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E-6 Community Lifestyle
- Thread starter mal357
- Start date
What i've been told:......
Seriously, I heard it is great. You do go on detachments for a few months at a time. But never land on the carrier (of course) or go to sea.
A LT can be a mission commander and perform one of the most important ABCCC missions we have.
When an E-6 breaks, the highest level of DOD knows. Now that's visibility.
Cheers,
G
Seriously, I heard it is great. You do go on detachments for a few months at a time. But never land on the carrier (of course) or go to sea.
A LT can be a mission commander and perform one of the most important ABCCC missions we have.
When an E-6 breaks, the highest level of DOD knows. Now that's visibility.
Cheers,
G
Is that you at Spring Break?
Serious question though. How much involvement do the pilots have with the actual conduct of the TACAMO mission? Does one really get into the nuclear SIOP, or are you just the taxi driver for the GIBs (Guy in Back)? Yes, yes, within the constraints of OPSEC, yadda, yadda.
Serious question though. How much involvement do the pilots have with the actual conduct of the TACAMO mission? Does one really get into the nuclear SIOP, or are you just the taxi driver for the GIBs (Guy in Back)? Yes, yes, within the constraints of OPSEC, yadda, yadda.
I guess I’ll get in on this now. First of all, to save some space, do a search for TACAMO on this site and you can find out more information there.
The Fluff : The Lifestyle is great. About 3-4 weeks gone and about 5-6 at home. Lots of flight hours…Heavy B-707 flight time with quite a bit of B-737 time thrown in there too. (Ask the commercial guys on here, or ask the ones looking for commercial jobs and you will see how valuable that is.) Per Diem when you're gone. Lots of opportunity to continue your education. There are on average about 50+ officers per squadron, so that is quite a bit of spread for the ground jobs when you are at home. Makes life realily easy when you throw in the huge Cheif's mess too.
The Rub: You’re in Oklahoma City for those 5-6weeks. (This might be in the fluff category if you’re into that type of town. Bars are nice, great looking girls, property value is amazing, gas is cheap compared to the rest of US, your typical Southwestern town, etc.) Micro managing is a norm, however, you are under the watchful eye of CJCS and USSTRATCOM, so that might be expected. You’re on the pulse of the nuclear triad so your deployment time is mostly spent on alert, ready to launch at any given moment. (i.e., no landing and cracking a beer, going out after your msn, etc. just straight into living quarters right next to the plane.) Lots of Top Secret stuff to deal with. You’ll spend your time training for things that you pray to God never happen.
Hope that helps a bit. PM me if you want to know a little more, Within comsec of course.
The Fluff : The Lifestyle is great. About 3-4 weeks gone and about 5-6 at home. Lots of flight hours…Heavy B-707 flight time with quite a bit of B-737 time thrown in there too. (Ask the commercial guys on here, or ask the ones looking for commercial jobs and you will see how valuable that is.) Per Diem when you're gone. Lots of opportunity to continue your education. There are on average about 50+ officers per squadron, so that is quite a bit of spread for the ground jobs when you are at home. Makes life realily easy when you throw in the huge Cheif's mess too.
The Rub: You’re in Oklahoma City for those 5-6weeks. (This might be in the fluff category if you’re into that type of town. Bars are nice, great looking girls, property value is amazing, gas is cheap compared to the rest of US, your typical Southwestern town, etc.) Micro managing is a norm, however, you are under the watchful eye of CJCS and USSTRATCOM, so that might be expected. You’re on the pulse of the nuclear triad so your deployment time is mostly spent on alert, ready to launch at any given moment. (i.e., no landing and cracking a beer, going out after your msn, etc. just straight into living quarters right next to the plane.) Lots of Top Secret stuff to deal with. You’ll spend your time training for things that you pray to God never happen.
Hope that helps a bit. PM me if you want to know a little more, Within comsec of course.
^ ^
And you know how?
Mission Commanders are not just taxi drivers and are heavily involved with the mission. Everything else that is posted above (not by this guy) is true. A good search will net more good results. Sadly, there is a hottub in the Fairchild alert facility (start the brokeback jokes now).
I only know what the TACAMO instructors have told me when I was seeking all the info I could get and made E-6 my first choice. Even the E-6 pilots I talked to while in primary said they were mostly taxi drivers. I have met several TACAMO guys who said they were qualified as mission commanders at LTJG, and they more than the pilots, ran the show in the back. As an impressionable ENS seeking knowledge I will listen to everyone tell their tall tales and pick the one I want to believe based on the best happiest ever after endings.
If I insulted you by calling you a taxi driver and inferred that you don't do anything else, I apologize.
None taken. Half the time, I wish I was just a taxi driver. Yes, the "nerd herd" as I affectionately referred to the back enders did handle the nitty gritty mission stuff. The MC was in charge of the big picture stuff and running the crew and overall mission profile. ACO/MC's that were LTJG's were, with a few exceptions, way too inexperienced and did a piss poor job at being an MC and just a decent job at being an ACO. Just my opinion, though. I am sure the NFO's that you talk to at Randolph have their own opinions (they are just wrong!
It is hard to take yourself too seriously when every mission is just a training mission for something that you will hopefully never have to do, so no worries! (insert smiley thing here)
I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think you insulted anyone, you were trying to pass on the best info you had.
However, I am guessing that e6bflyer might be an E-6 pilot so he has some pretty good insight into the mission.
The idea of being a "taxi driver" has different connotations. In my community we joke about being the bus drivers for the AW's, because they are the rescue swimmers, door gunners, etc. In reality we do quite a bit more than drive the bus and make most of the tactical decisions in most aspects of all missions. From what I gather in other communities with front and backseat guys (E-2C, P-3/EP-3, etc.) there is quite a bit of interaction between the front and the back, even if the front is mostly "driving." On the other hand, I believe in other aircraft of other services there is much less interaction between the front and back. The front doesn't really know what's going on and are, in fact, taxi drivers.
Don't worry about insulting us...We are taxi drivers! So is every pilot if you want to put that twist on it and break it down to its bare essentials. We E-6 bubbas sometimes feel that way, but most of the time like HH-60 said, there is quite a bit of interaction. If you look at the EC-135 community in the Air Force for example, there is a bulkhead just aft of the flight deck that the pilots, navs, and Fe's don't go past and the goats in the back don't come forward of. When you look at it from that aspect, we in the Navy would never do business like that. It would never work. There has to be interaction to make it a successful mission.
Alright, obviously I came off as being a huge prick, so let me start from scratch.
To answer an above question, both pilots and NFO's eventually become a MC.
Retread, all I was saying about NFO MC's is that in general, as a CDO, I had a ton more problems dealing with inexperienced ACO/MC's who got qualified at about 1.5 years into their tour in the squadron than I did with AC/MCs who were at their 2-2.5 year point. It has nothing to do with rank or designator, just experience in handling the crew and the aircraft, which ACO's get little of. There were exceptions to this, of course, and there were weak AC/MCs who required an equal amount of babysitting. I am not a 2 anchor hater by any means, although I don't envy that job in the least. I am sure that we could argue this point forever, it is just an opinion, not fact, so take it as such.
As was said above, it is a great community. Anyone who can complain about a 3 week "deployment" deserves to be shot.
@ pittflyer: Well said about crew interaction. An E-6 crew is a self-supporting entity from preflight to putting the plane to bed . This is a huge departure from the air force's way of doing business (hand the jet over to maintenance after the flight).
Time for a beer.
To answer an above question, both pilots and NFO's eventually become a MC.
Retread, all I was saying about NFO MC's is that in general, as a CDO, I had a ton more problems dealing with inexperienced ACO/MC's who got qualified at about 1.5 years into their tour in the squadron than I did with AC/MCs who were at their 2-2.5 year point. It has nothing to do with rank or designator, just experience in handling the crew and the aircraft, which ACO's get little of. There were exceptions to this, of course, and there were weak AC/MCs who required an equal amount of babysitting. I am not a 2 anchor hater by any means, although I don't envy that job in the least. I am sure that we could argue this point forever, it is just an opinion, not fact, so take it as such.
As was said above, it is a great community. Anyone who can complain about a 3 week "deployment" deserves to be shot.
@ pittflyer: Well said about crew interaction. An E-6 crew is a self-supporting entity from preflight to putting the plane to bed . This is a huge departure from the air force's way of doing business (hand the jet over to maintenance after the flight).
Time for a beer.
"Enginerd" is in training now.