Leaderboard

You're missing the point. # of bombs dropped, pounds of gas given, pallets of rubber dog shit delivered is great stuff....but it isn't generally unique in this day and age. It tells me more about what you did than it does about how well you did it. It is also all stuff that can and is done primarily by captains. So what is it about people that shows how well they can do as a major or lt col? Those ranks should be increasingly about being in charge of teams, projects, issues, etc. not just as recognition that you were assigned and completed tactical missions as a captain. Plenty of clowns have the same statistics. I don't know where all this party planning crap comes from with you guys, as I've never seen that shit on an OPR (except maybe a lieutenant) and never put it on a PRF. But success leading teams and projects is relevant to the question at hand--is this guy capable of leading at the next rank. If a guy has never done any of that, then how would we know? I think we've all seen dudes who were awesome pilots and bros grow up to be shitty bosses. Showing experience and success with smaller scale leadership tasks at least indicates something about potential for success with medium to larger scale leadership tasks. And I'm not talking about leading a crew or formation. That's a totally different ballgame and tough if not impossible to convey on paper anyway. Air Medal-type data generally tells a board little about your true potential, other than that you have a foundation of combat experience that is very critical toward developing an officer, but again it's generally not unique and therefore doesn't set you apart. So ideally an OPR or PRF will highlight combat experience and achievements to make a point, but if that's all you got, then you probably haven't made a convincing case that you can successfully lead teams, think and act strategically, etc. Because either you haven't done it, or you chose not to include it because it was "lesser" or not important. If you just load up on combat stats, then you are essentially beating a dead horse. Deployed a lot. Was in combat a lot. Got it. Good stuff, but point made. What else? That's why good OPR and PRF writers try to include the "lesser" stuff. It shows breadth and depth. It helps tell the story of why you'll be a good major, lt col, or col rather than just a glorified captain.

And AF Assistance Fund, AF Ball/Holiday Party Planning, SOS DG, Change of Command POC, fraud/waste/abuse online AAD, insert-whatever-additional-duty-bullshit-here bullets/box checking demonstrates that someone can coordinate the killing of a-holes? How about the OPR, as a reflection of your primary duty, actually allow you to talk about your primary duty? You shouldn't have to "hide" that on some Air Medal in order to backdoor its way onto your PRF. Ugh. How would I fix it? At a minimum, separate promotions by AFSC up to the O-4 level. Allow each individual AFSC to determine what's important for promotion. Perhaps bullshit and box checking and a valid AAD are important to, say, 17Ds. Then let their promotions reflect that. Perhaps deployments and combat missions/weapons employed/etc are important for a 12B. Let their promotions reflect that. Retention in a particular AFSC sucks? Combine this with targeted incentives- most likely monetary since we all know that QOL isn't improving in this never-ending "do more with less" environment. You already see this a bit- missileers getting money thrown at them to make them less miserable, 11Fs getting expanded bonus options (though it's still just 18k/year after taxes, the same since the late 1990s...), etc. 11Ms bailing left and right as the airlines hire thousands a year? Adjust the career field accordingly, and/or throw more money at them. No large civilian organization lumps all of their junior to mid-level employees together into one big pile, regardless of specialty, and then has them compete for promotion. An 11F's CGO experience could not be more different than a 17D, a finance guy, PA, Security Forces, MX, etc. Yet we treat them as equals. It doesn't make any fucking sense. So why does the AF do it this way? Because leadership is hard and time consuming. It's easier to just come up with a ridiculous one-size-fits-all career path, and pretend that all career fields are equal- "officer first!!!!1". Shifting from macro LAF promotions to micro AFSC promotions would require the AF to acknowledge that some career fields are more equal than others. And the AF absolutely HATES that fact.

It continues to amaze me that anyone on this board cares what Chang thinks

Not a sexy topic/mission so people/AF dismiss it. Navy has really stepped up the EW game over the past decade or so. AF needs to do the same.

Are you saying that talking about the Air Force attempting to retire an asset that we recognize as valuable is tantamount to treason?

Found this. Operation Muath al-Kasabeh. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYQEU9y1z4I

King, Pilot, and a smokin hot wife; the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is doomed.

Obviously the President needs a new plane in order to continue to supervise the execution of our flawless foreign policies...

He's not a pilot. His dad was, but he never has been. Given the fact that the "news" outlets reporting the story are all right-wing clickbait sites I'm calling bullshit.