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What were the deciding factors on picking your airframe?


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This just makes me laugh because I had Bragg as my #2 pick and still didnt get it.

 

 

I had Bragg in my top 3 and I got Yakima...tell me how that makes sense.

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Its actually not bad and we got a pretty solid unit. Me and P ended up in the same spot. Hows things across the pond?

That's good you guys are together. Too bad your not out here with the rotational folks. It's good out here man, real busy, hard to get goggle hours right now though, between noise abatement(2359 down time most nights) short period of darkness (EENT is like 2230), and huge IP turnover right now (I think we have 1, and one at the Bn.... with three new guys). Tell P I said what's up.

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Yea I heard about that. Bragg is running an AQC for the 64, and If I was a 60 bubba at Bragg I would probably jump on it.

 

 

Just know it has a 3 year ADSO....

I heard it was a 1 year concurrent. I put my name in the hat, I don't know if it's something I really want....I got a few things I'm looking into.

 

This just makes me laugh because I had Bragg as my #2 pick and still didnt get it.

Bragg was not even on my list, in fact I was told no one could go there. Welp I curse the day Lindsey called and told me I got Bragg.

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Bragg was not even on my list, in fact I was told no one could go there. Welp I curse the day Lindsey called and told me I got Bragg.

*ring ring*

"Hey dude, do you know your duty station yet?"

"NO, still don't f*cking know."

"Ok, well I'm at b co because b co is my life, and they just posted the list, do you want to know?"

"YES TELL ME"

"Bragg."

"...oh"

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  • 1 month later...

You're flying a lot more than me. I don't think I've made minimums yet. We just got an email asking if anyone wants to go fly Apaches though....

Anyone willing to forward that email or reference an HRC message? I have a couple legacy 58D guys working for me that are interested in re-training in the 64.

 

Mike-

Michael.rutledge@usma.edu

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My father and grandfather both flew dustoff in Vietnam, and both were shot down numerous times. My grandfather received the DFC after being shot down repeatedly in a 24 hour period trying to extract wounded from an extremely hot zone.

 

Now, when I was selected for WOFT, my father gave me some of the simplest advice he ever gave. He looked at me and said "Fly the one that shoots back". So, I picked the one that does just that.

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My father and grandfather both flew dustoff in Vietnam, and both were shot down numerous times. My grandfather received the DFC after being shot down repeatedly in a 24 hour period trying to extract wounded from an extremely hot zone.

 

Now, when I was selected for WOFT, my father gave me some of the simplest advice he ever gave. He looked at me and said "Fly the one that shoots back". So, I picked the one that does just that.

Seems like pretty solid advice from a pretty credible source. I've tossed the idea around of what I'd prefer to fly. I have a long road ahead before I cross that bridge but I like flying low and fast. My first helicopter ride was 20 ft above a glacier at a blistering speed...... and I was hooked. What where some of your more memorable moments flying, "I assume," a Apache?
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Like you, I have a ways to go -- I know that as far as Guard goes it will be UH-60s so there isn't much picking I can do. Hoping for the Mike model. I am hoping to get selected for the MEDEVAC company. As a former grunt, I have a lot of respect for the mission and the guys that fly it. Again speaking from experience as a grunt it will also be nice to have a job that can be done in peacetime as well as wartime. Afghanistan was cool, as was some of the training for it, but my last few years in were a bummer. I'm pretty stoked that the guard gets to fly SAR, firefighting, and disaster relief when not deployed.

 

Mike

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Seems like pretty solid advice from a pretty credible source. I've tossed the idea around of what I'd prefer to fly. I have a long road ahead before I cross that bridge but I like flying low and fast. My first helicopter ride was 20 ft above a glacier at a blistering speed...... and I was hooked. What where some of your more memorable moments flying, "I assume," a Apache?

 

 

Going Winchester on Hellfires in 10 minutes

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I want to outline this the way the OP asked it. I chose Apaches.

 

Outside of the basic functions of a helicopter - what is something that you get to experience driving your bird that you wouldn't get on any other bird?

 

This one is simple. The Apache is a weapon system, and while it sounds silly or harsh to say, killing people is your job. I know lots of UH/CH door gunners with some sweet kills, but if you're killing people from a lift aircraft, you're trying to make a bad day go away. If you're killing people from an Apache, you're serving your purpose in life. You might also be trying to make a bad day go away, but the Apache is an offensive weapon system. I was fortunate to deploy during a more permissive ROE than the last couple years, and getting to drop buildings with hellfires, call in engagements with other aircraft, work directly with the ground force to kill ISIS and take ground from the enemy, has been very rewarding. The Apache is the only conventional Army aircraft where you will be an active participant in the fighting of war. The lift aircraft have a great mission, but they are the transportation to and from the battlefield. The Apache is part of the battlefield. I was an infantryman in a previous life, and fighting wars from the sky is why i became a pilot. I love my job, and the AH job is dramatically different than the UH/CH job. Not necessarily better (its my opinion that it is, but hey, I get to be biased), but different. I personally get a lot of satisfaction out of it.

 

Do you have any regrets now that you've gotten involved deeper, or did reality align similarly with what you were told to expect from each airframe during WOFT?

 

I have zero regrets. However, what I have experienced in the Apache community is not at all what I was told to expect from cadre and fellow students during WOCS and Flight School. I won't address each rumor individually, but there was a lot of Apache hating throughout WOCS and Flight School. Things like, we're all douchebags (only at least half of us, definitely not all of us....), we don't have a stateside mission so we never fly (quite the opposite), Apache experience is useless in the civilian sector (very much not true), and we're broke all the time (OK, we do break a lot, but our OR rate is comparable to lift aircraft, especially considering how many more hours we put on our aircraft. We are broken more, but we fly more, so it is a fair tradeoff). Fortunately, I knew my share of Apache pilots and maintainers, and I knew which rumors to believe, and which ones to accept as likely true. I just shut up and let everyone else buy into the rumors, and come selection day, I picked Apaches with not much competition.

 

Now, had I been forced to fly UH or CH, I would have been just fine. I would have been wishing I could fly guns, but there's nothing wrong with the lift mission or the pilots flying it. Every community has their jerks and stupidity.

 

A lot of you wrote why you wanted to be an army aviator - now that you are, is it all that you hoped it to be?

 

I knew what to expect, and its about what I expected. I thought the quality of life would be a LITTLE better, but its still far above the infantry life. And I can now date the hot lieutenants. I have already addressed all the silliness of being an Army aviator in the G1 thread, I can't possibly do it again.

 

Is there any specific BS that is aviation or airframe specific that you have to put up with?

 

Probably the most silliness in the AH community is based on ROE and Gunnery. As an attack pilot, even in a war zone where people are trying to kill you, you are expected to be both a legal expert and a killer. Sometimes being one means you aren't the other. There have been many times I have seen the enemy clear as day doing something I should absolutely kill them for. But ROE can be restrictive, and even if its a situation where you CAN shoot, if the AMC says you're not shooting, you won't shoot. A pensive or non aggressive AMC can be frustrating sometimes, but sometimes that hesitation keeps you off the general's carpet. Being an expert in ROE and utilizing tactical patience is simply a part of the job that isn't going away unless we go to total war....which Id rather not do anyway.

 

Gunnery is a task in stupidity, as nothing you do really prepares you for combat. Like WOCS, it is a game, and you just gotta play the game to keep being a pilot. It could get better, and it might, but its also one of those things you just deal with.

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Seems like pretty solid advice from a pretty credible source. I've tossed the idea around of what I'd prefer to fly. I have a long road ahead before I cross that bridge but I like flying low and fast. My first helicopter ride was 20 ft above a glacier at a blistering speed...... and I was hooked. What where some of your more memorable moments flying, "I assume," a Apache?

There I was, halfway through an RTT, air medals banging off my visor, rockets was'd with my old friend 30 Mike Mike waiting in the batters box, and 20 insurgents holding RPGs and PKMs while hiding in culvert. Just as I rolled out and declared myself inbound hot my mom got scared and said "you're moving with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel-Air".

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