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Valid for validity. Takeaway being that Schwartz was picked for his ability to fall in line with SECDEF. That and the nuke overflight also had the effect of breeding a generation of officers who knew no other world than one where you were beheaded for the slightest transgression, particularly true in AFGSC. As a result, we've bred an officer corps whose preferred COA will almost always be one of "that which is least likely to draw attention and/or get me fired."

When you load up the tapes, you just have to plug this in first.

Palace Chase tentatively approved as of yesterday. Developmental Electrical Engineer (62E), asked for 10 months off of four year initial ADSC to attend UPT and fly C-17s for AFRes. Initially submitted 14 May if I remember correctly, so it took less than two months.

I know Di personally, he is in a position to know this and it’s scary as hell.

Do you use the 1801 in ForeFlight or just the FAA form? ForeFlight won't let a VFR 1801 go though and BO won't take the FAA plan FAA form. CVS has been using ForeFlight filing for almost a year. Believe we used the FAA form out there as well.

Holy S&!#! Chills.

C-130H at Yokota Take all this with a caveat since the C-130H is going away and being replaced with the J (same mission, just no engineer, navigator and much more advanced systems.) Also, I'm at Yokota which is one of the best flying assignments in the Air Force, so what I say will not necessarily mirror Little Rock or Dyess. Maybe Ramstein.. 1. Ops Tempo/Deployment: We don't deploy anymore but the ops tempo is absolutely crazy. This is cool if you like to fly like me, not so cool if you value family life. That being said most families love Yokota/Japan. Tight knit community here and the Japanese are absolutely wonderful people (although robot like.) We fly about 30 local lines a week, and about 20 off station missions a month as a squadron. Not to mention, exercises (to awesome places like Thailand, Guam, Philippines.) Life is busy. Young guys can expect to fly their asses off and I'm sure that will continue with the J transition. Captain-Major types, still expected to fly the line often (which is great,) but also manage a flight, 18 additional duties, MC for an exercise and be in-charge of the air-show. One thing that sucks about the H is that it breaks ALL the time. Very frustrating to go try to fly the line and the plane has a 3 hour ETIC thus your line cancelled. Your 2 day off station can turn into a 30 day real quick. Not too bad if you are single and like being on the road but very unstable. 2. Lifestyle/ Family Stability: As a young guy it is awesome. I've been to 80% of the countries in Asia in the C-130. While we don't deploy, we go to some very challenging, remote airfields that really put your PIC skills to test. We go to Nepal often and as a bro of mine would say: "there is no way to legally take off out of that place." Mt Everest is 29,000 feet and we can't even climb that high. As I mentioned, most families love Yokota, all families live on base and single dudes/dudettes live off base. 3. Community morale: The base sucks, plain and simple. Worst support service I've ever seen. Not knocking on any one individual, I know many great dudes in comm/finance/etc. but as an organization the base is horrendous. People care more about keeping track of resiliency training/SAPR/w/e than launching planes. 4. Advancements & Future of the airframe: Future? Guard/Reserves or go J. Most H guys are going J so that's cool. Advancements? We get a lot of opportunities here that you won't get elsewhere. Young captain as mission commander of a combined/joint exercise with Philippine/Korean/Japanse/Aussie C-130s flying together in formation? Hauling cargo and people into third world countries? Dropping Cambodian paratroopers out of an American C-130 and planning the whole thing? A lot of advancement. 5. Preferred PCS locations : Yokota or Ramstein. Dude, at the end of the day, I love the C-130. We get to travel the world like our C-17/C-5 brothers but yank and bank like our fighter bros, 300 feet of the ground, in formation, to an assault landing or throw shit out the back like our bomber bros. It truly is the best of all worlds.

C-17s: 1. Ops tempo's varied wildly over the life of the program. Before my time, it was common for guys to be gone at least 250 days a year, but it's not nearly that bad anymore. These days, you can probably expect about one 90-day deployment every 18 months or so, and an average of one 7-10 day mission per month out of home station. As a young guy, you'll also spend a lot of time back at the schoolhouse at Altus. It takes five trips there to go from UPT grad to C-17 airdrop IP. 2. Lifestyle/family stability: highly related to #1. We generally don't get many long deployments, but you'll often be gone for relatively short bursts. Like Jarhead said, it's AMC. 3. Morale: Probably average compared to USAF flying squadrons as a whole. You'll get some amazing opportunities to travel to some really cool places. I've been handed papers before to fly to a country I didn't even know existed at the time (Mauritius, as an example). But the sweet trips are tempered with the usual AF BS. Most C-17 guys who are past their UPT commitments are now based at KATL or KJFK, leaving a relatively young and inexperienced crew force behind to pick up the slack. Like I said, standard. 4. This jet's not going anywhere. Being a newer airframe, she's already got most of the bells and whistles that you want. The jet was designed with a 30,000 hour service life in mind, but several of the tails have already hit 20,000+. That lifespan will be extended well past 30,000 in due time. As far as usage goes, I don't see any real changes coming down the pipe. Wherever the US gov operates, which is everywhere, there's going to be a need for airlift. 5. Besides the FTU at beautiful Altus, there are seven AD C-17 bases: four on the west coast (McChord, Travis, Elmo, and Hickam) and three on the east coast (Charleston, Dover, and McGuire). Charleston and McChord are by far the two largest hubs, each with close to 50 of the 223 tails. There are also some limited opportunities to pick up exchange tours with the Aussies, Brits, or Canadians or to go out to fly with the HAW, a NATO unit based in Hungary. All in all, I've really enjoyed it. If you like to travel and you like working with a team of guys and gals on a crew airplane, you'll have a good time. The mission set is varied enough that it's never the same thing twice. You'll see plenty of Iraq and Afghanistan, but you'll also wake up in Peru, Chad, Myanmar, or wherever else Uncle Sam wants to go that day. Pretty fun gig.

Anyone know the current timeline, from getting hired as a sponsored pilot through the ANG to OTS? I'm fresh off the streets.

I spoke with a guy who was a retired Hurricane Hunter. He said that if one were to go ANG fighters, you wouldn’t have the number of hours required to fly for an airline on the side until 10/15 years. Is this accurate? He said to go tanker/transport if I wanted to go airline.

Thanks for the quick reply. Right out of the gate? Or would one have to get a job aside from flying?

Message me for more information! Just kidding. But I assume that’s true because of the lack of UPT boards. I’m just using reasoning. I’m not a pilot and you probably shouldn’t rely on me for information. I’m just passing along what I was told.

Be sure to check the benefits of your state if you plan on using them in school. There are also new rules for the GI Bill. Other than that, serious kudos if you can pull it off.

Khan Academy has great math videos. https://www.khanacademy.org/math