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What is it like to be an NFO?

Fly Navy

...Great Job!
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Speaking of VS... what is SSC? Some of the S-3 guys here talk of doing that in the Gulf.
 

JAC01

New Member
Oh man...what happened to that whole 8-10 hours of sleep thing that they told us at rotc to hook us in????? does that really go away after a-pool??? say it aint so
 

wink

War Hoover NFO.
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Speaking of VS... what is SSC? Some of the S-3 guys here talk of doing that in the Gulf.

If I remember, Surface Search Coordination. Was SSSC when they had an ASW mission. In any case it means you go out and establish an acccurate radar plot of the area and link it back to the ship, get low and rig the ones of interest. Anyone can do SSC, but the Hoover ws good at it because of the great ISAR radar, flir and low altitude endurance. In the B model they got the capability to shoot at what they found. Not much of that happening in the Gulf now though.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
@Fly: Wink covered the main point, but P-3s and -60Bs are usually the ones doing this along w/ the S-3s. Not sure of the P-3's sched, but generally the -60Bs would cover the late night early morning when the Hummer (and the rest of the airwing) wasn't airborne. Overall, there's the surface combat commander who doles out which platform goes where to cover which part of the grid and at what time.

@JAC01:

OPNAV never states 8-10 hours of sleep. It states 8 hours of uninterupted rest shall be made available and crew day may not exceed 18 hours. If it does, 15 hours of rest shall be made available (I'm paraphrasing a bit). Welcome to the big leagues.
 

Fly Navy

...Great Job!
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
OPNAV never states 8-10 hours of sleep. It states 8 hours of uninterupted rest shall be made available and crew day may not exceed 18 hours. If it does, 15 hours of rest shall be made available (I'm paraphrasing a bit). Welcome to the big leagues.

That kinda goes out the window in wartime ops, right? I know of a couple Prowler guys that routinely operated on 4 hours a sleep a night for 3 weeks straight in the opening stages of the war.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
Sorry, I'm JV, and don't know of this war that you speak of, but yeah, I'm sure. I think that's where the go-pills and such come in. Brett? But again, it's not about sleep, it's about time made available. Sleep comes into play during ORM and the brief. I can tell you that sleeping in a 90 degree sauna for two weeks while flying the 1800-0200 bags and then trying to sleep through the Shoes' whistles and GQs (and some O-5 that was living w/ me at the time) doesn't give the best sleep. But the time was made available.
 

wink

War Hoover NFO.
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
That kinda goes out the window in wartime ops, right? I know of a couple Prowler guys that routinely operated on 4 hours a sleep a night for 3 weeks straight in the opening stages of the war.
It is called operational necessity.
 

Goober

Professional Javelin Catcher
None
Sorry, I'm JV, and don't know of this war that you speak of, but yeah, I'm sure. I think that's where the go-pills and such come in. Brett? But again, it's not about sleep, it's about time made available. Sleep comes into play during ORM and the brief. I can tell you that sleeping in a 90 degree sauna for two weeks while flying the 1800-0200 bags and then trying to sleep through the Shoes' whistles and GQs (and some O-5 that was living w/ me at the time) doesn't give the best sleep. But the time was made available.
E-2 OEF, 5-5.5 hour hops, on-demand recoveries when we returned, 3 hours preflight planning, 30 mins postflight debriefing, ground jobs, eating, typical squadron BS, and an average of 5-6 hours sleep (CO mandated downtime naps squeezed in where possible). We'd have been out longer if they could have gassed us in flight (we sure as hell weren't taking a $110 mil plane into some FOB strip for gas, plus I hear huffers are in short supply in Afghanistan). Go pills avail, none taken.

VP in Oper. Sharp Guard (Adriatic, '95): 1 hour tactical crew briefing at the TSC, preflight/planeside brief, 12 hour mission, postflight, postflight debrief, eat, 14 hours off before doing it all over again.

VS, Restore Hope/Southern Watch ('92): plenty of "dawn patrol" hops to see what we could see, link like hell to the suraface module and subsequently be told not to link w/ them anymore unless requested (solved that little problem). Still had the SAU/UYS-1 "back then" and more than once got extended because the other jet went down on deck, had buoy receiver issues, etc., etc. ASW, wasn't it great? :D
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
VS, Restore Hope/Southern Watch ('92): plenty of "dawn patrol" hops to see what we could see, link like hell to the suraface module and subsequently be told not to link w/ them anymore unless requested (solved that little problem). Still had the SAU/UYS-1 "back then" and more than once got extended because the other jet went down on deck, had buoy receiver issues, etc., etc. ASW, wasn't it great? :D

UYS-1, receiver faults? I think you misspelled that. You must be talking about H-S-L not V-S. The typo is understandable, though. ;)
 

Brett327

Well-Known Member
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Sorry, I'm JV, and don't know of this war that you speak of, but yeah, I'm sure. I think that's where the go-pills and such come in. Brett? But again, it's not about sleep, it's about time made available. Sleep comes into play during ORM and the brief. I can tell you that sleeping in a 90 degree sauna for two weeks while flying the 1800-0200 bags and then trying to sleep through the Shoes' whistles and GQs (and some O-5 that was living w/ me at the time) doesn't give the best sleep. But the time was made available.
Yeah, we all got issued the go and no-go pills, but I never used em except for gound testing. They don't bring anything to the fight that a couple good cups of java don't, plus the coffee tastes better.

Brett
 

kmac

Coffee Drinker
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Just for the sake of discussion, believe it or not but even COD guys are faced with crew rest issues. We just don't have the number of pilots to be able to do consecutive 10+ flight hour days (yes, they do happen from time to time) without breaking crew rest. When you take into account the flight planning, brief, etc. the day ends up being close to 18 hours in its own right, and then of course the next day starts well before the "8 hour" rest period has expired. Granted, this is rare and I am not trying to compare the experience of others. Just for info.
 
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