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$1.3 million To get operating and keep operating? bwaa haa haa

For those who may have been out of the cockpit for awhile, you may still be able to get back into flying with the NG. I was out of the (military) cockpit for 8 years before joining the guard to fly.

I'll throw in a pitch for the Army National Guard. We have guys that fly EMS, LE, airlines, test flight engineers for Gulfstream, etc.. If you want more money than a full time guard guy makes, go get a civilian job that pays more and just fly part time. I did that for awhile making significantly...

Cool (no pun intended). Electric motors still get hot, but probably not near as hot as an internal combustion or turbine engine. FWIW, I was looking at a LongEZ on the FLIR today. Having the exhaust go through the prop at the back diffused a LOT of IR signature! A small 100-ish hp engine...

Yes, it is an Army thing. I was just pointing out that the Army avoids modifying all of their aircraft by doing it that way. When I was in the Navy, they did not do it that way. Based on your post, is it safe to assume the Navy still does not do it that way? What about the Navy medevac...

If you look at our aircraft in the hangar stateside six or more months out from a deployment they would be significantly different than when they are in country. This is how we save money and not buy ASE and other gear for every aircraft in the fleet. The downside is that sometimes your modified...

I am writing this from the POV of someone who has had one minor and two major injuries post flight school. The minor injury, a broken wrist, happened midway through a flying course at Ft Rucker. It was my first broken bone, ever. I thought it was maybe a sprain so I finished the five week...

Yep.

Just to be clear, joining the ANG or ARNG does NOT mean you will get a full time job with them. You may need to get another job while you wait to get a full time gig. That might be what jollygreen was alluding to. I got a full time position about a year after joining the ARNG. That is unusual...

High PA/DA is the main reason for the wide chord blades on the 60M. We would over-gross the aircraft before we ran out of power at sea level with our 701Ds. A typical PPCs in the summer here in Florida still gives us 120%+ max torque available each engine (higher w/ contingency power activated)...

Print parts at Depot or AIMD? Never! There is too much money to be lost by GE if parts can be made locally. BTW, are 3D printers really capable of the precision required for turbine engine parts?

Army's policy is 365 day deployment with at least 270 days in country.

Oh the humanity. HMMVs dropping to the ground like sacks of wet cement!

The one in multicams is a medic. The other is a 15T (Blackhawk mechanic). If anything, the medic would have trouble with the chocks. LOL The cool thing about the guard is that almost all of our medics are at least paramedic qualified. We have a couple of firefighters and RNs as well. There is...

Week three of MREs every day for lunch. Today, in the middle of training area 1 at Camp Blanding, 5 km from any hard top, we were doing mounted and unmounted patrols. Just as I finish my MRE, this thing pulls up! BTW, chicken and noodles is the best snack MRE. It has Twizzler Bites, Beef Jerky...

Been in the field(ish) eating MREs for two weeks now. I can make you a good deal on some cheese, vacuum packed crackers, and other rat f#$%ed MRE remnants! LOL BTW...the pound cake is surprisingly good.

Love it there! I spent a month and a half at Marana/Pinal just up the road. Strange to have 747s on downwind in the pattern. Went to Pima several times and did the Davis Monthan tour. FWIW the picture I posted earlier up the thread was from Davis Monthan. And a Jeep Wrangler rental car for the win!

That thing is sitting outside my classroom at Ft. Rucker now.

Our 60Ms don't have fly by wire. There is one at WPB that is fly by wire main and tail rotor controls. They also had a composite tail boom on it. I think it's the same aircraft. There are so many cool true franken-hawks there it is hard to remember which ones had which features. The fly by wire...

Then 60A frankenhawks at HAATS are pretty sweet too. 12.5k with no gas, 701D engines! Hovering at 6500' IGE at 59% with 4 onboard. We never got up to speed because, well...we were at HAATS. 6500' is the lowest place we flew/landed. We spent most of the time between 9500' and 14,000'.

Great discussion. We never had goggles when I left the HSL community way back when. Flash forward to now and all I have to have is 1 hour of night unaided every 6 months for currency. But I need 9 hours of NVG every 6 months. I have now landed a Blackhawk on a small deck at night with NVGs and I...

What about helo guys? When I left in 1996 no NVGs at all, much less at the boat.

Now its all in one computer log book. An example of what we do was my latest project: installation of Extended Stores Support System (ESSS). Coordinated delivery of two sets of wings stores from PMs office, 12 tanks to be distributed to three states, bits and parts for installation, W&B for new...

Back on track with the OP, we had a guy who retired just a few years ago much like the CW5 Jones. He was a Cobra pilot in Vietnam. Made PC as a WO1. He flew Apaches in the Guard out at Craig airport and transitioned to the 60 and moved out to Cecil. He had around 10,000 hours, but not all in the...

FCP is a qual. MTP is a job. Not that FCP doesn't usually go along with a job, but MTP is a career path. As such, there are about ten weeks of school just to get you on the basic track. Then there is RL progression and a lot of mentoring before you are set loose.

I joined in September of 2007. Went to maintenance manager and maintenance leader course the next spring. Didn't get to fly until the AQC in Nov/Dec of 2008. Everything else was back to back with only a few weeks off in between. By June 2009 I had completed the 60M transition and MTP course and...

Program? LOL! No program what so ever. Show up for drill, hope you have your uniform on right. The beret was a real puzzle. I had to go through the UH-60A AQC to learn to fly a 60 (again). Then I went to the MTP course even though I was an FCP in the Navy. Being an MTP is quite a bit more...

Sure...regular officers...since warrants are commissioned. But you get the idea.

Fixed it for you.

Can't imagine anyone in their right mind would leave the Navy flying Seahawks to fly Blackhawks as a warrant in the Army/Guard. FWIW, I'll be into my 50s for my next deployment.

Utility hydraulic pump? Is that the same as the backup pump or is that the 4th pump running off the main mod for hoist/realing machine power? It's been a LONG time since flying a 60F and I never flew a 60R.

^<<<<< This I've personally picked up an aircraft that needed a tail rotor balance (no weights on the TR) and one that had a #2 HYD PUMP light before passing the field boundary.

Ripped off tail wheels? Never seen a tailwheel ripped off, just a lot of broken locking pins. We've got a guy with a necklace of 7 bent or broken pins. He flies like an inverted rock and he hasn't ripped a tailwheel off yet. But then again, there was a dept head at one of the HSLs back in the...

While I did not interact much directly with BzB, his posts were always genuinely worth the read. He reminded me of my best friend's dad who flew A-4s out of Cecil Field in the 70s. While reading his posts I could imagine my friend's dad speaking, offering the same wisdom and insights. Fair...

...and binoculars. Holy cow that is a long table.

5 hours in the air? Never had one take anywhere close to that long, and I've been doing blade track and balances on 60s for a LONG time. Quals and being full time help a lot on the guard side. As an MTP, ME and IP I could get 20-25 hours a month easily. 15 hours a month even when the pickings...

It just got (more)real. Russian military helicopters search for pilots of downed jet -Turkey's Dogan news agency

Beside not doing IA or onesy twosey deployments, the guard hasn't been sending people to the IRR lately. You are either drilling in the guard or you are OUT. Given these differences it seems any new policies regarding the IRR will have little or no affect on the guard.

It seems quite a bit different from how we deploy in the guard. Although my last deployment was a 12 aircraft company level deployment, we typically deploy as a General Service Aviation Battalion (GSAB). This involves companies and detachments from across as many as 5 states. There are almost as...

Do reservist really have to be willing to go? I know that on my last deployment with the guard people were stop-loss'd. Not going on the deployment was not an option unless you were able to work the system and become undeployable for some medical reason. I am hearing that may change with our...

Wow! So I get out of the reserves and into the IRR because I am DONE deploying. I kick back and find the least stressful job I can...pool guy...and get selected to deploy because I have pool skills. LOL

You can complete 2 AFTPs per day. Max is 48 for a year, but it can be extended to 72. In addition, you have all of your drill and AT time. Drills can count 4, 5 or 6 periods over a 2 or 3 day weekend. AT is straight up 1 day for 1 day/point.

You can take leave from your technician job and complete two AFTPs during normal working hours. If you are AGR, you come in late and stay late, much like active duty. Of course AGRs do not get to do AFTPs, nor do thay get paid separately for drill weekends.

AFTPs are 4 hour blocks, so you can do two per day. We have a rule that you must average 1.5 hours of flight time or better per AFTP. Yes, $97k includes all of the accouterments.

"No ground troops" does not mean what John Q Public thinks it means. If you Google you can see we have troops in a lot of places the mainstream media does not cover. I'll leave it at that. GS-12 pay really is lower. $61,846 for GS-12 step 1. Add 14% locality pay ($8,658) for a total of...

Fairy missions are what the CH-47 guys do. We do ferry missions. LOL