Life as a military pilot.

[Danderandan]

Hi everyone. I warn you now I’m gonna ask some ball breaking questions.

I like most here am a (military) aviation freak. I am fairly well clued up (or so I think) on the technical side of things regarding flying, but what I really don’t have any idea about is the life as a military pilot, specially fast jets (F-15’s, F-16’s etc). What I would like to know specifically is how often do you guys fly and what it is you do between flying. As a kid, I thought you’d be flying everyday for perhaps 3 hrs at a time, but clearly this isn’t the case. If I bullet point my questions maybe it’ll be easier. What I’m after is this:

1. How frequently do you fly?. How many hours/month, and how are they split up?
2. When you do fly, is it all ‘training’ (except of course when you’re in Iraq etc)?
3. I’m curious to know how times have changed from say 20 yrs ago, how much less flying is there, and how has it changed (do you still train as much for low level etc)?
4. Does career progression affect the number of hours you fly a year/month etc?
5. How often do you get to fire live weapons. I went to the Mildenhall Air Fete in 1999 (or 2000) and was horrified to hear from an F-15C jock that the last time he fired the gun was 5 yrs ago, (Yes, I’m from the UK). By the way, you yanks are great. Not only can you put on a show that put the UK equivalent to shame, but you’re a jolly bunch too. A real pleasure. Thanks to the pilot who showed me around wherever you are.
6. After past basic flying on the T-37/T-38, and if lucky enough to get the jet of your choice, in broad terms can you summarize, how does life in the AF works. Where do you go, what dictates where you are transferred, how long does your flying ‘life’ go for in the AF etc. Is the same in the Navy/USMC?
7. What do you lucky people do when not flying?
8. Do you have other duties related to the AF that do not entail flying?

Sorry if these seem like a barrage of questions, but I’ve only just discovered his forum and these are questions I’ve always wanted to ask.

Thank you very much in advance.

All the best, Daniel.

 

[AD SUPT Hopeful]

One could write an entire book in an effort to answer the questions you just posed and in fact, several exist.

To hold you off until someone more qualified can reply, use the search function in the upper right-hand corner of the screen and you will find the answers to your questions.

 

[Toro]

Here's a couple quick answers. If you want more detailed, you can either do a search on this board, or go to Student Pilot Network

These answers are specific to Strike Eagles, but most can be applied to other fighter aircraft,

How frequently do you fly?

During standard operations, two to three times a week. If you're a young wingman with no other squadron jobs, you may fly more. If you're higher ranking and have a lot of additional duties (squadron commander or similar) you may fly a lot less. Our sortie length depends on what type of mission we're flying and where. If we fly a local BFM sortie it may be a 1.0. If we load up external wing tanks and cruise across the island to low-fly, we may log a 2.5.

When you do fly, is it all ‘training’

Yes, just of different sorts. Most of the sorties are upgrades - either upgrading to flight lead, instructor, or some type of weapon (AGM, EGBU). It won't necessarily be your upgrade, you may just be flying on the wing of somebody who is receiving the upgrade, or serving as Red Air bandits.

I’m curious to know how times have changed from say 20 yrs ago, how much less flying is there, and how has it changed (do you still train as much for low level etc)?

Well, 20 years ago, Strike Eagles didn't even exist, so yeah, things have changed quite a bit. This is too broad of a question to answer, but the quick answer is definitely yes. Guys used to complain about not flying enough 6-9 years ago and the AF quality of life surveys reflected that. Now the tempo has changed and (at least in E's) we fly a crapload.

Does career progression affect the number of hours you fly a year/month etc?

Indirectly, yes. As a major, you will generally have more additional duties (tasks besides flying) than a Captain, and therefore are able to fly less.

How often do you get to fire live weapons.

Just like everything else, that depends. We have exercises where we drop live bombs and shoot missiles, but how often your squadron goes and whether you will be on the deployment is luck of the draw. In three years of flying a Strike Eagle, I have never shot A/A ordnance and I've only dropped a few MK-82s at a range in the UK.

After past basic flying on the T-37/T-38, and if lucky enough to get the jet of your choice, in broad terms can you summarize, how does life in the AF works. Where do you go, what dictates where you are transferred, how long does your flying ‘life’ go for in the AF etc.

Again, too long to go into here, but use the search function and you'll find some good stuff. I will say that basically you will change assignments about every three years. Before each move, you put in a preference worksheet that says what you'd like to do next - whether you get it is up to your commander and the AF Personnel Center. At some point you will likely have a non-flying assignment, and how long you stay in is up to you. Commitment is currently 10 years.

What do you lucky people do when not flying?

Additional duties - things like scheduling, running squadron shops like weapons or Standards and Evaluation, being a flight commander, etc.

 

[HueyPilot]

AMC/C-21 ops

I'll present AF life from the AMC/C-21 point of view. Not the "fast jet" perspective, but if you want to fly for the USAF, consider that 60-70% of us fly the "heavy iron". So it's perhaps good to know what you might could wind up doing.

1. How frequently do you fly?. How many hours/month, and how are they split up?

C-21 specific, you're flying depends upon your crew qual. If you're a brand-new co-pilot, you will probably fly 250 hours/yr, give or take. Some co-pilots show up to a unit with alot of co-pilots, and you'll scratch each other's eyeballs out to fly, and other units will have nearly no co-pilots and you'll wind up flying so much you'll beg for a break. But on average, copilots fly about 250 a year.

Aircraft Commanders (ACs) and Instructor Pilots (IPs) fly more....400-600 hours a year depending on the unit manning.

Now, for the big iron AMC jets, given what's going on in the world, you'll probably easily log 400+ hours/yr as a copilot, and 600-800 hours a year as an AC/IP. Again, that number varies depending on other duties, non-flying TDYs, and unit manning.

2. When you do fly, is it all ‘training’ (except of course when you’re in Iraq etc)?

That's the nice thing about AMC, is that most of your flying (exception being unit IPs) is operational. You'll fly maybe 1 training sortie a month, at most. Units with a more difficult "tactical" mission (ie, C-130s, SOLL/airdrop C-17s) will fly more training sorties than the other AMC aircrews, but the bulk of your flying will still be operational missions.

As a unit IP, you'll fly more training sorties than anyone else because that's part of your job. But AMC IPs still fly a large number of real missions as well. In the C-21 community, it's about a 50/50 split between training and operational sorties.

3. I’m curious to know how times have changed from say 20 yrs ago, how much less flying is there, and how has it changed (do you still train as much for low level etc)?

20 years ago puts you at 1983. Back then, all USAF pilots wanted more flying. Following the Gulf War in 1991, the ops tempo picked up dramatically after we had to sustain Southern/Northern Watch, and the Balkan conflicts of the mid-90s. Now, most USAF crews (especially AMC crew) wouldn't mind a reduction in flying. AMC crews average 150-180 days a year away from home.

4. Does career progression affect the number of hours you fly a year/month etc?

Yes. This is true Air Force-wide. As you progress through the ranks, the Air Force attempts to "broaden" your career skills and groom you for a potential commander or staff officer. So you fly less. You'll probably fly a fair amount until you're a senior captain. Some guys manage to stay in the cockpit well into their years as a major, but that's not the norm. Nearly everyone will have a staff tour under their belts by the time they are a major. And getting picked up for Lt Colonel is hard to do without that staff experience, unless you're in the Guard/Reserves.

"Heavy" pilots typically do three "ops" tours. That is, you go to UPT, graduate, and do three tours in the cockpit. Generally, two of those tours will be in an MWS (ie, C-5, C-17, C-130, etc). And one tour can be in a "white jet" (C-21, T-37, T-1). Some pilots do staff work within an operational tour. As a senior captain, some guys do a year or so at the squadron level as a pilot, then move into wing or ops group jobs. That gets them some staff experience without having to do an entire staff tour.

5. How often do you get to fire live weapons. I went to the Mildenhall Air Fete in 1999 (or 2000) and was horrified to hear from an F-15C jock that the last time he fired the gun was 5 yrs ago, (Yes, I’m from the UK). By the way, you yanks are great. Not only can you put on a show that put the UK equivalent to shame, but you’re a jolly bunch too. A real pleasure. Thanks to the pilot who showed me around wherever you are.

Not really applicable to most heavy drivers. But the AC-130 crews typically fire live ammo on nearly every training sortie...that's AFSOC for ya. That, and since that's really their only mission....fly around and shoot things, they can't train without firing the gun.

6. After past basic flying on the T-37/T-38, and if lucky enough to get the jet of your choice, in broad terms can you summarize, how does life in the AF works. Where do you go, what dictates where you are transferred, how long does your flying ‘life’ go for in the AF etc. Is the same in the Navy/USMC?

As I mentioned above, most pilots will graduate pilot training and do 2-3 operational tours as a pilot, then move into a staff tour. Then most that remain in the Air Force may attend ACSC (Air Command and Staff College), and return to flying units to serve as a Director of Operations (DO) or a commander.

7. What do you lucky people do when not flying?

That depends on your "additional duties". Most AMC copilots don't have any real jobs other than flying. So depending on the unit, they may come in and help out the people with real jobs, or go home and spend time with family (since they are gone so much anyways). Other folks serve as schedulers, training officers, work in stan/eval, safety, serve as executives for the commander, etc etc.

For example, I was an assistant safety officer when I first got to my unit. I did that for about a year, then I was appointed the Chief of Scheduling, which I've done for the past year. Now I'm working in the Training shop, serving as the Assistant Training officer. I'll likely become the Chief of Training in about 6 months or so.

As a unit safety officer, the job didn't entail much..just updating the safety board, giving briefings on safety topics, and helping people process things like birdstrike forms. Chief of Scheduling was a headache job, as the scheduling process stays in a constant state of flux for C-21 operations. And training works to ensure everyone stays current and we keep the pilots in our unit trained and proficient.

8. Do you have other duties related to the AF that do not entail flying?

Just listed a bunch above.