I've been looking around, planning to apply to a heavy reserves or guard unit this year. There are several units in or near my home state that interest me, and they all fly different heavies. My question is, given a choice, how do you go about deciding on the airframe? Do KC135/C-130/C-17s afford different lifestyles and/or flying? I like the C-5 because it's MASSIVE, but obviously that's a silly reason to go for it. Any heavy operators, please feel free to chime in.

 

I can only really speak to the KC-135:

Pros: Its fast. Lots of hands-on flying. State of the art avionics suite (Block 40). Shorter deployments than other airframes (especially for Guard/Reserve units). Comparitively easy training requirements, i.e. no airdrop, no low level, no assault, no NVG, etc. There are still beans to count, but its not nearly as bad as the airlift bubbas.

Cons: Its OLD. A 50 yr old airframe will always have unique maintanence and reliability issues. Also, all of those state of the art avionics are not very well integrated into the airplane. You can datalink your way across the pond, but sorry, no autothrottles. You'll be dealing with 50 years worth of regulations. Ever hear of a "Non Critical Engine Failure Speed"? You will. There are things that made sense when we had little tiny engines hanging on the wings and were trying to launch at max gross weight ahead of inbound nukes that don't make sense today. Fun.

Overall, the tanker is a good, honest airplane to fly, and the mission can be very rewarding and a lot of fun. Of course, it helps if you like to turn left for hours at a stretch at FL250. If I had to choose between C-5, C-130, C-17, and KC-135 units, I'd go with the tanker. The people are good and the atmosphere is relatively relaxed. Plus you can go pretty much anywhere if your current unit is BRAC'd. Really, you can't go wrong with the Guard though. I've met very few Guard pilots (in any airframe) that weren't happy with their unit.

 

I obviously did the C-5 thing and here's my 2 cents. I would go with either the C-5 or the C-17 and probably the C-17 between those two depending on your preferences. I like strat-air (C-5/C-17) because the mission is to actually go somewhere...anywhere in the world and drop cargo and troops. Tankers travel the world too but I think generally their mission is to pass the gas and then head home. Therefore you might do a lot of taking off, drilling holes in the sky like TankerDriver described and then landing where you took off from. (You tankers guys keep me honest if thats not accurate). As fro the C-5 they are upgrading them now with glass avionics but they are doing the active duty first so it will probably be several years before they get to the guard and reserves. However, if you get in the Reserves as Dover or Travis they fly the same planes so you'll be flying glass. I agree that one of the nice things about the C-5 is that its huge. The crew comforts are probably the best in the AF. I'm still amazed at what we can load on that plane and how far we can take it. Several times I've gone places like Australia or Jordan and had lines of cars stop while people came out to watch us takeoff. However, that all comes at a cost and the cost is maintenance. The C-5 breaks a LOT. It can be very frustrating to get alerted and spend 4 hours getting ready to takeoff and have to go back to bed or having to divert enroute because something crapped out at cruise. The good side of breaking is that you're often in a place to go see the sites. The C-5 will give you several mini-vacations...whether you want them of not. The AF is pouring a lot of money into C-5s now to get their reliability up (new engines, hydrualic, system, avionics and a ton of other stuff) but it will take several years to get the fleet done.

The C-17 has most of the benefits of the C-5 but it is more reliable and the AF is still buying them. They also do a lot more as far as airdrop, assault landings, and low-levels. So if you like all that then the C-17 or C-130 is the probably the way to go. I'm a pure airland type of guy so the C-5 worked for me. The flip side is that if you plan to be a part-time guy and work another job I hear it can be challenging for the 17 guys to maintain currency for all the things that you may be checked out to do. Hopefully the 17 and 130 guys will chime in and elaborate a little more.

Also dont forget the KC-10. I've always been fond of that plane. I dont know how much but I have seen those guys out flying just cargo so that may be away to get the best of both worlds.

The bottom line is to continue gathering info like you're doing and KNOW WHATS IMPORTANT TO YOU. The location that you live may be the most important thing to you and that could overrule everything mentioned above.

Good luck...

 

TipTip id partly right about the tanker. We definitely do our share of taking off and landing at the same location, but lately, due to decreasing budgets and increased demand, we have found ourselves doing a lot more. Aeromed Evac missions, Coronets (dragging fighters across the globe on various deployments), and straight cargo missions are all fairly common these days. That said, Air Refuelling is, of course, still our meat and potatoes. The beauty is that you will go on a deployment and generally stay a few weeks, rather than min turning (17 hrs on the ground). And the guard/reserve generally deploy to the "good" locations. Guam, Incirlik (Turkey), and Diego Garcia all come to mind. Additionally, on those cargo/aeromed missions, we don't stage. That means that the jet you take on the road will usually be the jet you come home with. This really cuts down on the bag drags, and opens up many more opportunities when you are shopping for carpets in Turkey! If you really want to fly airlifters though, be like Tip and go the C-5 route. Nice airplane and good destinations. And they don't generally break in the "bad" (read: sandy and hot) locations, so your impromptu vacations will be in places like Spain r Hawaii. Not a bad life either way.

 

Tanker and tiptip, thank you both for the info (good info!) I really appreciate it, it's hard to get this kind of info elsewhere.
btw tankerdriver, what do you mean turning left for hours on end at FL 250??

 

They fly anchor tracks to refuel folks. They could be on station for an hour or hours. I refueled Helos in MCs and it was boring...well most of the time...and that was his point that it CAN get monotonous (sp?)at FL 250 in a pattern.
From a C130 perspective....I think the C130 and C17 are more fun to "fly". You will fly them to the limits...near stall speed for assaults (short field ops)...max their G limit out on defensive manuevers, etc. (remember it's not a fighter though) and you will fly a lot of Tactical work. In the C17 you do strat missions (long-reach cargo and infil missions) and Tac (base to dirt strip or drop zone). THe 130 is a Tac plane, although the J model (I'd say more state of the art than the pacer craig ;-) ) allows us to fly a longer distances with more cargo...nothing near what the C 17 can carry, though.

In the C130 you will get sent overseas for a couple-4 months for mobilization or deployments, whereas - guys correct me if I am wrong - the strat aircraft visit those locations on long missions. We live in theater - they visit to bring us stuff.

FYI - AFSOC has reserve 130s if you want to really do some interesting stuff. The Talon Is are on their way out but the MC130P is around for a while. So is the EC130J in PA - again - FL250 orbits....

 

I don't know if this is any indication of what the C-17s and C-130s do out there in the real world... but when I was flying in and out of Charleston AFB not too long ago, I saw some cool stuff... those C-17s come in on short approaches all the time! (I've seen a few C-130s do them too.) It looks like such a close call, being that they are huge and bulky you don't think they could maneuver like that.. but they make it in every time. I've also seen three C-17s formation flying over the airport... that was interesting.
It kind of sounds like to me that as a C-17 or C-130 doing a lot of slow, low altitude work, you might be more vulnerable to getting shot at than say, KC-135. is there any truth to this?

 

I'll throw in my experiences in the 17.
Pros: Flying an aircraft to it's limits, whether landing assaults (spot landing in an 500 x 90 ft landing zone and then coming to a full stop in 2000-2500 ft) while on NVGs (night vision goggles), flying +5000fpm descents (you can achieve 2-3x that amount if you throw out the thrust reversers in-flight, a legal procedure), or doing low levels up the coast at 300+ kts. I've hit every continent except the permanently frozen ones, I've made a ton of great friends, and I absolutely love my assignment location. (Charleston, SC ... 3 reserve + 4 active duty units blended wing)

Cons: Well, unless you take a deployment in the reserves, you'll only really be gone on 10 day missions which hit Germany, somewhere in Iraq/Afghanistan, Germany and home. Currency can be tough to keep up with, if you're an airdropper especially, but it's not that difficult. An airland type can cover his requirements with 1 day + 1 night flight a month. (if your tanker doesn't canx of course) ...I'm still trying to think of some cons for a 17 reservist. Hmmm...let me get back to you.

Anyway, the 17 is an amazing aircraft, and for the most part, the equipment and the avionics are pretty high speed. I'll never feel completely right flying a yoke again. I believe that we'll have reserve/guard 17 units at every AD base except Alaska. Currently 17 reserve/guard options are Hickham (good luck), Jackson MS, March AFB (near LA), McChord (Seattle, WA), and of course, God's country, Charleston AFB. I believe that Dover DE, McGuire (NJ) and Travis AFB (near San Fran) are also coming on line, though not as sure. Hope this helps!

 

Kalyx-

Check out the forums on Baseops.net

There is quite a bit of info on all airframes/lifestyles. Just be sure the use the search function.

 

Word of warning - that board is populated by whiney SNAPs.