Riddller

Marine bootcamp was harder just because it was longer. It was easier in that you were learning to be a follower, not a leader, so you didn't have to think. You just kinda put yourself on autopilot and go. After a few weeks go by, you 'wake up' and are like, "Wow! I've only got a few weeks left!", then you zone out again. At field training, you constantly have to be 'awake' (literally and figuritively, we always got 8 hours of sleep at bootcamp, only 7 at FT) and aware of your surroundings. Therefore, the days seemed to DRAG on and on and on at FT. THAT'S what sucked the most. The stuff you had to do wasn't difficult, you just had to get through it and play the game. The biggest part of Marine bootcamp is getting that 'killer instinct' put into everyones head, while there is no such need for the AF.

GK test?

Yeah, I thought it was pretty funny too, but good on him for the effort! On the flip side, don't be about it. Last week we did Lazer Tag for our LLab as a break from 'death by Power Point'. One of the sophmores called up his flight the Friday night before to see if they wanted to go 'brush up' on their 'Urban Combat Tactics' before playing Lazer Tag the next week. If I'd been drinking milk when I heard this, it would have shot out my nose...

Go all out with whatever duties you're given. For example, last semester each flight was supposed to grab the flight-shield from the previous semester and paint it with the new flights "colors". A freshman from Bravo flight decided he didn't like the old shield, so HE WENT OUT AND CUT DOWN A FRIGGIN' TREE!!! He then cut a chunk out about 3 inches thick and proceeded to CARVE a new flight shield out of it! He had like an eagle swooping down and a bombs flying, etc..., all carved out of this big chunk of cedar, which he then highlighted with paint. My point is, while you don't have to cut down a tree every semester, go all out with whatever you're supposed to do, and you will get noticed. [ 04. March 2006, 10:54: Message edited by: Riddller ]

It depends, I've got one friend who does it ALL. He's in AAS, Drill Team Commander, Color Guard Commander, was a flight commander, takes like 20 hours every semester, great PFT, and goes all out with everything he does, and he's a great guy (i.e. not a douche). He's in the top 3 or 4. Then me: I don't do AAS, Color Guard, Drill Team, etc..., I do work a bunch at what job I'm given for the semester, but I mostly work on keeping my grades up in an engineering major. I'm ranked higher. I think its mostly about your "potential to be a good leader/officer". I was prior-E, so I know how to play the game. The youngins' need to practice a bit more with all the extra stuff. So, like Toro said, volunteer for as much as possible and perform those duties well.

We always called it the "Fourth Law of Thermodynamics": If the heats on you, its not on me! I was a bit of a pain-in-the-ass know it all during Nav school who took "short-cuts" in my navigating. As a result, a number of the instructors didn't like me and did there best to run me out of town. Problem was, I never hooked a flight or a sim, so it was a bit tough! Anyway, I messed up big with something like not cleaning my dorm room or something equally as earth-shattering to an E-3, and my ass was in a sling in front of the man. In the middle of it, one of the other students comes in with a DUI! Needless to say, they forgot about me...

YES!!! I love it! It makes me glad to hear I'm not alone! To the wife: "See honey! I'm NOT the worlds worst husband! I'm just a normal husband! So if you left me and married someone else, you'd be just as miserable. Doesn't that make you feel better sweetie?"

mmmmmmm... drinking Rum Punch with lots of Seamen! My fav!

Also, if you want to fly for the Marines, don't forget about the other time commitments: graduating, waiting a few months before starting TBS (The Basic School: Every Marine Officer is trained to be an Infantry Officer), 6 months of TBS, getting stashed for a year waiting to start pilot training, 1.5 years to wings, getting sent to the FRS (Fleet Replacement Squadron: Training to fly your particular airframe), waiting a few more months to start training, another 6-9 months in training, then getting sent out to your "Fleet Squadron". I had pilot friends that were finally making it out of the FRS after 4 YEARS of active duty time. They said they had AF buddies that they went through UPT with that were already aircraft commanders while my buddy didn't even have any copilot time in a fleet aircraft yet! One of the reasons I didn't take the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Program option and am now finishing up AFROTC...

I think there's a process for getting OTH's turned into HD's if that's case. Try google, otherwise, I don't think you have a snowball's chance in hell unless you did some REAL good explaining in the package AND they even bother to read it after seeing the OTH. Sorry!

Except they've canceled the program for the last 2 years and no one knows if they'll ever bring it back for ROTC cadets. [ 30. December 2005, 16:18: Message edited by: Riddller ]

I had a friend go last summer and he said he had a blast! He did say the PT out there was out of control (and he was a sub-9 minute runner!). So maybe your buddy really did fail the PFT, who knows?

Yeah, they're still doing it, but your not going to get it after your sophmore year 'cuz you'll be sent to a 'Summer Spa and Relaxation Resort' (also known as FT) near you! After your junior year you can put in for it, but you better be the #1 cadet in your class!

JS- Good post, except for the idea that the belt moving in the opposite direction as that of the fuselage will actually have any effect on that fuselage. The force that can be exerted by the tires to the aircraft in the horizontal direction is limited by one thing: coefficient of friction times weight. This is a constant number. You assert that it would be possible to turn the belt at a fast enough speed to counteract the thrust of the motors, not so. As long as the motors can produce more thrust than the coefficient of friction times weight, the plane WILL move forward. The force exerted by the tires to the plane is independent of the velocity of the belt, once they are in motion. Plus, if you really want to get into it, if there is friction, then a runway sized conveyor belt rotating at any appreciable velocity will drag a HUGE amount of air with it. I won't get into the formulas describing the depth of the laminar and turbulent boundary layers of a fluid over a flat plate, but take my word that the air flow created over the wings from this situation would (significantly) further reduce the 'weight' on the wheels with a corresponding decrease in friction force generated. There is NO possibility for the belt to be moving at a fast enough speed to prevent the aircraft from taking off, regardless of what that speed is referenced to.

Of course there are!! Enough for one each for each person who gets selected... :D

My wife worked for US Bank up until a few months ago, and we still have all our accounts with them. I've got insurance w/ USAA and have nothing but good things to say about them. Banking w/ US Bank though is easier for now 'cuz I'm back in school and its nice to be able to go in and talk w/ someone vs. being on the phone. When I go back active, I'll probably switch to USAA because they're more used to military people and their problems.

Got a point there... In my experience, I'd say you'd win that bet BFM.

Also, TIT is what is used for power settings up at altitude. Down low, or for takeoff, 1010 TIT can give you torques WAY above what is allowed, but not up at altitude. So down low, you go by max torque for power settings (assuming you're not worried about those pesky airspeed restrictions) and up high by TIT.

I've shut down 15-20 engines in-flight in the Herk for almost every reason in the book, 2 of which were shifts in the turbine section that blew off the back quarter of the motor, but neither of them were due to the 'excess sulfidation' that Lockheed says 1010 will F-up the turbines. We mostly ran 980 TIT, but it wasn't uncommon to push it up to "Moral Speed" (I like that BTW!) every once in a while. I'll have to agree w/ HD on this one.

We have a number of cros-town cadets that drive about 45 minutes to get to our Det., but only on Tuesdays when we have LLab. They get their AS classes by appointment (usually on Tues. also) and just e-mail a PT log every week saying what they did. Not a big deal!

Unfortunately, no. I was also enlisted aircrew and am in my 3rd year in AFROTC. I knew ahead of time that the reg. said I couldn't, but at first I did it anyway because my PAS was 1)a former Herk pilot, so liked the fact that I was prior aircrew, and 2) unaware of the reg. regarding the wear of enlisted badges. Until, of course, the Det. had a big inspection and he learned I wasn't supposed to be wearing them, end of story. Moral: Technically, no, you can't wear them, but if none of the Cadre say anything about it, why not?

Sorry, I just now noticed that you pulled the B.S. flag on me!! Shame on me for being so slow... Anyway, I was in an R model if you must know. I can give you the tail number and the name of the AC too if you want that. As far as which oil pressure, I'm aware that there is a needle for engine oil pressure and one for gear box oil pressure, but me being a Nav combined with the fact that this happened like 6 years ago, it wasn't that big on my priority list to specify which one. I think it was gear box. And we DIDN'T break max specified, as I already said, ours (in the Marine Corps) was FL400. So, we weren't breaking any rules, we were just bored and figured we'd see what the old girl could do. It was either that or fly out to Ayers Rock for like the 6th time, no thanks. Nothing I posted was in any way exagerated or misrepresented, it happened exactly as told. So do you think you could lower the B.S. flag now HD?

I've been to just above FL370. Our T.O. stated max altitude was 400, so we were bored one day in Australia and need flight hours for the Squadron and requested 400. ATC came back with, "Ummmm... OK, you're cleared to the moon if you want it." We barely made it to 370 and the oil pressure on #2 dropped to zero, so we nosed it over and it came back... weird. So HD, now you know people who've been higher, but you're right, Herks don't like that kind of altitude.

Practicing 1 V 1's and 1 V 2's against fighters, at close range the Herk can turn inside any fighter, so its hard for them to get you... until you come out of the turn. Talking to a fighter guy one time, I asked him what he thought the best way to take out a Herk (flying at low-level) would be, and he said dropping a big friggin' bomb right in front of us! I'm not getting into a P-ing contest w/ any fighter dudes about wether or not you'd be able to take out a Herk, obviously you could, but our standard [edited for content]. It would usually buy us at least another few minutes. [ 14. September 2005, 14:15: Message edited by: HerkDriver24 ]

I saw the GS tick over 500kts in a KC-130. Flying from Iwakuni to Atsugi, 320 KTAS, 170 kts tail wind at FL250, when cleared to descend, we left the power up and dumped the nose and hit like 502 GS I think.