Average flight time for an F-16 pilot?

How much flight time does the average F-16 pilot get in a year? How much for a guard pilot?

I guess whats put out on the web is accurate,since nobody is speaking up. 250 hrs a yr .is what ive heard on the web.

250/year, that'd be nice. That's probably around the higher end. Minimum if you're inexperienced is 10 sorties a month, or about 13 Hours (or 156 Hours per year). If you average about a 1.3 each sortie, you'd have to fly four times a week, every week to get close to 250. Sounds a little high, but maybe I'm just not flying enough! I'd say closer to 200 on average. Anyone else, feel free to pipe up and correct me.

Rex are you regular, or reserve/guard ?

Active Duty

I hear gaurds get more stick regularly. I guess the smaller selection pull allows you to get picked more. Who knows!?

Anyone know how fast combat time builds up? Ive heard in three months you can get up to 250+ hours.

-Aaron

Rexxxx wrote:250/year, that'd be nice. That's probably around the higher end.

Wow, that's really not very much. Is that due to budget cuts? If so, what was the typical flying amount done 10-15 years ago?

Jake

I believe that the NATO minimum requirement is something like 100-120 hrs per year. Getting more than 200-250 is difficult even for the best of tehm from what I understand.
Lets hear if any of the real jocks can answer this one

Umm, I vote that Rexxxx is a "real jock"!

How much is flight time vs sim time ?

It was my understanding that Guard guys get WAY less time in the cockpit. Think about the fact that to keep proficient you have to fly 6 sorties a month...then take into account bad weather....etc...and well you get the picture.
As for desert deployments, racking up the hours is pretty easy...think about OIF/OEF missions anywhere from 2-10 hours depending on which mission you were on. Either way you get to fly more deployed than when you're at home (Guard) But the bad thing is the Guard is gone (or at least it used to be this way) for less time than active duty due to civilian job issues. That is why there are Rainbow teams, to help keep time away from home to a minimum.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

There used to be a chart out there which showed all the average hours pilots logged from various NATO countries (It was a simple bar graph). I Googled the crap out of the web and didn't find it. Anyone know of it or have something like it?

Red6

From what I've read in previous post's, the average fighter pilot day is 10 to 12 hours. If they are only flying 150 to 200 hours a year that equates to less than 5% of the time spent in the cockpit. Do people who join the air force primarily to fly eventually get turned off by this?

No they don't. It isn't all about cockpit time. It is about a passion to fly and in the worlds best Air Force to boot. A lot of time goes into mission planning, briefings, debriefs, Sim time...etc....

Besides, if you think about it, flying two sorties in one day is exhausting...you have to plan the mission, brief it, fly it, debrief and then turn around and do it again. It makes for long days....not evey day is flying and sometimes its a day of academics...say BFM or something of the sort. You have to learn the weapons you will employ, tactics, what your A/C (aircraft) can do/and can't do with certain configurations etc.......

So if you get turned off by not being able to log 7 hours a day then there are problems .....it isnt a flying club, and a lot of people have the wrong idea of what an AF pilot does. Flying clubs allow you to fly when you want to where you want...the AF allows you to be trained to fly all kinds of missions in all kinds of scenarios ....you also have to learn how to lead your people I.E. 2 ships, 4 ships, etc...being a mission commander isn't easy and it takes time to learn how to go from being a flight lead of a two ship to being a flight lead of an 8 ship. So yeah you don't fly ALL the time but you learn some great stuff, some boring stuff, some stuff that makes you say "WTF over?" and in the end it makes for an AWESOME career that most people never get to experience. BOOOYAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Cheers!

Well put Vypergrl. And I should remind anyone who questions it; if you want to fly, join the airline industry. If you want to serve, join the AF. And remember the AF core values; integrity first, SERVICE BEFORE SELF and execelence in ALL WE DO. That includes filling the pop corn machine or whatever it is pilots do when they arent doin pilot stuff...

-Aaron