SBuzzkill

In Afghanistan? The few times we were assigned to QRF we still flew. Every day was at least 4-5 hours in the air, sometimes broken up into multiple windows. With only 5 aircraft we put up 2 teams every single day without skipping a beat. Everyone in the troop flew between 90-110 hours a month.

As an Army Aviator you'll do training events all over the U.S. We usually flew ourselves to these events in multi-day cross countries we called "self deployments." They took a couple weeks leading up to the launch to plan and prepare for. Hotel reservations, flight planning, coordinating crew chief and equipment transport, briefings, etc. And that's just for the flight to the event. However many aircraft we'd be bringing was how many were in the formation, sometimes accompanied by a chase bird (usually a UH-60 from another company heading down). Usually it was around 6 of us. So for us slow pokes it was me and 11 of my buddies blasting across the country together on a 3-4 day trip to wherever we were going. On one memorable trip we were heading down to Louisiana from Upstate New York for a rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center. It was a decisive action rotation, which meant that instead of living on the "FOB" and doing counter insurgency stuff, we'd be living in tents and digging foxholes fighting a "near peer" enemy. Higher intensity, more suck if you will. But there was always about a week of living in a staging area before you started the rotation. As we were on our way down for what we were sure was going to be a miserable rotation, we ended up getting cut off by a line of thunderstorms. The problem with flying north/south through the country is that you're constantly flying along fronts instead of across them, and they tend to bend a bit so that you never get behind them. After a slow slog of waiting on weather, launching, waiting out weather, we ended up in Oxford, Mississippi. Having no idea where that was most of us were surprised to see a college campus next door to the airport with "Ole Miss" written on the water tower. We checked into our rooms and quickly changed to head out on the town. Most of us ended up in a bar. I can't speak for all units but when my troop was on the road the warrant officers generally tried to keep a relatively low profile. But here we were in a college town, very out of place, and no matter what sort of excuse we came up with we were obviously not from around there. The bar tender took notice, and asked my friend and I what we were doing there. "Just passing through" is what we told him. He didn't buy it and kept poking and prodding until finally he exclaims, "WERE YOU THE BOYS FLYING THOSE HELICOPTERS IN?!" Apparently, he was at a barbecue and we flew overhead. He quickly announced our presence to the owner of the bar, who decided that my entire troop was going to drink for free that night. Let's just say we had a good time and it was a good send off for our trip into "the box." The rotation itself was nothing to write home about. Lots of traditional Army flying performing screens, recons, some live fire, and pulling security around our base. I spent quite a bit of time up in the live fire area shooting for the ground units. I don't recall how I got so lucky, but live fire was great because you slept in a plywood shack instead of in a tent. The very last night after an intense sh*t-show of a mission, a huge line of storms started rolling through and all of the sudden we were getting told to head for the forward operating base they had set up there. That was weird because all of our stuff was in the tents on the other side of the training area and that's where the rest of our aircraft were too. Once we landed we got the birds tied down the four of us were kind of looking at each other wondering what to do now. Out of the darkness a random range truck comes hauling ass up and the guy driving tells us to get in quick. Turns out they had a tornado warning and we needed to get to a hardened shelter quick. That was the end of our rotation. The rest of our unit met us there at some point I can't remember, maybe the next day. Talking with the guys up at the live fire range they had quite a show and if I recall correctly even got a picture of the tornado. The final tradition of any JRTC rotation is to talk one of the civilian contractors into going and getting a bunch of crawfish for a last night feast, they always tasted better than any other time I've had them.

After being signed off on the basic flying as a new aviator, it was time to start training in team flying. The unit instructor pilots were taking myself and my platoon leader out for a progression flight to start working toward our next sign off. I showed up to find the LT sitting down at the computer already planning. Afraid I missed something and was late I asked him what he was doing. “I was told to plan a flight to Piercefield, we’re going to look for a missing teenager.” Soon one of the instructors poked his head into the room and gave us some more guidance. He said we were flying out toward the Adirondacks to help a park ranger search for a missing person. Thinking this was some outlandish scenario our instructors had thought up I played along. We planned a flight out there and got our stuff ready. We met up and did our team brief, talked about who we were going to get ahold of, and headed out to the flight line. Eventually I realized it was not a joke and that we were actually going to go do this. It was a 40 minute flight out to Tupper Lake from Fort Drum, which didn’t leave us with much gas to play around with before we had to head back. We got in touch with the park ranger who briefed us up on where to search. They had divers in the water, a sheriff helicopter in the lake, and tons of volunteers on foot in the woods around the area. A 19 year old boy had walked away from a party in the middle of the night and disappeared from the side of the highway. We passed overhead then started our search. Focusing on streams, ravines, roads, trails, anything that he might have traveled down we searched back and forth. There was snow on the ground and we had very little information to work with. But there were no leaves in the trees to block our view so our hopes were high. Staying within a few miles of the town we covered as much ground as we could in the short play time we had. After about 30 minutes we hit our “bingo” and had to call up Ranger Burns to let him know we were heading back to base. Disappointed that we didn’t find anything but excited about the opportunity to combine some training with a real world mission we flew back and shut down. Debriefing the techniques we used and their relevance to reconnaissance one of the instructors mentioned we might get in trouble for what we did, due to the whole Posse Comitatus Act. News did make its way up the chain, but we ended up with only a “nice job, but do it through the proper channels next time.” Some random New York pics:

I finished up my time after the OH-58D had been retired by flying OH-58Cs for Eagle Team at the National Training Center. That was a fantastic assignment. The flying was great, no deployments, and home every night. One of the more unique things we did at least for modern Army Aviation was single pilot flying. It was our regular mission to take a bird out solo, whether to pick up our OC counterparts, fly the birds down to get washed or maintenance, or sometimes just to put time on the aircraft. We even did solo NVG flights. NTC is roughly the size of the state of Rhode Island, and goes from around 3,000 feet at the low point to over 6,000 up in the Avawatz mountains. All of that area was fair game for us to fly around and land wherever we wanted. It was a blast. During the training rotations we'd spend 6-8 hours a day chasing AH-64s around as they did their missions. Off rotations we'd fill the schedule with training flights, or simply do our work for the day and go home. We were close to Death Valley and on one of my last flights in the Army we landed down below sea level at Furnace Creek, then headed out to Big Bear in the mountains above Los Angeles. It was 90+ degrees in Death Valley and closer to 50 degrees up in the mountains. Quite the difference. I spent lots of time flying in the mountains there landing on pinnacles and mountain tops to get a good view of the "battlefield." Sometimes it was fun, other times when the winds were howling and the nights were dark, it wasn't so fun. I had some of the most intense flying of my career working there and would not recommend it for new aviators. We had shifts for the rotations and if the OC needed me I had a radio so they could get ahold of me. I'd usually head in, preflight my helicopter, and hang out in the office waiting for them to call me. Once they did I'd head to the aircraft and take off to go meet them in the desert wherever they were. They'd climb in, brief me up on what the Apaches were doing, and then we'd wait for the AHs to come up on the radios. They'd tell us when we were taking off and we'd follow them out to wherever they were working. We'd monitor their communication, movement, and when they attacked the opposing force we would adjudicate their "kills." I'd spend my day flying from hilltop to hilltop, or landing in the valley, then following them back to their FARP. We could usually get 3+ hours out of a "bag" of gas because we spent so much time at idle on the ground "perched" as we called it. Every once in a while I'd get called to pick up a VIP and transport them somewhere. Usually we had a Blackhawk unit that did that but when they were too busy we'd get the tasking. The cool thing about the OH-58C is that I could sit whoever I wanted up front with me. So if they wanted to I'd let them sit up front at a set of controls, of course I never let them actually fly But it was always fun blasting around the deserts in Southern California. We rarely flew above 100 feet unless we were climbing up into the mountains. Off rotations we'd go out and see what kind of wildlife we could spot. I've seen bobcats, bighorn sheep, rabbits, snakes, eagles, hawks, donkeys, you name it. I don't think there's anywhere else in the world where someone will throw you the keys to a turbine helicopter and say "go put 6 hours on it. I don't care what you do."

My time in Afghanistan was largely uneventful. OH-58s had a reputation with the senior leaders in RC East so we had quite a leash put on us while we were there. Initially we weren't even supposed to deploy with the brigade, but there was a need for us and they quickly called our troop over to assist with security. We never quite figured out what they were afraid of us doing, as the Apaches were out blowing the countryside up left and right, LoL! I spent most of my time on the midnight shift, waking up at 11pm and stumbling my way to the shower trailer to get ready. After that it was a 50 yard walk to the troop command post where I'd grab my gear with the rest of the team and head to the aircraft to preflight and arrange/rearrange our weapons load out (yeah, I carried my ammo/rockets from the FARP and loaded it on the pad). After preflight we'd walk over to the task force command post and receive our briefing, which included our timeline and mission for the day. Then we'd head back to the troop command post (which was a "b-hut", a tiny 2 room plywood building) and conduct our internal briefing. With those briefs combined we'd spend no joke 2+ hours just talking about the day's missions. We were assigned "windows" for our flying to avoid overlapping with other teams. Sometimes we'd take off right away, other times our window was later and we'd just go run up the aircraft to check the systems. How we spent our time in between was up to our air mission commanders, who usually preferred watching movies or the Indian satellite TV that we subscribed to. An interesting point about that is American TVs are not fully compatible with foreign transmissions, and all of our satellite TV was in black and white. We were always ready to run to the aircraft and get off the ground quickly if we needed to respond to something. Once we did take off we almost always started out with a test fire. After killing the sh*t out of a bush or a rock we'd head over for our assigned mission. Lots of circles, looking at random stuff, FARP turns to refuel, more looking at stuff, taking notes, etc. Sometimes we'd have a break so we'd head in and grab breakfast. Other times we'd be so busy we'd just ask the FARP for some snacks. They were awesome and always had some rad breakfast stuff to hand off to us. I loved our armament guys, and as that armament officer I worked very closely with them to ensure our weapons were always where they needed to be. Most of the time nothing happened and we'd just head back to base. Other times we'd get called in to a troops in contact only to arrive and find the shooting had stopped. Or our command would decide to use the Apaches and call us back. We'd fly into the daylight, often finishing up around 10am. Back to the CP for a quick debrief with intelligence and hand off any pictures I might have taken that day. Then it was off to bed for me, in the sweltering heat. Our AC in the sleeping hut usually worked pretty good, and eventually winter came and the heat went away. So did the rocket attacks, although they never truly stopped.

We've been hitting the whole 10 year ADSO should you join thing pretty hard lately, and while there's some value in that, it's not relevant to those of you who have already started down this path. I enjoy writing and talking about myself so I'll share some stories about the days when you do fly. Maybe that will help your motivation, or maybe not. If you have stories of your own feel free to add them in. I'll start off with one of my favorite missions during my career, which was the multi-purpose range complex in Korea. We spent 9 months on a rotation in Korea as our last hurrah before the unit was reflagged as an Apache unit. Most of our time was spent at "home" near the flag pole but every so often we'd head up for a couple weeks at the range to support whatever ground unit was also training there. I always had a blast. The week would start off with a reposition up there, which was about a forty minute flight if I recall correctly. We'd pack up the trucks who would convoy up with our equipment, then we'd head over to the flight line and get the birds ready to go. Simple cross country flight up with 6 or so birds in formation, and we'd refuel them up at the range and land them in the parking lot. Grab our gear and head to the command post designated for us to drop our stuff off. Sleeping in open bays, our duffel bags and stuff was usually dumped randomly on bunks so you'd have to go find your sh*t then try and finagle the bunk you really wanted. Anyways, the missions up there were live fire so we'd rehearse with the tank unit (or whoever we were supporting) and figure out timelines and all that. Build our paperwork and get ready for the next day's missions. That soaked up most of our initial days at the range. Lots of dead time in between so there was all sorts of tom foolery, throwing rocks, movies, dipping, walking around, working out, etc. Whatever shift you were on determined when you woke up, and we generally did stuff as a team. We'd meet up and head to get some food, then grab our stuff and go to the main command post to receive our briefing for the mission. Then it was preflight time, get our stuff situated in the aircraft, and we'd head back to our own little hut and sit down as a team and discuss our plan. After that we might wait around for a bit, or head to the birds. Get in, run them up, check our radios and equipment, and take off. A quick little circle back to the arming and refuel point to load up on bullets and rockets. Because weight and balance and performance planning was our own responsibility we had a lot of flexibility in how much fuel/ammo we wanted. It was quicker for one of us to get out and help load rockets so we usually did. Once we were loaded we'd take off and link up in the air. Climb up, circle in our holding area and try to get a hold of the ground unit. The left seat pilot in the lead aircraft always talked to the unit we were working for, and they drove the mission. Once we'd get in contact we'd wait for their signal for us to come in and shoot for them. Once we had the word we'd do a quick communication about our tactics and then bomb in on the target. We always had a simulated threat to contend against and that would shape how you flew. Generally it was low and fast, weaving and bobbing through the trees and valley, down the hill, and then a quick climb up to start shooting. The OH-58 did not have flexible weapons, so you had a grease mark on the windshield to aim and shooting was a WW2 style strafing run. You'd shoot, break turn out of the way as your trail aircraft started shooting. Then they'd break off and we'd bob and weave our way around for another attack. Repeat until we needed to get more fuel and ammo. Head back to the FARP, load up, and take back off. This went on for hours and sometimes we'd have lots of time waiting for the ground unit to get set/reset. Missions could be up to 8 hours of flying. By the time we were done and the birds were spinning down it was complete exhaustion. Grab some food, collapse into a camp chair, and watch a movie on the laptop. All the fun of a deployment without anyone shooting back. I really, really miss those days. Here's some random Korea pictures:

I loved my Army time. 9 years served with 8 years of flying in the Army with an average of 17.7 hours per month in the air. It came in waves though and generally a flight was 4-6 hours, so many times I’d go weeks or even months without a flight. An example would be in between rotations or deployments when the aircraft are in transit or reset, the unit will not fly. As a junior warrant officer most of your time will be spent working on your additional duties. I worked around 50 hour work weeks most of the year. 2 hours a day for PT, the rest doing additional duties, mandatory training, formations, helping others with their duties, ranges, packing, unpacking, sitting in meetings, etc. Out of flight school was 2 months of aviation life support equipment school and then 4 months of rear detail assistant S2, which is the intelligence shop. After that stayed in a line unit bouncing between flying and additional duties for the rest of my time. Most warrant officers will eventually track and start working in their specialty. Instructor Pilots aside, it’s a lot of admin/ground based work. You’re also always on the list for staff duty officer or field officer of the day, courtesy patrol, etc. You’re a soldier first, then an officer, then an aviator. Your command will generally prioritize what you do in that order. Flying is feast or famine, and hardly ever a steady thing. I had a blast as a mid/high grade CW2 un-tracked pilot in command. I’d say that’s probably the sweetest things will get for a warrant officer. After that things get too political. But as with all other things Army, your mileage may vary. Also, life during the last decade isn’t comparable to life now. Different OPTEMPO, missions, AOs, airframes, communities... My experience probably isn’t relevant anymore. Good luck with your choice!

Better this than the endless “January Board” “March Board” “WOCS 20-22” threads.

Good article but not really raising any points that haven't been discussed here. One thing I see from the 10 year ADSO, which ends up being a ~12 year additional commitment, is that there is a sweet spot for enlisted applicants. If you have 10+ years in service you are now committed to serve beyond 20 years. I'm not sure that's too palatable, but I've never been in that position. The sweet spot it would seem is for soldiers who are relatively junior with less than 10 years of service, which keeps them retained for longer but reduces the overall experience of the Warrant Officer Corp. For street to seat you are now asking to sign your life for more than a decade of service. When I was weighing my options it was bearable to think of 7-8 years of my life. I'm not sure as a 21 year old I would be so inclined to serve knowing I would be 33 before being able to resign. Maybe, but if commercial aviation recovers it will be a tough sell. Ultimately, I joined because I didn't have many other options and I wanted to serve while we were at war in Iraq and Afghanistan. I doubt I would make the same choice today. You cannot compare leaving the military as a helicopter pilot to leaving as an airplane pilot. The career outlooks, pay, and quality of life are vastly different. For those considering it, keep in mind the Army is unpredictable. In 6 short months we went from having a replacement OH-58F on the way, to the entire community being divided up into those with transitions, those that might get them, and those who were forced out. 2 years later the entire airframe and community was gone. Think about that before being so confident in your willingness to sign 12 years of your life over to the Army. I served beyond my initial commitment because I enjoyed flying in the Army and was able to continue doing that after they retired the OH-58D. But I had the option. I was done with my commitment. Towards the end of my service I was offered to transition to the Apache but after 9 years, some combat time, a bunch of hairy flying, I was ready to call it quits. This is a dangerous job, and my nerves were shot. And that's the thing, if you asked me as a fresh PC a couple years out of flight school what my plan was I would have told you I was going to fly the OH-58 forever and retire from the Army. Anyway, that's a lot of rambling and not really anything to do with the article. But those are my thoughts.

Is there not a career manager assigned to that? I can't login to HRC anymore, but I would start there. They usually put information like that on their page. https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/Officer Personnel Management Directorate If there's nothing there once you're done with flight school you can contact your own career manager and ask them about it.

Ah, either way what a lame way to do it.

I forgot with the Lakota you’re getting wings after IERW. Is that when the 10 year ADSO will start too?

Back to WOC for the duration of flight school?

There is no formula for success at a board and each one is different depending on the applicant group. If you qualify then consider yourself competitive. Sometimes they can’t even fill a board and everyone that qualifies gets in. Other times they have to be selective and everyone on the board has flight time and degrees. There’s no way to know.

That’s a personal decision. It was very worth it for me, and you can read my opinions on the commitment in other threads. That aside, nobody else is going to give you a guaranteed flight slot without a college degree. If you’re like me, this is your only shot at military flying without completing college. If you do have a degree, I would encourage you to research other branches and weigh your options. Do your research!