Welcome to the Heavies discussion blog. The purpose of this blog is to foster discussion between future Air Force officers interested in becoming pilots and flying heavies (strategic airlift/tankers/etc.) and active duty officers currently flying such planes. views expressed in this blog are solely the opinions of the individual authors and not of the United States Air Force nor the Department of Defense.
For a C-130 formation sortie (home station), the day usually starts about four hours prior to takeoff. You sign in, catch up on the basic paperwork and administrative items, and head to the formation brief. After that, you have about 20 minutes to get ready for your crew brief, which when then cover the flight from your crew's perspective. More than likely, there is some training going on at your crew position, so you'll do another 30 minutes of training covering that. Then, about 1 1/2 hours prior to takeoff you'll step to the aircraft. Preflight and radio checks, loading of cargo or jumpers, engine start, and off you go. My experience was we generally flew 3-4 routes to airdrops, covering the array of drop types and procedures. The flight would last 4-5 hours, which allowed for some proficiency items (assault landings, instrument procedures, etc.) at some point. After landing, you could plan on close to another hour of paperwork and debriefing. Since 9/11, a larger number of these training sorties are flown at night to incorporate night vision goggle training.
For a KC-135 (navigator), you'll fly every couple of days. When you don't fly you'll be doing periodic training events and normal office work related to your squadron job. Generally prior to flying you show up about 3-4 hours prior to take off and do your mission planning. Computerized flight planning software does the flight plan and the charts you'll use. Then you'll brief the sortie to the crew for about 45 minutes to an hour. Once done briefing, you'll step to the jet about an hour and twenty prior to take off. The normal local sortie is between 3 to 5 hours, with about an hour of pattern work. After landing you debrief the flight for about the same amount of time that the pre-brief took. Many flights are much longer than this, and some are shorter. When you drag fighters somewhere, you'll refuel them about every hour or so, then land at the deployed location. I've flown up to 18 hours in one sortie, and my shortest planned sortie was .3 hours.
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For a C-130 formation sortie (home station), the day usually starts about four hours prior to takeoff. You sign in, catch up on the basic paperwork and administrative items, and head to the formation brief. After that, you have about 20 minutes to get ready for your crew brief, which when then cover the flight from your crew's perspective. More than likely, there is some training going on at your crew position, so you'll do another 30 minutes of training covering that. Then, about 1 1/2 hours prior to takeoff you'll step to the aircraft. Preflight and radio checks, loading of cargo or jumpers, engine start, and off you go. My experience was we generally flew 3-4 routes to airdrops, covering the array of drop types and procedures. The flight would last 4-5 hours, which allowed for some proficiency items (assault landings, instrument procedures, etc.) at some point. After landing, you could plan on close to another hour of paperwork and debriefing. Since 9/11, a larger number of these training sorties are flown at night to incorporate night vision goggle training.
For a KC-135 (navigator), you'll fly every couple of days. When you don't fly you'll be doing periodic training events and normal office work related to your squadron job.
Generally prior to flying you show up about 3-4 hours prior to take off and do your mission planning. Computerized flight planning software does the flight plan and the charts you'll use. Then you'll brief the sortie to the crew for about 45 minutes to an hour. Once done briefing, you'll step to the jet about an hour and twenty prior to take off. The normal local sortie is between 3 to 5 hours, with about an hour of pattern work. After landing you debrief the flight for about the same amount of time that the pre-brief took.
Many flights are much longer than this, and some are shorter. When you drag fighters somewhere, you'll refuel them about every hour or so, then land at the deployed location. I've flown up to 18 hours in one sortie, and my shortest planned sortie was .3 hours.
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