Dream Sheet Advice

[HuggyU2]

The U-2 is not an option for at least 4 years.  But keep it in your long-term cross-check.  

As for Squirt's post, the first 4 sentences have value... ignore the rest.  He will grow up some day.  

Edited August 14, 2020 by HuggyU2

[FLEA]

Let's be clear, the important point to emphasize is the USAF is not just paying you to fly airplanes. We have Delta and United for that BS. They need you to take a plane and utilize it as a weapon system, which is going to be impossible without a little vault study. You're a military officer first which means your first obligation first and foremost is learning how to kill enemies and break their shit or resupply good guys and keep the fight going as long as possible. 

[BR_MIST]

8 hours ago, CDAWG said:

Here is what you should be asking your IP’s.

Where do you deploy too, how often did you deploy, what bases can you go too. I had a crusty Iron Major as an instructor once tell me to look around the school house and ask the junior captains why they were at a training base so early on in their career. Many people don’t want to leave their op squadrons after their first tour. That should tell you something about their community.

As a pilot on the RC-135 variants, there is not a whole lot of vault time in terms of you having your head in the books. Many aircraft besides the pointy nosed ones do their crew briefs in a vault to bring the discussion up to a Secret/Top Secret discussion. The RC-135 takes you to Gucci places such as: Okinawa, Alaska, England, Greece, Diego Garcia. You’ll make a bunch of money because you will be sitting alert at most of these places earning North of $100 per day. Their worst deployment location is Al Udeid in Qatar. This is not a bad location at all despite what you read on here. You will work with a large crew of officers and enlisted who are the ones doing the mission. You will essentially be a bus driver, but that’s not a bad thing. The RC-135 of all variants is a highly requested and useful airframe. If you go to an RC-135 variant you can expect to spend most of your career at Offutt AFB in Omaha Nebraska. You’ll have the opportunity to fly other airframes in the iron-triad (E-3, E-8, RC-135) if you so desire. Of those airframes, the RC-135 has the nicest cockpit, deployed locations, and gets the most money from the government.


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Offut is pretty close to home for me so that's a bonus in my mind. What you are implying is that the junior captain who are here want to come here as opposed to staying with their op squadrons? Look for the people that aren't here?

[CDAWG]

Offut is pretty close to home for me so that's a bonus in my mind. What you are implying is that the junior captain who are here want to come here as opposed to staying with their op squadrons? Look for the people that aren't here?

I don’t want you to be too worried about who is at UPT as a second assignment. Many dudes came to UPT without being asked due to the shortage of instructors and an excess of dudes in their former airframe. Point was why would there be so many dudes from “insert airframe” at UPT willingly after only flying it operationally for 3-4 years. Are they burnt out, taking a knee for their family via AETC? That’s what I was getting at. Learn about as many airframes as possible because at the end of the day it’s up to Big Blue.


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[BR_MIST]

Will do. Thanks for the pointers!

[Danger41]

Personal opinion is don’t put too much stock into location if you’re passionate about a mission. You’ll get a few years of doing the best job in the world and you don’t want to avoid that because you want to live near family or whatever. Also, take everyone’s location advice with a huge grain of salt. A quick google search makes Mountain Home, Idaho or Box Elder, South Dakota look terrible but if you get off the bases (Mountain Home or Ellsworth in this case) and check out the area, they’re awesome. 
 

But it’s all a personal decision. If you just want to fly and DGAF about how/what mission, then just pick location. Honestly, if that’s all that matters don’t bother with the USAF and just live where you want as an airline guy and commute. You won’t have to put up with all the military BS with that COA.

[raimius]

Unless you pick something with only a couple bases, you'll move often enough that you won't spend more than a few years at that base you were hoping for.  Now, if you really want a base where their aircraft only have 2 bases, sure that may work.  I'd say, pick off mission/type of flying.  That way, you get some happiness wherever the AF places you.  

[Sua Sponte]

On 8/13/2020 at 11:08 AM, dream big said:

Tankers are your best bet if you don’t want to spend much time in the vault.  Virtually every aircraft in the inventory requires time in the vault; that is if you want to operate the mission well.

Some tankers do a mission that forces one to spend a lot of time in the vault. 

[BR_MIST]

As of right now my top bases actually would be Minot, Ellsworth, Mountain Home, and Offut. The convenient thing for me is that most of those jet only have two or three stations. My biggest hurdle is going to be figuring out what mission I'm most passionate about which can be tough cause so much is need to know.

[UDEL09]

2 hours ago, BR_MIST said:

As of right now my top bases actually would be Minot, Ellsworth, Mountain Home, and Offut. The convenient thing for me is that most of those jet only have two or three stations. My biggest hurdle is going to be figuring out what mission I'm most passionate about which can be tough cause so much is need to know.

Based off those locations tracking T-38’s and getting into ACC/AFGSC might be your best bet.  Friday MWS briefs are a pretty common occurrence so stay on the lookout for those. If you are at CBM you can send me a DM and I can put you in contact with someone from any of these communities. 

[SurelySerious]

29 minutes ago, UDEL09 said:

Based off those locations tracking T-38’s and getting into ACC/AFGSC might be your best bet.  Friday MWS briefs are a pretty common occurrence so stay on the lookout for those. If you are at CBM you can send me a DM and I can put you in contact with someone from any of these communities. 

But OP, again, if you don’t want to “spend time in a vault” and have to brief/debrief for a lot of time versus the time actually spent in flight and be held accountable for your performance please stay away from ACC/AFGSC.