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I recently received my 1042 to return to fly after a year and a half on the ground. I wanted to pass along my experience in case some poor bastard has to go through any of this. The issues I had included vertigo, an unrelated brain cyst, meningitis as a side effect from the brain surgery, and headaches as a result of the meningitis and surgery healing process. I'll also throw in my experiences at ACS. I am (now was) a fighter guy and after a BFM sortie experienced some dizziness and vertigo. The vertigo was diagnosed as Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV). The big take away from this for me was that there are only a handful of issues that lead to vertigo and a quick study of your symptoms can determine the root cause. These vary from life threatening to a minor inconvenience, so take the time to figure out what you have. Some will take you out of the jet forever, and others for a week. When the BPPV cleared up the flight doc got started on the waiver ASAP. Part of the waiver is a brain MRI to ensure there are no intracranial issues that could be causing the vertigo. Just my luck, they found a large cyst, completely unrelated to my issues. Within a week I was under the knife having this thing removed. I trusted my surgeon's judgment that it needed to come out. 1.5 years of a painful recovery later I'm told by multiple surgeons that it may not have needed to be removed. Lesson learned, get multiple opinions, no matter how confident your surgeon is. Also, thankfully my surgeon was smart enough to do some research into what she could do while not disqualifying me from flying or military service all together. Make sure your surgeon does this research. Recovering from the surgery sucked, but got even worse when it turned into meningitis. Meningitis is quite painful and can kill fast depending on the type, so don't mess around if you think you have it. That's about all I have for that. After all that mess was done, I had a long road ahead of headaches and just a general sense of feeling not myself, cognitively delayed, etc. They say the weirdness is from the drugs to stop the headaches, so that ended up not being a factor for me getting back to flying. All the weirdness has gone away. Once I was back to normal, the waiver process started again and I took a trip to the Aeromedical Consult Services. These are the guys that do your initial flight physical. For many of you, this may have happened at Brooks, but the operation has now moved to Wright Patt. Realize that ACS is called in when the MAJCOM doesn't want to make the call. ACS gives a recommendation and typically the AF Surgeon General and the MAJCOM go with that. My experience at ACS was very good. Come prepared with a thorough understanding of your medical records and be ready to show the Docs where things are. They didn't take the time to flip through every page of my stuff, probably because it is thicker than War and Peace. You have a case manager while there and you get very personal attention. They will schedule your appointments for you and you just have to make sure you show up, do what is asked, and make sure they don't miss anything in your history. You're going to tell your whole story to every doctor you see. The feeling right from the start, though, is these guys were going to do everything they could to get me back in the saddle. I showed up not expecting to be considered to return to fighters. Instead, the Col in charge of my case said the question is fighters or heavies vs flying or not, so I was ecstatic that it was even considered. It turned out I was returned to fly with a restriction to "non-high performance multi-place aircraft" and am happy to get some air under my butt again soon. The vertigo, cyst, brain surgery, meningitis, and headaches all required waivers. Everything was given a full and permanent waiver except the vertigo. BPPV has a recurrence rate of around 7% every year after the initial occurrence. Their risk assessment usually draws the line at around 1%, but obviously depends on the severity of the issue as it relates to flying as well...standard ORM stuff. If you have any questions about going to ACS or any of these issues, please feel free to send me a PM.

I think it would feel a lot like the flu...often, if you get my drift. In other words, a stop-loss pilot is probably frequently DNIF and/or non-current. Not sure about the RPA world, but in all the communities I've been in over the years it takes quite a bit of personal initiative, to include the occasional pencil-whipping of certain beans in order to maintain currency/RAP/CMR. And I can't count the number of times I've sucked it up and hacked the mish when I probably should've been DNIF. Now, if I'm stop-lossed into my job, what's going to motivate me to lean forward like that? Nope, I can't see stop-loss being a sustainable solution for our looming manning crisis. It just opens up a whole new can of worms. We are seeing that with the Kiowa divestiture. Guys who are basically being handed a shit sandwich and told to eat it at the table with guys having steak and lobster by comparison. Try motivating guys told "hey you're not in the top 1/3 o the OML and under 15 years so no transition to another airframe, we will get back to you with an ACAP date... By the way you have Brigade Staff Duty over Xmas eve." I'm honestly surprised more conversations with those guys don't end with, " Hey Schmitty.... Why are you pouring that gas can all over the office?"

You're right, I meant CFP... A guy who's earned this: https://www.cfp.net/about-cfp-board/cfp-certification-the-standard-of-excellence

It's happening in Cyber as well. Very many people who aren't prior are bouncing. They're tired of the deployments, lack of command clarity, inability to (usually) make positive changes with their customers and for the base support, being cast aside for the sexiness of Offensive/Defensive Cyber. Who flies planes anymore.. so silly.... We just had our Summer '16 PCS webinar, total AFSC manning currently at 84%, IF you count the new 2Lt's in FY15. Overall, they'll be filling only 60% of positions requiring a body that cycle. People are just tired, and the experience and certifications we're walking out with aren't run of the mill server-farm experience. Starting salary for a lot of these is around six figures. Hell, the trend lines for the mid 90's folks, and mid-00 folks is well below the sustainment line. I wasn't a O then, but I seem to remember my bosses (jr-mid Capts) were getting RIF'd at ton in '06-'08... and that was "before the drawdown." Anyway, has anyone noticed a change in the Maj's getting promoted? With the increased scrutiny Learjet I was wondering if it had also moved down to O-4 as well. There's been numerous people who haven't made it I was surprised at.

I have a feeling this is being pushed out to help close the huge hole at the bottom of the barrel today - 2% retention. These new locations and additional personnel will take longer than 5 years to open up. By then most of us flying the line will be gone from active duty so this announcement isn't for us, and it doesn't change my mind to separate one bit. What would change my mind would be to get me back to a cockpit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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

PME not done is not good. You need that educational experience and knowledge to better be able to accomplish the really hard work the AF needs done...like budgets, contracts, multi-FY programs, acquisitions, plans, etc. Tactical flying requires a simpler body of knowledge (yes, even for carnivores) than serious staff work and planning and executing an air war. For non-res PME, timing irrelevant to me, personally, but earliest completion of was viewed more positively by some. Again, the more selective the program, the better it was viewed. But, we're talking small potatoes compared to the duty performance and leadership captured in the record. That's the single biggest determinator. Fail at that, and no school, any other program, will make up for it.

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.

War is hell.

This. Oh well, my kids will have a much easier time getting a good job with respect to competing against these self entitled weaklings.

So, are women now denied federal loans if they don't register in the Selective Service?

I'm leaving my current assignment at DLI for greener pastures, but let me relay to you bros the uniform policy I've been following for the last year: Mon: ABUs Tue: Flight Suit Wed: ABUs Thur: Blues Fri: Flight Suit Why? I have no fucking idea. Any complaints about wearing a different uniform every day of the week have been met with: "Well, you don't HAVE to wear the FDU on T/F, so you can just wear ABUs instead and have some consistency." Only justification offered: "It's an Air Force uniform you are required to have, so why not wear it." I countered with: "Well, I'm required to have a Mess Dress too. When are we going to start doing Mess Dress Mondays?" As an aside: Avoid DLI if you can, especially the 314TRS. Go to DLI-East if you have the option.