Rated slots out today!

aggie83 said:
It is when you do not pass a checkride in UPT. I believe there are 4 checkrides in the T-6. You only get one 88 ride. If you pass that you continue on with your training. If not, you go to an 89 ride, which if you don't pass that, the only way you go on is with a commander's approval. I may be wrong, but I believe once you have used up your 88 ride, then any failures of checkrides after that go straight to an 89 ride.
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Correct. The other way is to hook (fail) three normal rides in a row. That will also send you to an 88 (or 89, if you used your 88 already).
 
Raimius I am too lazy to search for your UPT blog can you re link it for this thread?

I think it would be appreciated by those that are in the pipeline
 
Let's say both husband and wife are Air Force pilots. Is there an airframe (or more in general heavies vs. fighters) that is more compatible to married/family life?
 
My son who chose heavies did so because his daily work schedule would leave him more time with at home, among other reasons.
 
Not unless you are in the same airframe.

Jeannie Leavitt flies the strike eagle her DH flies the 16. They have made their marriage work for eons.

The problem is not necessarily flying assignments, but as you get higher up the job opportunities become a factor.
~ I.E. PME as an O4. If your spouse is a year group behind you it could mean you go to Maxwell for a year while they stay at their base flying, than a year later when you are graduating from there they and sent to the Pentagon, they are showing up to attend the school. Iowa, it is two years of long distance.

Of course even if you are in the same airframe at the same base it might not be a cakewalk. Assume you both take the Strike to SJAFB. Leadership will drop 1 of you in the Chiefs and the other in the Rockets. Except for taking the jets to safety during a hurricane they don't do wing TDYs, including flying over Iraq. Typically they will send one for 4 months and within a week of them returning the other squadron is gone. The typical ops squadron will do this rotation twice in an 18 month span....4 on 12-16 months home and then gone again for 4 again. If you do the math, maybe they are together 4-6 months out of two years.

You also need to understand that there are a ton of what ifs are in front of the hypothetical couple. Both have to make it through UPT, and preferably at the same time.~~~ if the first goes fighters than the second needs to think about what may drop if they are forced to go heavies. If they both go heavies there might not be the same heavy for both classes~~~ one gets the C5, but the next class there are no c5s and they get 130s.
 
Fencer,

Your post made me ROFL :shake:

You don't honestly believe that do you?

When our DS got the 130s the first thing Bullet said was DS will be gone 180-210 days a year.

Heavies for probably close to the last 13 years at least, have always ranked on the AF list as the most deployed with all of them having many more days than the fighters.

I know for DS because of his training schedule, Sat. was the first day off in 20 days and even with his wife there with him, their family time is off kiltered. He has many 2-3 a.m. show times, which means he is in bed by 6-7 p.m. She doesn't get home until 6:30 at the earliest because like your DIL her job has different shifts. Sometimes she gets home later, but never earlier. She also could be working on the weekend, so accept for HER two days off a week they don't have much family time.
~ Honestly that would also be true for fighters too or for even some FAIPs (FAIPs do country with students).
~ A heavy mission is 8 hours...fighter is 2 hrs at tops. Both are going to have long days, but when you add in the brief and debrief, hands down the heavies have a much longer mission day than fighters. Fighters are know to double turn quite frequently and that is their long day which is basically the equivalent of twelve hour days.

Plus, all pilots will need to keep their night flying status, and that will mess with family time. Once at an Op base they will also have annual inspections where they play war games. Every AF wife will tell you they HATE it when they go through these exercises. It is 24/7 and they could either be on days or nights. Nights are the worse because they come home at 6 a.m. and need to sleep while you need to clean the house and the kids are home. Try doing it with a baby! :eek::thumbdown: if they are going up for their AF wing review by HQ, they do this probably 2x in the year running up to it.

Now throw into the mix, keeping up their MQ flights, upgrades, tdys and you will see that as a young officer home time in any rated world is not going to be easy either way you look at it. Plus, don't even get me started with the without fails reality of how the plane will breakdown at the TDY base and their return is delayed for days while they wait for the part. Or the weather socks them in and they are forced to divert to another base on your anniversary.

I laugh now because I endured all of these things happened to me more times than I have fingers and toes, more than if you add in family members fingers and toes. I became so accustomed to it occurring by the time he had 9 years in, I never told our kids when Bullet was coming home until he was about an hour out...no need to get their hopes up. No lie I would call the desk about an hour out and ask what time he was expected to land. Plus side was Bullet got used to us going out to dinner that night and understood I wasn't going to bake a cake and make his favorite meal only to get a call....Mrs. Bullet his plane didn't take off because the refueler broke down.

Like I said I laugh now, but back then I had some very choice words for the AF, none of them that I could post on a forum like this

PS not to give you shivers, but here is something that came from Dyess. Between Dec 2003 and April 2013, they had 3378 continuous days of deployment. If my math is correct that basically means anyway of the year they had people deployed from either the 39th or 40th airlift squadron.
 
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Perhaps the only way to think of compatible airframes is to look at what airframes tend to be co located and what airframes are more ubiquitous. C-130s, KC-135s, and F-16s, for example, occupy many bases. A-10s tend to be stationed with C-130s and HH-60s.

But, as Pima said, there are no guarantees. I have seen spouses at Laughlin give up fighter opportunities or more desired airframes to get the same aircraft as their spouse (I know a top T-1 grad who chose E-8s to be with his wife). I had a friend at ENJJPT who gave up a fighter opportunity to join her husband in KC-135s.

Many instructors at UPT bases are dual married pilots who take training opportunities so they can be co-located. Even married couples from the same airframe.

Coming out of UPT together and hoping for a compatible set of aircraft is a tough order and rarely happens. Almost never happens with more requested airframes like fighters and C-17s.

If I get reinstated to UPT, I'll be in a lucky position. My DH is off to teach T-38 instructors at Randolph, which sets him up to transition to any airframe after. And if we can't coordinate, he hits his commitment mark in 2018 - so he can go reserve or bail to the airlines. But if we both stay in, still difficult to work assignments together.

Pima mentioned deployments. Fighters deploy all at once for a longer stint, heavies do short but frequent stints. My DH did 6 months in Afghanistan, but he never got tagged again for 2 years. My heavy friends are off and on all year. I'd rather have the fighter deployment rotations, if it was me.
 
Reviving this thread for candidates that say their dream is to fly a fighter. Here is the list for the newest winged students.

This was the Laughlin drop for 15-02
T38 (fighter path)
F15E
T6 FAIP
U 28
C17

T 1 (heavies)
C 17 x 5
C130 x 3
EC 130
RC 135
KC 135
E3

That was an OUCH drop, and they weren't the only ones with an ouch. 12 out of 16 went heavies.

Columbus
F16
T38 FAIP
U28
RC135

There were 12 that went heavies, 3 got C17s. Same for them 12 out of 16 went heavies

Vance's drop
F 22 ( was a previous WSO in the Strike Eagle)
15E
CV22
T 6 FAIP

14 went heavies. 8 got C 17s.

What is amazing to me is OMG what is with all of the C17s? 17 dropped for all of the three bases! Or more than 35% of all that winged! God I hate to see how bad that pipeline is going to back up with that many going through the schoolhouse at the same time!

DS at Little Rock for 130s has said the simulator runs basically non stop. Last week all of his Sims were at 2 a.m. it is due to the backlog at the schoolhouse. Maybe the 17 is like the 5 they don't go through a schoolhouse like the 130J, instead it is done at their op base.

Also just wanted to illustrate even on the fighter track it isn't all Fs that drop.
 
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Pima said:
Reviving this thread for candidates that say their dream is to fly a fighter. Here is the list for the newest winged students.
...
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I was one of the assignees that dropped C-17s from Vance. The last few classes have been dropped a bunch of C-17s, and word is the Air Force cut too many C-17 pilots through the recent separation programs. But with AFPC, who knows...

C-17 training is done from Altus AFB, here in good ole' Oklahoma. I don't have my training dates yet, but most of my 1501 classmates that dropped C-17s are looking at mid-March start dates. Most were sent straight to water survival and SERE, so I'm expecting something similar to that.
 
Our DS called the other day and we talked about the amount of 17s dropping. He said the same thing, that they probably allowed too many to walk via VSP.

He also said that the negative aspect in his opinion was they rotate them out of the cockpit into a desk more frequently than other airframes.IE after 1 op tour there is a higher chance of getting a desk than there is with a 130. Thus, the need for more to drop.

My question is if you have a 5 month lag time, how does that impact your flight status? Will you have to do a refresher course of some type?
~ DS winged April 24th and started class at Little Rock July 9th. His classmates with him started no later than July 15th.
~~ He will start flying in the next week. They do Sims for the first four months.

Which is why I ask the question. If you don't do simulators for at least 5 months, do they add in a few more weeks of academics and Sims as a refresher or just move forward as if you graduated a week ago?
 
Pima said:
Our DS called the other day and we talked about the amount of 17s dropping. He said the same thing, that they probably allowed too many to walk via VSP.



He also said that the negative aspect in his opinion was they rotate them out of the cockpit into a desk more frequently than other airframes.IE after 1 op tour there is a higher chance of getting a desk than there is with a 130. Thus, the need for more to drop.



My question is if you have a 5 month lag time, how does that impact your flight status? Will you have to do a refresher course of some type?

~ DS winged April 24th and started class at Little Rock July 9th. His classmates with him started no later than July 15th.

~~ He will start flying in the next week. They do Sims for the first four months.



Which is why I ask the question. If you don't do simulators for at least 5 months, do they add in a few more weeks of academics and Sims as a refresher or just move forward as if you graduated a week ago?
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My son graduated UPT in January 2013 and didn't report to his FTU until June 2013. In between his TDYs for SERE and water survival they got him a couple of 1.25 flights and some sim time at Laughlin to maintain his currency until he went to IFF.

Stealth_81




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That was what I was thinking Stealth. Somehow they would find a way to keep their currency standards. That being said your DS also went to IFF prior to FTU, heavies don't. There is no flying TDY between graduation and FTU. Hence, why I posed the question. If 15-01 has report dates of March, I would assume 15-02 will have a RNLTD for April.

It will also be interesting to see how their schoolhouse works. DS has said that the 130s basically run sims 24 hrs a day 6 days a week to get them through and 1/2 day on Sundays. I would think if they have a five month lagtime it has to be 24/7.
 
Stealth, you're right that there's a grad flight in T-38 land to keep them current before they go to IFF and their B-course, but nothing that I know of for T-1s. I also can't really speak either way, but I haven't heard of Altus doing 24/7 ops like Little Rock for 130s. Maybe that's why they're backed up so long.
 
You don't need to maintain currency if you are completely switching aircraft. Everything will reset to zero.
 
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