Air Force Life
 

How is it in the air force? Is it possible to have a social life and have fun out of work? Visit family etc... Do you guys find it demanding? Better to go civilian route?

I am not in the Air Force however i have friends there and know it is much more lenient and time consuming then the Marines. So i will explain my typical day and you can pretty much figure the Air Force will be very similiar if not a little better.

0500-0545 Wake up and take a shower, eat breakfast get ready for PT

0600-0730 PT usually run a few miles or some other sort of exercise
NOTE PT IS TYPICALLY MON-WED-FRI HOWEVER CAN BE MORE

0730-0830 Go home and take a shower, relax and get ready for work

0830-1115 Work, usually a typical job just hang around and get things accomplished, the more rank you have the less physical work you do, I am a Sergeant therfor i am a supervisor, people tell me what needs to get done and i make sure it gets done and supervise the results. I do not clean, sweap, mop, take out trash or anything of the sort. Much like any boss at your typical job

1115-1300 Eat lunch! Go wherever you want and do whatever you want, so long as it is legal and you are back by 1300

1300-1600 Continue working, or surfing the internet whichever comes first and than get ready to leave

1600-1630 Shop cleanup, exactly as it sounds. I ensure the workplace is clean and ready for the next days work

1630-0500 the next day You are off! You can go anywhere, and do anything you want, this includes, hang with your wife, friends, party, go to a movie, go out to dinner, anything that you would do as if it were a normal job..again, so long as it is legal and you are back to work at 0600 the next day for PT and do not REEK of alcohol.

On the days you do not PT you show up at 0700 and start work instead of the PT schedule.

Weekends my Battalion is great and we are usually off by noon for the weekend and you are free to do what you want until 0600 the following Monday.

EVERY federal holiday you WILL get a minimum of 3 days off, usually 4 starting at noon and being off for the following 3 or 4 days.

LEAVE, you will accumulate 2.5 days off per month for leave, they add up fast especially with deployments (i have 87.5) when you have leave you can put in your leave papers, typically min. 2 weeks in advance and go wherever. Most will go home to their families or go on vacation. Leave is usually a few weeks but it is not uncommon for someone to take over 30 at a time. LEAVE IS PAID!

now the storm cloud.....

I am currently in Iraq. I work around 12 hours per day, 7 days a week, every single day for about 7 months. However i make around 1000.00 more per month because of it.

Also you will learn that work comes first ALWAYS...if there is a mission to be accomplished you can and will work until it is done..24,36,48 hrs straight...whatever it takes, you will do it. The military will reward you though, we work hard and play harder so the time off is there. I have more time off in the military than i ever had at a civilian job.

I know i am not Air Force, but this should give you a rough idea. Send me a PM if you want and i can elaborate on some things, or check out www.aboutmilitary.com

Well, Friday the 13th back in August of '82 was my first day of active duty, and no regrets so far!

Of course there are always ups and downs, but overall the friends I've made are lifelong (even if we don't send christmas cards regularly), we can not talk to each other for two years and then run across one another and pick right up where we left off.

The "US vs. THEM" squabbles you see between management and the workforce at FedEx, UPS, etc. is very, very rare in the military. "Upper management" in a flying squadron usually started out where the pilots they lead, not as a direct-hire management pilot like you may see in the civilian outfits. We are more on the same page as far as objectives go, the camarderie is usually pretty good between the managers and "worker bees."

It's not all perfect in the Air Force, of course. Since we started the Air Expeditionary Force system, you can count on being deployed for 4 months out of the year in such garden spots as Balad, Kandahar, etc. The family life for a military pilot is usually worse than the civilian counterpart with regard to time away from home and additional duties when you are home. The FedEx pilot can schedule his next month of flying (or reserve) and know what his schedule has in store; the military pilot may get called for a three-week trip with two days notice. When the military pilot is at home, they usually have an office job or other additional duty whereas the FedEx pilot is HOME, period.

I could go on forever, but you should ask some more specific questions instead of me boring you silly with "war stories."

Best of Luck,

Dave.

Ya, I'm in Canada but I'm just getting an idea of the lifestyle. Can't be that much different...

We are normal folk just like the rest of you all. We go to work in the morning and come back home to our families in the evening. Obviously flying can put us on different schedules but we do have lives besides the AF. The weekends are off (for the most part) and we spend time with family and friends and live just like any other civilian would. We get 30 days of paid vacation a year to go wherever we want.

Herc, what are you a Reservist or something? Weekends off! Go to work in the morning, come home in the evening! I'm in AETC and that's about the closest I've ever been to a "normal" life, but I still work at least 12 hours a day, every day, and then I'm in on the weekends a lot too.....then there's the "good deal" Cross-countries, where I get paid next to nothing (no such thing as Overtime in the AF) to fly around with students all weekend and find a hotel for less than $50 a night, cause the squadron is too cheap to pay the Government allowed rate.

When I was in the C5, we were gone all the time, and no 2 days notice, sometimes we'd get back from a two or three week trip, and while we were unloading our gear from the bus, we'd get the word that we were back on the hook 12 hours later for another two to three week trip.

30 days of paid Vacation! True, but not always true, I've lost more leave in the past three years then I bet you've used.

I know I sound bitter, I actually do like my job though. The flying is great! The "extra duties" (made necessary because Congress votes raises for themselves, while Military leadership claims we can continue doing "more with less" so we end up doing Finace's job, MPF's job, the Hospitals job, you name it) suck ass.

I agree with some of what gsu50 has said. The flying is awesome and I would do it all the time. It's the additional duties that really grind you down. Somehow showing at 0200 for an 18 hour flying day is better than staying in our training section auditing training plans until 1900. I'm new and young in the AF and have a ton of commitment left, so I won't be getting out any time soon. However, the grind of paperwork, meaningless office work, and bureaucracy are a price we pay for free health care, job security (unless you're a non-pilot LT these days) and hundreds of hours of multi-engine heavy flying every year. I don't know what companies make their pilots do besides fly, but in the Air Force you are also an officer-pilot which means OPRs, EPRs, AFIs, OIs, and lots of email. I sure love the flying part of my job, though.

BTW, gsu50, I have thought a lot about going back to the T-1 after my first KC-135 assigment. Do you enjoy it or would you have rather stayed as an IP in your MDS?

Chad

The T-1 is alright, I will tell you that flying with students will make you a better pilot. Mainly because you've got a guy with next to no experience flying a "heavy" feeling jet and it can get up and move. Which means that if you are off your game, bad things can spiral out of control quickly.

I've heard some rumor about how pilot training is going to change over the next few years and the T-1, and T-38 for that matter will merely be a "Top-off" program with most of the work being done in the T-6. With all the *****in from the T-6 guys do about the lack of durability of the Texan, I'm not so sure that would be a good idea.......so I'm sure the Air Force will do it. Cause if it don't make sense, the Air Force will do it....reference F-22.

But in all seriousness this is a pretty good gig. I'm single and from the West Coast, so I'm a tad biased, but I hate ENID, OK. This town is horrible for us single folk (unless you are looking to hook up with some single mom with 3 kids). For families, I've heard it is a much better experience. I was non-vol'd to this also, so again I'm biased. I'd rather be out contributing to the operations environment.

Hey, at least you know they put out!!! :)

Email Craze
 

Chad,

Bro, I hear you about the e-mail. I often wonder what the hell AF pilot's did in the pre-computer/email days. I spend so much time responding to emails and taskers from email's that it drives me nuts! You almost can't keep up.

Imagine that.....a boss that is only one email away from tasking you to do more work....and now they have "blackberries" that allow them to "task" you at every whimsical thought, 24/7. Hey, for any you young guys out there currently active duty that want to "rise-up" to boycott this computer in every office thing, I'm game. We need to get back to people skills....and dare I say it....have meetings to conduct business, not emails.

What in the hell did all the old farts do without computers???? I know....they used a typewriter, white-out, and maybe even a secretary, and then they went to play golf. Ahhhhh, if I only had been born about 10-15 years earlier. [standby for old farts starting off with "youngster, when I was in...."] :p I'm just kidding.... I want to hear how it was so I can dream please.

Duke