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Your SR should do your PRF IAW MAJCOM guidance. The SR normally delegates the initial draft to Sq/cc. You may be asked for inputs by your flt/cc. In creating the PRFs, I saw it done/ did it the pretty much the same way from 2000-2015: IAW an AFPC / MAJCOM message, about 60 days prior to the board, the drafts were due for the groups to the wing (or their equiv positions on staff). They were tweaked or re-written and run thru admin review, then presented to the SR, along with each officers entire record. The SR would dedicate hours to read each record, any accompanying push notes, and make any changes to each and every PRF. Then they went off to MLR and DPS were awarded, the forms signed by the SR, then they went to AFPC for the board and you got your copy 30 days prior to the board. (Ps: never get the rep as a good OPR or PRF writer...that stink never rubs off and as a result I probably redid a thousand decorations, OPRs and PRFs that werent on my folks outside the ones I did during my two wing exec tours). I can only speak for myself, but yes, I read every word of every record. My technique: The big screen monitor holds three "electronic" stacks of paper on the screen for each record, appopriately magnified for our geriatric eyes.. On the right, the PRF and all OPRs. In the center, decorations and "other stuff" like a-15 or lors. On the left, the DQHB and letters to the board. I'd open a record and start with the surf/dqhb. Then move to the middle and read the decorations. Finally, flip to the back of the stack and read OPRs earliest to latest. Only then world I read the PRF and score the record. Bottom line: it's all important, not just the surf or the PRF.

https://www.afforums.com/index.php?threads/rex-the-engineer.15323/ This stuff is pure gold. Here's a sample: THE ADVENTURES OF REX THE WONDER ENGINEER: REX and the BREAKAWAY It's a bold, bright sunny day out on AR 8A-B. The KC-10 and crew are finishing up their 3rd hour of straight receiver AR, hurtling around the two short tracks like it's a ing NASCAR oval, with no passing allowed. Rex, the Wonder Engineer, is on his 7th local in two weeks, and his nineteenth hour of receiver AR this month. Leading this perverted race is a wore-out E model, with the pride of the Raggedy-Ass Militia as crew. Rex stirs slowly from a sound sleep as Joe, the infamous numb-nuts boomer, former hero of SAC, pokes him with greasy, tobacco stained finger. Rex's eyes bolt open as he hears the IP, Capt Bank, yelling at him from the right seat. "Engineer! We don't have a ready light here, is there a problem?" "in' A right, there's a problem", blurts old Joe, "in' old wore out engineer boy is a-sleepin' on the goddamn job again." Rex stares blankly at the FE panel. Then he turns to Joe and pokes him in the upper layer of gut-fat, hard, with his 0.5 MM lead pencil. "OOOWWW!!, goddamn, Rex, you mother-er, I'll kick yer old wore out flow-bar ass, you......." "TIME OUT!!" Yells the PUP idiot in the left seat. "What are you guys doing back there?" The PUP, a typical jerk-off professional copilot with an attitude, thinks he's in charge, now that he's playing AC. His name is Capt Corn. Rex calls him the Great Cornholio. When Rex is awake. Like he is now, with two goddamn finger-pilots barking at him; he quickly assesses the situation, and takes the appropriate action. "HEY!, What the is all this yelling about?", Screams Rex, "Time-the- OUT!!" Rex violently punches the AR reset button and a "Ready" light appears magically on the windshield post. "There!, Goddammit, anyway, Jesus ing Christ! I been back here strapped into this ing seat for 3 mother-ing hours. Ain't even had a chance to PISS, and you bastards are yelling at me! What the , OVER??" Joe looks amused, kind of like a cow looks as it's shitting all over itself. Capt Bank, who a year ago was a new banked copilot, who's now the squadron's senior IP, is looking for his sunglasses. The Great Cornholio is unaware that he has established a rather high rate of closure with the wood-burning tanker, and Rex is unstrapping. "Hold everything, you sky warriors, I gotta go drop off a message to TACC." Rex jumps out of the seat and disappears into the cabin. Capt Corn sort of stabilizes the Extender in a position somewhere within a hundred feet of pre-contact, and then starts babbling like the idiot he is. "Dammit. This is ed. I've had with Rex's shit. When we get back, I'm going to bring up that bastard on charges. Insubordination. Dereliction of Duty. Sleeping on duty. Failure to shit prior to flight!......." Joe hocks up a tobacco glob into his paper cup, ejecting a little spittle over the rim to land on Capt Corn's helmet back, right onto his stupid ATC class patch. He speaks. "Cap'n, you ain't a-gonna do shit to Rex. The new Commander and him are best buddies, whiskey partners, see, and Rex saved the OG Commander's ass back in the 141, and the Wing Commander, well, him and Rex were runnin' partners back at Clark, and Rex got him treatment for the clap back in '82 afore the general's wife found out...and that ain't all...In fact,...." "OK, Joe, shut up! I got it. I'll get that bastard somehow......" Capt Corn is spitting all over his microphone..Capt Bank is looking for the sandwich that his dear wife made for him that morning, and once again the two aircraft are closing. Fast. As Joe searches his greasy helmet bag for more chew, and Capt Cornholio is blinded by tears of rage, whilst the mildly retarded Capt Bank is reading the sweet note his wife put in his Darth Vader character lunch-box, the KC-135 Boomer, who has just gotten done with his cigarette, and is stubbing out on the ashtray he's kept for 35 years of flying, sees approaching doom, and keys his mike: "HOLY SHIT BREAKAWAYBREAKAWAYBREAKAWAY!!!!" The Great Cornolio looks up from the INS and sees the words : HIGH SPEED BOOM less than a foot from the windscreen. And the boom is up as far as it will fly. Then comes the push. Capt Corn shoves the yoke eight inches forward in a half second, resulting, you might guess, in a less than text-book separation. A full negative 1G world now awaits them. Joe screams and pisses himself, and everything not tied town in the airplane, including Rex, is slammed against the ceiling. In an instant, the now-bent Extender shoots through the bottom of the block at 17,000 FPM, 18 degrees nose low. Panic ensues while the IP wastes time turning on the flight director switches, and farting around with the vert-speed wheel. He also remembers the beacon lights. Good monkey boy! As the abused and twisted wide-body slashes through 18,000 feet, Joe dutifully calls "Thousand to transition!" Capt Bank finally sees his sorry life flash before his eyes and realizes that they are over the Mt Shasta area, calls "I got the airplane" and loads the poor Douglas up like a shit-stained Saudi in his dad's new F-15. The Boeing Boomer later claims to have seen vapor trails from the wing and horizontal stabilizer tips. Fighter pilots are conditioned and accustomed to pulling multiple G loads on a daily basis. They are proud of their physical strength and ability to operate effectively under conditions of extreme loads. Too bad they're are such assholes. But no fighter pilot anywhere, ever, has pulled 5 Gs on plastic shitter seat. Rex did it, and survived. Aerospace Medical geeks from all over the world have studied his case, and all agreed that only an iron-ass engineer like Rex possessed the physical strength of ass, and the sheer power with the straining maneuver, to survive such an event. Rex's ass is permanently stained with blue shitter-water, not from the push-over, but the high-G pull, which caused his ass to actually stretch out all the way into the metal bowl, which naturally, was coated in blue water and shit. The following is the actual radio transmission between Travis Command Post and the ill-fated local, Spazz 61: Travis Command Post = TCP Spazz 61=61 61: Travis Command Post, Spazz 61 TCP: Go ahead, Spazz 61 61: We are inbound your station. Code 2, requesting ambulance and latrine service upon landing. TCP: State reason for ambulance, and pass on maintenance writeups, over. 61: Well, uh, we got an engineer that's all covered in latrine water, and....uh...stand by fer writeups......uh, we might should have a fire hose standing by....to wash off this here engineer, he's all covered in....uh...excrement and piss, over. TCP: Spazz 61, say again......did not copy...did not understand....Say again over...please pass writeups..... 61: Dang it! ain't anyone listening down there? Like I told ya afore, my engineer's all covered in shit, godammit, and if you want to know the in' whole story right here on the goddamn air, well, my gosh dang pilot boys are sittin' in bags of shit, and I done pissed in my dang drawers, too.....how copy command post..... TCP: Spazz 61 please pass writeups and any DVs on Board? Over.......... This was the last transmission. The airplane landed without incident after 16 touch and goes. The Great Cornholio did not bring up charges on Rex. Capt Bank found his sunglasses imbedded in his fat ass when he got home. Joe went to Crusty's, still in his pissed-stained coveralls, and awaited Rex, who was released from DGMC after ingesting 4 valiums and undergoing a thorough probing by the hobbyists at the flight surgeon's office. Rex did not utter a single word for over 6 days after the flight. NEXT: REX GOES TO THE FLIGHT SURGEON TO GET OFF DNIF.

If the above is in fact true, one could take this as both very good news and as an indicator of how much the AF has screwed the pooch manning-wise: TLDR version: Rated force mismanagement + extended airline hiring boom = some very tough choices when it comes to selecting AF leaders. Ignoring BPZ/IPZ/APZ status is a good idea which is long overdue, but it's a bandaid fix at this point. - Disregarding BPZ/IPZ/APZ status is, in my estimation, a good move, and one that should have been done long ago. Widening the pool of candidates will help ensure the best folks get promoted. I would hope in current year and future boards, the board members would find themselves seriously discussing the relative merits of promoting experienced, above-average performers who barely missed the IPZ promotion cut, IPZ folks who are hovering near the cut line, and BPZ superior performers who likely have significantly less real-world experience, having spent many years in school. The O-6 board meets in the zone at the 20 year point: would you rather select a 20-yr IPZ guy, who's somewhere around the 50th percentile of his year group, a 22-yr APZ type who just barely missed the IPZ cut but who's continued performing well, or a 16-yr dude who's a total of 4 yrs BPZ (2 yrs below to O-5 and O-6)--and has spent multiple years in school/staff/exec/etc.? Obviously depends on the individuals being discussed, but I can imagine a number of cases where it'd be wiser to promote the APZ guy over the BPZ guy with 6 years (likely more, considering time spent out of the cockpit) less operational experience. - On a less positive note, I read this as an admission that the Air Force has grossly mismanaged its force, especially wrt pilot types. From what I can tell, the APZ year groups are a pretty picked-over lot; the AF produced so relatively few pilots from the 92/93/94 year groups that the majority of high-quality folks have already made O-6 or got out after 20yrs, or never even made it to retirement. The IPZ year group is much the same. Those who stayed past retirement eligibility, aren't already O-6s/O-6 selects, and who didn't spend their careers in the USAFA self-licking ice cream cone (AF funded civlian master's program, to teaching at USAFA, to AF funded civilian phd program, to teaching at USAFA)--or some other similar good deal--are extremely few in number. Bottom line, the Air Force has goofed up manning so badly that it needs to widen the aperture significantly in order to replace the late-Cold War O-6s who are retiring/getting promoted. The problem is, the '96 and later year groups are short of folks, too, and the airline hiring boom will provide a powerful incentive for those folks to retire and never even meet their O-6 boards. If the boards really do ignore APZ/IPZ/BPZ status, that'll work great for a year or two. Some very deserving folks will get selected APZ, and some young true superstars will get opportunities they would not have gotten as early as they would have previously. Once those outliers are picked up over a promotion cycle or two, though, you'll be startled in a year or two by some of the folks selected. Boards will be choosing between guys who are either good dudes, but were never groomed for leadership (and their organizations will suffer for it), and those who've spent a whole lotta time being groomed, but have little operational credibility . . . to an even worse degree than previously. TT

It could happen.

One of the first female Army Ranger School grads demonstrating the leadership gained from the prestigious school.... WTF Also I knew one of the pilots in both Apache crashes over this week that led to the safety stand down. So the word I want to use here rhymes with a practice of batting sometimes seen in baseball.