Originally Posted by
JFS 3
Lots of "it depends" but just in general:
If you're in the squadron, and not attached from another squadron/wing/agency, you'll likely fly three days a week. Four or more is possible, two days or less if times are lean. Usually only one sortie in a day, depending on the type. Sometimes you might hot-pit refuel and fly a second (or third) sortie but that's not generally the norm. Fridays usually involve less flying, and there will likely be a pilot meeting and weapons academics in there somewhere.
If you're new, and it's your first assignment, your goal is to upgrade to flight lead. Assuming no deployments you are looking at about a year and a half but this varies widely. Some guys upgrade inside of a year, some leave their first assignment as a wingman.
Scheduling determines how much you fly, and it's driven by monthly requirements. 10 a month for a new guy (USAF), 9 a month if you're "experienced". If the jets are healthy and there aren't outside factors, this is easy. Many factors (weather, upcoming deployments, maintenance, etc.) can change this in a hurry.
When not flying, you're planning, briefing, or debriefing a flight, particularly if you are in an upgrade program. Outside of that you are working an additional duty. Everything from keeping the popcorn and coffee made, the beer stocked and cold, building the flying schedule, tracking squadron currencies, building weapons academics, etc. Additional-duty creep is pervasive and now we are doing jobs that used to rate a full-time specialist, such as deployment manager.
Long days are the norm. If you're in an upgrade, 10 hours from the start of the brief to the end of the debrief is in the ballpark, even for a 1.5 hour sortie. This doesn't include any prebriefing or mission planning prior to that. Rarely shorter and I've seen them go much longer. If you are red-air for someone else, your day can be much shorter but any slop is spent on additional duties. If you find yourself with free time, you head to the weapons library to get smart on one of the many tactical things you've no doubt forgotten while doing your additional duties.
That's probably more than you were looking for, hope it helps.
JSF 3 mentions many of the regular OPS types jobs (plus Coffee Mess O
), but don't forget that in that Marine squadron you drove past - pilots are doing work in the Admin office, Intel office, Ops office, Logistics office, Safety office, IT office, Maintenace dept (and the many accompanying workspaces within Maintenance), and this doesn't include what would be considered 'additional' duties (squadron Historian, Public Affairs Officer, SACO, etc....), all of which don't take much time unless something special is afoot or a squadron inspection is upcoming and the different programs haven't been touched in months or years!
I'd say that a 12 hour day was pretty standard in a non-deployed fleet squadron. MANY were longer, very few were shorter.
USMCFLYR