Ah, but then there’re readiness numbers. When you have far more crews than available aircraft, the total flight time per crew is a lot less. If one wants to know what pilots average, he or she should ask the folks over at Naval Air Forces N40.
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Which branch/airframe flies the most?
- Thread starter Gliderpilot321
- Start date
Ah, but then there’re readiness numbers. When you have far more crews than available aircraft, the total flight time per crew is a lot less. If one wants to know what pilots average, he or she should ask the folks over at Naval Air Forces N40.
In all seriousness, then why are you a pilot?
I agree with him. I would much rather have a month where I did 10 BFMs or low levels all at a 1.0 each than one where I get 20 something hours burning holes in the sky.
I guess I just love to fly then, because I'll take as many hours as I can get regardless of the flavor. Every minute spent in the aircraft is one less minute spent at my desk.
Full time national guard pilots do pretty well. When I was just an MTP, I could fly 3 to 5 times a week if I wanted to and routinely averaged 230 ish hours a year. Not bad for an airframe that is a 2.2 to splash on fuel. I could still bag as much flight time as I wanted if I didn't mind letting my supervisory, standardization, maintenance examiner, blah blah blah ...duties suffer. Medevac deployments usually don't result in many hours. The best I've done on deployment a medevac deployment is 200 hours. It's a job you really DON'T want to be busy with.
For part timers, it can suck. Most barely get their minimums (48 hrs every 6 months). You get between 48 and 72 AFTPs, averaging 1.5 hours of flight time each. That's 72 to 108 hours a year, not counting drills or AT. We usually fly a lot during AT, but drills are full of SHARP, transgender, safety, ...sorry. I can't finish listing it all. I just threw up a little in my mouth.
So full time guard, technician or AGR is great. Part time is not so great.
For part timers, it can suck. Most barely get their minimums (48 hrs every 6 months). You get between 48 and 72 AFTPs, averaging 1.5 hours of flight time each. That's 72 to 108 hours a year, not counting drills or AT. We usually fly a lot during AT, but drills are full of SHARP, transgender, safety, ...sorry. I can't finish listing it all. I just threw up a little in my mouth.
So full time guard, technician or AGR is great. Part time is not so great.
Yeah, you're right, this does have an effect on the graph. But I still contend that even a pilot flying a broke-dick C-5 is going to fly more hours in a month than, say, an H-65 bubba. Plus you get to conveniently break down in sweet places with high per diem rates!
Starboard D is the most worthless flying possible (aside from the actual rescue parts, of course). It's so worthless that one should probably only be able to log half the time in their logbook. There is a limited amount of training value to be had in the D, once you've reached that threshold, you find yourself playing roadtrip games with the crew for six hours at a time. And then your god damn crew chief rips one and you experience the Navy 21 day menu in a whole other manner not previously thought possible.
Starboard D is the most worthless flying possible (aside from the actual rescue parts, of course). It's so worthless that one should probably only be able to log half the time in their logbook. There is a limited amount of training value to be had in the D, once you've reached that threshold, you find yourself playing roadtrip games with the crew for six hours at a time. And then your god damn crew chief rips one and you experience the Navy 21 day menu in a whole other manner not previously thought possible.
In all seriousness, did you spend a lot of time in the actual D? I've heard this sentiment from other HS guys, but as an HSC carrier guy, I found that my time in Starboard or Port D was often limited to the final recoveries of that particular line on the airplan if I was coming in for gas or to hotseat. I was usually busy hauling pax and cargo to all the DDG / CG / British / French / MSR / occasional amphib type ships in the AOR, all the while constantly feeling under pressure to beat the clock to ensure that I'd get back inside the 20 mi radius during the day for the launches and recoveries. I even had one Plane Guard mission where I had a pop-up VERTREP for a USN security team from one MSC ship to another for all their weapons and ammo, then the crews. Also, I think most of our PG lines were 3.3's with one drink of gas either on the CVN or on one of the ships we were bringing pax / cargo to, and there was one mid-day line that was a 5.1. I say this a bit anecdotally, but the day I got a rescue I was coming back from a DDG, and of course in our debrief, we were grilled as to whether or not we were inside the 20 mi ring by the time the jets had started launching... we were.
At night, I recall we spent a lot of time doing gun patterns in between the lines, you'd dip right outside of 10 miles, drop a smoke, and the AW's would maintain currency on the GAU or the M-240 (typically the 240).
This isn't an either or proposition, and I suspect it also has a lot to with what kind of flying is available based on many factors, not least of which is platform, community, proximity to deployment date, quals, etc. Personally, I'd rather fly every day for 45 minutes, than once a week for five hours at a time.
Great idea! Then we can make it suck even harder.
This will depend on where you're flying the D. When I was on the Gator the SWO CO kept the SAR bird on a pretty tight leash. The ultimate indignity was flying the D for 2 Pumas doing VERTREP for 4 hours. Shit you not.
Wow. Nuts. Totally unlike my "starboard D" life. I thought I would hate "Starboard D" - but I barely ever did it the way you're describing it to me. What was "starboard D" for me was a nearly interchangeable term for plane guard, which, on deployment and workups, was written on the airplan and the flight schedule as SAR/LOG/SSR and was generally as busy as I described in the previous post. That a) gave everyone cover to do any mission within those realms with Skipper's and CAG's blessing, and b) forced us to check in with Z to help the MH-60R with the surface picture, mostly by updating unknown contacts and classifying them correctly in Link and with Z.
I'm kidding about logging half, of course, but tell me you get a lot of worthwhile experience out of flying the 045/110/1-3nm?
I've been on loan to CVN squadrons and done the D there. Being expeditionary trash, I've also had a similar experience to @croakerfish. I prefer the small boy deployments where we're the only game in town.
On a separate but slightly related topic, I don't think HSC will survive long-term exposure to LCS. We're asking CVN and EXP squadrons to both train to the same SWTP, yet EXP squadrons will have to provide ARG and LCS support, to include MCM. It's too much for one community to do and try to stay together. $0.02.
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Trying to get my 2Ps worthwhile experience while doing nothing but cloud murder, scenarios and fuck/marry/kill is not something I’d want to repeat.
What's Starboard D?
RadicalDude
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