Welcome to the Pilot Spec Ops discussion blog. The purpose of this blog is to foster discussion between future Air Force officers interested in flying spec ops aircraft and current pilots in flying such planes. The 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.
I flew some special ops C-141 missions and I can give you some generalities--not specifics about dedicated special ops airframes.
First, "a day in the life" is somewhat of a misnomer for spec ops missions. It is almost always "a night in the life". Most spec ops missions involve night flying on nogs (night vision goggles).
A typical training mission involves at least one day of planning prior to the mission. You will meet with your crew on the day prior to the mission and plan the route (low-level and air refueling). These involve detailed map and threat studies and are quite time intensive. Sometimes, two days of planning may be necessary.
The day of the mission, you will arrive at your base for a detailed intel and pre-flight briefing which will probably last 1-2 hours. After that, you will go to your aircraft and do a pre-flight and prep for your flight. You will take-off well after dark and fly all night long. Normally you will do a low-level route to a target for a drop, bomb-run, or assault landing (blacked-out, of course). After the low-level route, you will hit a tanker and head back to your home station just before dawn.
When not flying training missions, you will spend a lot of time on alert status to be ready when called to go execute your mission any where in the world.
2 comments:
What do you do when you're not deployed? what would a typcical day look like?
I flew some special ops C-141 missions and I can give you some generalities--not specifics about dedicated special ops airframes.
First, "a day in the life" is somewhat of a misnomer for spec ops missions. It is almost always "a night in the life". Most spec ops missions involve night flying on nogs (night vision goggles).
A typical training mission involves at least one day of planning prior to the mission. You will meet with your crew on the day prior to the mission and plan the route (low-level and air refueling). These involve detailed map and threat studies and are quite time intensive. Sometimes, two days of planning may be necessary.
The day of the mission, you will arrive at your base for a detailed intel and pre-flight briefing which will probably last 1-2 hours. After that, you will go to your aircraft and do a pre-flight and prep for your flight. You will take-off well after dark and fly all night long. Normally you will do a low-level route to a target for a drop, bomb-run, or assault landing (blacked-out, of course). After the low-level route, you will hit a tanker and head back to your home station just before dawn.
When not flying training missions, you will spend a lot of time on alert status to be ready when called to go execute your mission any where in the world.
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