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

^ Agreed. When we're giving physicians up to $100,000 annual bonuses, it's hard for the CSAF to argue he can't compete on pay. What's even wackier is the AF is paying the contractors a profit on the pay we supposedly can't gather for uniformed members! The deal with the all volunteer military is that you have to pay what the market will bear. The AF has figured that out in other contexts. Leadership isn't even trying to solve the problem.

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

I didn't join strictly for the pay, but I also didn't sign up to do this stuff for free.

Perhaps all is not loss but I am reasonably skeptical, good article from War on the Rocks: https://warontherocks.com/2015/11/campaign-acceleration-how-to-build-on-progress-and-avoid-stalemate-against-isil/

I know this anecdotal instead of numbers, but in my tanker squadron we've got more Lt Cols than Lts. We were all kicked off various staffs and sent back flying the line again. I've been in units where the only Lt Col was the commander, and we have 3 in the squadron, and 4 more farmed out to wing and group jobs, in a CAF wing. Our biggest gap seems to be the senior Captains, which I believe we have 1 or 2. Until they have a hard time filling IDE and SDE slots, I can't see how things are going to change retention-wise. You will always have more then enough people who want to fly planes for a living. The hard part is keeping them flying airplanes and not spending 96.9% of their time on DTS, MICT, 2 below PRFs, SAPR, Christmas party planning, and fire extinguisher CBTs.

Thanks, Gearpig. It's important to remember there are 400+ brothers and sisters sentenced to that each year with no end in sight.

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 can't tell you how much I enjoy reading that promotion to O-6 is a loss of a pilot. Sad state of affairs.

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.

what's an autopilot?

Speak for yourself, herbivore.

100% insightfully accurate. The only time I don't use autopilot is during takeoff, departure, tac form enroute, in the AO, during attacks or threat reactions, low level Rtb or up initial. But 96.69% of the time I'm surfing my iPhone with the autopilot engaged...normally in the final turn thinking about the good ole days of UPT when flying was fun.

Macy's presented a "4th of July Fireworks Spectacular" today, broadcast nationwide by NBC. The Air Force Band was the primary band for the actual fireworks performance. Kool-Aid was one of the primary sponsors of the event. This all led to this glorious image.