-14 days per month either all at once with the rest of the month off or week-on, week-off.  Much of that work time is soft time (i.e. not actual flying hours).  Typically, I'm paid for 80-90 flight hours each month, but it's rare for me to actually have air under my ass for more than 50 hours each month.  Since I'm an FO, many trip are as a relief pilot which involves deadheading around the planet in business or first class to various locations where I will meet up with the crew and act as the "free agent" third or fourth pilot on a long haul flight and then part ways.  For the last 10 years straight, I've made the highest level in American Airline's frequent flyer program annually and have 1.5 million miles to use for family leisure travel.  I can choose how I orchestrate my passenger deadhead flights using the company money available and any extra $$ is available for various travel expenses incurred in conjunction with any trip.

Next month, I will be picked up at my house by a limo (paid for by Fedex) and driven to O'hare to begin my journey to Tokyo.  My trip is due to start on a Thursday but since I'm not going to follow the deadhead schedule, I will stay home on day one getting paid.  Friday, I will fly from O'hare to Tokyo in a lay flat business class seat sipping single malt and maybe catch a movie.  From there, I'll take the bullet train to Osaka and have about 48 hours off before I have to work.  My only flight on this trip is a 4-hour leg from Osaka to Guangzhou, China.  Once I arrive in China, I'm done.  I have a quick 12-hour layover and then I'm scheduled for 3 day deadhead sequence to get back to Memphis.  Since I don't want to go to Memphis, I'm going to stick with the original plan of a private car driving me to Hong Kong which will get me to my first flight out.  Thanks to my frequent flyer status, American has upgraded me from business to first class on my HKG to DFW flight.  Once at DFW, I'll hang in the lounge until my flight back to O'hare.  Once back to Chicago, another limo will take me home, dropping me off on Wednesday, 5 days after I was picked up.  Since I shaved some time off my trip home by deviating, I'll be on the clock for almost 24 hours after I get home.  For my trouble, I'll have about 30K more frequent flyer miles and my paycheck will be about $10K fatter (before taxes).

Now the rest of the story........ About the time I'm landing in China after the 4.0 from Osaka, my family will be doing the Christmas morning routine.  Being an almost empty nester, that's okay and gives someone with little ones a shot at being home.  Hardly as noble as it sounds.  I'm just a lazy MFer.  Getting paid 10-grand to deadhead in style back and forth from Asia so that I can fly a single 4 hour flight is a fair trade off.  That trip plus another for the first 6 days of Dec make up my month.

So, that's one snap-shot of the Fedex 777 thing.  Believe it or not, I've had better months, but this will definitely be a good one.  The bad ones can be tough but with a little seniority, the good far outweighs the bad.  Our bad doesn't hold a candle to the long days those of you still doing the job for big blue deal with.  So, when you decide to bail, come on over - the water's fine.  I usually get a paid commute via private car and first class international deadhead every month.  There's lots of "Q" in the QOL and I definitely recommend it.

Also, WTF is a "stewardess"?

Edited November 15, 2017 by JeremiahWeed

[BashiChuni]

Wow

[viper154]

And all this time I thought jet fuel and the price tag of the jet are what kept the overnight air mail prices so high. 

[AZwildcat]

2 hours ago, JeremiahWeed said:

Fedex 777.

[LiquidSky]

4 hours ago, BashiChuni said:

Wow

There go my plans to do the full 20.

[zachbar]

Late to the party, but C-5M meat servo here.

1.  Ops Tempo/Deployment

We don’t deploy as an airframe, but do expect at least one, probably two non-flying deployments in your first ten years out of UPT (granted, I have only been graduated for 4 years, so I’m just basing that estimate off of what I’ve seen). There are some good deals out there, and the “bad deals” are generally six months in the CAOC. Ops tempo is very high currently, about 180-250 days a year TDY depending on how chained to the desk you are. Some guys prefer breaking up their time away from family into chunks, others wish they had a deployment schedule. Regardless, the irregularity and last minute nature is tough. As a scheduler, I once had to call a guy at 10PM on a Saturday and get him an Uber home from a bar so he could enter 12 hours of crew rest before a 5 day mission. Me personally, I am single and love being away from home. The per diem and tax free are fantastic...not that it’s all about money.

2.  Lifestyle/ Family Stability

As I said earlier, no deployments, but the trade off is being gone often and irregularly. I’m not married and don’t have good perspective on this. Community lifestyle-wise it’s great. Having an FE is honestly one of the best parts about the airplane, and contrary to what I read earlier in this post, all of them are brutally honest and are good about ignoring rank in the cockpit. Don’t pick the C-5 if you want a tactical experience. Nothing happens fast in the C-5, crew resting in Europe with a crew of 15 young Es and Lieutenants is like herding alcoholic cats, and the most tactical you will get is a steep approach into Bagram or Al Asad. That being said, if you want comfort instead of speed, you can’t beat the C-5.

3. Community morale

It really is awesome. Every pilot in my squadron truly loves flying the C-5, and most PCS away kicking and screaming. The community is very small, only 36 jets between the two active units, and our functional only handles us and the two KC-10 units. What that means is the douche canoes don’t make it back into the C-5 community. On the flip side, I flew a mission as a brand new Lt with two O-5s who started their careers together at Dover. It was awesome that they were still in the cockpit together, and I didn’t pay for drinks for a week. People certainly get burnt out on the ops tempo like in any community, but I haven’t hit that point yet.

4. Advancements & Future of the airframe

For better or worse, there is no replacement on the horizon and no other airframe that has the cargo volume of the C-5, so it’s around for a long time. If you’re high speed, you can easily make he hours to upgrade to IP in your first assignment. The average pilot will upgrade enroute if they go to C-5s for a second assignment or after getting back from a white jet tour. Of course there are also all the other non-flying assignments any mobility pilot can apply or get voluntold for.

5. Preferred PCS locations 

Haven’t been to Travis yet, but I’ve heard C-5s are the bastard stepchildren there. Dover isn’t as sexy of a place to live, but the flying is awesome, and so far the Wing leadership has had our backs. 

Overall, I think my enthusiasm for the C-5 as both an airplane and community is apparent. Definitely take everything I say with a grain of salt, and realize that most pilots love what they fly whatever it is. Still, it’s freaking awesome, and if you are a laid back and easygoing personality and want a mission that matches, the C-5 is it.

[Springer]

On 11/13/2017 at 4:52 PM, YoungnDumb said:

They're all too busy hitting on the stewardesses and enjoying the good life.

No shit cept vice versa.  After 10yrs AD (see previous post) was single my entire airline career.  Extreme target rich environment.  Don't be an ass, don't be aggressive, treat them nice with respect.  Be patient, word gets out and they come to you.  Match your schedules and travel the world.

[Ryder]

Does anyone have current info on Tyndall and VA T38 ADAIR such as work schedule, flight schedule , hiring , tempo, pros and cons ?  Thanks. 

[StoleIt]

On 11/13/2017 at 2:23 PM, dream big said:

We haven’t heard from any A-320, 737, 757, 767, 777 guys on here at all...some input on your “mission” and QOL would be appreciated! 

 

C-40 here.

It doesn't suck.

[YoungnDumb]

Not an ADAIR guy but a good friend of mine was at Tyndall flying ADAIR for several years prior to going F-22's and loved it.  From what I recall they had 2-3 go's per day with ~8 jets available.  1/3 go was F-22 support and 2 go was CT/Training.  He seemed to be able to fly 7 ish times per week with ample XC opportunities.  He didn't really list many con's that I recall.

[tx_flyer]

On 2/12/2018 at 8:55 PM, StoleIt said:

 

C-40 here.

It doesn't suck.

What kind of quals do you need to get into the C-40? Ops tempo? Thanks in advance.

Edited February 15, 2018 by tx_flyer

[Hopefulflyer389]

On 2/12/2018 at 8:36 PM, Ryder said:

Does anyone have current info on Tyndall and VA T38 ADAIR such as work schedule, flight schedule , hiring , tempo, pros and cons ?  Thanks. 

FYI- https://bogidope.com/job-listings/301st-fighter-squadron-1