While researching for more information about the Aerial Gunner AFSC, I kept coming upon posts all over the internet about a merge between AGs and FEs. Most of these posts date back to July 2007, etc. and comment how the merger was supposed to occur within the next 6 months or so. Anyone have any knowledge about this merger still happening? Was it just a passing suggestion by the higher-ups, a bunch of recruit gossip or is there serious moves being made to merge the two AFSCs?
All hail the mighty "do more with less". I attended a briefing in late 06 by the enlisted flier's functional chief and he mentioned that it was happening within the next two years (08'ish). He also mentioned boomers merging with loadies...
When I went through the new BAG (basic Aerial Gunner) course in Nov 07 our first block was straight from the FE course, hell it still had references in it saying things like "as a FE" and the material still said BASIC FLIGHT ENGINEERING at the bottom.
so to answer your question yes they are starting to combine them very slowly.
I can see the big picture i suppose. boomers, loadys, FE's, and even arieal gunners are gunna deal with weight and balance, safety and other fundimental crew postion duties. u know what other career feild falls into those fundimentals.. flight attendant.. how would u like that, to get non vol'd to a base tht needs flight attendants and yur AFSC matches the position... Totally different world. I'm against the final goal of 1 aircrew AFSC. I was a 1A5 when i joined. notice that AFSC doesn't exist anymore. I was trained as a radar/computer tech. I don't know **** about radios, but my afsc says i'm a fully qualified radio operator/technician now. sooo tech school was pointless??
I have a radio operator in my squadron who was an ART on awacs up till last year. He cross flowed to radio operator and is flying on MC-130P's with me now. He did excellent through the course at Kirtland, and won NCO of the year this year for our squadron. He will be going to instructor upgrade when he gets his last 100 hours needed. Maybe the Air Force has a little bigger picture of how AFSC's line up?
u know what squadron he came from? AWACS is a small world. I'm a CDMT and my first actual deployment to a combat zone was in iraq as a comm tech/ radio operator on a c-130... go figure. I-UP after 100 hours?? Man thats quick
He was from Alaska which was his first assignment. The upgrade is 500 hours. He already has 400 of the required hours plus all the hours from AWACS count towards prior flying experience.
Dirtygunr, the reason you materials still had "FE" in them was because the gunner mgr at kirtland was a BOS and cut and pasted applicable parts of our FE material instead of writing it himself. I think this idea will remain a pipedream for a while.
