AFSC GUIDE: CGO PERSPECTIVES - Detachment 755

1 FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY afsc guide : CGO PERSPECTIVES VERSION 1, DECEMBER 2012 Produced by afrotc Detachment 730, university of pittsburgh 2 Table of Contents Purpose of guide .. 4 Methodology .. 4 afsc Terminology .. 5 afsc Quick Reference .. 8 afsc Descriptions .. 9 Operations (1 XXX) .. 9 Pilot .. 9 11BX, Bomber Pilot .. 10 11FX, Fighter Pilot .. 13 11HX, Helicopter Pilot .. 27 11KX, Trainer Pilot .. 31 11MX, Mobility Pilot .. 35 11RX, Recce/Surv/Elect Warfare Pilot.

2 76 11SX, Special Operations Pilot .. 78 11UX, Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Pilot .. 84 Combat Systems .. 87 12BX, Bomber Combat Systems Officer .. 87 12FX, Fighter Combat Systems Officer .. 91 12MX, Mobility Combat Systems Officer .. 94 12RX, Recce/Surv/Elect Warfare Combat Systems Officer .. 95 12SX, Special Operations Combat Systems Officer .. 104 Space, Missile, and C2 .. 109 13BX, Air Battle Manager .. 109 13DX, Control and Recovery .. 112 13LX, Air Liaison Officer .. 114 13MX, Airfield Operations.

3 116 13SX, Space & Missile .. 117 Intelligence .. 131 14NX, Intelligence .. 131 Weather .. 141 15WX, Weather .. 141 Cyber Operations .. 143 17DX, Cyberspace Operations .. 145 Logistics (2 XXX) .. 150 Logistics .. 150 21AX, Aircraft Maintenance .. 151 21MX, Munitions and Missile Maintenance .. 154 21RX, Logistics Readiness .. 155 Support (3 XXX) .. 162 3 Security Forces .. 162 31PX, Security Forces .. 162 Civil Engineering .. 164 32EX, Civil Engineer .. 164 Public Affairs.

4 167 35PX, Public Affairs .. 167 Personnel .. 168 38PX, Personnel .. 168 Medical (4 XXX) .. 174 Health Services .. 174 41AX, Health Services Administrator .. 174 Biomedical Specialists .. 177 43HX, Public Health .. 177 Nurse .. 180 46FX, Flight Nurse .. 180 46NX, Clinical Nurse .. 182 Professional (5 XXX) .. 186 Law .. 186 51JX, Judge Advocate .. 186 Chaplain .. 190 52RX, Chaplain .. 190 Acquisition and Financial Management (6 XXX) .. 192 Scientific/Research .. 192 61AX, Operations Research Analyst.

5 192 61DX, Physicist/Nuclear Engineer .. 195 Developmental Engineering .. 196 62EX, Developmental Engineer .. 196 Acquisition .. 211 63AX, Acquisition Manager .. 211 Contracting .. 218 64PX, Contracting .. 218 Finance .. 221 65FX, Financial Management .. 221 Special Investigations (7 XXX) .. 222 71SX, Special Investigations .. 223 Special Duty Identifiers (8 XXX) .. 225 81T0, Instructor .. 225 4 PURPOSE OF guide How many Air Force ROTC cadets have put an afsc on their job preference sheets with little to no previous information about the career field?

6 Surprisingly, more than you d think. Cadets might have one or two top choices, but once those are spent, they put whatever sounds interesting into the remaining slots. When they ultimately get selected for those unknown career fields, it can create a sense of uncertainty, disappointment, or even bitterness. It doesn t have to be that way. In our several years of instructing at Detachment 730, we ve picked up on a few things. First, AFROTC does a great job of producing top-notch, motivated leaders for the Air Force.

7 Our program is structured to give leadership opportunities, responsibility, and personal growth for all those who enroll. Since our primary job in the Air Force is to be leaders, this is great news. Second, although we produce leaders, we don t give cadets enough information about the jobs in which they ll be leading. Primary resources have always been the Air Force website, the Air Force Officer Classification Directory (AFOCD), and personal conversations with cadre and guest speakers. For schools without a base nearby, and with the declining exposure once provided by base visits and PDTs, it s just no longer possible to know about every career field that s available.

8 That s where this guide comes in. After surveying hundreds of Air Force captains, we ve put together a variety of PERSPECTIVES and a wealth of information about each afsc . Cadets can get ideas and information from all corners of the Air Force from pilots, to nurses, to OSI, and everything in between. On top of the survey responses, many captains also agreed to accept emails from cadets in case they have further questions. As a result, this guide begins the process of networking and building a corps of motivated captains who are willing to reach back and inspire the next generation of officers.

9 METHODOLOGY All CGO responses were gathered via the survey method. The ideal time to reach a large number of CGOs from various career fields was during Squadron Officer School (SOS). Approximately 800 captains received a hard copy survey at SOS Class 12D and 200 were returned, for a 25% response rate. Additional surveys were distributed via follow-on conversations and through email. Once collected, officers from Detachment 730 transferred all responses to the guide . To keep the guide current, we recommend distributing surveys to future SOS classes, preferably in electronic format to ease with the transcription process.

10 If you are a CGO interested in making a contribution to the guide , please contact Capt Brady Cillo at for a survey, or simply return your answers to the questions contained in the guide directly to the same email. 5 afsc TERMINOLOGY All officer Air Force Specialty Codes (AFSCs) are comprised of a series of letters and numbers that describe the career grouping, utilization field, functional area, and qualification level of the personnel filling each position. At the most basic level, each afsc contains a series of four alphanumeric characters: Career Group The first number in the afsc describes the overall career group.