Kelvin

Focusing on the landings was an oversimplification, although I do think it’s the main reason big AF still lets us interview people. The fact that we expect people to handle SRO and/or combat missions right off the bat without the benefit of a Flight Lead or Aircraft Commander is also a completely valid reason to choose our own. The intangibles play a big part in that. I don’t pretend to understand them, but we’ve turned guys away in the last year without letting them fly because they clearly would not have been a good fit.

Just to confirm what several people have rightly assumed, the FACT program is essentially a 2 year T-38 FAIP tour with a U-2 interview at the end. It’s by no means guaranteed because if you can’t land the jet (or we don’t trust you to handle missions by yourself), we don’t want you. I’d assume they’d be assignable anywhere in the CAF, to include going to IFF (with 2+ more years of T-38 experience) if they don’t make the interview. But it’s a good shot at joining the Brotherhood while spending a couple of years flying jets in NorCal. I’d have put it at the top of my dream sheet for sure. I’m excited to see who they bring out, and how they do.

PM sent, thanks for the help.

Pulling his thread up from a little while back. I'm a slick H guy looking for a new home here in a few months. I'm exploring the other Herk variants and I feel like I have a pretty good feel for the AFSOC MC lifestyle, but HC guys are harder to come by. Any HC-J guys here able to comment on things like ops tempo/TDY rate, job satisfaction (I've heard Rescue is typically under-utilized), typical flying opportunities while home, is Moody/Valdosta all that bad, career options down the road, training pipeline for someone like me (I've heard about an all-encompassing Kirtland J program, no Little Rock) and any other good nuggets. Trying to get the full picture. Cheers!

My .02 on Chip, thought he was a great dude while at Yokota. Flew with him once or twice as a fairly young copilot and he loved goin back to being a crew dog, if even just for an afternoon. A 1st Lt appreciates that when flying with an O-6... I was sad to see him leave after like a year at YJ, actually heard he'd punched but I guess not. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I'd say LR is in for a good deal. (Obviously better than what they've got, but you know what I mean.)

Pretty much how I saw RPA flying going...

They're gonna have to if they're the Active TFI to a Reserve J unit...

To answer the actual question, the manning's not bad right now. It's actually a good time to be a copilot (it's always been a good time to be a nav, FE or load) and forecast to get better (you know, because the legacy Herk is dying, so why make new copilots?). That being said, follow on assignments are a crapshoot right now, so if you can hold on, get a J (good f-ing luck) and come back in a few years, I'm sure the assignment will look great again at any angle. My guess is, if anything, we'll get even shorter-manned in all crew positions as time goes on, being that the 36th will be the last active duty H squadron by a few years and nobody wants to stick around and find out what assignments are left at the very end.

We need more girls like that in the AF. You know, with senses of humor. I would go out of my way to high five every one of those girls.

What makes you think that hasn't already happened? What happens TDY, stays TDY, though, amirite?

In the forward-stationed tac airlift world, we played the "strategic necessity" card and are back to normal ops, at least for now...

One of the hardest things I've ever had to watch. We were getting ready to taxi out and watched the whole thing. We were sitting there trying to talk them through it in our own cockpit the whole time. Didn't look like they ever gave up, but they had to know, like we did. We just shut engines down right there and watched the firefighters battle the blaze for the next 45 minutes...

Or you could do what I did. Spent 6 months as a security guard for a security company that farmed out to government contractors. I told them i had a security clearance and got hired on the spot.

And all the Chiefs say, "But you've got it backwards, sir. AFI's define an Airman's common sense, not the other way around."

Word out in the deployed Herk world is that all these changes are supposed to happen by the end of the fiscal year. Any confirmation?