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Originally posted by airforcegrrl I"m a Tech Controller, or Water Walker  the new AFSC is 3C2X1. Was Tech like flight line maintenance? Sqd sports has boiled down to football, softball, baseball, basketball, soccer, billiards, organized runs, and a few others i can't remember but know they have national teams
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a.What does a "Tech Controller" do?
b. What means "Water Walker" in the United States AIR Force?
Tech, was "Technical School"... i.e., the step one took immediately following BMT at Lackland, when the AFSC was assigned (in case you happened to pass the final exam
) That was when you got your Blue Rope.
My AFSC was like flight line maintenance, yes... we were the guys on career track for Air Crew and Crew Chief, should we survive both BMT and the CMSgt.
431 meant aircraft (not engines) mechanic, the 5 meant your skill level (e.g. 1 was Tech School, 3 was first stage, 5 was second stage, 7 was third stage etc.), and the A (or final letter) meant which kind of aircraft... in my case the A stood for reciprocating aircraft... hence 43151A. The closest I ever got to a jet engine was touching the nacelle on that old B-36 they used to have parked at Chanute Field. I did walk past a few B-52s another time, I think it was at Minot.
My aircraft started out first with the beautiful and very fast U-3A (Cessna 310), then some work on the venerable C-47D, then my sentimental favorite of all time, the hugely unglamorous but very effective C-123B model "Provider." In the beginning (early 1964) we just did short hops of cargo all over the USofA, every AFB you can possibly name... but by the end of that year we were all of a sudden being trained by returning MAAG-VN AF personnel (NCOs mostly), for WTF we had not a clue at my extreme slimeball low level... and then we began doing a WHOLE LOT of training of butter bars headed in an westerly direction over the big water... destined for Da Nang and the eventual Provider Squadron at Ton Sun Nhut. In other words, we were experiencing a lot of touch and go's and emergency descents with (hopefully) a Major or a Captain in the left seat. If lucky, we got a Light Bird there. In pilot cahoots with the Tower, from time to time, we'd hear things like, "Gear not down! Go around!" [on base leg to final and, maybe, 600 feet altitude]... pucker factor supreme in that center seat.
By the time I got out, they had begun changing the paint job on our B models, to that familiar cammo colors... and later on, the USAF (in its "wisdom") saw fit to change our designation from ATC to AETC, don't ya know... as if it made a WHOLE lot more sense to call the teachers Air EDUCATION and Training Command, instead of just a simple Air Training Command.
Our job was maintenance on the entire aircraft except for engines, paint (other than shining some aluminum endless times
), instruments/avionics (we didn't HAVE "avionics" exactly, we had instruments
), and loadmaster (tho we were expected to know what an unbalanced load looked like.) I didn't have much to do with changing tires either, but I knew what to look for and could do it in a pinch.
We thought we were hot snot because our duty station was in the hangars, right next to Base Ops... so, Airman Bell was on every dang manifest he could possibly get on
Saw a lot of America that way... slept in a lot of TDY quarters too, without benefit of per diem. I always figured my real duty station was wherever my airplane was.
I think our only inter-flight squadron sports other than boxing, at the time, were trolling for babes and playing Hearts.
Prob'ly a whole lot more than you ever wanted to know, but there it is.
We didn't see many, or enough, air force girls, much less any grrrrrls... back then. So, this entire thing is kinda new to me.
Don't mean to bore or offend.
Sir Zoomie Blue