highflyer Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 I've done a bunch of searching, and haven't found to much out there. I realize it is hard to tell because not many people have flown both air frames, but is there any opinion as to what the lifestyle is like? Do both tend to be very relaxed? Also with tankers vs. cargo/transport what is the difference in where they fly? Which one will travel to more countries? Lastly, what do the deployment cycles look like for each. I've heard 6 months on 6 off for the C-5B/M but that seems like a lot for a reserve unit. Are these typical cycles in addition to monthly flights? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guineapigfury Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 I used to fly KC-135s and I have some friends who've flown C-5s. I'll caveat that this is all AD gouge and may be stale. The cargo mission involves a lot of flying from point A to point B, with a wide selection of As and Bs to pick from. The tanker mission involves a lot of taking off at point A then refueling someone and then landing back at point A with a less wide selection of As to pick from. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spoo Posted July 7, 2016 Share Posted July 7, 2016 Who approved your screen name? 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gazmo Posted July 9, 2016 Share Posted July 9, 2016 It's going to vary from unit to unit, but from a tanker perspective, the majority of our deployment taskings go to CENTCOM and PACOM. 30-60 day rotations every 12-18 months on average. We get a smattering of guard lifts, aeromedivac missions, coronets, business efforts, etc. Some of them go to good locations. Others not so much. The main difference between tankers and airlift is that tankers generally deploy to one place for a longer period of time than airlift (days if not, months). Airlift layovers are more along the lines of 18-20 hrs, unless of course you break, but the C-5's MC rates tend to surpass those of the KC-135 as of late. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobs Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 Safe to say you'll see more places on the tanker than the C5? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matmacwc Posted July 10, 2016 Share Posted July 10, 2016 (edited) 2 hours ago, scoobs said: Safe to say you'll see more places on the tanker than the C5? Just your mom's house. I say we pass BQZips mom's torch to Scoobs. Edited July 10, 2016 by matmacwc 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoobs Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 Right on que, glad you follow my posts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiFlyer Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 On 7/7/2016 at 6:58 PM, Spoo said: Who approved your screen name? Wasn't me...I cry foul! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herk Driver Posted July 11, 2016 Share Posted July 11, 2016 Right on que, glad you follow my posts. Not your posts he's following...just your mom when she gets back to the house. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HU&W Posted July 12, 2016 Share Posted July 12, 2016 On 7/10/2016 at 4:24 PM, matmacwc said: Go with quals. FIFY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highflyer Posted July 18, 2016 Author Share Posted July 18, 2016 Thanks, I don't know who approved my screen name but glad I got it. On 7/10/2016 at 5:17 PM, scoobs said: Safe to say you'll see more places on the tanker than the C5? Is that true? Would a tanker be more likely to see more places than airlift? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbush Posted July 19, 2016 Share Posted July 19, 2016 12 hours ago, highflyer said: Is that true? Would a tanker be more likely to see more places than airlift? Unlikely, scoobs is dumb. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
highflyer Posted August 3, 2016 Author Share Posted August 3, 2016 Any other input? With a Airlift/Cargo will you always be flying from your home base and back on missions? Someone described as Point A to Point B and back. Is it sometimes, Point A to Point B to Point C to Point D then back to Point A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcbush Posted August 3, 2016 Share Posted August 3, 2016 39 minutes ago, highflyer said: Is it sometimes, Point A to Point B to Point C to Point D then back to Point A. Of course. I'd say an average strat cargo mission probably involves 8-12 stops before returning to home station. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bb17 Posted August 3, 2016 Share Posted August 3, 2016 I'm not a pilot yet but this info is based on what I learned from almost exclusively rushing KC-135 and C-5 reserve units for the past few years. So the below information is from information that folks in both communities have relayed to me but not firsthand experience. A lot of the C-5 reservists seem to go on at least one 6-8 day trip a month where each leg is about 8 hours. So you're looking at quite a few stops along the way. Seems like they almost circle the globe on a trip. In 4 years I've only seen my C-5 friends go on one (volunteer) 30 day deployment. Mix this in with some local training sorties. KC-135 is sort of multi mission since it does tanker, aeromedical, and cargo. I've heard of some guys just do a lot of stateside point A to point B and back aeromedical sorties and hardly fly overseas. Some of them do just a lot of Point A to Point A local refueling sorties. I've heard of a lot of guys continuously doing 2 week long TDY's to England or somewhere and others seem to like going on their 2 or 3 month deployments back to back. Of course you can just do some combination of the above as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe1234 Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 A tanker works with almost every other airframe/mission...fighters, bombers, paxlift/airlift, AE, AFSOC, C2/ISR, Navy, Marines, nuclear, foreign military, etc. Because of that, the missions are going to be very diverse. In one month, a crew could go from supporting a fighter exercise one week, sitting nuclear alert the next week, flying an aeromedical evac mission the week after, and then supporting up gunships to finish off the month. The tanker is actually very cheap per flight hour and has very long legs, so you get some interesting taskings that you would never expect. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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