What's a Nomex Ninja?
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C-130 Pipeline
- Thread starter jDUB
- Start date
I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that it's all those SpecOps guys that keep running the supply of flight suits out in my size. :icon_rage
Yes, if you do go to JMATS at Little Rock you will become well acquainted with the Flying Saucer, Fox and Hounds, and all the other fun odd places. It is actually a nice city with a lot to do.
With the AC-130 thing from what I heard from multiple folks; Aviation Branch looked at it seriously during the height of Afghanistan since their AC-130’s were doing good work there. But it is a $ and manpower thing. Even to support a two plane element, something like 200 new jobs would need to be “created” that were not already on the USMC’s KC-130 T/O (even to me that sounds like a lot, maybe it was a squadron sized element, not sure). But none the less, MOS credibility and career paths for the guys running the guns, new ordnance jobs, maintenance jobs, etc… all added up to too many new people and dollars the USMC did/does not have for a mission the USAF clings to as their “Special Ops”, although many say it is rudimentary air support. With the J model conversion in full swing and the time and the chaos that wrought on manpower placement and projections for the enlisted aircrew (Navs and Engineers), and the V-22 stand up, it was just one more program that would have been nice but not needed. As noted above, our giving 40k lbs of gas a sortie to a section of Hornets and Harriers has provided more than adequate “support” for the folks on the ground. Let the trained killers do their jobs while we eat munchies and orbit above and watch the show… Ordnance being deployed by the jet you just tanked, and watching the whole evolution on goggles while listening to the tac freqs is in its own way like having the cheap seats at a ball game. And the on the back side of one of those tanking missions to then go fly hither and yon throughout Iraq to carry cargo or supplies or poop out illum flares… we are pretty busy. While we all “dream” on an AC-130J, no one wants to go fly with the USAF Hercs. Their world is so different from Marine Herc aviation in employment, attitude, regulations, etc, all things that are beyond this already hijacked thread. They are good, and know they stuff, but the different Service’s ideologies trickle down to even how the crews employ the aircraft. After flying a few years in a theater with them you’ll see. An exchange tour would gain little for us or them other to have a USMC Herc guy say he shot a bunch of stuff (which is cool in its own right but has little practical merit). We have an exchange with the Canadians; their guys are top notch. We need to have them with the Brits, Aussies, Italians, and other J users… Imagine flying with the Royal Australian Air force for a few years… there’s a billet for a single guy if one ever existed.
Nomex-Ninjas… that’s good. Last summer we were in some interesting Mediterranean island near Lebanon awaiting to go save the day in support of the MEU which never happened. The USAF “Special Operations” air element arrived with their MC-130P and MH-53 helos. The USAF Herc guys were very proud of the fact they were special operations pilots; they primarily did low level ingress egress stuff and did helo refueling with the 53’s as they explained. That was their forte. We remarked we did that, along with refueling jets, cargo and pax transport, aerial delivery, battlefield illum, radio relay, casualty evac, all night and day, all weather, blah blah, etc etc… They have the luxury of dedicating units and airframes to specific missions, and get very very good at them. As a new guy in Marine Herc world, you will see you will become familiar with all manner of odd missions, without getting any super ninja Special Ops patch on your flight suit, just a “shut up and do your job” environment… All part of the fun and relative perspective of what one service calls “special” and another service calls a typical day at work.
But I digress…
With the AC-130 thing from what I heard from multiple folks; Aviation Branch looked at it seriously during the height of Afghanistan since their AC-130’s were doing good work there. But it is a $ and manpower thing. Even to support a two plane element, something like 200 new jobs would need to be “created” that were not already on the USMC’s KC-130 T/O (even to me that sounds like a lot, maybe it was a squadron sized element, not sure). But none the less, MOS credibility and career paths for the guys running the guns, new ordnance jobs, maintenance jobs, etc… all added up to too many new people and dollars the USMC did/does not have for a mission the USAF clings to as their “Special Ops”, although many say it is rudimentary air support. With the J model conversion in full swing and the time and the chaos that wrought on manpower placement and projections for the enlisted aircrew (Navs and Engineers), and the V-22 stand up, it was just one more program that would have been nice but not needed. As noted above, our giving 40k lbs of gas a sortie to a section of Hornets and Harriers has provided more than adequate “support” for the folks on the ground. Let the trained killers do their jobs while we eat munchies and orbit above and watch the show… Ordnance being deployed by the jet you just tanked, and watching the whole evolution on goggles while listening to the tac freqs is in its own way like having the cheap seats at a ball game. And the on the back side of one of those tanking missions to then go fly hither and yon throughout Iraq to carry cargo or supplies or poop out illum flares… we are pretty busy. While we all “dream” on an AC-130J, no one wants to go fly with the USAF Hercs. Their world is so different from Marine Herc aviation in employment, attitude, regulations, etc, all things that are beyond this already hijacked thread. They are good, and know they stuff, but the different Service’s ideologies trickle down to even how the crews employ the aircraft. After flying a few years in a theater with them you’ll see. An exchange tour would gain little for us or them other to have a USMC Herc guy say he shot a bunch of stuff (which is cool in its own right but has little practical merit). We have an exchange with the Canadians; their guys are top notch. We need to have them with the Brits, Aussies, Italians, and other J users… Imagine flying with the Royal Australian Air force for a few years… there’s a billet for a single guy if one ever existed.
Nomex-Ninjas… that’s good. Last summer we were in some interesting Mediterranean island near Lebanon awaiting to go save the day in support of the MEU which never happened. The USAF “Special Operations” air element arrived with their MC-130P and MH-53 helos. The USAF Herc guys were very proud of the fact they were special operations pilots; they primarily did low level ingress egress stuff and did helo refueling with the 53’s as they explained. That was their forte. We remarked we did that, along with refueling jets, cargo and pax transport, aerial delivery, battlefield illum, radio relay, casualty evac, all night and day, all weather, blah blah, etc etc… They have the luxury of dedicating units and airframes to specific missions, and get very very good at them. As a new guy in Marine Herc world, you will see you will become familiar with all manner of odd missions, without getting any super ninja Special Ops patch on your flight suit, just a “shut up and do your job” environment… All part of the fun and relative perspective of what one service calls “special” and another service calls a typical day at work.
But I digress…
FYI, if you were still interested ... Went to Whiting, going Hercs.
SMILE4BULLETS
New Member
caveat: A) avoid North Little Rock like the Plague, or B) go strapped to the hilt
Ya know, i had a great time in Little Rock. There were places to hike/ mountain bike less than an hour from the base, the bars weren't terribly bad (but the male to female ratio would have been terrible if I were single), and it was a short ride to Memphis to check out the Redbirds play baseball and have some kick ass ribs at the Rendezvous.
I may try to go there next year as the CG liaison instructor, but it would be hell being at a 100% Air Farce command.
I may try to go there next year as the CG liaison instructor, but it would be hell being at a 100% Air Farce command.
Can someone please give me a total breakdown of the c130j training pipeline. I am a MECEP with an aviation gurantee and am looking for info on this. I know it goes IFS/API to Primary to Advanced but could someone be more specific and give me course lengths, locations, expectations, anything at all. Thank you Semper Fi.
It's pretty much been covered in this thread but I'll give you a more recent viewpoint. API will be no different. Primary will be no different. At the end of primary you select and if you select c-130's, you go to Corpus to VT-31. Once at Corpus you will check in to MATSG-22 and await a class date. Once classed up, you will officially be in VT-31 and start ground school which I believe was about 2 months IIRC. Once I started flying, I was complete and winged in 4 months. Just prior to winging you will find out what squadron you are going to. It's simple, 152, 252, or 352.
Once you are winged, expect to go to SERE then check into the ATU at either Cherry Point or Miramar. Once classed up it takes about 4 months to finish . Good training but when you leave the ATU and check into your squadron, you are still not qualified. It takes another 5 fam flights and a check ride to get you qualified. That's all, let me know if you have other questions.