Training with ordinance ?

Pilot Fighter said:
If anybody ever read mine, they would have been entertained by my remarks and honor codes.

I never did get the high school marching band I requested. Actually, I think I could have called that in to any number of FBO's and they would have made it happen.
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haha that is pretty good....might as well get some entertainment while you are being jerked around
 
Pilot Fighter said:
If anybody ever read mine, they would have been entertained by my remarks and honor codes.

I never did get the high school marching band I requested. Actually, I think I could have called that in to any number of FBO's and they would have made it happen.
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I'm going to have to try that someday.

@MikeD, I'd swear you told me a story about doing something similar...or maybe they had you confused with the Wing King? I can't remember.
 
///AMG said:
@ Mike, yeah we stopped through Cutter last time we came back from Fallon. Nice folks, easy and convenient. It is just the convenience factor......easy to deal with the folks at an FBO where you are not being helped by some 18-20 yr old Airman at an air ops desk who is standing the weekend watch and doesn't want to do anything but watch TV/internet. That and you don't have to file a DD-175 which is probably really the biggest reason. Of all the -175's I've painstakingly filed, I'd say a good 95% of them were never even put into the system once they got to air ops......and then there you are, sitting in a hot jet, burning taxpayer gas, while they try to find the clearance that said ops dude just threw in the trash or didn't even bother to look for, even after you called over to verify that it had been received. ......../soapbox
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My cross-country experiences have been about the same. FBO's aim to please, while the Airfield Ops people can hardly be bothered to stop playing Candy Crush long enough to look at you from their desks.

I'm pretty much sold on FBO's. Call ahead pizza order? Check. Rental cars waiting for you on the ramp? Check. Customer service rep pointing you in the right direction for nightlife in an unfamiliar town? Check.

What's not to like?
 
Agreed... It's amazing what an FBO will do for you when you roll in and buy 10-20k of fuel.

Although, we did have the one time in Kirkland where the FBO didn't want to help us out with lav servicing. Being there for 3 flights and high temps, the lav needed some help. Luckily, a quick call over to Southwest Ops had their line guys scrambling to help us out, free of charge.
 
SteveC said:
Didn't want to, or weren't equipped to?
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They were equipped to. In fact, it was part of the agreement letter that they were supposed to provide so much gas and lav service as part of us using the base as an alternate alert site. I believe the issue they kept mentioning was lack of manpower. However, going by the place and seeing the guys hanging out led me to believe otherwise.

In all honesty, if someone can show up with the lav cart, I'll service the crapper... Not sure what they were really trying to avoid.
 
MercFE said:
They were equipped to. In fact, it was part of the agreement letter that they were supposed to provide so much gas and lav service as part of us using the base as an alternate alert site. I believe the issue they kept mentioning was lack of manpower. However, going by the place and seeing the guys hanging out led me to believe otherwise.

In all honesty, if someone can show up with the lav cart, I'll service the crapper... Not sure what they were really trying to avoid.
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That's why I asked - it's not like it's typically that tough a job on bigger aircraft.

Now dragging the honey bucket out through the cabin of a Citation and manually emptying and refilling it - that I can see ducking out on!
 
MercFE said:
They were equipped to. In fact, it was part of the agreement letter that they were supposed to provide so much gas and lav service as part of us using the base as an alternate alert site. I believe the issue they kept mentioning was lack of manpower. However, going by the place and seeing the guys hanging out led me to believe otherwise.

In all honesty, if someone can show up with the lav cart, I'll service the crapper... Not sure what they were really trying to avoid.
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sounds like a total shat show there to me.....

:)
 
Pilot Fighter said:
If I can amend my statements, FBO's are happy to see you unless you are trading poo for fuel.
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You've seen nothing, until you've seen a Lav truck spring a massive hose breakage and spew poo all over the 120 degree ramp at PHX in the middle of summer.
 
hook_dupin said:
I wrote a money-saving "IDEA" form up last year to just use the FAA flight plan system instead of the DD-175. I'm sure the airfield ops community crapped all over it.
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For our XCs, they wanted us to fax 175s to base ops from our civilian destination even on the weekends. Many IPs believed that was the ONLY way you could file. I showed a couple you could just file in 30 seconds on your phone....and magically clearance delivery would get your flight plan. Worked well. fltplan.com had all the AF/Navy trainers pre-programmed for performance and filing.
 
MikeD said:
You've seen nothing, until you've seen a Lav truck spring a massive hose breakage and spew poo all over the 120 degree ramp at PHX in the middle of summer.
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What's the problem? Should evaporate shortly after hitting the ramp. Stain? Don't mind the stain...
 
ryan1234 said:
For our XCs, they wanted us to fax 175s to base ops from our civilian destination even on the weekends. Many IPs believed that was the ONLY way you could file. I showed a couple you could just file in 30 seconds on your phone....and magically clearance delivery would get your flight plan. Worked well. fltplan.com had all the AF/Navy trainers pre-programmed for performance and filing.
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Can't tell you how many times I've had that same conversation with military IPs who had no idea what 1-800-WX-BRIEF was.
 
Oh man, speaking of this.....what a circus getting out of CO springs was today. Base ops was great and unusually helpful, but ATC gives us an amendment on deck prior to taxi that involves going 200 nm off course to the north, and then back towards our destination. Not to mention that none of the 85 fixes they wanted us to go to were in our jets, nor were they on anything but low charts/plates. Finally got that sorted out after about 10 mins, only to have about 7 more changes to our plan airborne. I basically landed min fuel after another extreme deviation off course for no apparent good reason other than for potentially sequencing off a single jet also going to our destination. I don't blame them, but I think they would be astounded/horrified to see what we are actually working with, navigationally speaking. Not to mention we are digging through paper charts that are too big for the cockpit, while trying to hand fly in formation in the clouds. Not bueno. We did inadvertently end up on the same tac freq as a flight of Vipers doing BFM in the Utah range, so that was entertaining to creep on. And then we flew over a flight of 3 B-52's which was also cool. They look really weird from a distance while flying....
 
Local procedures dictate that at check in with Clover we verify targets/ordnance. We're not going to be flying over Wendover with anything we intend to drop that day. However, as others have noted there are (almost) no unique off range procedures with inert or live ordnance onboard unless there is a malfunction, i.e. a hung bomb. I'll caveat that by saying that we do not arm or simulate employing any actual weapons off range for obvious reasons.
 
MikeD said:
You've seen nothing, until you've seen a Lav truck spring a massive hose breakage and spew poo all over the 120 degree ramp at PHX in the middle of summer.
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It is even better when its all over one of the "Oh, hes on my shift" guys.
 
SteveC said:
That's why I asked - it's not like it's typically that tough a job on bigger aircraft.

Now dragging the honey bucket out through the cabin of a Citation and manually emptying and refilling it - that I can see ducking out on!
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The smart people buy Citations with externally serviced lavs.
 
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