Question: Anyone ever taken a "Mac" or Space A Available Flight and what was your experience like?

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Answer #1:

Yes, but it was years ago. Flight was ok. The bad part was the sit around and wait. Flying Space A does not guarantee a seat or flight. It is possible to sit for a couple hours to a couple days before you get your but in the air.

Answer #2:

Space A flights are great however they aren't every reliable. Remember the mission comes first. If something were to happen and they received orders in mid flight then you are going wherever those orders stipulate. The thing to remember is to be flexible. A flight from the US to Japan has plenty of opportunity for change. The flights I took (Turkey to Germany) were constant every xxx number of days. If it's a scheduled flight every day/week or whatever then you don't have much to worry about. Remember also that many times you don't know what kind of plane you will be on. One of my flights was on C-130 sitting in a cargo net, after 4 hours those things suck. Another flight I was on I got a seat on a C130, but it was the most uncomfortable thing in the world. Being flexible here is a HUGE benefit.

Take advantage of the opportunity and thank you for all you do!

Answer #3:

... at some military hotspot or going to one, it is pretty much random. Hopefully, it has changed?

I've considered taking Space A when I was in the service, but I could never quite find a flight that was going to and from where I wanted to go. Trying to get a connecting flight is pretty much like trying to get planets to align. Even as a priority MAC traveler, I had to wait 24 hours between connecting flights.

When I flew to Frankfurt, on priority staus, on MAC, I remember the group that I was traveling with managed to bump 4 Space A travelers about 30 minutes before the flight. Normally they require a 2 hour advance check-in, but we called the Pentagon, as it stated on my orders, and got an exception. The Space Aers, a Navy Captain's family, thought they had tickets only to be turned around at the gate just prior to boarding.

On the flights I took, I flew aboard C130s, C140s, and other planes similar to commercial aircraft. C130s are drafty cold and we sat in nylon web jump seats (bing). The cargo was sitting right before us. We had to wear earplugs the entire flight to drown out the turboprops and prevent hearing damager and if we were lucky had coats or some to borrow. No real bathroom on the plane other than a hole out the back. They fly pretty low because they weren't pressurized.

C140s are similar, but pressurized and bigger, with jet turbine engines. Seats are like airline seats, except that they sit on pallets and face the rear of the planes. I remember the seats being really close together and it was so loud we had to wear earplugs. The bathroom was nearby on another pallet and there was cargo jammed in everywhere else. I remember having to stop in the Azores as we crossed the Atlantic. We had to get off the plane while they refueled it.





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