You fly where you need to, to get the job done and avoid the gomers with guns.
Sometimes low..sometimes high. Sometimes...very low. If you want the best of all worlds..again..AFSOC 130s. You will do things you cant tell your grandchildren or wife about..and will have better drinking stories than a Red Flag participant :-)

 

Here's my 2 cents, I'm currently a C-17 pilot in the reserves while flying for UPS...the C-17 is an awesome jet to fly! it can be tough to stay current if you have a full time job, but you will see the world and rack up alot of hours. No offense to C-5 guys, but run fast from a C-5, I flew 141's on active duty for 7 years, 6 of those flying airdrop and special op's which meant I could have had another thousand hours if I just hauled trash. I left active duty with close to 3700 hours, my C-5 friends had way less than 2000 and tanker friends had even less. If your looking to build quality flight time the -17 is the way to go. Ater I was hired at my airline I knew so much more than even the real senior Captains who flew internationally. It really prepares you for any airline job.
Good Luck

 

If you're on the "heavy" track, keep an eye out for assignments to airplanes with unusual prefixes, like EC-, RC-, WC-, NKC-, etc. if they're still offered to UPT graduates. Some of them used to be extremely good deals, especially in the late, lamented Air Force Systems Command.

 

Every KC-135er has as tory like this: In the early days of OEF we had a crew that was assigned refueling with the Navy, so they bolted the drogue on back and they launched with as much gas as conditions allowed that day. Of course, when they arrived out in the area 2 hours later, they checked in to hear a KC-10 finishing up the AR with their receivers.

Now they had no recievers, couldn't dump their gas into a 10, but they did have bingo plus 120, or something like that so they had to stay in their left hand orbit at 250.

Hours later, when they were light enough to actually land, they asked every 30 or 40 minutes to go.

13.9 hours after departure, they landed at the same rodent infested airport they had taken off from and had never offloaded a drop of gas.

 

hehe... well, I can't say that hasn't happened more than a few times, BUT, the KC-135 has many more missions now-a-days than just orbiting in an anchor in left hand turns while being "hosed" by a KC-10 and the CAOC. Yes, air refueling is obviously the main mission, but we also do Medical Evacuation missions, Coronets, Business Efforts, Capstones, special ops stuff (depending on the unit), etc... Of course, on active duty these days in this wonderful war we're in, you're going to spend the majority of your time over Iraq/Afghanistan in yes, left hand turns. You probably do have less of a chance of getting shot at in a KC-135, but unfortunately, if you do get shot at (with a SAM), you'll never know it until you hear the BOOM. We don't have any RWR systems to warn us of being locked up and/or fired upon and don't have chaff/flare systems to fo incoming missiles. So, aside from firewalling the throttles and running away, bending over and kissing our arses goodbye is pretty much our primary defensive manuever. This jet was built in the days when our primary focus was refueling B-52's/B-1's to go drop the "big ones" on Russia and most likely never come back to the US as we knew it when we took off.

 

Any luck with the interview yet?

 

Elmendorf C-17s are looking for people...here at the schoolhouse they're actively looking for new UPT guys that just got here or for guys with at least 2 years on station at the mainline 17 bases to immediately PCS. I've heard that the Guard is hiring just as fast. Too bad my wife's not into Alaska.