Airline Pilot Forums

I am a furloughed airline pilot with 3,500+ military hours, an ATP, 727/737 type ratings etc. I have an AMC and AETC background. I took a recall back into the active duty Air Force.

I am working my second HQ staff job. I have not flown anything for 3.5 years. Although I have a wife and kids, I am considering volunteering for an MC-12 tour.

Pros:
1. If I am destined to deploy again, I would rather fly. I was on wing staff during my last deployment.
2. I miss flying.
3. It will knock the rust off in case I do get recalled to my airline job.
4. I can apply to other jobs, like Fed Ex, if I get recency of experience again.
5. I am tired of doing staff summary sheets.
6. I might be able to instruct at Beale after the deployment, instead of staying in staff jobs forever.

Cons:
1. 10 months away from home - 3 months of training, 7 months deployed.
2. Living in a CHU sucks.
3. The MC-12 ops tempo is intense.

Any advice or thoughts?
Have I over-looked something here?

Thanks!

Pro:

Type-rating for King Air on your license. Maybe gets you a job at some corporate gig and you don't have to go back to the airlines.

Could lead to a job teaching at places like Flight Safety or Simuflight (I know some mil guys/airline furloughees who did this for the family life).

The "fun" deployment where I'm at these days is the BD700 (a converted global express I believe). I think the military nomenclature is E11. While I understand the MC12 is not generally the most exciting mission on a day to day basis, it sounds absolutely riviting compared to the E11. None-the-less it's a cool plane, another type rating and the best part (from my point of view) is that the pre-deployment training is all of 3 weeks. It's my hip pocket plan for the next time a deployment comes rolling down. From the guys I've talked to, sounds like 700 hours in six months is a reasonable expectation

We have a guy from our office flying the BD now. According to the POC at AMC that controls those deployments, they've already penciled in by-names for all the taskings thru Nov 2012. But it can't hurt to ask

I am a furloughed airline pilot with 3,500+ military hours, an ATP, 727/737 type ratings etc. I have an AMC and AETC background. I took a recall back into the active duty Air Force.

I am working my second HQ staff job. I have not flown anything for 3.5 years. Although I have a wife and kids, I am considering volunteering for an MC-12 tour.

Pros:
1. If I am destined to deploy again, I would rather fly. I was on wing staff during my last deployment.
2. I miss flying.
3. It will knock the rust off in case I do get recalled to my airline job.
4. I can apply to other jobs, like Fed Ex, if I get recency of experience again.
5. I am tired of doing staff summary sheets.
6. I might be able to instruct at Beale after the deployment, instead of staying in staff jobs forever.

Cons:
1. 10 months away from home - 3 months of training, 7 months deployed.
2. Living in a CHU sucks.
3. The MC-12 ops tempo is intense.

Any advice or thoughts?
Have I over-looked something here?

Thanks!

Flying is better than staff work.

MC-12 type flying is a growth area.

Who is the AMC POC for the BD-700?

That looks like a pretty good deal.

Where do they fly?
The rockpile?

Thanks.

I am working my second HQ staff job. I have not flown anything for 3.5 years. Although I have a wife and kids, I am considering volunteering for an MC-12 tour.

Any advice or thoughts?
Have I over-looked something here?

Thanks!

I did it for many of the same reasons. It's been fun. We've got a whole slew of O-5s out here doing the same thing you're describing.

The door may be closing in the next year or so as the squadrons at Beale begin to get permanent manning. Might want to pull the trigger soon.

PM me if you have specific questions. Also there is a bunch of gouge on the BaseOps.net boards.

Extremely rewarding... one of my good buddies just returned from an MC-12 deployment. He said he saw more tactical flying in the MC-12 than he saw in 3 years in the Viper. He also said that he, himself, oversaw and helped to deliver packages to send over 10 bad guys back to Allah.

So it turns out Big Slick is one of the pilots that I manage. For those of you interested in volunteering for an MC-12 (or any particular deployment for that matter), please contact your MAJCOM Rated Manager, Rated FAM, or MC-12 FAM.

Which of those, or what they call themselves depends on the MAJCOM. The FAMs that handle deployments are usually in the A3, most often in the A3T. There is also a MAJCOM assignments and career field manager for rated officers that is usually in the A1. They don't handle deployments, but can likely point you in the right direction. If you can't find any references for your particular MAJCOM, PM me.

Side note, if you're on a joint tour, don't bother calling. You can only be deployed ISO your COCOM, and the waiver authority is SecDef.

Big Slick,

Having done a deployment in the MC-12, I can tell you there are definitely pros and cons. This thread has already mentioned most of them already.

From my own personal perspective:

Pros:
1) A TON of flying: Leadership only wants more tactical ISR support which equates to more MC-12 missions per day. I averaged about 120 hrs/month in a 6 month deployment.
2) The crews and the aircraft are really doing great things for our troops on the ground. Of my 6+ deployments, this was by far the most rewarding.

Cons:
1) Definitely a long time away from home. Between training and the deployment itself, you're at least looking at 10+ months. And there is always the threat of a deployment extension if the stateside manning flow can't keep up with the down range requirements.

PM me if you have more questions. Best of luck.

dbay3

"He said he saw more tactical flying in the MC-12 than he saw in 3 years in the Viper"

Now thats one of the funniest things I've heard in a while