"AKav8r" wrote

I'm a CFI and am looking at going into the AF to fly. What are my
chances of getting a jet as opposed to the good old C-130? I'm
wondering because I am going into this at a relatively older age than
most of the jet guys do. I've heard also if you don't have vision of
20/20 or close too it you will most likely end up with a prop plane.
Any truth to this? Of course this isn't official policy that I can
see, but these are the rumors I'm hearing.

-24 years old
-20/50 vision, correctable to 20/20
-white (1st thing recruiter asked if I was Hispanic or
non-Hispanic...)
-male

24 is in the window, especially if you just got out of college. CFI
doesn't count for anything, but you can translate that into excellent
scores in the aptitude test, and going through the part-task trainers
(switchology, etc). When I was in, if you wore glasses, or had a
record of being unconscious, you were asked to step out of the line,
and they took you to the maintenance officer :-)

Don't know what they do today, as most fighter pilots wear
night-vision goggles, and they probably can be focused for your vision,
and during daylight, a lot of them use binoculars (I say a lot, but the
helo shootdown in Iraq shows that many also don't).

The USAF has a lot of heavy jets. Most are pretty boring though, and
you should learn to knit or something, as you orbit for 15 hours, while
the C-130 guys actually fly straight-line for 15 hours (unless you're in
a combat C-130).