Fighter Jocks

Area 5150

Area 5150

Model citizen, Zero discipline
So, I'm sitting on my back porch this morning and watching all the traffic come into KBAD, preparing for the air show this weekend. In fact, as I type this, a B-2 is on short final, (such a odd, cool plane to see flying in person). Also, this morning, a NASA's T-38 and the 2 solo Blue's were already out flying around the area. It got me thinking how fun those guys are having right now, even tho I know they're working. But, this question came to mind while watching this mini air show this morning.

I know you guys have non stop training missions, objectives, schools and God knows what else. But, do you guys ever get the chance to just fly for fun? What I mean is, say you're at the base, not much is going on, no training today, no missions to carry out...etc. The base is slow, the weather is perfect, it's a sunday afternoon and you're bored. Can you guys/gals get ok'd to just go out and fly for yourself, without a ton of red tape and knee deep paper work? I'm sure the answer is, "NO" for obvious reasons, but figured there may be the small chance that you pilots could actually get to take your jet out for a little, "fun".
Now, I know I'm sure tax paying citizens would get all up in arms over this idea, but I wouldn't. Hell, I would encourage it. I know that if I had all this training, I'd like to have a, "ME" day with my aircraft.

I know it's a silly question/idea, but I was just curious. These guys out here today look to be having fun.
 
I have only had the chance, while a T-38 instructor in the training command, to "sort of" go have fun of my own volition. It was a weekend cross country and I got to choose where I wanted to go.

Despite that, I had to write up and present a plan to my leadership of the annual training requirements I was going to be accomplishing on the trip, then log all that stuff and write a trip report afterward.

Other than that, no.
 
Considering that the title of the thread is "fighter jocks", I wanted to add to my previous post which discussed the situation while I was in AETC.

While I was in operational fighter units:
Area 5150 said:
say you're at the base, not much is going on, no training today, no missions to carry out...etc. T
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Outside of the very last day of the fiscal year, I've never been in a unit that didn't have training requirements to accomplish and sorties to burn on a day where the weather and maintenance allowed the jets to fly.
 
Thanks all for the responses.

Ya know Hack, after I posted this, this morning, I wanted to slap myself on the forehead for the most incredible, most stupid, juvenile thread topic ever. "Fighter Jocks" is such a 80's, top gunish moronic term and I felt incredibly stupid for even making this thread title in such a way. That's what I get posting before coffee and... I want to apologize to all of you that are currently or retired, FIGHTER PILOTS. I feel that term is just ignorant and very outdated and feel terrible for even using it. I had 2 uncles that served in the navy as fighter pilots in WW2 and I would NEVER have the nerve or guts to call either of them, that term. Also, I have dear friends that fly the B-52 out of KBAD and never once did I call them a, "bomber jock".
So again, if I offended any of you guys or gals, I'm truly sorry for my lame use of a stupid term. If I could of edited it earlier, I would have done so. It's been sitting on my mind most of the day, trust me.

I have a tremendous respect, love and admiration for all of you who are pilots in the military, ( and all those who serve, PERIOD), and often wish my choices in a career path would have lead me down that road. SHOULD have listened to my old man.

Next life I guess! :)
 
Nope. Every flight was work. There were times during a flight, short times here and there, where I could kind of take a "whew!" break for a bit and take a gander around the area, but the vast majority of the time, I'm doing something...some kind of task. But as far as a whole flight where there was no task and I'm just out having fun? Nope. I've taken planes to depot, so that's been the most non-tactical flying I've done, and the workload was very low on those XCs.
 
The everyday training is fun. In the past two weeks, I've flown 10 times.. the flights were around 2.3-2.5hrs and ranged from dropping live GBU-12s on an island in Northern Scotland to low flying down Loch Ness to working with some Special Ops guys in a dynamic CAS environment to fighting multiple vuls of 4v6 Defensive Counter Air with C models and working with British ships. It's incredibly awesome. The debriefs are long, ranging anywhere from 2-4 hours where you look at every detail and every word that was spoken. There's a delicate balance of constantly studying in the vault as tactics and threats are evolving and doing your non-flying job. There is a lot that goes into making a squadron run and it requires long hours. It can be frustrating when those outside the Operations and Maintenance groups work banker's hours and they're only available for something you need between 0900-1100 every other Wednesday. Having said all of that, there's always a certain amount of excitement when you put on your G suit, survival vest, harness.. grab your gloves, helmet bag, pubs, and other items... and step to the jet, do a preflight, give the girl a good pat on the burner cans, climb up the rail and start, check in, taxi, arm, and takeoff.
 
ryan1234 said:
The everyday training is fun. In the past two weeks, I've flown 10 times.. the flights were around 2.3-2.5hrs and ranged from dropping live GBU-12s on an island in Northern Scotland to low flying down Loch Ness to working with some Special Ops guys in a dynamic CAS environment to fighting multiple vuls of 4v6 Defensive Counter Air with C models and working with British ships. It's incredibly awesome. The debriefs are long, ranging anywhere from 2-4 hours where you look at every detail and every word that was spoken. There's a delicate balance of constantly studying in the vault as tactics and threats are evolving and doing your non-flying job. There is a lot that goes into making a squadron run and it requires long hours. It can be frustrating when those outside the Operations and Maintenance groups work banker's hours and they're only available for something you need between 0900-1100 every other Wednesday. Having said all of that, there's always a certain amount of excitement when you put on your G suit, survival vest, harness.. grab your gloves, helmet bag, pubs, and other items... and step to the jet, do a preflight, give the girl a good pat on the burner cans, climb up the rail and start, check in, taxi, arm, and takeoff.
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You're still very young......and there's alot you haven't experienced yet. You're far from salty.

As a Lieutenant, you have a get out of jail free card for the most part.

Just wait when you move up in the world a bit, and "additional duties" begin becoming your primary duty. Already, the AF is instilling the live to work ethos in you, rather than the work to live one; what with insane hours spent in a squadron daily. And the worst part is, the idiots in the chain of command see that as normal.
 
MikeD said:
You're still very young......and there's alot you haven't experienced yet. You're far from salty.

As a Lieutenant, you have a get out of jail free card for the most part.

Just wait when you move up in the world a bit, and "additional duties" begin becoming your primary duty. Already, the AF is instilling the live to work ethos in you, rather than the work to live one; what with insane hours spent in a squadron daily. And the worst part is, the idiots in the chain of command see that as normal.
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Well, I'll enjoy every minute of it now!
 
ryan1234 said:
The everyday training is fun. In the past two weeks, I've flown 10 times.. the flights were around 2.3-2.5hrs and ranged from dropping live GBU-12s on an island in Northern Scotland to low flying down Loch Ness to working with some Special Ops guys in a dynamic CAS environment to fighting multiple vuls of 4v6 Defensive Counter Air with C models and working with British ships. It's incredibly awesome. The debriefs are long, ranging anywhere from 2-4 hours where you look at every detail and every word that was spoken. There's a delicate balance of constantly studying in the vault as tactics and threats are evolving and doing your non-flying job. There is a lot that goes into making a squadron run and it requires long hours. It can be frustrating when those outside the Operations and Maintenance groups work banker's hours and they're only available for something you need between 0900-1100 every other Wednesday. Having said all of that, there's always a certain amount of excitement when you put on your G suit, survival vest, harness.. grab your gloves, helmet bag, pubs, and other items... and step to the jet, do a preflight, give the girl a good pat on the burner cans, climb up the rail and start, check in, taxi, arm, and takeoff.
Click to expand...

I remember my first year in a fighter squadron, too...hehe

In all honesty, I loved that first year with that same, unabashed enthusiasm. Everything was new, and exciting, and awesome. Probably in retrospect the best year of my entire career. Savor it, because even though it doesn't feel like it is going to end, it will.
 
At this point I don't have fun so much as I teach the young guys in a way that is fun/challenging for them.

If I'm doing things right in a 6 hour single ship mission I'll fly maybe .9-1.2 of it. The rest is that guy learning to do what I showed him.

Now team missions especially complex multi ship... That's fun for me but I seem to be the only one that thinks so. It's also brutal depending on what we are doing as far as exhaustion. Other times (air assault security) it's boring as hell. 6 minutes of excitement followed by hours of sitting in Battle Positions or orbit waiting for the ground force to need something.
 
While I'm not a fighter jock like you asked, but I am a guy who flies a military bird. I can safely assume to answer for everyone that does fly in the military.

In short no. We can't take the keys and willy-nilly go flying.

We can, however, be very creative in the flying that we do. So aside from missions that come down from higher (ie flying VIP's around, or civil response) we have X amount of hours to fly in order to be combat ready, for our specific mission set.

So in the case of fighter jocks, they do what they do in order to be ready to drop bombs, or fire missiles.

In the helicopter world, we coordinate as a crew to see what is on our task list, and what we can accomplish with the aircraft we have in he given time.

So perfect example: tomorrow the PC (PIC) and I need fly a minimum of .7 hours of instrument time. So we're going to fly IFR to somewhere, grab fuel and fly back VFR. However on the route back, we are planning on doing it tactically.
So this hits all the wickets. We aren't wasting the taxpayers dollars just simply to go fly.

Because I'm still a pretty junior pilot, I still find this extremely fun.
 
Never been in the military.

However, I have been camping in the Emigrant wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. Often times T-38s from Beal (guess but black T38s?) were seen running the ridge lines and canyons of the Sierra. I always loved to see it and it was a fairly regular occurrence.

Also seen some cool stuff F-18s and even a flight of F-15s and the T-38's again headed out over the SF Bay out to sea. Usually when I am mountain biking in the open spaces north of SF.

Probably not all just for fun but it did look quite fun.
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
However, I have been camping in the Emigrant wilderness of the Sierra Nevada. Often times T-38s from Beal (guess but black T38s?) were seen running the ridge lines and canyons of the Sierra. I always loved to see it and it was a fairly regular occurrence.
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I can definitely confirm that the black Beale T-38s are definitely not out there without training requirements being accomplished...unfortunately.

The low-levels that you probably saw them flying aren't done anymore. Leadership apparently found them too risky for the T-38s expressed purpose as part of the U-2 program (namely, pilot pro since there are such a limited number of U-2s).
 
Hacker15e said:
I can definitely confirm that the black Beale T-38s are definitely not out there without training requirements being accomplished...unfortunately.

The low-levels that you probably saw them flying aren't done anymore. Leadership apparently found them too risky for the T-38s expressed purpose as part of the U-2 program (namely, pilot pro since there are such a limited number of U-2s).
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Awwww bummer always liked seeing them. Lots of respect for those guys.
 
So why can the Navy guys do it but not the AF? I was talking to a F16 driver and he said that weekend xc for currency was the closest he got to having non training flights. I would imagine that depot runs and going to airshows would fit that category.

Is it possible to have normal hours in a fighter squadron if it was managed right? Guard/Reserve guys don't work as many hours correct?
 
I have yet to work "normal hours".......in a fighter squadron or something resembling one. I actually don't mind it, just used to it by now; a "short day" is on the order of 10 hours or so. But my job now is absolutely 100% flying or teaching such things (mostly all BFM/ACM hops at this point), and I could do that all day every day.
 
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