Several fighter pilots-to-be have asked what a “typical day” is like for a fighter pilot.\u00a0 Like many professions, coming up with a “standard” day is difficult.\u00a0 Every squadron on every base in every command is slightly different.\u00a0 Each has its own nuances, and all of them cannot possibly be included here.\u00a0 What follows is a generalized “day in the life of a fighter pilot.”<\/p>\n
Here’s the short answer, with a much more detailed explanation to follow.\u00a0 The full explanation is significantly more complex, as will become apparent.<\/p>\n
0230: Arrive at work
\n0300: Mass Brief
\n0315: Flight Brief
\n0500: Step
\n0600: Takeoff
\n0715: Land
\n0830: Debrief
\n1045: Complete Debrief
\n1145: Begin Mission Planning for next day
\n1430: Depart work to ensure crew rest<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe Pilot<\/strong><\/p>\n
First, we must define the pilot.\u00a0 Let’s say he is a first lieutenant (LT), a relatively recent graduate of his basic fighter training course.\u00a0 He is at his first operational fighter assignment, and he’s done with his upgrades and is now “mission ready,” or a true go-to-war qualified wingman.\u00a0 The squadron leadership decided to put him in the scheduling shop.\u00a0 He also has an additional, unofficial duty of “squadron snacko.”<\/p>\n
The Day<\/strong><\/p>\n
A typical fighter pilot day revolves around the flying schedule, and the flying schedule very often depends on the sun.\u00a0 If a squadron is trying to maximize the available flying day, the first sorties may be scheduled to take off only a few minutes after sunrise.\u00a0 If the squadron is night flying, the first sorties of the day may take off more than an hour after sunset.\u00a0 Let’s assume that it’s the middle of the summer, it’s a day-flying squadron, and sunrise is about 0530.<\/p>\n
Let’s call today Wednesday.\u00a0 Our young first lieutenant is scheduled to fly a “standard” mission for his squadron.\u00a0 The precise mission is unimportant, but assuming he’s in an air-to-ground squadron, it may be a four-ship bombing mission with some “red air,” one or two squadron mates pretending to be the enemy.\u00a0 He’s scheduled to take off at 0600\u2014early, but not unheard of.<\/p>\n
The Preparation<\/strong><\/p>\n
The first thing the LT has to do is plan the mission.\u00a0 Like every good wingman, he talked to his flight lead the day prior (Tuesday) and discussed what the requirements of the mission were going to be.\u00a0 Once given the direction of the flight lead, he tried to find one of the other pilots in their formation.\u00a0 Assuming they’re not busy with other tasks (or currently flying another mission), they’ll team together to plan the mission.\u00a0 The exact process is not important here, but it generally involves generating the mission materials (data cards, electronic files, target photos, things like that) for all the pilots in the mission.\u00a0 Very complex missions require an immense amount of planning; for very intense missions, it often takes a day or more to plan.\u00a0 Very benign missions require almost no planning at all.\u00a0 Some “simple” air-to-air missions can be planned in less than 30 minutes.\u00a0 Let’s pick a relatively common average and say it took our LT 3 hours to plan the mission.<\/p>\n
Once the LT is finished planning and knows he’ll be ready to fly in the morning, he’ll leave for the day.\u00a0 Current Air Force rules require that single-seat fighter pilots get 12 hours of “crew rest.”\u00a0 This means that the LT needs to leave work no later than 12 hours before he comes back into work tomorrow, if he wants to fly.<\/p>\n
In the morning, our young fighter pilot will go through two briefings.\u00a0 The first is a Mass Brief, in which the squadron leadership will brief very generic administrative things like the weather and the airfield status.\u00a0 Everyone who is flying that day will attend the brief.\u00a0 The LT will then move to his flight brief where they’ll brief the actual mechanics of the sortie.\u00a0 The Mass Brief in this squadron is scheduled to occur 3 hours prior to take off; in this case, 0300\u2014well before the sun has come up.\u00a0 In order to gather his materials and make sure he’s ready, our LT decides to show up at 0230.\u00a0 This means he has to leave work no later than 1430 on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The “Typical” Day<\/strong><\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning our LT beats the rest of the base to work.\u00a0 He meets his flight lead at 0230 and irons out any last minute questions before the Mass Brief.\u00a0 The Mass Brief starts at 0300 and lasts for 15 minutes.\u00a0 The 6 people involved in today’s mission (his own 4-ship and the 2-ship of red air) then go to another room and brief the sortie.\u00a0 The briefing will cover everything that will happen from the moment they leave the briefing room to the moment they return to debrief.\u00a0 The briefing will last about an hour and half.\u00a0 At 0445, the flight lead will wrap up the brief (if he’s good).\u00a0 That will give the flight members a few minutes to grab a drink, hit the bathroom, and grab their life support gear before they meet at the Operations Desk at 0500, one hour prior to takeoff.\u00a0 At the Ops Desk they’ll receive any last minute information from the Operations Supervisor at the desk, and then “step” to the aircraft.\u00a0 At 0520 they will all start engines\u2014not one minute prior nor one minute later.\u00a0 At 0537, there will be a crisp check-in on the radio:\u00a0 “Sting Check\u2026” “2,” “3,” “4.”\u00a0 The flight will taxi to the runway at exactly 0540.\u00a0 At exactly 0600, give or take a few seconds, the four-ship will take off.<\/p>\n
The sortie duration (time from take off to landing) varies depending on the mission.\u00a0 For this mission, we’ll go with a generic average of 1 hour and 15 minutes, or a 1+15 (since pilots talk in tenths of hours, it will actually be a 1.3).\u00a0 Because no pilot is ever late, at exactly 0715 our young LT’s wheels will touch down on the runway.\u00a0 Fifteen minutes later he’ll be back in the chocks in parking, and 15 minutes after that he’ll finally be back in the building.\u00a0 After turning his life support gear back in and telling maintenance the status of the aircraft, he’ll find his flight lead to establish a debrief time, if one wasn’t set in the initial brief.\u00a0 It’s now 0745, and the flight lead tells the LT that they’ll start the debrief at 0815.\u00a0 This gives the LT 30 minutes to gather his mission materials, review his tapes, and grab breakfast (or lunch, more accurately, since he’s probably been awake for 7 hours already).<\/p>\n
At exactly 0815, the young LT is already seated in the debrief room with his tapes cued to the spot directed by his flight lead.\u00a0 Like everything else, debrief times can vary widely.\u00a0 Some flights are debriefed in less than 5 minutes; others, over a period of days.\u00a0 For a typical average, let’s use 2.5 hours.\u00a0 Now our young LT walks out of the debrief at 1045.\u00a0 Not even lunch time and he’s already got a sortie done; not bad.\u00a0 Remember, though, that if he’s scheduled to fly again on Thursday with another 0600 takeoff, he needs to leave the squadron in less than 4 hours.\u00a0 If he needs to spend another 3 hours planning the next day’s sortie, he’s got less than an hour to himself.<\/p>\n
Not Done Yet: More Jobs<\/strong><\/p>\n
Besides flying, which you can see has virtually filled the day already, our LT also has a “real job.”\u00a0 We picked scheduling, but it could have been any one of the multitude of jobs in the squadron:\u00a0 Stan\/Eval, Training, Weapons, Life Support, and Safety are the most common.\u00a0 In any one of those jobs, our LT may have reports to generate, briefings to give, or other deadlines to meet or products to create.\u00a0 As a scheduler, after the debrief ended at 1045 our LT may have to build the next day’s schedule, generate reports off of the previous days’ flying, or plan an airspace meeting.<\/p>\n
Virtually every fighter pilot has a similar workload, and the workload generally increases with increased rank and responsibility.\u00a0 That’s why time management and teamwork are vital.\u00a0 Let’s say our LT does have another flight on Thursday.\u00a0 He also has a scheduling report due to the squadron commander the same day as well as a briefing on Friday.\u00a0 He finds the other members of his flight for Thursday and gets them to do the initial planning by themselves; he’ll join them for the last hour or so.\u00a0 That frees up two hours to work on other things.\u00a0 Now time management kicks in.\u00a0 If he’s giving a briefing on Friday, he’s probably not flying, which means he won’t have to mission plan on Thursday.\u00a0 This means he can use Thursday afternoon to work the briefing and can dedicate his two “free” hours today to writing the report for the commander.\u00a0 Thanks to the help of his flight mates, he’s able to get his work done.\u00a0 It’s very likely that he’ll repay the favor next week, when he mission plans for one of them while they get something else done.<\/p>\n
The Never-Ending Day<\/strong><\/p>\n
If we carry our scenario a little further, you’ll find the trap that pilots often fall into.\u00a0 Let’s say on Thursday the brief ends at the same time, 1045.\u00a0 Our young LT then works on the brief he has to give on Friday.\u00a0 Let’s say he works on the brief for 6 hours, which isn’t unreasonable.\u00a0 Assuming he doesn’t stop for lunch (there’s no such thing as a lunch hour in a fighter squadron), he’ll be done at 1645.\u00a0 He’ll be done just in time to catch the tail end of the 1630 rush\u2014when all the non-flight line people make a bee-line for the base gate.\u00a0 Importantly, though, many of them (not all), have been at work since 0730, and many (again, not all), took an hour for lunch.\u00a0 So while the LT is in traffic with people from the rest of the base, our aviator has put in more than 14 hours compared to the non-flyer’s 8 hours.<\/p>\n
I don’t mean to imply that fighter pilots work harder than others; I only intend to show that many people don’t understand that pilots do not work “9 to 5” jobs.\u00a0 Most people think that all pilots do is fly; they can’t comprehend the preparation, execution, or analysis each sortie entails\u2014nor the fact that pilots fly and accomplish other duties.\u00a0 When they see a guy in the Commissary in a flight suit at 1430, they assume he’s gotten his sortie and he’s done for the day.\u00a0 They don’t realize he may have just put in a 12 hour day (or more)\u2014and he left work not because he was done with his work, but because he had to leave in order to be legal to fly the next day.\u00a0 (That’s also why many older officers will take work home.\u00a0 They’re technically in crew rest, but they can still get work done.)<\/p>\n
One More Job<\/strong><\/p>\n
Our young LT’s work is not yet complete, however.\u00a0 Remember, he had three tasks.\u00a0 His third and “unofficial” duty is to be the “snacko.”\u00a0 The snacko is generally the youngest officer in the squadron.\u00a0 His job is to keep the thirst and hunger of the squadron satisfied by keeping the snack bar stocked.\u00a0 If the refrigerator is ever empty (or even just out of the commander’s favorite beverage), he’ll bear the wrath of his squadron mates.\u00a0 While not an intense task, spending a few hours grocery shopping every few days only adds to a pilot’s already busy schedule.<\/p>\n
Variables and Flexibility<\/strong><\/p>\n
Most pilots don’t fly every day, though there are times when it does occur.\u00a0 A working average would probably be 2 to 3 sorties a week.\u00a0 This is where time management and personal discipline actually show themselves.\u00a0 For example, our young LT above may have goofed off on Monday and put himself in the position of staying late on Thursday to finish his brief.\u00a0 With a little foresight he may have been able to work on or finish the brief on Monday.\u00a0 In addition, on non-fly days pilots often do not have scheduled activities.\u00a0 This means that they must decide for themselves when to come to work and when to go home.\u00a0 In general, there is no “0730 show time,” pilots are simply expected to be professional enough to come to work and get their job done.\u00a0 That doesn’t mean they have to come in at 0300 with the guys flying, but they do need to come in at a reasonable hour and accomplish their work.<\/p>\n
The 0600 time was also notional.\u00a0 It’s entirely possible that a pilot’s duty day might be shifted several hours to one side or the other.\u00a0 An 1100 take off would make the pilot’s day from 0730 to 1545, which would essentially “fill” the nominal Air Force duty day with just one sortie.\u00a0 A pilot on that schedule who had the same tasks to accomplish might not leave work until 1930 (if he had a flight the next day) or later.<\/p>\n
Again, there are hundreds of variables that were left out for simplicity’s sake. \u00a0If a pilot neglects to plan on Friday for a Monday sortie, he may be forced to come in on Sunday to mission plan.\u00a0 If the sortie had air refueled, the sortie duration may have been a 2.5, which would have backed up the entire day over an hour. \u00a0Many operational squadrons “hot pit:”\u00a0 They land, hook up to fuel lines while the engine is still running, and take off again on a second sortie. \u00a0In that case, it might be 4 or 5 hours from the pilot’s first take off until his second landing; using the same example schedule from above, he’ll be done with his debrief at about 1300\u2014meaning he has only an hour and a half before his crew rest runs out for the next day’s sortie.<\/p>\n
It is likely that in his first operational year a fighter pilot will experience the gamut:\u00a0 taking off just after sunrise, landing well after midnight, flying twice a day for a week, or not flying at all for a week.\u00a0 The “flexibility” (inconsistency sounds negative) of a flying squadron’s schedule is something that it takes many pilots a while to get used to; that is also why it is so difficult to quickly answer the question “What’s a typical fighter pilot’s day?” \u00a0The lack of daily routine also sometimes makes it difficult to plan, whether it’s for appointments, exercise, Bible studies, or even dinner with family.\u00a0 The lack of a constant schedule may be the one constant in a fighter pilot’s flying life.\u00a0 In some respects, it may well prepare him for the “flexibility” required when deploying and flying in combat.<\/p>\n
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