# How many hours do you work per week?



## Bo (6 Mar 2005)

Just wondering if being a military pilot (or training to be one) involves working 9-5 or something along those lines? Do you get weekends off?


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## TheCheez (6 Mar 2005)

The fighter pilots here generally work as much as 12 hrs/day especially when they fly that day. Generally weekends are off unless you're assigned to the Quick Reaction Aircraft. Normal hours are 0730-1600 officially with an hour off for lunch but most guys eat at their desks. The 18s come with a long work day. Being responsible for a deployment or any other project will bring along a lot of extra hours as well.

I'll let someone else cover the other types since I really can't say for sure.


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## Zoomie (7 Mar 2005)

Pulling SAR standby is really an odd-ball when it comes to your work days.  The CF is responsible for providing 24/7 365.25 days/year SAR call-out capability.  Basically we are like your town's firehall or EMS service.  When we as aircrew are scheduled to be on Standby, we are working - during the day we are at the squadron or in the air between the hours of 8am and 4pm.  Within 30 minutes of a call-out, we must be wheels up and on our way.  During quiet hours, between 4pm and 8am the next morning we are on pager call-out with a maximum wheels up time of 2 hours.  Aircrew will routinely pull 24 hours of standby followed by 24 hours of down time.  On work days we are expected to show up for morning brief at around 8:15am and take care of any paper-work for the day.  At a SAR squadron, you can go weeks without seeing your fellow aircrew brethren, as most are on days off or on tasking.


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## Inch (7 Mar 2005)

Training isn't a 8-4 job, while you may only be at work during that time, you'll be studying after dinner until you go to bed on most nights, especially early on in the course. In Moose Jaw you had to be in for the early met brief (7:30 in the summer and 8:00 in the winter) and you were there all day until 4 with an hour for lunch. You flew almost everyday so you always had a flight to prep for, gym classes to go to or something else to occupy your time.

On Sqn is a little different, in Shearwater at the OTU, the days you're flying you're in at least 2 hrs prior to the crew brief (an hour to prep and an hour for a student brief) then crew brief for 1/2 hr, an hour to walk around the aircraft and start it, then a 3 hour sortie. Followed by a debrief.  So throw in an hour either side of that and you're in for 8-9 hours. The days I don't fly, I'm in for 8:00 and gone to the arena for 11:30-1:00 and then back up to the hangar till around 3:00 and call it a day.

Back at 423 though will be very different, flying days will be 8hr affairs, non flying days could be as short as a morning. When you're at sea on the CPFs or Destroyers, you're working 12 hrs days 7 days a week. There's really nothing else to do so it's not all that bad.

So expect to work 8-4 with weekends off, if that doesn't happen, well, too bad. That's the military for you.


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## Bo (7 Mar 2005)

Good stuff! Thanks for the answers guys.


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