Originally Posted by
GunshipGuy
Regarding #3, they're probably keeping their quals and skills up to date. Not saying you're a C-17 guy, but blacked out ops are a lot less of a disruptor than C-17s going off the side of the runway (Karshi Khanabad), landing gear up (Bargram) and going off the end of the runway (Bagram). See #5 above.
As for what they do, I've been in their cockpits and have seen it firsthand. Not that slick low level, air-drop, NVG, SKE, max efforts and assaults aren't important, but having done all that and then seeing the T2 world, well, I can tell you it is indeed some special and impressive stuff.
Nope never been a -17 guy...E/H/J slick pilot here. Almost wound up going to the HC-130J by request but my O-6 didn't think that was good for the career so I decided the Reserves were better and got out.
FWIW as a safety guy I've seen a lot of buffoonery on behalf of every airframe, to include the T2...and the guys doing blacked out ops on the ramp were Shadows. The T2s were the ones using max reverse on the pax ramp blowing luggage all over...and some other things that were dumb that I won't put on here.
In any case, it was all light hearted jabbing anyways.