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1) Graduate high school at 19 2) Desire to fly KC-10's 3) Join KC-135 unit on accident 4) ??? 5) Profit.

so says the OTS grad ...

I agree with you that many people don't understand how hard flyers work. However, in a similar way that you educated your physiologist, do you ever ask somebody in support offices about their problems? From a CE perspective, I would LOVE to eliminate training days, staff a night shift, or get all of your work orders done, but I don't have the resources to make that happen. Here is why: - Training Days: The Air Force has elected to implement a dumbass deployment process in which my CE troops will probably never deploy to support the homestation unit that they are assigned to. The homestation wing commander has no buy in on what his combat support capabilities are. Of course, if this gets fixed, it means your homestation base doesn't get maintained when the entire wing deploys. Additionally, more than half of CE taskings are outside the wire...and no, these guys aren't EOD...just your average plumber. What that means is I have to have all of my airmen proficient enough in combat skills to show up at an Army Power Projection Platform and succeed. This requires an entire syllabus of training in order to meet the combat and engineering training tasks...this is before any taskings are issued. So you spend somewhere between a full day per week, or maybe one day every other week to train these guys up, and then you find out they are deploying to the Deid. Fantastic, we just lost thousands of man hours that could have gone to supporting a homestation unit. All because the Air Force can't figure out how to manage deployments. But, I have to train each engineer like he is going to get shot at, or I have failed. - Normal Duty Hours: I simply don't have the manning to implement a night shift. With somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of each shop deployed at any given time, I can't effectively cover 24 hours a day with enough trained, experienced guys. So, we run a standby team for airfield and infrastructure emergencies. That is in addition to normal duty hours, so if you worked an emergency on standby all night, you are going to work all day in the shop, too. For this reason, I'm not going to run a guy out at night to fix a leaky faucet or an electrical plug that doesn't work. But, you can be assured that an airfield lighting problem or water main break is going to be worked all night until it is fixed. - Work Orders: The bottom line is, a big facility complex like a base requires that you spend 97% of the forecasted maintenance every year, only deferring 3% per year. The Air Force is funding sub-50% right now. Additionally, the more you defer maintenance, the more money is required the next year. The fact is, Big Blue has rightfully decided to invest in other places, such as very expensive airframes. It's time to pay the price, it's as simple as that. CE is also one of the largest unfenced pots of money around, so it gets taxed at HAF, MAJCOM, and the wing. Much of your squadron O&M money that gets used to buy flatscreens at end of year was pulled from money that was originally budgeted to CE O&M work. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating when the flying squadrons are up your ass about work not getting done. Now, one area that we need to improve is communicating with you guys. If work isn't going to get done, you need to know that and the underlying reason. This business of work orders going into the black hole to never be heard of again needs to stop. I worked directly with three fighter squadrons in my last assignment...great bunch of dudes, most of who treated me very well. However, there were a few that really knew how to burn bridges with a number of organizations on-base. Are there some really terrible support organizations out there? Absolutely. However, at the end of the day, I feel like I've done my job if I put 100% of my resources against the top priorities in the wing, which is a pretty tough thing to figure out.. That may have only covered about 25% of the overall requests, but there isn't anything else that I can do. Sorry, this wasn't supposed to turn into a CE specific post, but that is what I know best. Maybe finance has a similar story, maybe not. I'm going to drop the rant here, because we are getting way off topic from the thread topic of CGOC buffoonery. Have a good one!

Yeah! What's the big deal? Hasn't Tim Martins already done this?

OKAAY

You're ######ed. There, that straight and to the point enough for you? Seriously, just don't fail. It won't be good. I highly recommend pressing that little button every 5 seconds or so - that should do the trick.

I didn't have any classes on Friday for four years. Thursday night is big in Tallahassee.

Are you fucking kidding me?

A service academy accession costs somewhere between three and ten times as much as a ROTC/OTS grad. Unless somebody is seriously arguing that service academy grads are three to ten times more effective out of the gates, we owe it to the tax payers to really look at why these places cost so much and what could make them more cost effective.

Anyone else find it ironic that it was an Aerospace Phys guy that said this?

Dumb? Or Dumber? Let's put another shrimp on the barbie!

Austrian? G'day mate!

Late for AR? Yep.

Two Dogs....KIO.....don't talk to the media or write a book....technique only.....holy crap I'm ashamed and was a light grey guy....someone needs to call an IP meeting and debrief this crap or you'll wind up with more "No Easy Days"! PS...nothing from a weasel or air to air scenario in the last 22 years merits a book......on the other hand CAS and PR have at it!

What's wrong with the blue ones they usually use? They should have a C-5 for their offensive line to show how well they work

I once took off out of Osan in a U-2 (wx 100 & 1/4). Throttle cable became disconnected from the fuel control on the roll (classic "forgot to safety wire the bolt" event) and left me with a wide open engine, no way to control it except the emergency fuel shutoff, and complete IFR for two thousand miles. After ten hours of wandering around the Pacific looking for a place to go the weather cleared over Okinawa and I shut it down and dead-sticked into Kadena. If nothing else I learned the J-75 was one tough engine...hours of overtemp by hundreds of degrees and it was barely singed. They pulled the engine and sent it home, inspected and replaced a few turbine blades and combustor buckets as a precaution, and put it back into service. Had another friend who lost all the oil and flew one four hours to Guam with no oil. Two slightly worn bearings replaced and back into service. J-75s were great engines!! P.S. Great job Tony!!!!