Need some assistance from AF pilots

[HueyPilot]

Probably follow-ons

airgator-

I'd imagine you'd have a follow-on assignment coming out of an intial UAV tour. In the future, the assignment won't be as bad is it is today. Latest rumor holds that they are going to add a CTP program...Companion Trainer Program. Likely airframe candidates include the T-3 or left-over C-12s. Either way, at least the UAV'ers will get some real flying time.

 

[HoursHore]

Just for the record, I have not seen any UAVs in any drop yet. I don't know about the future, but I have seen no evidence supporting that or heard any rumors that they are going to come down in a Drop.
The only way I coould see getting one is failing some initial ACC training after being rated, i.e IFF, BFF or Awacs initial training.

why does the Air Force need rated guys to fly those things anyway?

 

[Toro]

marc, what is casual status exactly? Does it mean you dont have to report to your training base yet, or you just arent training yet? I heard that you are allowed to return home for a few weeks before reporting.

Casual status is when you are assigned to a base prior to UPT; it usually isn't for specific job duties, you just sort of do what they can find to keep you busy. I was at Laughlin on casual for a year and worked in the T-38 scheduling shop part of the time and at the Public Affairs office part of the time. It's not necessarily the base you will be in UPT; there are several guys at Lakenheath who are on casual status (they get to spend a year at Lakenheath as 2LTs, I spent a year in Del Rio - WTFO?). As far as returning home and taking leave, yes you are allowed. In fact, since you're generally not heavily tasked with duties, you can pretty much take as much leave as you have accumulated (and sometimes advance leave) as long as your commander is cool about it.

 

[HueyPilot]

To future casual Lts:

If any of you are planning on going to OTS and don't have your PPL yet, you will likely wind up having to attend IFT. Depending on where you'll attend UPT, you may have to do IFT here at Maxwell. If you do get orders to stay at Maxwell until your UPT class date, do yourself a favor and talk to personnel dudes at OTS and do casual here with the 54th Airlift Flight.

If you don't say anything about it, you'll probably do casual status at Air University (what I did) and that sucks. You'll spend your time making coffee runs for all the non-rated Captains over at SOC and AU while they do their best to make a future pilot feel as small as you possibly can.

OK, not all of them are like that, but there are a significant number of them that I could tell didn't like pilots, and often openly mentioned that pilots don't do sh!t in the Air Force except fly, eat and crew rest.

So, that being said, if you come over to the C-21 flight here, you'll be amongst pilots, get some UPT tips, and we'll probably work you in the scheduling department in between IFT flights. I mentioned to my boss the other day that we need a couple casual Lts and he agreed, since we're about to become undermanned shortly.

 

[Tweetdrvr]

B,

All the above is pretty much correct, especially from Hueypilot and Yahtzee. As a current T-37 IP and from someone who has gotten here the hard way, I would offer the following information..

My hard road to being a Pilot took me to Nav school first out of ROTC, then faced with cutbacks following the so called "peace dividend" after the fall of the Soviet Union (rest in peace our dearest and best adversary), I ended up in my hometown ANG unit for a UPT slot. Now because I like teaching so much, I am a reservist flying T-37s. I am just a glorified CFI, and I my students get paid to be prepared for each lesson, instead of me trying to manage their budgets as well as their training at the local Part 61 FBO.

You are fairly young, but at the same time have quite a bit of flight experience. You should try to open all doors and see who answers. It will probably take you two years from present to get through the active duty cycle and walk across the stage at graduation, then you will be 26 almost 27 years old with a 10 year commitment to the Air Force. I don't know if you plan or want a 20 year career. What I do know, is that in the ANG or Reserve you get to pick your plane before SUPT. You still have a 10 year commitment after UPT, but it is not exclusive to that particular unit nor does it require full time services to honor that commitment. It will probably take 2 to 3 years to find yourself at UPT for a Guard or Reserve unit from this moment, and that is due to timing of fiscal year stuff, when they interview, and when you get a UPT slot. This fiscal year slots are gone and given out, next year's beginning in October are probably already through the first round of interviews, they will probably make a final selection once they get a firm hand on the actual number of slots that particular unit is going to receive. Then those lucky few will have to get the med stuff done, get through IFT (intro flight training=Air Force pays for 50 hours for you to earn a private ticket and if you don't do it in 50 or you pink slip no UPT for you) and get commissioned, so none of them will make it a base before summer of 04. You may ask why you should take a road that may take another year to get you that pair of coveted pilot's wings?

Well, as I said your Reserve commitment is not a full time, so you graduate UPT with about 1000 hours total time, 200 multi-turbine (counting the 800 you already have), and if you are lucky enough to get that F-15/16 unit you start racking up turbine PIC right away. This makes you instantly marketable to the regional airlines assuming you don't get a regional job before you get to UPT (which opens up another good deal, you take mil leave from your job, they keep it for you, and two years later you go back to work at much better seniority and pay). By the time market turns around for the majors (if that is your goal), you'll be maybe 31 to 32 years old and searching for airline employment versus the guaranteed 37 years old that you will be if you take the 10 year commitment to active duty.

Each Guard unit is awarded their UPT slots from the Guard Bureau and has total control as to whom they are awarded. Typically each unit gets two per fiscal year sometimes more depending on needs, one will be awarded in house to somebody already within the unit such as a crew chief enlisted dude or a loadmaster/flight engineer from the enlisted aircrew force in a C-130 or C-141/17/KC-135 unit, and one will come off the street (someone with no military background). The navigators in the 141 and KC-135 units now are getting free extra slots that don't count against these numbers right now because their positions are being eliminated with the C-17 or the KC-135 avionics upgrade called "Pacer Craig" (SP on that program name?). Competition for these off the street slots is pretty stiff, my guard unit went through a stack of almost 100 guys to get to one dude for an off the street slot. What improves your chances for these "off the streeters"? Having prior flying time, already having a degree, (you can go to UPT for the Guard if you have 2 years of college, but you must promise to complete your degree within 7 years of completing flight training-this very rarely happens anymore because people were abusing the system, not getting degrees, getting jobs in the last big hiring market and then quitting the units) and having some local ties to the area. Did you grow up there, do your parents live there, do you currently live and work there, did you attend university there, meet your wife there and plan to settle near her parents etc....?

Reserve units while almost the same as far as flying and pay dates have no control over their slots. Each unit sponsors candidates to a federal selection board that meets at AFRC HQ in Dobbins. Candidates are selected for UPT, then the unit is told whether or not their candidates were selected. Sometimes units come up dry, if the candidates they sponsored were not as competitive as the other candidates. If their candidates are selected, then they get to come back and fly for that unit after UPT.

Would you or should you enlist to improve your chances with an ANG unit? Depends on what you want. Enlisting doesn't hurt your chances of getting an active duty slot. You are not breaking any commitments you had from enlisting because going to be an active duty officer is a higher commitment. Kinda like moving up from the minor leagues to the majors. Enlisting does get you a free version of the GI Bill that you can use to offset costs for additional ratings at part 141 schools (my CFI and my 737 type came courtesy of the GI Bill) if you never get lucky enough to get a UPT slot.

The quickest way for you to an Active Duty slot right now is through Officer Training School (OTS). However OTS is a backfill method of producing officers. Whatever doesn't come from the Academy and ROTC is what OTS is called on to produce each year. Sometimes it is very competitive and sometimes it is not. When times are competitive, the next way to active duty may be through the accelerated ROTC program. To do that however, you will have to go back to school and get another degree or a masters degree that you can complete in two years. I've been out of touch with my old ROTC detachment for a while so I am not as up on things as I used to be, go talk to the ROTC guys at your school, they are much less likely to feed you BS because they are not trying to fill quotas like the NCOs at the recruiting stations or find the Academy Admissions Liaison Officer for your area (they recruit for all officer sources not just the academy)

I don't know where you are, but here are some fighter units and the planes they fly off the top of my head:

New Orleans F-15 ANG and A-10 AFRES
Barksdale, LA A-10s AFRES
South Carolina F-16s ANG
Atlantic City F-16s ANG
Fresno CA F-16s ANG
Fort Worth F-16s ANG
Houston F-16s ANG
Jacksonville F-15s may have converted to 16s ANG
Willow Grove PA A-10s ANG
Otis, MA ANG
Baltimore A-10s ANG

Here are the ANG and AFRES websites list of units index:
http://www.ang.af.mil/units/angsites.asp
http://www.afrc.af.mil/Units.htm

Each ANG unit has their own individual recruiters, and the AFRES dudes work through a centralized system, you call the toll free number and get connected to the recruiter that services your region.

As one who has been in both reserve components, I would recommend the Air Guard over the Air Force Reserve if I had to choose between the two.

 

[Tweetdrvr]

Part II

You can screw up and lose your fighter slot from a Guard/Reserve unit. Those who don't finish in the top 50% of the Phase II class (T-37/T-6) get phone calls made to their unit commanders who make the call. Sometimes the answer is send you to 38s, because in the old days we all flew 38s and sometimes a guy from the near bottom would catch on and graduate in the top. Sometimes the answer is no, because they will trade you to a heavy unit and give you what they feel is the best chance of getting wings. Sometimes poor performers in the 38 track are graduated but not recommended for fighters, so they have to find a Guard/Reserve unit that flies big planes. If you go active duty, don't fall into the trap after you get sick of UPT and think what a lot of people say "I'll take a T-1 and run." The 38 program presents its own challenges, but the T-1 while being a Beech business jet is easy to fly, the program is very challenging from a mental planning and mission planning perspective. There are many who will say that the Navigation Phase checkride in T-1s is one of the hardest checkrides they ever took in the Air Force.

I agree with Hueypilot on the C-130 stance. Active duty, Guard or Reserve, the C-130 is a great plane if you don't get a fighter. The only bad assignments on Active Duty IMHO are Japan (too far away) and EC-130s (not really true C-130 scarf and goggle down in the weeds getting dirty flying). If you go to Corpus for Phase III, you just got FAIP immunity (means the air force can't make you be a first assignment IP and teach for the first 3 years of your career in a craphole UPT base which is a bad deal for most single people), a better chance at getting a Gunship or Talon Spec Ops assignment. You can transfer to C-17s later on, because it is the same mission only bigger, or there are too many Guard/Reserve units with C-130s that will take you if you decide not to continue an active duty career after your commitment is finished. You can come back and be a T-37/T-6 or T-1 IP if you desire. It is a good life. I loved every minute of my 2,000 hours in the Herk, and only like my Tweet time in a different way because I get to go upside down, spin and fly formation.

Once you get to UPT, your prior flying experience will help. Flying is flying and nothing changes that. Talking on the radio, shooting an ILS, navigating visually, tracking VOR radials and course intercepts, entering a traffic pattern at a non military field are all the same regardless of whether you are wearing shorts and tennis shoes or flying in a nomex flight suit. Military flying is different only because our ultimate goal is to break things and kill people to support and defend the constitution and save democracy. We demand precision and discipline. Precision because ultimately how precise you fly may determine the difference between nailing the target or having a bunch of Al Jazeera reporters screaming about collateral damage; or getting beans and bullets to good guys on the drop zone instead of having the enemy eating the MREs you just dropped and shooting good guys with our bullets. Discipline to work as part of a team and do the right thing always. A good friend of mine often makes the following statement. "You can't play hockey and learn to skate at the same time. Your feet and balance have to be nearly automatic while your brain keeps track of the puck, thinks about swinging the stick, and all those rules." At the beginning of UPT for most students it is very much like learning two things at once. The T-37 is an easy but demanding plane to fly. It goes 2.5 to 3x faster than what most civilian pilots came from (we cruise everywhere at 200 IAS and fly final at 100-110 IAS), it has a stick and just to make things fun, it doesn't have split differential ailerons like all those GA planes so adverse yaw in turns is a big player. One of the biggest hurdles most students have is making level turns. The biomechanics of turning with a stick cause most people to add premature back pressure as they roll into the turn, then they forget or don't use rudder and boom they just gained 200' plus in a turn in the traffic pattern. The sooner students chairfly, mentally learn their procedures, radio calls, visual pitch settings, and power settings, the better they can learn because I don't have to constantly harp on basics, but can start talking about judgment calls and finesse issues. You know how it goes as a CFI, the difference between the first time you hit the pattern with student versus the ride before solo when they put in cross wind controls without you saying a word, or they look for traffic based on a radio call between tower and another plane versus a traffic advisory issued directly to them.

For the most part, CFIs do really well at UPT as long as they keep and open mind, and don't act like they know everything. Remember how tough it is to instruct since you've done it yourself and listen. I know of 2 CFIs that did not complete the program. One was in my Nav class back in 1988, he said he was just lazy and thought he knew it all, and one just recently got put out in the last class we had. I never flew with this one, but from talking to the other instructors, it sounds like somebody let one slip through the cracks and I would not recommend learning to fly with this individual. Not everything every IP says is completely correct and not every IP teaches the same way. If an IP says something you don't understand ask for clarification. If you think, it is wrong, ask the next IP you fly with, without mentioning the other IP’s name, to explain the concept. If the next IP asks who taught you that, then tell him or her, because sometimes the older more experienced guys have to mentor our younger instructors. Help out your classmates as much as you can without being a know it all, you'll find yourself teaching a lot during study groups, because unless you are that one "catfish" Yahtzee mentions, you will grasp stuff quicker than the students who only have their private tickets. Whenever there is an IP sitting around the flight room not doing anything, get them to explain or teach stuff because that is our duty. We won't pour knowledge into your head, but if you seek us out the cup will run over. UPT can turn a nobody into a pilot and if someone who is already an accomplished pilot comes through the program they usually leave as a much better pilot. Don't brag about your flight time or certificates, sometimes people will figure it out, and sometimes people can't tell you have prior experience.

You are ready, I just hope you get the chance. Keep an open mind and a positive attitude and you will do fine. The more you fly and most importantly the more you keep yourself in a learning mode is the best thing you can do. I recommend reading the AIM on radio communications techniques, I recommend to anyone the Jepps Commercial Instrument Manual as the book that will give you the big picture on flying in the real world. What would I do in your place? Get your Instructor, Instrument Instructor, your Multi Instructor tickets if you have time, fly aerobatics with a stick in a Citabria, get your tail dragger sign off if you don't have it. Go fly gliders if you get the chance. Do some of it if you can't do it all, or do none, you'll still make it! (OK all you other guys reading this post, Lucky has all those ratings, the rest of you keep putting stuff on your tickets and in your mind if you can afford it)

 

[talondriver]

Re: Just to add a few things...

The Formation check includes 4-ship ops, etc. Low-level is self-descriptory. Nav check is essentially an instrument checkride.

Generally you don't see more than 1 F-15E/A-10 in a drop, because there aren't that many around. And it's rare to see more than one F-15C in a drop too.

First, only ENJJPT does the four-ship checkride

Second, there is no common drop. I've seen it all.

My suggestion is...don't game the system. If you want an eagle, you need to go T-38. And, if you get an A-10 or anything other than an eagle, you can still put in for that eagle (or F-22 by then)later on down the road (depending on your MWS manning).

 

[talondriver]

Re: "You want the truth?" "I want answers."

Catfish: n. 1) a bottom feeding student pilot who attempts to suck the SA from his or her IP unknowingly ; 2) the leading cash crop in Mississippi.

Yahtz-

You're missing out on the dual runways ops...

I thought double-wide sales was the leading....oh, you said cash "crop" !

 

[Purple Haze]

Do you know of any civilians like myself who end up making it to a fighter?

There was a guy in my Flight Screening class (back when we had to go fly a C172 at Hondo, TX prior to UPT) who was all civilian. He had long hair and looked generally "unmilitary." He said he was going to fly F15s -- which was kind of funny for a guy in his position (kind of made me think of Mayo in Officer & a Gentleman ). After OTS we went to different UPT bases. I saw him again at survival school and asked what he got ------- F15.

I bumped into him again in '99. He was still flying eagles and had made major below-the-zone the last year USAF did that, and he had a school slot.

Bottom line: Yes it is possible for a civilian like yourself. Follow the advice in the above posts and do not be distracted by anything that happens during UPT -- FOCUS.

 

[rainman_02]

Other changes...supposedly they are adding a random B-2 (Stealth Bomber) in the drops, and the rumor is also starting that Predator UAVs will start coming down the pipeline in the near future. Again, the rumor mill also says both the B-2 and the UAV will come from T-38 drops, since ACC (Air Combat Command) owns all of the B-2 assets and most of the UAV assignments.

There were 2 B-2 assignments in the drop last Friday. No UAVs, but it was heavily joked about during the assignment night festivities.

Currently, as I understand it, bombers are only coming from T-38s. The bomber mission fam part of the T-1 syllabus has been suspended, even though it still shows on our syllabus trackers.

One can apply to the B-2 from any fixed wing aircraft per their current "recruiting" information.