How long does it take from the beginning of basic training for someone to be trusted enough to fly in a mission for the USAF?
(from someone with no idea what he’s talking about…)
Does the AF use any helicopters at all? Whenever I hear about anything helicopter-related it’s Marines or Army.
thanks 
Well, it depends on what specialty you are, and how much specialized training you have to do before you’re considered qualified.
There really is no way to answer that question except to sound like I’m being a jerk: “As long as it takes for him/her to be signed off on all training items by a qualified instructor.”
For instance, I was an airborne linguist. I entered Basic Training in Feb '86. I went to language school for an entire year. I went to cryptographic school for five months. Survival school for 35 days. THEN I reported to my first duty assignment in Okinawa. I spent ONE YEAR training on the ground, and then I was finally qualified to take my first mission - as a trainee. But I wouldn’t have been qualified to sit the rack by myself for another six months (give or take a couple of months). If all that had happened (it didn’t), I would’ve begun training to fly another position on the plane…another year at least. Finally, after another six months in that job, I would’ve begun training for the Airborne Mission Supervisor position, the top job in the back end of the RC-135. Total time: something over five years, IF everything goes according to plan. (Figger the odds.) Almost nobody gets that far that fast.
My point is this: you’re ALWAYS training. Your first mission will be whenever you’ve completed each and every training item for your job. And the length of time is dependent on what that job is, of course.
Yeah, we got LOTS of helicopters! Go through the previous posts and read what I wrote about the Jolly Green Giants. These guys are revered by the rest of the AF, and the PJs (para-rescuemen) are among the AF’s special forces. Truly an awesome team.
We’ve got other helicopters, too, some with amazing abilities, but I love to talk about the rescue squadrons.
I read the post on the Jolly Green Giants, but I didn’t know what they were… 
I guess if this war comes down to it i’ll have to join them, sound like my kind of people…
Well, you can’t just get in by asking. This is THE hardest outfit to get into in the entire Air Force. If you are what they’re looking for, you’ve still got to get accepted for a “try-out”, THEN you have to make it through a tough training program (washout rate exceeds BUDS, the SEAL school). Then you get in.
Good luck, man. Physical and mental toughness won’t be enough, but they’re both necessary. Intelligence won’t be enough, but you’ve got to have that, too. Self-reliance and teamwork have to be balanced against each other, each in equal measure. And courage won’t do it, either…but it’s what they value most.
The total package is what they insist on, and the PJs are very impressive men. If that’s you, go for it.
Yeah, PJ’s = the closest the real world can come to superheroes. Tough, strong, resourceful, brave, and they swoop in from the sky to save you.
PERFECT way to say that. Superheroes. Yep.
See? That sounds like me. Firefighter/EMT, Dumb enough to try stupid things but smart enough to do it right. I scored a 99 on my ASVAB test, think that would help out?
Ooh!
Definitely won’t hurt your chances, but remember what I said: the whole package has to come together into an almost-perfect warrior.
Hey, check into it. You may be the Air Force’s next hero!
Speaking of the blue uniform… Am I right in that you had been already in a while when they redesigned the blue suit? How well received were the changes, generally? IIRC some of them had to be taken back. From this outside observer’s POV, some of the changes still look odd (though some are understandable: military regs say you can’t put anything in your external coat pockets, then why have any). Any changes you wish had not happened? Any you wish HAD? Any that left you wondering WTH were they thinking?
(for the non-military readers: major changes in a service’s “look” can be a HUGE deal within it)
Taking your last sentence first, you’re absolutely right about the feeling for a service member for his/her uniform being very important.
That being said, I was one of the majority of AF people that opposed the change of the old service dress coat. The old style was basically the Army’s, but in blue, and with different accoutrements. (I liked the look, personally - it showed our Army Air Corps heritage.) The AF Uniform Board commissioned a study, and found the majority of the force HATED the new one. Our Chief of Staff at the time, General Merrill “Tony” McPeak, told them to do another study, and to come back with the RIGHT answer. (This guy was a dam’ disaster as CoS.) This even after the Air Force Times laid it out in VERY stark terms: don’t do this - expensive, morale-killing, PR disaster.
Anyway, the uniform and all the wacky ideas it incorporated was eventually adopted, and most of the people hated it the whole time. After we traded in the WORST CoS for the BEST since LeMay himself (General Ronald Fogelman; integrity epitomized), some of the worst features of the uniform were reversed.
One of these was officer’s rank insignia as stripes on the cuffs, a la Navy. It looked ridiculous, and was expensive as hell. (Officers do not receive a clothing allowance, and must purchase all of their own uniforms.) No one knew what rank anybody was by a casual glance, and you could only tell that the officer in question was somewhere between second lieutenant and captain (HUGE difference), major or lieutenant colonel, or colonel and above.
Another bone-headed idea that got reversed was taking the “US” collar brass off. It was eventually restored. McPeak claimed he wanted the “doodads” off the uniform, apparently to make us look more like the businessmen he so obviously revered. (McPeak was also the guy that led us down the “Total Quality Management” path, and it was maybe the worst idea in American military history since Little Big Horn.)
But to this day, our semi-formal uniform is exactly like the service dress uniform, except with this crucial difference: white dress shirt intead of blue uniform shirt. That’s it. Same tie, same everything. So much for dressing for an evening out at a military function. The Army’s semi-formal rig is soooo much sharper. (Although they’re not immune to dumb-ass moves by their CoS, either. That dam’ beret is hurtin’ the Army in real ways. DUMB thing to do.)
There were other things, but the bottom line is, yeah, we had a few years of turmoil until a REAL general restored some sanity and grace to the uniform.
Hey Bluesman.
Glad to see this thread. I asked quite a few general military questions (in relation to enlistment.) in my thread here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=96037
… but I’m particularly interested in the USAF. Any way you could hop over there for just a moment of your time and let me hear your view.
Hi, I was in the AF lots of years ago. I have 3 questions.
(1) The terms (of endearment/derision) for the other branches of the service were:
[ul]
[li] Army - groundpounder or grunt[/li][li] Navy - swabbie[/li][li] Marines - jarhead or seagoing bellhop[/li][li] Air Force - Greyhound bus driver[/li][/ul]***
Are these still in use, or do they have new ones now?
{2) You mention you fly commercially, but not for the AF. Are you an officer or enlisted? Hard to tell from your title as when I was in all titles sounded ‘officerish’.
(3) Do they still use AFSC’s and are they still 5 digits?
There are any number of terms for our armed forces brethren, but you got the most-often used, except for “squid” for the Navy.
And AF gets abused for bein’ “wing-nuts” and “zoomies”.
Myself, I’m a proud non-commissioned officer with 15 years of faithful service.
Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs) got overhauled a few years ago (another of McPeak’s ideas, but one that has actually worked out as well as what it replaced), and they still have five elements, although the second element is now a letter designating which “family” a particular AFSC belongs to. For instance, I am a 1N471, Signals Intelligence Analyst. “N” is an intel career field. Linguists are 1N3XX’s.
Thanks for the response,** Bluesman**… it kind of confirms my suspicions. Just to add my own comments on these quoted passages.
1.Definitely, service dress should have embodiment of the service’s history above a concern for whether it looks “fashionable”. After all, fashions change, the Republic endures.
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Good heavens, the “doo-dads” are what makes even a buck E-1, of WHATEVER service, look forward to steppin’ out in his Class A’s! So I was right – with all respect to the fine lads and lasses in AF Blue – when I first saw the McPeak outfit, and my first thought was: this is not a uniform, it’s the jacket from a sales manager’s suit.
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Damn right. Both on the sharp Army semi-formal (That historical evocation, again!) and on its subjection to bonehead moves.
Oh I have another question, which I am not sure you will be able to answer.
There has been a lot of hoohaa at the moment about cluster munitions. One of the biggies has been the high dud rate and the fact that innocent people can be harmed by them later on.
This is not a moral question. I don’t want to know what people think one way or the other. What I DO want to know is whether that “dud” rate really a dud rate or do some of the bomblets have a programmed delay on them for tactical reasons (eg to destroy the airfield again, after it has been patched up, when the next plane lands)?
Li
Yes, there is a tactical advantage to scattering a few UXOs (unexploded ordnance) around. It makes airfield repair extremely hazardous and time consuming. They don’t have a “time delay”, but they are sensitive to handling. Think of it as an air-delivered minefield that pays off when it’s dropped, and continues to have an “area denial” mission for as long as it takes for the enemy to clear it. It makes his mission very much harder to acomplish, and you’re that much closer to winning the war.
Other weapons with a sub-munition payload are the same, such as the Army’s AWESOME Multiple Launch Rocket System.
I, of course, have two questions for ya:
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Are you gonna show those pictures of me puking to my TI?
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What the hell have I gotten myself into?
[sub]Good thread so far, by the way, both in the questions and the answers[/sub]