On the mobility side anyway, IP is a formal training course. Not necessarily much of one, but it's a trip to Altus. For guys that have previous MWS experience they will occasionally do an in house upgrade.

Of more interest, anyone know of anyone on one of these trips to Iraq?

I know one with orders, but he hasn't gone to training yet.

Out of curiousity, what is the training?

Funny, guess you guys are noobs :D! Actually I used to fly over the AOR at much higher levels in the 135 and had no idea, but in the Herc, I'm a little closer to the action. There are guys flying all sorts of goofball airplanes over there...they typically seem to gravitate toward the C130 and try to run into us all the time (I think it's a gravity thing).

Two things for everyone...look up In-lieu of taskings and brief your troops that they signed up for the military not the AF when they are told to go drive in an Army convoy. Also, look at the VSP, Palace Chase, etc and realize no mobility pilots are eligible for any of the force shaping programs. Funny...although we've always been told AMC is overmanned all of the sudden we're not able to get out under any force shaping program.

GNH

Anyone know what defensive systems the C-172 has?[/quote]


When they did the Iraqi C-130 training all the defensive systems were removed from the airplanes. Those guys don't even come close to getting the clearance needed to have access or knowledge of the systems. So, no matter what plane is used for training, I feel certain there will not be defensive systems.
Good luck to anyone who gets that assignment. All the word I got, the Iraqi C130 guys were scary as heck to train and they were previois pilots. Now you are gonna start training from scratch??? As if doing that in Enid isn't scary enough.