Tracking to USAF heavies: Any advice on which airframe?

Of being in the USAF and not having to work too hard, what's up with the SWO, especially on the O side? That has got to be the most chill job in the military.

For picking a cargo jet, I'd go with the C-17, cause the cockpit looks pretty nice.
 
BeRich said:
Nobody wants to fly fighters or bombers anymore?

EDIT: OP said heavies....but still, almost everyone that asks this question wants to be a cargo guy now...
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(Navy Perspective) What I remember from flight training is that everyone wanted jets in the beginning, but once the writing was on the wall about half way through primary and people did not have the grades, they suddenly "wanted" P-3 or Helo. If you don't want to work, don't try and go to a fighter squadron because someone else is going to have to pick up your slack.
 
C-182 flyer said:
(Navy Perspective) What I remember from flight training is that everyone wanted jets in the beginning, but once the writing was on the wall about half way through primary and people did not have the grades, they suddenly "wanted" P-3 or Helo. If you don't want to work, don't try and go to a fighter squadron because someone else is going to have to pick up your slack.
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Do HS and HSL squadrons not do work? :)
 
havent read anything yet, but C-5 and i'll be happy to answer any other questions you have about the AD side of the house.

Flying cargo is going to give you more of an opportunity to get out and see stuff than tankers imho
 
C-182 flyer said:
I was talking more about the size of the wardrooms. The HS guys definitely work, first to launch, last to land and alerts every night.
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Haha, I know. I was just kidding around with you. But sounds like the VF/VFA squadron lifestyle within isn't too different from the USAF fighter community.
 
MikeD said:
Haha, I know. I was just kidding around with you. But sounds like the VF/VFA squadron lifestyle within isn't too different from the USAF fighter community.
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True. I have been able to work with some AF fighter guys and they say it is about the same. They say the myth that goes around the Navy of AF guys not having ground jobs and only flying is just that, a myth.
 
MikeD said:
Did the F-100 units there fly a few token F-model two seaters too? Or were they mostly the D-model single seaters? I do know the Misty FACs had most of the F-models
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Bien Hoa, Phan Rang and Tuy Hoa all had some Fs. I didn't get a ride in the -100 but when the A-37s replaced the -100s, I did get a sortie in it.

We seldom got anything other than the -100s and they were mostly flown by Guard 'bums' so they were TOP notch. We occasionally got some F-4s but they didn't have a gun and even when they did have one, the nice thing about the -100 was if one gun jammed, they still had 3 left. With the F-4, if the gun jammed, it went from high-cycle of 6000 rounds to ZERO. We also got some Australian Canberras which did flat bombing.. no diving.

True story... the -100 guys at Bien Hoa had a python named Ramrod and they decided to get Ramrod a sortie. So the bagged him up, put him in the airplane and took off. With all the jinking and maneuvering some how Ramrod got out of the sack and as you can imagine he was NOT happy. The simple solution was to zoom up into the 30s, depressurize the airplane and let Ramrod go to sleep. It worked. The Hun driver got Ramrod back in the sack and completed the sortie but reportedly Ramrod was never the same after the hypoxia incident. He would just stare at the chickens tossed into his shed when previously he would wrap 'em up tighter than a gyro wrap. There were stories that they put Ramrod in for an air medal but I think that bit was not true.

The -100 was a great bomb truck. And the guys flying it were superb.
 
Orange Anchor said:
The -100 was a great bomb truck. And the guys flying it were superb.
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Did the -100s work South Vietnam only? Or did they go up into the NVN Route Packs? I remember reading that the Thailand-based F-105s rarely if ever worked targets in South Vietnam, mainly only NVN and Laos. If all the above is true, was it just how it happened to work, or was it by design?
 
Hacker15e said:
Could not be FURTHER from the truth. Performance reports don't even talk about flying anymore.
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You might be surprised how many people think that though. Always sounded too good to be true. How has it gotten in the AF with regards to Masters degrees and JPME?
 
MikeD said:
Did the -100s work South Vietnam only? Or did they go up into the NVN Route Packs? I remember reading that the Thailand-based F-105s rarely if ever worked targets in South Vietnam, mainly only NVN and Laos. If all the above is true, was it just how it happened to work, or was it by design?
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The boys at Bien Hoa worked the south as far as I know. The guys at Tuy Hoa and Phan Rang worked out country I believe but it was Laos and Cambodia. I think early on they learned the -100 was just not fast enough for really hard areas in North Vietnam. One of my class was in a 4 ship and lead, a new guy, decided to make 2 passes on a target in Laos, a big no-no. Dick got hit on the second pass, punched and wound up with serious wounds from landing in a karst region. He did get picked up but died enroute. (Phan Rang was home for FAC-U, the in-country check-out center for new FACs)

Three things about the Hun I remember or was told 1) it was very much a rudder airplane and quite a few were lost in the final turn 2) until the C it had no flaps and 3) the AB was a very hard light. The latter was important because try to light the burner at the wrong speed and the Hun was notorious for a compressor stall that most said took years off one's life with fire belching out both ends. Too, it was the Hun where Boyd got his reputation.

We occasionally got an F-4 which was not the best delivery platform but never a -105. Later when I did tankers we dropped a lot of -105s off 'at the fence'.

[YT]2RxOkFXEeaE[/YT]
 
C-182 flyer said:
You might be surprised how many people think that though. Always sounded too good to be true. How has it gotten in the AF with regards to Masters degrees and JPME?
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If you can imagine it, it's actually that bad. They're pushing Lieutenants to get their Masters now because they recently reinstated promotion boards for O-3s. Of course, it's "not required", but you can be sure that senior raters are looking at it when they stratify their peeps. No JPME, then there's no way you're going beyond O-4.

No kidding, a Wing Commander at a pilot training base recently held a Commander's Call where the topic of discussion was "what hoops you have to jump though in order to make Brig Gen at 23 years of service". The entire presentation was a blow-by-blow listing of all the career hoops that you have to jump to "make it". During that presentation, there were some wonderful bits of advice, like the one about "you don't need to do any more than one deployment".

Careerism is alive, well, and eating the warfighters for lunch.

Thank God there are still real knife-in-the-teeth warriors out there who are covertly doing the real ugly deeds while the regular military spirals into mediocrity. We're gonna need that when a real war starts in the future, and all we have are careerist pencil-dicks who have only been at the tip of the spear once manning the guns.
 
BAMCIS said:
"I want to travel the world without working too hard."

...really?
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To be fair, I took it as meaning he would prefer more the heavy lifestyle vs the tactical lifestyle. And there is a definite difference between the two in terms of overall workload, both self-made as well as military driven.
 
To be honest, the community I came from is full of guys who liked the laid back lifestyle, certainly nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that guys were lazy or carefree, some were and that's normal of any squadron I think. However, what I saw quite a bit during my last tour was acceptance of mediocrity....for example, breaking the deck. We, as COD guys on the west coast used to be somewhat part of the airwing, stay on the boat, fly day or night. With CVW-2, we would hold at 1200' and break the deck...not hard to do, just have to time when to come into the break as the last aircraft launched and the deck was made ready for recovery. We were COD guys so we already had that going against us, not exactly well respected. So for me, not looking bad was key to not always looking like the fat dumb kid. Timing it just right, looking as professional as possible. You know, take some pride in what you do. Many folks strayed away from going to VRC-30 at the time as we did fly nights and it's work, more so than day only traps. Of course it's not that guys/gals couldn't do it, they just didn't want the extra effort. It was a battle as seemingly every guy who got COD's wanted the day only VRC-40. COD's don't have tactics, don't have to follow the wing around on exercises or deploy with E-2's on drug ops so it's not too difficult to try and look somewhat professional around the boat.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, we are day only once again at 30, living the good life and I see pilots breaking the deck, late, slow, sloppy, etc. I saw guys really performing half-ass and I heard more than once, we're just COD guys, they expect us to suck. I just got the sense that a lot of these pilots came to the community so that they didn't have to work hard, flying wise...if that makes sense. During my first OIC tour, I had a good bunch of guys but of the 5 JO's, only 1 really exhibited any desire to work hard, fly hard, take pride. Of course they all had huge ego's but that's naval aviators for you. I had to fight an uphill battle to get these guys to demonstrate so professionalism. Two came around, probably cause they grew tired of my bitching lol.

I didn't chose E2/C2, it choose me. I simply wanted to go west coast, be it E-2 or C2 and the only slot available was a COD slot. You make the best of a situation but damn, to accept mediocrity or poor performance is unacceptable in my opinion. Not everyone did this but I saw it on a more common scale down the road. Hell, a former CO didn't want any night flying, nothing extra other than hauling cargo to the boat. In his words, that way we didn't have to work to hard. This may not be what this kid meant but it sure sounds like it.
 
bunk22 said:
not looking bad was key
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Saw the E-2 demo at Oceana this past year - it was really impressive! Everyone around really enjoyed it. There was also a C-2 that came in the break earlier (maybe piloted by a tall, bald guy), looked really great - very crisp!
 
Hacker15e said:
A cancer that's tough to beat. That's all over the USAF, too, in terms of aviator skills and tactical prowess.
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Friend of mine is now an instructor and occasionally works with USAF guys transitioning into ____. He said, "Some just don't seem to care." Asked to explain he said they have open boxes that are available to practice in but no one uses them. One guy said, " I brought my wife along and so I will be spending time with her, not doing training." This could be understood if these guys were ace of the base but my friend said the only thing they seem to care about is along the line of the old maximum, "If it wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum." Min passing for them is just fine. ????
 
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