Expert: James Bell - 1/20/2010

Question
Hi, I'm 20 years old and I'm looking to enlist into the airforce in the next 6 months. So far from my research online, I've decided that I would enjoy a position on a flight crew. I love flying, skydiving and anything to do with the air. I was the kid who tried to make gliders and jump off hills on windy days. Eventually i want to fly commercially. So my first question is, just how many jobs are there on a flight crew ? I've read all the jobs on the airforce website a couple times now, but I was hoping as someone who's been inside you could tell me more specifically. Second, can I request getting jobs on certain planes or choppers when I enlist, or do they just put me wherever?
I read on one of the answers you gave someone else a while back that flight engineers have to go through another job before becoming an engineer, do you know if this still holds true? (I saw you said something about opening it up to first timers) Out of the jobs on the airforce website, flight engineer is the one that catches my eye the most. If i have to do something else in order to get to it, that's fine, I was looking at 'airborne mission systems apprentice', do you know anything about what that would entail, and could that lead to becoming a flight engineer? Also, what are my chances of getting stationed over seas in a flight crew?

Thanks so much for reading this, I know it's a lot, but the only people i know that have been in the airforce have done HVAC.

Answer
Anthonie -

I can't give you any updates on if the Air Force is accepting flight engineers as an entry level job, but looking as I haven't seen any changes in he qualification criteria, I would think not.  Any of the other aircrew careers (AFSC 1A) can be feeder fields into the flight engineer job, as well as many of the aircraft maintenance fields.

I'm not sure if I can give you a quantity number of how many loadmaster there are out there.  Each squadron, depending on mission tasking, has about 40, and there are lots of squadrons and lots of airframes to choose from.

The best way to get assigned to a particular aircraft is to choose a base and region where the aircraft is primarily assigned.  If you want C-5's, you want Travis AFB, CA or Dover AFB, DE.  If you want C-17's, then you want Charleston AFB, SC, McChord AFB, WA, McGuire AFB, NJ or Travis AFB, CA.  I'm not sure if they have opened assignments to those aircraft at any other bases, as they were just getting fully assigned at the time of my retirement.

I can't give you any inside information on airborne mission systems ... I never did that one.

I hope this gives you a little more information.  Please don't hesitate to write back if you have more questions.

Sincerely,
James Bell