Bigred

To the OP, to tag on to what Huggy said, flying heavies is great for your body. I have about 3000 hours in helicopters and I have multiple degenerative discs and arthritis in my lower spine that are directly from the vibrations. I'm 41 and I can feel it now, I'm not looking forward to when I'm older. Enjoy flying heavies and having a body not break down on you.

Sq/cc factor in to that?

Three standard lies? Enlighten me, I’ve not heard this before.

So many incredible stories of time spent in SE Asia, but some things are better left for drinks at the bar. 🤫😎

Chinooks flying as Pave Low would’ve been friggin cool.

Reddit hated on him hard a few weeks/months ago because he labeled beards ‘faddish’ during a q&a with the CMSAF. Shoot a thousand haji but tell one airman no beard and you’re no longer a badass.

You are right. I actually looked at crossing over to WO prior to switching to the AF, I would’ve gone from O-4 to W-1, accelerated promote to W-2. It is possible but like you said it’s a complex process.

You can’t go WO after graduating from ROTC or West Point. The guys that track aviation out of those sources know their days flying are numbered from the get go.

This was my thought. What happens when everyone that takes the bonus early puts NAS Pensacola (perhaps with the hope to fly T-6s)? If the numbers are skewed, Big AF will change the rules and send those volunteers to Laughlin, et al.

I personally like having a SCOD. It was how we timed FITREPs in the Navy and it makes planning/anticipating the completion much easier, even with large groups of junior officers. Moreso, with large groups of O-3, etc, it’ll eliminate anyone getting forgotten about or overlooked when it’s time for an OPR.

I have friends flying for CalFire and also firefighting in the northwest. Police ISR, medevac, or have flown contracting for state and fed government. Long line work, overseas support (both mil and civ stuff). There’s more out there. Using firefighting as an example, depending on region you might only fly from April-October so the rest of the year is yours. I have a buddy who lives on a diveboat in Palau during the off-season. Lots of options out there. The caveat is I don’t know of any that pay what you’d make after a few years in the airlines, but you can live pretty comfortably.

Is it a minority? Perhaps. It just irks me that the common subtext on this board is that flying for the airlines post-military is the only viable, worthwhile option. The truth is a really good, comfortable living can be made in flying positions outside of airline/cargo flying.

I know guys who flew airlines or cargo and hated it, even though they made a shit ton of money. They are now flying in other careers and are happier than ever. To each their own.

The Navy H-60s can fly the 500-ish miles to shore, the difference between them and the USCG helos is that the Coasties can go practically that far and then fly back. Less than 100 feet isn’t a problem with the helo’s altitude hold. The altitude is interesting though. Ward has a tendency to “elaborate” on what he knows so I’m not sure how accurate that is. The guidance given to me from the corpsmen was to keep head injuries low; my understanding being because the lower pressure with increase in altitude could exacerbate hemorrhaging for head wounds. That said, I can’t imagine the slight pressure difference from 50 to 150-200 feet would be that significant. I’d really love to hear from a flight doc on this one.

Explains a lot, she told me that too 😂

Spent two months there moving people and supplies back and forth after the 2010 earthquake. It’s not a pretty place. Considering the massive amount of money and infrastructure support pumped into it after the earthquake, and it’s still not any better, I can’t imagine we’d make much difference now.

From the outside looking in it seemed like a sweet gig. 1LT and Capts flying all over the world, collecting per diem, and doing some pretty cool, also some boring, stuff. Can’t speak to long term prospects within AFSOC but I think it would be a fun assignment.

Never said squadron, and never said it was in the Air Force. I’ve been in the military over 20 years. My point about good SNCOs still stands.

I’m taking a swag and will assume you’ve been in ops squadrons most of your career? In my whopping 3.5 years in the Air Force, I’ve gathered that ops squadrons tend to have minimal to virtually zero enlisted. There’s not much need for an E-8/9 when there may only be 4-5 E’s running around. Contrast that with mx, force support, SF, and you have a ton of enlisted to few officers. The E-8/9 needs to be there Having run a maintenance department where I had ~200 enlisted working for me, a good SNCO was a godsend. E-8/9s definitely have a place.

Not only do you get a new kid, but an exciting new STD! It’s a win-win?

Navy allows the member to choose run, bike, or swim, regardless of age. That said, I always found it easier to get a high score with the run. The bike and swim are crazy easy to pass but difficult to get a good enough score to only do the PRT once a year.

Beats me, I just found something that said AAD are required for O-6.

AFPC still shows it as required on their site.

I should be surprised by these stories but unfortunately I’m not. It’s sad folks like that get into command positions.

Genuinely curious, do some commanders tell their folks there’s nothing good on the outside? I was on the fence a few times in my career and it wasn’t ever a conversation of not having opportunities on the outside, it was just a discussion of various options and the pluses/minuses of each. For me, I’ve stayed in because the flying is awesome. Surprisingly they keep promoting me but I’m still in the cockpit almost 20 years later!