Once a Air Force Fighter Pilot=Never Cool Again

[CaptBiff]

One word......."ascots"

 

[N1VIBS]

Edit - the old school guys are cool. F4 and prior are balls to the wall.

The Chappie James/ Robin Olds generation. They don't make them like that anymore.

 

[ATRCAPT]

Many long 4 days with the subset. Micromanage zealots. Just waiting for an instruction on how to wipe my ass. Just about everything else has been dictated.

The micromanaging is what gets me. Had one guy about a year ago spend a whole 3 day pointing out not only my mistakes, but how his mistakes were somehow my fault as well. Kept pointing out procedures that I had screwed up. Problem was everything he was mentioning had been removed from the FOM 6 months earlier. Jackass.

I flew with another retired AF guy (but not a pilot). This guy absolutely went out of his way to make everything as difficult as it could possibly be. Everything from his briefings to coordinating what time we would be at the bar. The guy dropped part of his earpiece down in back of the rudder pedals. Most of us would have just slid the seat back and rooted around until we found it, but not this guy. He made me don the O2 mask, called the A flight attendant up to be "an extra set of eyes while he was head down" looking for his stupid earpiece. I just wanted to say, "dude, chill the fukc out!"

I will say this, I flew all of August with an academy grad (KC135) who was one of the coolest dudes I've ever had the pleasure of occupying a cockpit with. So, I guess you can't judge a book by it's Airforce blue cover.

 

[Adiabatic Pilot]

Actually, they do...you just haven't read about them yet. Most are ok, a few, not, some pretty dang good...and don't talk much about it. The last one, yeh, let's go fly.

 

[RedRum]

I agree with the post about the F-4 guys. I have never met an F-4 guy who was not interesting and fun to talk to.

I have never met an F-15 guy who was anything but a toolbag.

Oh spoken like someone who would have like to fly the F15! Well I guess you will never know. Well, maybe you can pull a couple G's in that slick little barbie jet you are flying! HA HA HA

 

[PeanuckleCRJ]

There are plenty of F-15 guys that are great to fly with... I can think of a few off the top of my head.

When they are on the bad side it's a total pain in the butt, though. The academy guys can be a bit off as well.. but there are good ones to offset the toolbags.

 

[StaySeated]

The funniest AF dig I have ever heard happened while occupying a SWA jumpseat (thanks for the many rides btw).

The Capt. was all over the sky on the decent. Fast, slow, high, low.

The FO says, "is this some kind of AF/Fighter technique?"

The Capt says, "what technique?".

The FO says, "exactly".

True story. Couldn't help myself and busted out laughing.

For the record, if a guy is being a ******************************bag on day one, you really need to man-up and let him know. I couldn't fathom riding around for days just biting my tongue. My airline has a no-fly list and I think it is the most chicken-sh1t mechanism. If a fellow crew member is such a problem child that he/she needs to be put on a list, then they need some feedback.

 

[Adiabatic Pilot]

An AF guy once said, "I was smart enough to figure out how to go to war flying off a 14,000 foot runway with a Hilton and an Irish pub at the end of it...I think we can get this crate safely around the continental US for a coupla days, and have a little fun...he had the code broken.

 

[AA717driver]

A friend is an Academy grad. I didn't know it until 15 years or so into our friendship. But, he's in MC's and AC's.

COS turns out some real dorks. But so does Riddle and Purdue...

I don't know what it is but it seems like so many of the "younger" guys have had their personality stripped away.

I guess I'm just a dinosaur. Excuse me, gotta go have a cigarette and cup of coffee and throw up under the wing before I go fly. Couple 'a hits off the O2 and I'll be ready to go.

TC

 

[pilotyip]

Fighter pilot story

"Go ugly early story, it is 1976, Cubi Point; we have been at sea for 6 weeks. We being Ships' Company, "the career enhancing tour". We pull back in to Cubi Point. We are at the club for liquid refreshment. We are discussing "going ugly early". You know all women are beautiful when you have not seen one in six weeks, "we kept women recognition photos in our staterooms so we recognize one when we saw one". This one fighter pilot was making moves on the ugliest creature you had ever seen. So we decided that going ugly early did not apply to fighter’s pilots that had no standards. Another fighter pilot over heard this and said he was offended, kinda like people on this board hearing about the college thing. He said we should respect him because he was the defender of the fleet and how he would be the first one launched to intercept an incoming air raid, etc. Please!! We are sitting in a bar in the Philippines, enjoying a beer far removed from reality, thinking about women and this fighter pilot gets all bent out of shape because we made a joke about fighter pilot standards when making a move on an ugly women. He never understood. This guy happened to be a fighter pilot, but as far as being full of themselves, this is not confined to the fighter pilot community. I know many great guys who flew fighter. BTW the threat from a submarine was much greater than the airborne threat, but we didn't bring that he would not have understood that either.

 

[T3700]

The military would rather produce a pilot with the ego and B*lls to take an aircraft into downtown Hanoi with a significant chance of not coming back, than one that's fun to fly with on a grueling 4 day trip with a challenging ILS at the end of each leg.

I for one have flown with more egos from Riddle than that boys and girls school in Colorado.

They're all pains in the a**, but I get over it.

 

[ATRCAPT]

The military would rather produce a pilot with the ego and B*lls to take an aircraft into downtown Hanoi with a significant chance of not coming back, than one that's fun to fly with on a grueling 4 day trip with a challenging ILS at the end of each leg.

That was hysterical...oh, wait...you WERE trying to be funny, right?

 

[GogglesPisano]

I don't know what all the fuss is about. About 95% of the captains I fly with at big D are ex-mil and ...

1) They don't advertise it. You have to ask them what they did prior to Delta.

2) I haven't noticed a difference between the services or the aircraft (except the Marines are a bit "out there," the navy guys are the most laid back.)

3) 99% of the captains I've flown with are the highest-caliber, friendliest, most professional group of aviators I've come across yet -- by a mile. I'm on airline #3. There was never any "hazing" like the bull******************** at ACA (a farkin commuter for God's sake.)

 

[BrickTop]

It boggles my mind why people don't' understand basic grammar. The tittle: "Once A Air Force fighter pilot." NO! The difference in "an" vs "a." When the word preceding begins with a vowel use "AN." If it begins with a syllable use "A" with the exception of Y. Just listen to how F&*d up it sounds.

 

[CA1900]

It boggles my mind why people don't' understand basic grammar. The tittle: "Once A Air Force fighter pilot." NO! The difference in "an" vs "a." When the word preceding begins with a vowel, use "AN." If it begins with a syllable, use "A" with the exception of "Y." Just listen to how F&*d up it sounds.

It boggles my mind why people don't understand basic punctuation and spelling. Just look at how f&*d up it looks.

:laugh:

 

[Whine Lover]

...............................

 

[Fubijaakr]

All you have to do to understand is look at AF vs. Navy manuals.

AF manuals are all about what you can do. Everything else is forbidden.

Navy manuals are what you CAN'T do. Everything else is governed by individual judgment.

Why? The Navy philosophy is based on command at sea, where the Captain is basicly out there making independent decisions. The Air Force derives it philosophy from the Army (WWII Army Air Force) where microcommand and control were paramount.

 

[IBNAV8R]

-1s are written in black and white by engineers and theorists.

NATOPS are written in the blood of other aviators.

 

[Mud Eagle]

http://www.idahostatesman.com/273/story/874410.html?storylink=omni_popular

Is Ablie friends with this guy? Good candidate for Airtran.

Nope, he's a WSO anyway.

 

[Mud Eagle]

All you have to do to understand is look at AF vs. Navy manuals.

AF manuals are all about what you can do. Everything else is forbidden.

Navy manuals are what you CAN'T do. Everything else is governed by individual judgment.

There is one singular place where this argument is true: the Dash 1 flight manual. Other than that, this statement is a nice intra-service rivalry (untrue and incorrect) rumor that keeps getting perpetuated.

This quote, or a variation of it, is in the first chapter of every USAF -1:

The flight manual takes a positive approach and normally states only what you can do. Unusual operations or configurations are prohibited unless specifically covered herein. Clearance from higher headquarters must be obtained before any questionable operation, which is not specifically permitted in this manual, is attempted.