Air Force info?

[thambok]

There are also Marine pilots. Generally, they fly jets in the Close Air Support role. Unless things have changed, they are the only branch of the U.S. mil to fly the a Harrier varient.

Still true. I don't see anyone other than the Marine Corps looking at VTOL type planes. The Marines are the only service who have any need for that kind of short range, multi-terrain capability.

The army also has pilots, but they generally gfy helos, Like the Apache or comanche. The Marines use the whiskey and Zulu varients of the Cobra.

Also keep in mind that helo pilots are usually not officers. They are usually warrant officers, which is different. The Air Force does not have warrant officers.

If you choose A navy pilot, keep in mind that there are extreemly rigorours conditions for landing on a flight deck at sea.

Very true. Also, deck landings have a very specific jargon. If you go this route, I would strongly suggest working with someone who has on-deck experience.

 

[Aurora Black]

Now I'm leaning towards the Air Force again.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Wow! Where'd you come from?

I want my guy to fly a fighter plane, but I don't want him connected with the war in any way. It would only take away from the story, in my opinion. I'm toying around with the idea of featuring an air show, and this is one of the planes that I have my eye on:

http://www.f22fighter.com/

I'm sure that I'll sound ignorant, but I'll ask anyway: What's the difference between active duty and reserves? *ducks, covers eyes*

OK. Noone flies that plane yet. It's the F-22 raptor. It's the next generation of the twin engine air superirirty fighter. If you like the looks of it, you can have your guy flying the F-15E strike eagle or the F-14 tomcat, both of which have similar lines.

The F-15 is air force, the F-14 is Navy. The F-14, has variable geometyry, that is to say, the wings can be swet forward or back, to give different flight characteristics at different speeds.

An active duty pilot is in the military year round, it's his occupation. A reserveist flies one weekend a month, and undergoes training two to 4 ekks a year and generally, has another occupation. If they are clalled up, reservists have to leve their civilian jobs and go full time military for the duration of their call up, usually that's a year, but it can be as little as three month or as long as for the duration in a shooting war.

Keeping your pilot out of a war situation is really not hard. Any F-14 pilot you could simply station on a battle group that isn't in theatre. We keep Navy battle groups all over the world. in general, there is always one in or around the sea of Japan, to act as a deterent to the Chinese trying to occupy Taiwan.

If yu want Air Force, and you want a fighter jock, you can still kep them out of the war with relative ease. He could be on TDD (temporary detached duty), he could be an instructor, or his air group could simply not have been called up. We generally retain at least a few active duty wings inside the US and at other strategic locations even during a hot war.

there are bases a ramstien in Germany, On Kinowa, IN the Marians on guam, IN alaska, Hawaii and all across the continental us. In Britan, on crete in the med.

Just depends on how you want to do it

 

[zeb1094]

OK. Noone flies that plane yet. It's the F-22 raptor. It's the next generation of the twin engine air superirirty fighter. If you like the looks of it, you can have your guy flying the F-15E strike eagle or the F-14 tomcat, both of which have similar lines.

The F-15 is air force, the F-14 is Navy. The F-14, has variable geometyry, that is to say, the wings can be swet forward or back, to give different flight characteristics at different speeds.

An active duty pilot is in the military year round, it's his occupation. A reserveist flies one weekend a month, and undergoes training two to 4 ekks a year and generally, has another occupation. If they are clalled up, reservists have to leve their civilian jobs and go full time military for the duration of their call up, usually that's a year, but it can be as little as three month or as long as for the duration in a shooting war.

Keeping your pilot out of a war situation is really not hard. Any F-14 pilot you could simply station on a battle group that isn't in theatre. We keep Navy battle groups all over the world. in general, there is always one in or around the sea of Japan, to act as a deterent to the Chinese trying to occupy Taiwan.

If yu want Air Force, and you want a fighter jock, you can still kep them out of the war with relative ease. He could be on TDD (temporary detached duty), he could be an instructor, or his air group could simply not have been called up. We generally retain at least a few active duty wings inside the US and at other strategic locations even during a hot war.

there are bases a ramstien in Germany, On Kinowa, IN the Marians on guam, IN alaska, Hawaii and all across the continental us. In Britan, on crete in the med.

Just depends on how you want to do it

There are Air Force pilots flying the F22 now. They have been flown at several Air Shows and Fly out of Dobbins AFB/Lockheed in Marietta Ga. on test flight and trainging execises. And I believe they are forming a Squadron somewhere in New Mexico as we are speaking. Don't know which base yet, but it will be known soon. This plane has not been developed in secret like the F117 was so there is a lot of info on it on the web.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

There are Air Force pilots flying the F22 now. They have been flown at several Air Shows and Fly out of Dobbins AFB/Lockheed in Marietta Ga. on test flight and trainging execises. And I believe they are forming a Squadron somewhere in New Mexico as we are speaking. Don't know which base yet, but it will be known soon. This plane has not been developed in secret like the F117 was so there is a lot of info on it on the web.

Last I heard, there wasn't an f-22 squadron operational yet. It hasn't been developed in scret because there is a lot of acrimony over it and the Mil needs the PR boost. Unless the plans have changed, it's supposed to replace both the tomcat, the eahgle and the hornet. It was scheduled to be our first unfirom A/S fighter acxross all branches, which created a lot of controversy at one time.

 

[Aurora Black]

OK. Noone flies that plane yet. It's the F-22 raptor. It's the next generation of the twin engine air superirirty fighter. If you like the looks of it, you can have your guy flying the F-15E strike eagle or the F-14 tomcat, both of which have similar lines.

The F-15 is air force, the F-14 is Navy. The F-14, has variable geometyry, that is to say, the wings can be swet forward or back, to give different flight characteristics at different speeds.

An active duty pilot is in the military year round, it's his occupation. A reserveist flies one weekend a month, and undergoes training two to 4 ekks a year and generally, has another occupation. If they are clalled up, reservists have to leve their civilian jobs and go full time military for the duration of their call up, usually that's a year, but it can be as little as three month or as long as for the duration in a shooting war.

Keeping your pilot out of a war situation is really not hard. Any F-14 pilot you could simply station on a battle group that isn't in theatre. We keep Navy battle groups all over the world. in general, there is always one in or around the sea of Japan, to act as a deterent to the Chinese trying to occupy Taiwan.

If yu want Air Force, and you want a fighter jock, you can still kep them out of the war with relative ease. He could be on TDD (temporary detached duty), he could be an instructor, or his air group could simply not have been called up. We generally retain at least a few active duty wings inside the US and at other strategic locations even during a hot war.

there are bases a ramstien in Germany, On Kinowa, IN the Marians on guam, IN alaska, Hawaii and all across the continental us. In Britan, on crete in the med.

Just depends on how you want to do it

Damn it, I really liked that plane. It was ballsy.

I guess I'll have to go with the F-15, and I want my guy to be called in to serve. How can the air show be brought into this scenario? It's an essential part of my plot; I can't write without it.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Just a note, but I have written a couple of stories with pilots as the protag. So if you decide to write in an aerial combat or training sequence, I can help there too.

 

[zeb1094]

Last I heard, there wasn't an f-22 squadron operational yet. It hasn't been developed in scret because there is a lot of acrimony over it and the Mil needs the PR boost. Unless the plans have changed, it's supposed to replace both the tomcat, the eahgle and the hornet. It was scheduled to be our first unfirom A/S fighter acxross all branches, which created a lot of controversy at one time.

No, no active f22 squadron yet. But there are a lot of them flying out of the Lockheed plant in Marietta, Ga. on flight trainning. They don't always come back to Dobbins either, they may land a Warner Robbins AFB down in Augusta, GA. where there is an F15 Wing stationed.

 

[thambok]

I want my guy to fly a fighter plane, but I don't want him connected with the war in any way. It would only take away from the story, in my opinion. I'm toying around with the idea of featuring an air show, and this is one of the planes that I have my eye on:

http://www.f22fighter.com/

I'm sure that I'll sound ignorant, but I'll ask anyway: What's the difference between active duty and reserves? *ducks, covers eyes*

Active duty, means that military is your job. You are there day in and day out, ready to be called up should your services be needed. Reservists serve 1 weekend a month, and then for 2 weeks during the summer. They are the first to be called to active duty should a war break out, and people are needed.

As for the F-22, it narrows down some further information. First, an air show would be an excellent venue. Since the Raptor is a new plane, the Air Force is still showing it off, grabbing all of the positive PR that it can.

You also know that your pilot graduated from the Air Force Academy, most likely top 5 in his class. He probably has experience in the F-15 and F-16 as well, since they are the standard platforms, and the F-22 is still too new. It is highly doubtful that they will put a brand new pilot into the F-22, without prior experience in the other platforms.

Also, the redundancy built into the Raptor due to its fly-by-wire nature precludes most equipment malfunctions. Its possible, but the odds would be extreme, due to the young age of the platform, the attention to maintenance detail still in place, and the extreme redundancy. If you have an incident, you can pretty much bet that it was human error, either on the ground or in the sky.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Damn it, I really liked that plane. It was ballsy.

I guess I'll have to go with the F-15, and I want my guy to be called in to serve. How can the air show be brought into this scenario? It's an essential part of my plot; I can't write without it.

As Zebby noted, if you want an air show to be the setting you can have a raptor pilot. You can't have them flying combat missions, unless you want to move the story slightly into the future.

If you use an airshow, you rpilot will be active military, so you don't have to worry abou tthe call up. And you can keep him out of the war zone as he'll be doing nothing but PR.

The raptors are very advanced, with an even smaller radar crossection than the nighthawks. They are fly by wire, with advanced avionics and a tracking radar that is supposedly even better than the tomcats.

You won't have to worry about weapons load, so you'll get spared a boring disourse on ordenance too

 

[Aurora Black]

So in order to fly the Raptor, he has to be on active duty? They can't just call him in and he'll fly? If he has to be active, is it possible that he can go in after having some time off? My opening scene depends on this question, because I want him to get ready to go in while his wife watches him sadly.

 

[Colleen Thomas]

So in order to fly the Raptor, he has to be on active duty? They can't just call him in and he'll fly? If he has to be active, is it possible that he can go in after having some time off? My opening scene depends on this question, because I want him to get ready to go in while his wife watches him sadly.

You're not going to be called up to flying an air show. And if you are cale dup, it won't be to fly the raptor.

But, you can solve this to some degree, if you have your pilot having just transfered to the unit flying the airshow. Some of those air show squadrans are away from home two hundred plus days a year. So his wife would have a pretty good reason to be both happy that he got the transfer, but sad to see him go.

 

[zeb1094]

So in order to fly the Raptor, he has to be on active duty? They can't just call him in and he'll fly? If he has to be active, is it possible that he can go in after having some time off? My opening scene depends on this question, because I want him to get ready to go in while his wife watches him sadly.

He could have been on leave. Military people get 30 days a year leave. So he could have been home on vacation for several weeks and is going back to fly in the air show.

 

[thambok]

Damn it, I really liked that plane. It was ballsy.

That it is. There is no reason not to use the plane. But, if you are trying to minimize the susension of disbelief, work within the real world bounds. A Raptor pilot will be a bad ass, highly skilled, extremely disciplined pilot. He will be either a test pilot, or a show pilot. (Possible ex-Thunderbird pilot?)

I guess I'll have to go with the F-15, and I want my guy to be called in to serve. How can the air show be brought into this scenario? It's an essential part of my plot; I can't write without it.

When do you want him called up? Prior to the event, or during the event? If prior, he is most likely a test pilot, and a damned good one. If during the event, an air show would be appropriate, and he would be called up due to his proximity and availability.

You have a lot of flexibility.

 

[Weird Harold]

As for carrier vs. land-based, you could always combine them to some extent. Land based pilots routinely do barrier landings. Land-based planes also have the same hook system that carrier based planes do, as an emergency backup.

Not True.

The USAF hasn't bought a tail-hook equipped aircraft since the F-111 and the tail-hook on the F-111 was NEVER used for practice -- using it caused structural damge to the USAF version of the aircraft.

Most USAF Bases don't even have arresting cables anymore and not very many still have operational emergency Barrier systems -- the barrier net systems were abandoned and decommisioned before I retired 16 years ago.

I need help. I've got a story in mind where one of the characters is an Air Force pilot, but I don't know anything about the military or airplanes! Is there anybody who can help me out? I'd really appreciate any advice (or experiences) given.

I'm a retired USAF MSgt. While I am not a pilot, I do know a good bit about USAF aircraft and the people who fly them -- although my direct experience is 16 years out of date I've kept up with some of the changes in aircraft.

A keypoint is what kind of aircraft your pilot flies -- Transport and bomber pilots have a different mind-set and atittude from fighter pilots or helicopter pilots.

Top Gun is not a good movie to base an Air Force pilot character on, but luckily for you, there is a wealth of other movies that feature pilots that don't star Tom Cruise.

The Right Stuff is a good movie to get a feel for Test Pilot attittudes and behavior.

Strategic Air Command and a couple of other movies from the same era starring Jimmy Stewart are still good examples of bomber pilots' lives.

The History Channel and/or the Military channel are good sources of information on aircraft of all eras -- and to a limited extent the people who fly them.

The TV Series, Black Sheep Squadron is a good source for "fighter jock" character personalities -- it's the best hollywood example of the variations in personality to be found among pilots in asingle squadron as well as the similarities of all "fighter jocks."

From an author's standpoint, unless part of your story is going to actually be in the cockpit with your character, only the general class of aircraft he flies is going to be relvant:

Transports fly long missions and are gone for a couple of days to a week at a time; much like a commercial pilot or flight attendant's schedule.

Bombers fly long missions of eight to forty-eight hours but with modern bombers and air-refueling capabilities, they don't have any layovers and sleep at home when they're not flying.

Fighters fly short missions but often two or three missions each day. Because of their limited range and flight duration, they're subject to short notice deployments and the exercises that practice those short notice deployments.

Helicopter pilots -- at least USAF helicopter pilots -- often have SAR commitments (Search And Rescue), so their schedules are more like firemen/EMTs with a lot of nine-to-fivish sitting around and calls to action in the middle of the night. Helicopters are mostly short range, short duration missions during normal day-to-day training operations; when not flying or sitting alert, the pilots sleep at home.

If you want to avoid technical details of the aircraft, just put your pilots in a classified project or "black" squadron -- a la the F-117a stealth fighter before it went public -- where he's not allowed to talk about what he does or what he flies.

The timing of your story will have a lot to do with what your character flies and what his attitude and schedule are like.

During the Cold War, there were a lot of pilots sitting either nuclear alert or air defense alert, where they were closely restricted to the alert facility for one week out of three with the intervening two weeks used for training and qualification checks.

Currently, there are no standing alert facilities and day-to-day operations are more like a regular job -- albeit with irregular hours. There are still readiness excercises and mobility exercise to deal with.

I'd say write your story and then send it to a couple of the people who have responded to this thread for a technical review. Pilots, like any other group of humans are individuals and while certain genrl personality types are drawn to particular kinds of flying, the military often tries to put a square peg in a round hole so there is no real "archetypal USAF pilot." Just write the character you want to write and don't worry too much about the details of his job.

 

[Aurora Black]

Thanks, you guys. Your answers were very infomative. Enlightening, even. You rock!

 

[Aurora Black]

From an author's standpoint, unless part of your story is going to actually be in the cockpit with your character, only the general class of aircraft he flies is going to be relvant:

Yes, there will be a scene in the cockpit.

 

[Weird Harold]

Unless the plans have changed, it's supposed to replace both the tomcat, the eahgle and the hornet. It was scheduled to be our first unfirom A/S fighter acxross all branches, which created a lot of controversy at one time.

I think your confusing the F22 with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The F-35 is the second attempt at a single aircraft for all services -- the F-111 was the first.

An Airshow is easy to work into a story -- except for the Thuderbirds and Blue Angels, any military aircraft at an airshow is provided and flown by the nearest unit with that type of aircraft and the pilot is just a member of the unit tasked with the mission -- there are no special qualifications required for Air Show missions except profiency in the aircraft.

Even Air National Guard and Reserve units are tasked with "showing the flag" at airshows -- For transport aircraft, they pretty much have to be because most of the Air Mobility Command beongs to the USAF Reserve.

Any pilot (active duty, National Guard or Reserve) might be "called-up" to fly an airshow mission -- even on short notice if the pilot originally assigned fell ill or had an accident.

 

[Weird Harold]

Yes, there will be a scene in the cockpit.

During the Airshow I presume?

That's not going to be much of a problem because solo aerobatic flying is pretty much the same no matter what kind of aircraft you're in. The F-15, F-16 and almost every aricraft newer than those 1970's designs have a "glass cockpit;" all of the flight instrumentation is digital imagery on "computer monitors" and projections on the HUD (Heads Up Display.)

If you're planning on a disaster, there are basically only two ejection seats in use in US built military aircraft -- The Martin Baker and the "ACES II." The F-15 has a Martin Baker seat and the F-16 and later aircraft have ACES II or a deriviative. The only modern US aircraft that doesn't eject the canopy before the ejection seat activates is the AV-8B Harrier; it has primer cord built into the canopy to shatter it before the seat activates, everything else just releases the canopy and "tosses it aside" in one piece.

 

[dreampilot79]

There are also Marine pilots. Generally, they fly jets in the Close Air Support role. Unless things have changed, they are the only branch of the U.S. mil to fly the a Harrier varient.

The army also has pilots, but they generally gfy helos, Like the Apache or comanche. The Marines use the whiskey and Zulu varients of the Cobra.

If you choose A navy pilot, keep in mind that there are extreemly rigorours conditions for landing on a flight deck at sea.

One area that you should keep in mind is that officers and enlisted men are not allowed to fratrenize. So if you pilot falls for the cute little mechanic or refueler or what not, there are some seriopus obstacles to any romanitic liason.

The army also fly fixed wing.... In the olden days cessna Bird Dogs... they fly mostly spotting missions, executive trasnsport and small scale suply missions.

As far as carrier pilots.... the air force lands on land.. with long runways that stay still... Some runways are as long as 2 miles.

Imagine a carrier pilot... he's landing on a runway less than 500 feet long that is moving at 30 kts and bouncing up and down by as much as the wave height.. on a bad night... 10 to 15 feet of up and down. There isn't room to break to a stop so not only does he hit a small moving spot.. but he must catch a hook into one of three cables which jerk him to a stop. If he misses the wires... he's in deep deep doo doo. They hit the deck not at idle like an air force pilot.. but at full throttle so there is some chance that they can fly away if they miss the wires. Oh yeah... and watch the nose on the dash they stop from 130 kts in like 50 feet after they catch the wire.

Now the easier manuver.. taking off from a carrier.... not enough room to accelerate to a normal take off... so they shoot him off the deck with a catapult. Accelleration from 0 to 150 or more kts in like 30 feet and a fraction of a second... Then the airplane leaves the deck without enough air to really fly.... so they start to decend before they can truly fly off....

Carrier pilots have to be a breed apart

 

[Aurora Black]

During the Airshow I presume?

That's correct.

 

[Aurora Black]

The army also fly fixed wing.... In the olden days cessna Bird Dogs... they fly mostly spotting missions, executive trasnsport and small scale suply missions.

As far as carrier pilots.... the air force lands on land.. with long runways that stay still... Some runways are as long as 2 miles.

Imagine a carrier pilot... he's landing on a runway less than 500 feet long that is moving at 30 kts and bouncing up and down by as much as the wave height.. on a bad night... 10 to 15 feet of up and down. There isn't room to break to a stop so not only does he hit a small moving spot.. but he must catch a hook into one of three cables which jerk him to a stop. If he misses the wires... he's in deep deep doo doo. They hit the deck not at idle like an air force pilot.. but at full throttle so there is some chance that they can fly away if they miss the wires. Oh yeah... and watch the nose on the dash they stop from 130 kts in like 50 feet after they catch the wire.

Now the easier manuver.. taking off from a carrier.... not enough room to accelerate to a normal take off... so they shoot him off the deck with a catapult. Accelleration from 0 to 150 or more kts in like 30 feet and a fraction of a second... Then the airplane leaves the deck without enough air to really fly.... so they start to decend before they can truly fly off....

Carrier pilots have to be a breed apart

I was wondering when you'd show up, DP.

 

[Richard_Smith]

Hair Splitting

I assume that we all have a love for words here, so let me throw out a couple...

1) Although the Navy *CLAIMS* to land on carriers, they do not.
What the Navy does are "controlled crashes"

2) The Navy does *NOT* have pilots
(They have Aviators)

 

[Weird Harold]

During the Airshow I presume?

That's correct.

As long as he's flying solo -- which is the normal practice at airshows for aerobatic demonstrations -- just read up on aerobatics. I don't recall any specific titles, but there are several good autobiographies written by pilots who are areobatics competitors.

One thought -- you probably don't want to put him in an F-14 or an F-15E Strike Eagle or the two-seat version of the F-16. Doing so would require the involvement of a GIB (Guy In Back), who is generally somone a pilot works closely with on an every-day basis as part of a team.

 

[Weird Harold]

I assume that we all have a love for words here, so let me throw out a couple...

1) Although the Navy *CLAIMS* to land on carriers, they do not.
What the Navy does are "controlled crashes"

2) The Navy does *NOT* have pilots
(They have Aviators)

Getting the Jargon right is going to be the biggest problem.

FWIW, carrier landings are often refered to as "Traps" or "Engagements" even though they are in fact controlled crashes.

One other difference is "Call Signs" -- almost Every Navy aviator has a personal "call-sign" which is a semi-official designation. Only a relatively USAF types have "call-signs," which are little more than nick-names.