dream big

We are already seeing this at the squadron level. Our DO asked each shop to rank order our additional duties. They are going to rack and stack them and just make a cut off, below which additional duties will no longer be done and the commander will accept the risk. There is absolutely zero reason for a young LT/wingman/copilot to be worried about equipment manager, building custodian, records custodian, whatever bullshit additional duty in place of being the best aviator they can be. That's LRS/CE/FSS/etc's job. Mission first.

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.

Are you kidding me? And this is why 99% of the senior captains/majors I know want to GTFO ASAP.

Is McDew the dude that took away the C-17 pilots' wings even after the FEB recommended retention (while McDew was either 19th AF/CC or AMC/CC)?

Which base? ...I kid I kid!

Well the first week of SOS ended smoothly, and then a physical brawl broke out as everyone was leaving the O-club, something about someone's wife...?

Just my personal experience with him: the guy is pure gold, solid leader who gets it.

This is the kind of crap key leaders are wasting their time on? Still not surprised. For the record I am a minority pilot

FWIW, the best C130 instructor I ever had WAS the guy teaching tactics in the bar to LTs, he was also the wing exec yet one of the most proficient pilots I've met. He's a school select now and a U2 driver. Not sure why being tactically proficient and getting promoted/checking boxes is mutually exclusive.

Rugby players are generally bros, I wonder at what point he became such a tool. I can't wait for him to become AMC/CC a decade from now. That would be on par.

2, I found him to be an awesome dude. Very charismatic and always interacted with everyone, including us young LTs at the time. I think he will be a solid wing king especially after Rhat.

Amazing, but busy. We have more hours than we know what to do with. Expect to fly several times a week locally. Tons of off stations: mostly Guam and Kadena but the occasional Thailand, Hawaii, New Zealand and Maldives trips drop. In the spring we go to a ton of exercises. You're still expected to do your ground jobs so it gets busy. Current leadership is fantastic though.

What is hawk or eagle command?

Proud to say I am the herk's newest aircraft commander. Here is to being able to actually fly assaults and hopefully land in the zone, saying gear up instead of doing it, not having to buy the first round, not having to take the fat chick, and keeping loadmasters out of Thai prisons.

Don't try to John Wayne it unless you like getting beat in the face. Actually don't do it period since you'll get everyone else in trouble. Take plenty of wet wipes.

Because he doesn't give 2 sh*ts?

Not sure but we were stuck in the airplanes engines off with ITS near 100 for 3 hours. If I find out who it was I'm dropping a deuce all over the inside of their car.

So? At the zoo we had track stars fall out occasionally. Standing at attention for 45 minutes listening to a scripted speech is stupid.

One of our top officers in the wing got a DUI back in UPT. Played his cards right and bounced back.

It was exactly a year ago. The CC recalled everyone, when we walked into the squadron the entire chain of command and chaplain was there. Several people were crying. Darkest day I've witnessed in the Air Force. There were a lot if young LTs and airmen that had never had anything like this happen in their squadron before. If anything good came out of that incident, it taught us to never ever be complacent and to take this job as seriously as possible. A toast, rest in peace brothers.

Much better! Awesome leadership, lot of tactical flying and tons of awesome TDYs (ie New Zealand, Hawaii, Malaysia.) That being said it's a dead end in terms of the legacy 130 community, unless you're one of the few that have the pipe dream of being initial J cadre.

We have a new CSS comm type airman working in our squadron, it's taken her more than a month to get people folder access. She is pretty much useless.

Maybe this belongs in the UPT sub forums.. I envy this kid, UPT was awesome. All I had to do was learn how to fly, study, drink, chase the wonderful women of Enid and take videos to try to impress said women.. Now I get OPRs, paper work, more paperwork, masters, SOS, "career development" and hey sometimes get to fly as a hobby. Enjoy UPT, and save that GoPro for your class video, our OG/cc was cool and approved it for our class video

You mean like your Phase 2 students who get lost on their solo ride? (In Pensacola where there is nothing but Gulf Coast due south). Or like those marine hornets who busted through our altitude block four times over an undisclosed location in Asia?

He didn't get fired for saying Chiefed. The F-16 squadron commander got fired for telling his dudes to "grow those bitches out," after the wonderful wing king at Kandahar told the sq/cc to tell his guys to shave the mustaches. Robin Olds maneuvers don't fly in today's Air Force..