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Embassy Flights C-12


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Guest C12Driver

Gabe,

I recently finished up one of these tours in South America. Herk28 is correct--nobody gets these jobs out of the schoolhouse(considered a career broadening assignment); most pilots selected for these jobs are field grade officers. However, there are exceptions made for senior captains if they can't get anyone else to fill the vacancy and the timing works.

Hope this helps.

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Guest billpritjr

Just curious

Are the C-12's overseas locally controlled by the local MAG/Ambassador? If the C-12 in Bogota goes down for MX, can the La Paz C-12 be re-assigned temporarily without begging the local Embassy to do it?

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Guest C12Driver

Even though the "embassy" C-12s are operated/flown by local MAG/DAO staffs, the ambassador does not "own" or have opcon of the aircraft. The HQ staff for the owning site (MAG vs. DAO) would have to approve moving an aircraft to another site.

We never had a C-12 from another site back us up when we broke for MX; we just waited for parts to arrive and pressed on with all that lovely staff work that we were behind on.

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Guest peterson64

How many different locations are there....I've also heard that not all the pilots are air force? True/False?

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Originally posted by HerkDriver24:

Maybe we are talking about a different type of C-12 assigment, but I saw at least two people receive one after Corpus. However, they had to be VT-35 students.

HD

Those go to Elmendorf. They are not embassy jobs, they are more like a regular AF C-21 assignment, I believe. However, you're right, only guys from VT-35 (TC-12 squadron) can get them, not VT-31 (T-44s), which is really stupid if you ask me. It would take maybe a week to learn to fly the C-12 after flying a T-44.

[ 29. August 2005, 14:22: Message edited by: herk28 ]

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Guest C12Driver
Originally posted by Hellfire:

How many different locations are there....I've also heard that not all the pilots are air force? True/False?

There are 14 different locations out there.

Most are joint billets so the answer to your question would be true: not all the pilots are air force, but all have to fly by USAF guidance/regs.

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  • 5 years later...

There are 14 different locations out there.

Most are joint billets so the answer to your question would be true: not all the pilots are air force, but all have to fly by USAF guidance/regs.

THREAD REVIVAL

I'm looking into future assignment possibilities and am super interested in flying the C-12 at an embassy. However, I can't seem to find any info on which embassy locations allow you to fly the C-12. I spent what seemed like forever trying to find info on AMS and AFPC with no luck. I also searched a number of threads on this site but couldn't find a recent list of what embassy locations still have the flying gig. Are there still 14 locations out there? Anyone have a current list? I'd also be really interested in contacting the person who has one of these jobs currently to ask them a few questions. How would I find their contact info? The global? The FCG? Can anyone point me in the right direction?

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They recently (about 3 months ago) sent out an email looking for volunteers for these jobs. They were looking for Senior Captains/Majors to fly in Columbia, Pakistan, the Phillipines and somewhere in Africa (Ghana, maybe?) The tours are from between 18 -36 monhts. There were also several non-flying jobs that were technically under the same position to good deal places like Saudi Arabia and a few others. I'm not sure if you volunteer for these if you have a chance to indicate whether you are a volunteer for flying ones and not a volunteer for the non-flying ones.

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Do you know all the locations that have flying spots--whether or not they had an opening in the last few months? Someone above mentioned 14 locations as of a few years ago--any idea what they are? Or how to get in contact with someone doing the job now? I could possibly try contacting their functional if I knew their AFSC?

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And1,

Go to the AF Portal and search the CoPs for Rated Staff Assignments. On AFPC/DDPAOS's CoP look at the International Affairs Strategists folder. They hung old attache messages there and it has some of the info/contact info you're looking for.

Jonesy

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There's only 9 billets left. LockheedFix mentioned Columbia, Pakistan, and Philippines already. Those are correct, but in the interest of not posting all in the open, the rest are: 2 in Africa, 2 others in the Pacific Rim/Southeast Asia, and 2 others in the Middle East. Each of these locations has one and only one flying billet. The O-6 Air Attache at these locations usually flies also.

There are also a bunch of ETSS and TAFT (foreign sales and training) jobs that fly but all those are for Fighter pilots only, and they're not the Embassy C-12's that the OP asked about.

DATT is Defense Attache school. It lasts about a year including an intensive language program. There's even cultural and protocol lessons for the spouse. Anyone going to a flying Embassy job will attend DATT. They're an Assistant Air Attache first, and a C-12 pilot on the side if that location has one.

The AFSC for the Embassy billets is actually 16F, Foreign Affairs Officer. The assignments officer is in AFPC/DPAOS. They just swapped out people a couple months ago, and I don't have the new gal's name. Your AO on the porch will know who it is, though.

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DATT is Defense Attache school. It lasts about a year including an intensive language program. There's even cultural and protocol lessons for the spouse. Anyone going to a flying Embassy job will attend DATT. They're an Assistant Air Attache first, and a C-12 pilot on the side if that location has one.

Do you get IDE credit for DATT?

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I worked with the Embassy in Honduras, they have C-12s there. Based on the workload of the embassy staff, I would say that as cool as the C-12 thing sounds it will take you away from your primary duties and lead to more late nights at the office playing catchup on whatever project is hot at the time. If you are going to staff I'd probably lean towards a staff job that didn't include flying a C-12. If you want to go to C-12s I would try to avoid one assigned to the DAO.

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I remember back in the late 80's guys going to do C-12 jobs trained mx/ops at ADW to get certified on the C-12, is that how its still done?

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  • 2 years later...

Thread Revival:

Looking for anybody who has done this recently and could share some info on how you enjoyed the program, especially if you have a family that you brought with you. Please PM me as I have a HUGE amount questions that myself and wife are interested in learning about. Thanks!

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