 So originally I wanted to go to college, but my senior year was approached by the Marines. I got me thinking about the military Talked to my coach about he told me to talk to the Air Force recruiter talked to the Air Force recruiter. I also talked to the Navy I Talked to all the recruiter that I did my research. That's where I found your channel initially and Yeah, um your your videos really sold me on the whole Air Force lifestyle but I ended up going to college for for a little bit then I Ended up deciding that that wasn't really the route I wanted to do and I Ended up going with the Air Force just got interested in it and Went ahead and just pulled the trigger So I've been in the Air Force for about two and a half years and I'm an E4 My job's name is bomber special integrated communication systems and navigation systems better known as calm nav My AFSC is two alpha nine X one So I don't the maps to give me a list of jobs to pick up I paid 10 jobs and one month into depth I I got this job. So you could say I got the job fairly quickly Kind of yes So I scored a pretty high in the electrical aptitude area. So if you honest was perfect I was put down other avionics jobs like electronic warfare and flight controls But I ended up getting calm nav, which was my number two pigs. So I'm glad I did Some of the job that I was interested in more a load master, but I didn't have depth perception So I wasn't really able to get that I signed a four-year contract. I just thought it was better for me For cross-training opportunities and just in case I didn't like the job or the Air Force if I thought this wasn't for me I could get out at four years compared to six That's an extra two years and for cross-training opportunities Oh, you could you have the opportunity to cross-train a little bit quicker with the four-year contract Than you do with a six-year contract. So I just thought it was a better fit for me. And I'm glad I did it My tech school was in Shepherd Air Force Base, which is in Wichita Falls, Texas It's in the north west part of Texas. It's about two and a half hours from Dallas in about three hours from okc It's a little small town has a few things to do and if you want to make a drive you go to a major city So it's not it's not in a bad location My tech school is about six months long Depending on what time you got there depends when you start your class. So I was pretty lucky as soon as I got to To Shepherd I started my class like the next week. So it was fairly quick There's other people who get there have to wait two weeks or three weeks for the next class to start our tech school split up into two parts The first part is AVF. That's about two months long and AVF stands for avionics fundamentals That's where you pick up the basics of avionics by looking at circuits. So the basic components and circuits Computers and gates or gates that type of stuff. And then the second part of tech school is follow-on That's where you learn your actual job like the common app portion of so like communication systems and navigation systems For communication systems like radios anything like anything used to communicate inside or outside the jet and for navigation systems like radar or some form of GPS I Personally really enjoyed tech school. It was really really fun. Really good experience. It's my first time away from home So it's pretty cool You get your own door your own dorm room and you have two other roommates So there's three people room you get inspected about once a week every two weeks depending on Their schedule at the time you'd have PT in the morning if you're on day shift And if you're on swing shift, you'd have PT around noon. Oh, yeah And for our tech school you have the you have two options a day shift and swing shift You don't get to pick they pay for you the defects food was amazing We would march to class in the morning and come back in the afternoon They had a lot of programs on base like different road programs So there was there was a lot of opportunities to do different things on base, which was pretty cool. The gyms were nice Little lot of cool people. They're still keeping touch with today put a lot of pool ping pong Yeah, I had a really good time Also, I keep up with the studying but yeah, I honestly say I really enjoy tech school. So for our job We're shredded out to specific airframe. So depending on your shirt depends what airframe you get But all the bases were able to get go to our dice Air Force Base, which is in Texas Ellsworth, which is in South Dakota. My now, which is North Dakota Park Stale, Louisiana Whiteman Tinker, which is over in LKC Elmendorf, Glasgow, Robbins, Georgia, Offit, Nebraska, and those are all the bases were able to go to depending on your shred depends which bases you go to Like let's say if you get a certain shred your base options would go down to like two or three bases But once you hit tech sergeant, you can swap over to a different airframe or in go to a different base so basically my job is We're maintainer we we take care of our Airframe we work we keep all the all our systems up to date. Make sure they're all running properly So the air crews are able to use informations Make sure the communication systems are working well make sure the Navigation systems are working well when you schedule maintenance to just upkeep on the system We do troubleshooting on if there's an issue on the jet we troubleshoot it down swap out the parts oh we also look at circuits to Look at the power flow so we can figure out which to help in the troubleshooting process we We swap out relays parts Yeah, basically not so we just maintain our systems So for a typical day for me would be I go into work I get turned over from the previous shift they tell us they did this this and this that way we We don't repeat the same steps if we're working certain issue and If they show shot to a certain step we know to start troubleshooting from that step though We don't repeat the same issue. We will soon turn over to see what jobs they've already completed and What issues might occur on shift anything like that then after we get turned over we got a roll call That's where they take accountability of all the shops and tell us our priorities like if we're gonna be launching a jet that we're gonna have to Provide supports of the launch they also tell us which adjusts me to work on that day Which issues we need to work. Yeah, that's pretty much it for prior for the priorities It's a roll call that for local we go to CTK, which is the tool crib. That's where you check out tools We go over there check out our tools for the day once we get our tools We load them up we load them up on our trucks We show these trucks with that we do the shots we ride around the flight line Just makes it easier to move around the flight line instead of walking everywhere So we load up the stuff on the trucks depending if we have lunch or not if we have lunch then we would provide support for the launch and we would ride around the truck and The jets would would be coming up on engines the crew would be up there crew chiefs would be Downstairs on a calm quarter talking to the crew and if they have any issues the crew chiefs will call us over we go up the jet talk to the pilots and Try to troubleshoot the issues if we can fix it before they take off And if we're able to fix in a timely manner or we fix it if we're not did the crew might have to shut down Swap jets after we're done launching We work on other priorities. We work other issues on different jets and We would troubleshoot it will troubleshoot issues on our start our systems if we had an issue with the with one station could not hear signals coming in We would troubleshoot that down to to certain parts swap out the part and then do an ops check and see if that works If if the part we swap Fixed the issue. Yes, so we work different priorities After launch and then once the aircraft comes back down. We would debrief the crew We would all go to this room with the crew and we talked to the crew asking if they ever had any issues with the our systems if everything was smoothly if Anything strange popped up while they're in the air and if anything happened in the air We would ask questions to help us troubleshoot more efficiently Because we can't recreate everything that's up in the air on the ground So it's good to ask them plenty of questions on the systems and see if Anything they say it can help us troubleshoot and after we're done debriefing and working our priorities on the on the line and Shift is coming to an end. We would turn in our tools and then we'd all walk back inside To the office and wait for the next shift And when the next shift comes in we would give them turnover Then we'll say go to roll call and come back. We then we're done for the day and we have three shifts. We have a day shift a Swing shift and mid-shift and that's a typical day for me. And that's That's the basics of what I do Really just be productive. I have your head in the to be knowledgeable on your systems get good at your job the better you know your systems the The better you're gonna be at your job and the more opportunities you're gonna have to TDI and deploy or Do other things like work in CTK or Go to honor guard or do anything like that So I would recommend you be productive at work. Also, it's how to work it. Um, take claps take college courses It'll really help you out If you're gonna stay in or if you're gonna get out if you're gonna get out of the cost courses We'll help you get a degree and do something on the civilian side or get certifications I'll help you do stuff on the outside But if you're gonna stay in college courses and certifications also make for really good EPR bullets that should help you Go for BTZ if that's what you want to do or Just have a really good EPR Yeah, that's my advice. Also have a positive mindset and yeah, just have fun