AF to airlines
12-08-2015, 09:09 AM
#1
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Thread Starter
Joined APC: May 2013
Posts: 71
AF to airlines
Hey everyone, anybody know how favorably (or unfavorably) the airlines look at single engine Mil time, such as the T-6 or the U-2? Considering applying to the U-2 program, as I think it's probably the best thing going in the AF from what some of my buddies have told me. However, I don't want to risk shooting myself in the foot (if that's possible) by doing so if I were fortunate enough to get hired, or would staying in a multi engine jet be the better route to go? Honest question, just thought I'd ask. Thanks!
12-08-2015, 12:12 PM
#2
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2006
Position: Ret AD, back to AA
Posts: 115
Single engine military shouldn't hurt...
Although I personally didn't fly any single-engine military aircraft, I've have flown with many ex-F-16 guys at AA. I also know back in the day United applied a multiplier to fighter time, including F-16s, so no penalty there. T-6's are instructor time, which is respected and valued. And most pilots who know anything about U-2's know that it is a very demanding aircraft to fly and land, and that only select guys get to fly them. Hence no penalty there either I'm sure...
On the subject of U-2s, I wonder what you find so appealing about pre-breathing 100% oxygen for an hour and having others dress you from your underwear up to space-suit before every mission, then cruise for multi-hour missions without being able to get of the seat and a rapid D from 60K ft + is a real ugly emergency then back to a landing that can be a real crap shoot
??? Hey, to each his own...I highly respect them but wouldn't want to do it.
What do you fly in the AF now? I'd say go with a heavy (I did C-130, C-141, C-17)...lots of hours and a much better lifestyle!
On the subject of U-2s, I wonder what you find so appealing about pre-breathing 100% oxygen for an hour and having others dress you from your underwear up to space-suit before every mission, then cruise for multi-hour missions without being able to get of the seat and a rapid D from 60K ft + is a real ugly emergency then back to a landing that can be a real crap shoot
??? Hey, to each his own...I highly respect them but wouldn't want to do it.What do you fly in the AF now? I'd say go with a heavy (I did C-130, C-141, C-17)...lots of hours and a much better lifestyle!
12-08-2015, 01:07 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2009
Posts: 396
Legacy/major airlines don't really care what you flew in the military, as long as it was a fixed wing. U2 time is no different, IMHO. On a different note, you ever think about why the U2 community is always looking for people? I understand that it's a very "exclusive" community but it's not the right cup of tea for many. To each his own, as they say.
Do they still have the 6 month rotation to Osan?
Do they still have the 6 month rotation to Osan?
12-08-2015, 01:16 PM
#4
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Joined APC: May 2013
Posts: 71
I'm a C-17 guy now, just exploring my options. I hear one of the reasons they're looking for guys right now is because a lot are retiring and trying to jump on this hiring wave at the airlines... Thanks for the input!
12-08-2015, 01:29 PM
#5
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Joined APC: May 2006
Position: 737 FO
Posts: 466
Something to be aware of if you want to fly U-2s......
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-highflying-brain-lesion-idUSBRE97M0RT20130823#xkC6CoePzTCEIJe4.97
Flying high-altitude spy planes tied to brain lesions
NEW YORK | BY KATHRYN DOYLE
(Reuters Health) - High-altitude pilots in the Air Force have a poorly understood type of brain lesion three times as often and four times as large as those seen in the brains of other military personnel, according to a new study.
The lesions appeared on brain scans of an elite group of U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft pilots, of whom there are fewer than 200 in the U.S.
"Normal young healthy adult brains have few (lesions), as we have demonstrated in our control group," said lead author Dr. Stephen McGuire of the University of Texas in San Antonio and the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
The pilots in the study had lesions called white matter hyperintensities, which appear as bright spots on brain scans and may be caused by reduced blood flow, similar to those seen with head trauma, McGuire said, though none had experienced such injuries.
The reconnaissance planes regularly fly at 64,000 feet and can go higher than 70,000 feet, where pilots can see the curvature of the Earth and the dividing line between night and day, while commercial flights typically cruise at about 40,000 feet. At high altitude, the spy planes maintain cabin pressure of 28,000 to 30,000 feet, compared to the average of 8,000 feet in a commercial flight.
High-altitude pilots are at increased risk of decompression sickness, or "the bends," in which decreasing pressure allows bubbles of gas to form in the blood and can lead to temporary slowed mental processing or permanent cognitive decline.
With heavier use of the U-2 planes between 2006 and 2010, the number of incidents of pilots experiencing decompression sickness rose somewhat, McGuire's team writes in the journal Neurology.
But the new study found an increased number of brain lesions even when the pilots had not experienced decompression sickness, indicating that some other aspect of a low-pressure environment might explain the results.
McGuire and his coauthors compared the brain scans of 102 spy plane pilots with those of 91 other active duty military personnel of similar age, general health and education level. All the men were between the ages of 26 and 50 years old.
The pilots had more lesions and they were larger than in the comparison group.
Pilots had an average of 9.7 lesions versus 3.3 in the comparison group, and the lesions averaged .16 cubic centimeters in size for pilots compared to .04 cubic centimeters for non-pilots.
Brain lesions in the comparison group were concentrated in the frontal lobe, which is typical of the lesions seen with normal aging, but lesions were found equally distributed throughout the brain in the pilot group.
A higher number of brain lesions have been reported in mountain climbers and deep-sea divers as well, the authors note. In those instances, the lesions are thought to represent tissue damaged by gas bubbles or tiny clots in blood vessels.
"Being spots of cellular damage, white matter hyperintensities can be caused by many things - inflammation, infection, disease, trauma, vascular problems like small strokes, low oxygen, low glucose, or low air pressure," said R. Douglas Fields, a neuroscientist at National Institutes of Health and a mountain climber. "This is why they are seen in the normal population with increasing with age," Fields told Reuters Health by email.
Since they are tiny, many of the spots may be harmless, said Fields, who was not involved in the new study. But they do represent damage to white matter, which is where the communication trunk lines in the brain are buried deep below the gray matter on the brain's surface where all the synapses do their computational work.
"The effects of white matter injury can be very diverse and quite widespread, or only affect a local region," Fields said. "It all depends on what connections get damaged."
"More research needs to be performed before we can say for certain that these lesions are dangerous," said Dr. Sean Jersey, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and radiologist at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in California.
In the past, doctors saw the spots on brain scans as a normal indication of aging, he said, but over time they have also been linked to specific diseases, like heart disease, migraine headaches, diabetes, high blood pressure and infections. "In the case of our U-2 pilots or divers, they are probably the result of an occupational exposure which was previously unrecognized," he said by email.
A 2010 review of studies on the lesions seen in aging brains linked the spots to an increased risk of stroke, dementia and death.
The current study, however, found no impairment of mental processing among the pilots.
"The study was unable to identify any clinical deficits (i.e., observable neurologic defects, such as memory or motor difficulties) in any of the U-2 pilots studied, and all of them are still performing the extremely complex tasks associated with flying the U-2," according to Lieutenant Colonel Edward T. Sholtis, deputy director of public affairs for the Air Force.
"What we do not know is the long-term implication of these findings, which is why we are instituting a long-term monitoring program," Sholtis told Reuters Health by email.
Air Force flight operations guidelines are under review to potentially increase pilot downtime between high-altitude flights longer than nine hours, and limiting the length of deployments, he said.
"Any person exposed to extreme altitudes is at risk," including extreme high altitude mountain climbers and deep-sea divers, McGuire said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/16Hne3v Neurology, online August 20, 2013.
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-highflying-brain-lesion-idUSBRE97M0RT20130823#y1pU4XkoPCL4L4Kv.99
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-highflying-brain-lesion-idUSBRE97M0RT20130823#xkC6CoePzTCEIJe4.97
Flying high-altitude spy planes tied to brain lesions
NEW YORK | BY KATHRYN DOYLE
(Reuters Health) - High-altitude pilots in the Air Force have a poorly understood type of brain lesion three times as often and four times as large as those seen in the brains of other military personnel, according to a new study.
The lesions appeared on brain scans of an elite group of U-2 high altitude reconnaissance aircraft pilots, of whom there are fewer than 200 in the U.S.
"Normal young healthy adult brains have few (lesions), as we have demonstrated in our control group," said lead author Dr. Stephen McGuire of the University of Texas in San Antonio and the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
The pilots in the study had lesions called white matter hyperintensities, which appear as bright spots on brain scans and may be caused by reduced blood flow, similar to those seen with head trauma, McGuire said, though none had experienced such injuries.
The reconnaissance planes regularly fly at 64,000 feet and can go higher than 70,000 feet, where pilots can see the curvature of the Earth and the dividing line between night and day, while commercial flights typically cruise at about 40,000 feet. At high altitude, the spy planes maintain cabin pressure of 28,000 to 30,000 feet, compared to the average of 8,000 feet in a commercial flight.
High-altitude pilots are at increased risk of decompression sickness, or "the bends," in which decreasing pressure allows bubbles of gas to form in the blood and can lead to temporary slowed mental processing or permanent cognitive decline.
With heavier use of the U-2 planes between 2006 and 2010, the number of incidents of pilots experiencing decompression sickness rose somewhat, McGuire's team writes in the journal Neurology.
But the new study found an increased number of brain lesions even when the pilots had not experienced decompression sickness, indicating that some other aspect of a low-pressure environment might explain the results.
McGuire and his coauthors compared the brain scans of 102 spy plane pilots with those of 91 other active duty military personnel of similar age, general health and education level. All the men were between the ages of 26 and 50 years old.
The pilots had more lesions and they were larger than in the comparison group.
Pilots had an average of 9.7 lesions versus 3.3 in the comparison group, and the lesions averaged .16 cubic centimeters in size for pilots compared to .04 cubic centimeters for non-pilots.
Brain lesions in the comparison group were concentrated in the frontal lobe, which is typical of the lesions seen with normal aging, but lesions were found equally distributed throughout the brain in the pilot group.
A higher number of brain lesions have been reported in mountain climbers and deep-sea divers as well, the authors note. In those instances, the lesions are thought to represent tissue damaged by gas bubbles or tiny clots in blood vessels.
"Being spots of cellular damage, white matter hyperintensities can be caused by many things - inflammation, infection, disease, trauma, vascular problems like small strokes, low oxygen, low glucose, or low air pressure," said R. Douglas Fields, a neuroscientist at National Institutes of Health and a mountain climber. "This is why they are seen in the normal population with increasing with age," Fields told Reuters Health by email.
Since they are tiny, many of the spots may be harmless, said Fields, who was not involved in the new study. But they do represent damage to white matter, which is where the communication trunk lines in the brain are buried deep below the gray matter on the brain's surface where all the synapses do their computational work.
"The effects of white matter injury can be very diverse and quite widespread, or only affect a local region," Fields said. "It all depends on what connections get damaged."
"More research needs to be performed before we can say for certain that these lesions are dangerous," said Dr. Sean Jersey, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force and radiologist at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in California.
In the past, doctors saw the spots on brain scans as a normal indication of aging, he said, but over time they have also been linked to specific diseases, like heart disease, migraine headaches, diabetes, high blood pressure and infections. "In the case of our U-2 pilots or divers, they are probably the result of an occupational exposure which was previously unrecognized," he said by email.
A 2010 review of studies on the lesions seen in aging brains linked the spots to an increased risk of stroke, dementia and death.
The current study, however, found no impairment of mental processing among the pilots.
"The study was unable to identify any clinical deficits (i.e., observable neurologic defects, such as memory or motor difficulties) in any of the U-2 pilots studied, and all of them are still performing the extremely complex tasks associated with flying the U-2," according to Lieutenant Colonel Edward T. Sholtis, deputy director of public affairs for the Air Force.
"What we do not know is the long-term implication of these findings, which is why we are instituting a long-term monitoring program," Sholtis told Reuters Health by email.
Air Force flight operations guidelines are under review to potentially increase pilot downtime between high-altitude flights longer than nine hours, and limiting the length of deployments, he said.
"Any person exposed to extreme altitudes is at risk," including extreme high altitude mountain climbers and deep-sea divers, McGuire said.
SOURCE: bit.ly/16Hne3v Neurology, online August 20, 2013.
Read more at Reutershttp://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-highflying-brain-lesion-idUSBRE97M0RT20130823#y1pU4XkoPCL4L4Kv.99
12-08-2015, 05:09 PM
#6
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Oct 2015
Posts: 536
Nowadays everything causes cancer. I say go fly the U-2, get your flight hours, and enjoy the view while you're up there. Sooner rather than later all these high altitude recon aircraft will be replaced by the Global Hawk anyway.
12-08-2015, 08:47 PM
#8
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Joined APC: May 2006
Posts: 2,889
I have done a host of seminars at Beale, with U-2 pilots getting hired at UAL, FedEx, Delta, Hawaiian, Alaska, and other places.
If you can fly that beast, I think most folks who know aviation respect the challenge. Serve your God, family, and country the way you want. The airlines will fall into place if you do a good job at job one.
If you can fly that beast, I think most folks who know aviation respect the challenge. Serve your God, family, and country the way you want. The airlines will fall into place if you do a good job at job one.
12-09-2015, 05:17 AM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Posts: 233
Still on the outside looking in, but have a couple legacy interviews lined up. Most of my time is single engine. Throughout the process it seems there are two things I noticed that will help. One is who you know, networking. The other is having something different about yourself to get noticed in the stack of 10k plus applicants. I know the U2 is not the easiest airplane to fly as probably almost any pilot does. Also, how many U2 pilots are there, can't be many; probably also helps you standout. Again, still outside looking in, but these are my impressions.
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