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Hmm. I literally thought the Air Force was sending Michael Vick.

Bottom line, pay is nice but not a single one of you joined the military for the pay. For most, pay will not be the reason people leave. I truly believe we have the best job in the world and being a glorified aerial bus driver shouldn't be able to compete. However with the toxic leadership, the piss poor people management, deployed empire building to prop up the next generation of "combat" generals, and the general apathy from the Air Force makes this decision easy for most. Throwing money at the problem is not going to buy loyalty, but merely keep some fence sitters in for a little while longer. Just my $.02.

Are you loath to make a decision? We value your indecisiveness. Here, here's another $10k/yr to help you feel good about undervaluing your life choices.

I'm sure the extra $35k for RPAs will make a huge difference. Especially when you can take your form 8 across the hall and be hired to do the same job without the active duty bullshit for significantly more money.

I don't go to politicians for my art, and I don't go to artists for my politics. So, no. I generally don't have a problem outside of a few niche cases (ex. Michael Moore). I disagree strongly with Kevin Spacey's politics, as well as George Clooney and Tom Cruise... but they're fantastic actors who make decent if not excellent movies. I expect my artists to be nut-job loonies (ex. Tom Cruise), and my politicians to be back-stabbing snakes (ex. Paul Ryan).

Spot on. The low give a fuck factor will stay that way until IS or similar group of individuals commit to an on-going campaign of operations with CONUS (God forbid that ever happens). However, once you disrupt Joe Six-pack's daily flow of Dancing with the Stars, TMZ feed via Facebook and Monday Night Football; THEN they'll take notice that all that crap over there affects them here. It's not 1915, you can't ignore problems 'over there' anymore; those two big oceans on each side don't provide the security they once did.

No doubt in my mind that the mobility pilot community is hurting, and the evidence is in the ACP reports. It’s difficult to comprehend why the 20 YAS option wasn’t offered to 11Ms until last FY. Maybe if rated managers had acknowledged the clearly pending train wreck in the 11M community years ago, there might be some experience at the wing level and below, and we might have enough 11Ms remain on active duty long enough to be picky about future senior mobility leaders. Read below for the long version. Not saying other communities aren’t equally screwed, but rather sticking with what I know: - The 11M community alone has, over the past 3 years, lost 600 pilots/year (to all causes—retirements, separations, promotion to O-6, etc.) - About 250 of the above were 11Ms who either retired or were promoted to O-6 --- The majority of the remaining 350 were experienced aviators with 12-19 yrs commissioned service (folks who might have stayed if not offered TERA and/or were offered 20 YAS option) - I’ll be very generous and estimate that the AF is producing 400 11Ms/yr (my guess is it’s closer to 300-350, maybe even less after discounting those lost to 11U billets) Bottom line, the Air Force is losing 11Ms at least 50% faster than they’re replacing them, and those highly experienced folks who left are being backfilled with dudes who are being crushed by undermanning, a dearth of experienced pilots in the squadrons, the threat of RPA nonvols, etc. The Air Force’s apparent response, as indicated by congressional rulemaking, is to further incentivize folks to pursue RPA assignments. It’ll take some very inspired leadership to pull the 11M community through the next several years, but the stats don’t bode well in this respect, either. Optimistically, about 60 11M O-5s will meet the O-6 board in the zone at the next board. The Air Force has promoted 43 11Ms per year (on average, over the past 3 years) to O-6. At a 45% IPZ promotion rate, that’ll yield just 27 new 11-M O-6s . . . which will mean that the few 11Ms promoted to O-6 will be all the more stretched thin, with ever-fewer graybeard O-5 11M types in wings/groups/squadrons to back them up. The 12M community has shrunk so significantly that they can’t help as much with filling OSS/other billets in lieu of 11Ms like they used to during years past. The ensuing inevitable clown show in the mobility community—due to senior leaders and their staffs being overworked—will provide all the more incentive for young 11Ms to get out at the earliest opportunity, thus perpetuating the cycle. Meanwhile, the Air Force fiddles with the soup du jour (RPAs), while the overall pilot community burns. The 11M community, if 11F take rates and discussion all over this forum are any indication, isn’t the only one suffering from a lack of foresight from rated force managers. TT

Reading through the current law, it's clear our service isn't maximizing its current authorities. 1. The law allows for a $25K bonus to be paid to any pilot who has completed their initial UPT commitment. That isn't being done as there are still restrictions on eligibility (essentially no late rateds and no one over 20 YAS are eligible). The $35K bonus for RPA only brings the bonus in line with inflation since the bonus' inception ~2000. 2. The secretary has the authority to increase flight pay to $850/month for all pilots. A great many of the pilots who left in the last year were not eligible for the $850 payment. 2a. As far back as I can remember (1996 I think), flight pay has topped out at $850/month and followed the same seniority structure. In current dollars, flight pay should top out at $1,300 if you held it constant from that time. I'm fairly certain it topped at $850 long before then. In other words, the secretary (many secretaries, actually) have allowed flight pay to be eroded by roughly 2/3 without acting within their authority to mitigate even a portion of the decline. In that light, the service's request of $1,000 for RPA pilots only is a slap in everyone's face -- they're trying to get off cheap. Bottom line, until we see the Secretary maximizing the use of her current authorities -- even just for RPA pilots -- the service isn't serious about pilot retention. The argument with congress today ought to be for a dramatic increase in flight pay and a $35K bonus for all. Selected groups (determined by significantly lower retention rates combined with lower manning percentages) should be getting even more. Doing so will encourage members of lower-stressed communities to move to more challenged assignments. Source: GPO, Inflation

I went over there as a non vol staff weenie. The orders were a gift on my 18 year, 360th day in the AF (no shit). Pretty much every prior E gets hit with these so I knew it was coming. I let it roll, because I wanted to roll the dice vs not having to serve a sentence at the 'Deid. I flew quite a bit as a "guardian angel" which means that while the IPs are trying to teach the Afghans to fly airplanes, you sit in back, ready to cap one that gets out of hand. I'm a 39 year old dude, and not made to run around with full body armor on every day, yet that's what I did. Even as a staff weenie, I still had an Afghan counterpart that I was trying to "mentor". As far as the flying goes, the Afghans are pretty terrible at it as a general rule. If you have never had the opportunity to teach a C-130 "AC" that he needs to keep one wing low when landing in a cross wind, this is your opportunity. Everything you do is dangerous. I raised my rifle with intent to shoot over two occasions in the one year I was there. I didn't end up pulling the trigger for different reasons each time, but the threat was still there. Had a truck bomb go off right outside the base gate one morning. If I had not been lazy, I would have been right by it on my morning run. Two of my former office mates were killed two weeks ago when their helo Caught a mooring cable from an aerostat on a routine visit to headquarters. Getting out of there in tact both physically and mentally is about luck, not skill. The mission is pretty hopeless, and you will come home disgruntled at both the Air Force and the 16 years of terrible foreign policy our country as a whole has had. Oh, add on to your 365 two months at lovely McGuire AFB under GO 1 for Air Advisor training, where you will receive a code on your SURF saying that you can do that and are highly susceptible to having to do it again. Overall, I'd take the Deid any day over that place. I promise I will write more coherently when I have not been drinking. Please feel free to fire away with further questions. That job + all the extraneous factors going on in the AF I joined 20 years ago made me push the button for retirement. I'm done. They took away any love I might have had left for our service. Sorry I can't speak more to the guard/reserve aspect, but I might be able to come up with what I remember when I have not been going shot for shot with my wife for every kid at our door who is that bitch from Frozen.