PasserOGas

Please no guard/reserve responses, we all know what your answer will be lol.

How about TDY's to Sig and Guam and the CAOC? Is the 45-60 days including all TDYs? Also what is the work schedule like? Lots of shift work like the preds?

What about AFCENT? Without naming bases how much time do you spend in tan flight suits? Are the deployments voluntary for the most part? Those people "whored out to preds", were they pcs'd before their 4 years were up? I also heard you guys may get dual qualled in the mc-12. What is that looking like? I'm seriously thinking of pulling the handle on tankers. The lack of follow on doesn't bother me as I'm pretty sure it will be my last assignment.

Is that just transient or all crews?

What do you guys think about getting some "Kanye West" style sunnies just to wear for the walk through customs? I think her head would probably do a 360 and she might spit up green pea soup.

Have they broken ground on the new trailers?

May desert penguin "tanker article". BTW I'm flying to MALAK every time I hear a 130 in the pattern from now on.

PACAF and USAFE are supposedly pretty good deals as well, at least in the KC-135. Cool TDY's and no deployments unless you want to go. Both are mostly run by fighters, which for promotion at the top may be bad, but for the average tanker guy is good, as they have no idea how the tanker works. So, as long as you are there on time they don't generally care how you do got there which gives you more freedom. This is just what I've heard from friends. Anyone want to comment? My advise? Stay as far away from AMC as humanly possible, unless you enjoy spending time in prison.

Not sure what I can say due to OPSEC, lets just say the price of fuel went up due to a foriegn influence, and we aren't willing to pay it.

Is it sick that I really want to deploy to what you just described? I'm still not sure what I'm going to tell my grandchildren when they ask "How did you spend your time during the war grandpa?" "Were you a hero?" "Not really..." "Did you serve with heroes?" "Yeah, not really... Let's talk about something else."

You know how you can tell 100% it isn't host nation sensivities? Manas. 2 beers a day in a country that could give 2 sh#ts how much you drink. Hell you can find a list of local favorites here:http://www.advantour.com/kyrgyzstan/cuisine/drinks.htm BTW, they also have a real problem with childhood alchoholism there, so you know they like to party!

Thats the vibe I get as well. These calls aren't made by the average "boner" as I like to call them. (Yeah, I thought of that all by myself.) I was hoping someone would have picked up the sarcasm in that first post, kinda thought the was a dead giveaway.

Well, the one "nice" thing about tankers, check our schedule one day and you are pretty much guaranteed to see a senior leader flying on one of our lines. It's one of the "benefits" of flying more than 2 or 3 lines a day. What do you think we talk about for 8 hours? Hmmm. Do you think for one second that we would have a SOF if it weren't for the B-1's running the place?? Really?? And we all don't sit SOF, C-17's do not. Amazing how they get anything done without it... I can tell you for sure our leadership has pushed against it as an unneeded drain on our manning. If the ACC assets want a SOF, why don't the units that want one man it themselves? We don't want it, don't need it, and it in fact gets in the way of our mission. I don't think they should be kicking you out. (And the vibe I got was that they won't. Again, it was mentioned but there were issues with it.) I think all personnel with crew rest requirements should be there before, I don't know, CE or finance. If not that it should be average days/year spent out here that decides it. BTW I'll be out here 6 of the next 9 months, and I won't get a year at home afterward. Wanna trade? If they don't break ground on new trailers in the next 3-4 months I'll buy you a beer. How's that? God knows I'll be here.

What is driving the doubling up is they are tearing down trailers to build new, wait for it.... TRAILERS!!! In the mean time there won't be as many rooms on base. On the bright side, I'm sure it won't take more than 5 years for them to finish it all up. As for the pointy nose guys. "Human Being" is of course a relative term. We all know you aren't a "Person" out here unless you hold the rank of 0-6 or above. As for the B-1's moving out they just said they were looking at it. But it brought up a bunch of issues due to the fact that some guys PCS right after a deployment, deploy again, and up spending a year in the desert, so it probably won't happen. Of course my heart broke for them. Then I remembered I had to pull SOF duty thanks to them, and had myself spent more than 2 years of my life here without EVER having my own bathroom... Stopped feeling bad immediately. BTW Crud is gay. So are callsigns. Deadbug.

Mom?!?!

Talked with someone in senior leadership recently. They shall remain nameless. Word is starting in July anyone in CC with their own room will be sharing. B-1 pilots MAY be moving out of the BPC due to the increase in population and the generally low standing of aircrew on base. I pointed out to the "the commander" that B-1 pilots are actually considered human beings at Al Udeid. He raised his eyebrow, and nodded his head... Wouldn't hold my breath on that second one.

When going OEF my personal technique is to yell at the top of my lungs when checking in with Karachi. You don't want to sound angry, just crazed or really confused and possibly scared just like they do. They don't notice you are doing it because its the way they naturally speak. An added beneifit, thus far ZERO "in the blind" calls to them.

Can you bomb the "desert diamonds" meeting too? I would but all I have is this floppy hose on the back of my plane...

I should note that those IP's are the exception, but not by much. Most of us have been to 10-15 different fields at some point since pilot training. However those trips are very rare, it takes around 4-5 years to get that many. The 90% in and out of one field still applies. Yes we make suck at full procedure approaches, but who else do you know can cook a full meal on the bleed-air ducts?

Wow! I can't believe this thread is being neglected when we are so close to 100 pages. I just heard a rumor that they closed the MUFF. True or False? If true, where are the O-6's drinking now?

This is where congress needs to have an inquiry. On the bright side, there is no F'ing way EADS is winning the contract, so maybe he will have sold is reputation (such as it was) for nothing... oh, and a few million $.

I agree with all of your points. I have also heard it isn't exactly a picknick in the C-17 community. I should have been more specific in that I really have no first hand knowlege of how the other platforms handle this. However, the difference in those communities is that while the guard is probably taking some trips, they aren't taking ALL of them. My bros in the t-tail world are definitely more experienced than pretty much anyone I know in the tanker. Right now the tankers are facing a very serious pilot seasoning problem. There are IP's I know that have landed at 5 fields since pilot training, and 90% of thier time is in and out of 1 of those. This has been going on for going on 10 years now, our corporate knowlege is being lost and will (in my opinion) someday get someone killed. We recently had someone come within 100 feet of another plane on an ALTRV in large part because the AC had never seen a coronet! When brought up to AMC they so far have just blown it off. I don't need to go to Guam (although I wouldn't turn it down). I do need do see some different fields/missions that I am responsible as a mobility pilot to know how to do. Right now even the most mundane non-deployed missions are for the most part going to the Guard, and the expierence from those is going with them. I would also like to respond to Rainman's post. I understand that activating a unit is a big deal. The problem I have is that we ARE activating them, then sending them on paid vacation for the most part. Again, tanker only.

I'll back up Karl on this one. At the end of the day you cannot make a guard pilot take a TDY against thier will. Therefore the AD gives up the "good trips" to the guard in order to get some sort of support from them. This I understand. The one time this is not true is when said unit is activated. Right now the AF is activating the units about once every two years. While its true that some units are doing stints in the desert, in my opinion it should be ALL units going to the desert. It is one time every TWO YEARS and it is broken up into 30 day stints, and even then not everyone goes! Instead our "leadership" is sending most to Guam, Turkey, Australia ect... This I lay at our Generals feet. It is thier descision to not give us AD guys a break when they have the option, and to instead burn us out. Our leadership makes our deployments so miserable that no one wants to go, not the enemy. I blame them and will continue to do so.

True, I just wish I'd known about the guard when I made mine. Counting down until my commitment is up and I can finally make another choice. Back on topic, to say I wish I had gone guard would be an understatement. (In case you couldn't tell.)

Hey, no one is blaming you guys. This griping is aimed squarely at AD leadership, or lack thereof. AMC gets to task you once every two years, and while they could use every opportunity like that to help us out, they send you guys to Guam, Turkey or the Caribbean. I know you guys come to the Deid, (on the 31st only ;-p ) I tell people how some bases work with the guard/reserve on shorter tours while ours doesn't and they don't even know its our OWN WING knifing us in the back. I hate you, but I don't HATE you. Simple jealousy. You see the difference? I just want my leadership to talk about the people/mission debate again, and to even bring it up gets you laughed at now.