Polar OPS: Contracted to civilian aircraft now.
How does a unit get tasked to support cutters?: Stations don't get attached to specific cutters. They just get assigned a certain amount of deployment days a year and that depends on the amount of aicraft at the unit. For instance, a 3 aircraft station will be assigned one deployment a year. Which cutter they deploy to is luck of the draw. But West Coast units generally don't deploy to the East Coast and vice versa. Great Lakes units (Detroit and Traverse City) do a few more deployments mostly in the winter months because the lakes are frozen over.
HITRON isn't a bad mission, it is actually quite fun. But the deployments can wear on you. Since that is their only mission, they always have aircraft deployed. Plus the unit doesn't do Search and Rescue. They only do counter drug so if you came in for SAR it can be frustrating. With that, if it is your first duty station as a pilot, when you go to your next station, you will be a qualified aircraft commander who has never done SAR so you can be held up in progressing compared to other second tour aviators.
Hope that helped.
Is it a routine thing, like CGAS 'A' supports cutters from Sector 'X', or CGAS 'B' routinely deploys with specific cutters, or does District just grab whoever's up in a rotation?
How about going out on the big icebreakers? Is that a special-training mission that only certain units are tasked to do, or is it just considered another underway that any Dolphin guy can do and pack your long-johns?
How does a unit get tasked to support cutters?: Stations don't get attached to specific cutters. They just get assigned a certain amount of deployment days a year and that depends on the amount of aicraft at the unit. For instance, a 3 aircraft station will be assigned one deployment a year. Which cutter they deploy to is luck of the draw. But West Coast units generally don't deploy to the East Coast and vice versa. Great Lakes units (Detroit and Traverse City) do a few more deployments mostly in the winter months because the lakes are frozen over.
HITRON isn't a bad mission, it is actually quite fun. But the deployments can wear on you. Since that is their only mission, they always have aircraft deployed. Plus the unit doesn't do Search and Rescue. They only do counter drug so if you came in for SAR it can be frustrating. With that, if it is your first duty station as a pilot, when you go to your next station, you will be a qualified aircraft commander who has never done SAR so you can be held up in progressing compared to other second tour aviators.
Hope that helped.
Is it a routine thing, like CGAS 'A' supports cutters from Sector 'X', or CGAS 'B' routinely deploys with specific cutters, or does District just grab whoever's up in a rotation?
How about going out on the big icebreakers? Is that a special-training mission that only certain units are tasked to do, or is it just considered another underway that any Dolphin guy can do and pack your long-johns?