Nanook

Shack

Geez, it's weird hearing of a BUFF nav talking about not flying low much. That's all we did my first few years in the mighty eight engined behemoth. There was a low level, IR-476, in the STRC (Montana) that was 3.5 hours long and most were 2-3 hours. Red Flag's hard deck was 100 ft and the FBs flew below us. All the navs were responsible for keeping up the low level charts for the squadron and each flight was assigned four or five. We would sit on alert and chop up thousands of TPCs to make 80-100 copies of each chart for every copilot and each nav/RN in the squadron. Then, horrors, we would have to actually CHUM each chart. You gotta love FalconView.

A friendly word for the young guys who are debating the Masters idea...you are in a job that is a heartbeat (or an overzealous Flight Doc) away from looking for a new career. Some of my friends found out the hard way what they want to be when they really grew up.

Unless I'm way off the mark the seasoning money is now unit funded instead of school tour money (at least in AFRC), so if it's that way for the ANG you might have trouble getting even six months worth. Our guys aren't getting much...too much money out of our RPA pot.

Scooter, You might be correct for AFRC also, I haven't heard anyone press to test yet. I believe the parent reg is 36-2205, but am unsure what the AFRCI is. My wing king tells me that this is one of the hot topics when they meet for rallies.

I agree with Bergman, you're better off trying to get a UPT slot while already in a unit, it works that way in ours. The AFPC website has some useful links for people interested in AD from ARC, but when I checked it a few days ago all the programs were closed. AFRC is currently enforcing a policy set out in an AFRCI, and mirrored in an AFI (I have it at work, but not here at home) that only allows officers with less than 5 years of TAFCS to apply for UFT. In other words, if you're a nav and can't enter UPT before you've been an officer for 5 years, you're SOL.

There were a huge number of practical jokes played on new SAC alert crewdawgs...woe to the roommate of a FNG, especially one who bragged that he couldn't be had. Sprinkle Kool-Aid in flight boots and tap it to the toe and your bud will have dyed socks and toes for a while...fill a non-lubricated condom with hot water while supporting it in a 5 gal bucket, tie it when you get all you can in there(a few gallons) then roll it on the poor sap's unmade bed; it will expand until almost flat and cannot be moved without breaking...reset all your bud's clocks and alarms and convince him he woke up and showered for the morning brief, only it really was midnight chow....immerse his bag in a 5 gallon bucket then put it outside to freeze solid...perform a cart start, tape the flightsuit arms and legs tight to the bod, then can-open 2 cans of shaving cream and quickly throw them in his bag and zip it all the way up...the list is almost endless. Ahhh, the memories.

After a couple o' years of ass whuppin' in the desert our reward was to finish out activation at Joint Forge last Christmas (wine from Ernie's for the holidays....excellent). Then we ran into Doc and his check six commercials. We had to report every day on the status of burnt out lights in the Delta areas....wow, I felt then, and feel sorry now for you USAFE guys. We did a search for ol' Doc's combat hours...our newest A1C load had more combat time...meaning any time > 0.

Sorry Spar, haven't been around the site long enuff to know your lines. (really old sidebar, C'est la Vie is what AF gunners used to have on their patches...goes back to my SAC days) There are definitely guys at the top who forget their time as an Lt or Capt and what it's like to actually carry out the orders. Its certainly possible that the CC might have erred in this case. The best thing that you can do is go out there, do the absolute best you can do and file away the incident so that somewhere later on down the line, when faced with a similar situation, you can remember what it was like to be the CGO and handle the situation differently.

You have given us only part of the equation. There is no context here for an event to be compared to "the O-4 lobotomy". I have seen many people who, for one reason or another, skate when they've done something heinous. This has an effect on all the rest of the people in the unit as they see that some are not held as accountable as others. This individual may have been at the end of a long chain of things he had messed up and now it was time to pay the piper. We don't know this from your post. I have seen very few commanders that, when the chips were really down, messed a guy up for very little reason. Now that doesn't mean it doesn't happen...it probably happens far more often than it should. The point is there is probably a lot more to this situation, and many others, that on the surface don't seem "fair". You just have to trust that it was handled fairly and remember it when you get to the commander level. Now that I said all that, I came from SAC where they would take guys out because the Wing King determined that there weren't enough Q3s happening and the quota needed to come up. Maybe I got that lobotomy and didn't even know it. Cest la vie.

Thanks for the inputs...I pretty much guessed as much. Interesting to hear talk of another associate setup. We did 60 on 60 off for two years so I'm not looking forward to hitting the 4s cycle. I'm not a Herk guy originally (although my first 11 choices outta nav school were Herks), but it seems like a monumental mistake to hang your hat on the J. Not that it isn't a good airplane, but the lack of Herk production has left a giant void. Hopefully no crew will pay the price. In a former life the GAO came out with a report that said we would be crashing 4 aircraft a year due to wing stresses at low level...fortunately that never came to pass. Let's hope the wings stay on this time too.

Thanks for the reminder, I can't believe I forgot about the BRAC. Don't have to worry much about Pope or Dyess I guess. As to the post about Cheyenne, yes, that unit and C-Springs will be AD associate wings where the ARC maintains the aircraft and the AD supplements with aircrew. I was at Ramstein a few months ago and there was an interesting morale patch there...it did seem a bit tight there. Any idea on how long the E'Dorf guys will still fly Herks? I haven't been able to confirm this, but we've been hearing some buzz about some AD units going to H2s. We were prepared to train some crews a few months back. Hasn't been any buzz lately.

Am looking for some unfiltered info on life at on AD from the four-fans-of-freedom guys. This is coming from someone that might be "returning to the fold" so to speak. I've been an ARC member for a lot longer than I was ever on AD and have only recently seen AD up close in the AOR. Specifically, are they giving assigments to Elmendorf? How's life at Ramstein with the E models having problems? How is living at the Rock for family types? Am afraid to ask about Dyess and Pope, having spent some time at both places and knowing just enough to be dangerous. Just a snap of what life would be like as a regular old Herk guy, albeit a bit more senior than most FNGs to the squadron.