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If I'm going to deploy for six months away from my family, I'd prefer to deploy somewhere I can do useful work and collect tax free.

ART's already get a "bonus". It's in the form of a 30% locality pay across the board for all pilots. Kind of a flawed bonus system because the individuals who live in the high cost of living areas like NYC and DC where locality is near 30% anyway get the bone. It's like AGR's getting a bonus in the form of BAH. I'd love to know who actually thought that was a great idea. Probably a bunch of dudes from Alabama and Kansas where locality pay is 14%. I will give my opinion on what I "would" do if I were on AD ready to get out. I PC'd to the ANG almost 10 years ago and I've done everything from be a Guard bum to a temp AGR, temp ART and I'm now a full-time ART. If you have no aspirations to be a commercial airline pilot, but want to stay in the military full-time without "some" of the AD stupidity, AGR is the way to go (and you can still take the same bonus... in the ANG). I will warn that although the ANG is still much more enjoyable that AD ever was, it's not the flying club it used to be. We're busy and as one of the few full-timers, there is definitely never a shortage of BS to deal with and fires to put out. Remember, less than 30% of the unit is full-time and it's not like you can just make someone come in and help out. You have to ask them and ask them nicely because at the end of the day, unless they're being mobilized, they can say no. I would say more than 50% of my duty is taking care of administrative BS supporting traditional guardsmen because they're not there enough to take care of it themselves. The part-timer card is pulled quite a bit when it comes to some of the basic responsibilities that most of us took upon ourselves on AD. The ART program isn't worth it to me for a long-term career anymore. It's great if you're a brand new 1Lt out of UPT making GS-13 pay to fly 2-3 times a week and be the Awards/Decorations/Snacko, but once you get up into the O-3/4 range, you realize you're working harder for less. The program isn't what it used to be. The retirement over the years has become less and less attractive. Prior to FERS, ART's got 50-75% retirement pay. That was $60-80k a year. Now, it's 1% for every year of service and the FERS annuity payments are now 4.4% of your salary (used to be .8%). So, $4,000+ of your annaul salary goes into your retirement ON TOP of contributing to your TSP to get the 401k matching. Lot's of your own money is going toward your retirement. Aside from that, the powers that be who've had their heads in the sand when it comes to retaining ART's are a day late and $1 (or $25,000) short to keep the waves of ART's from walking out the front door. 15 years ago, there were guys willing to give their left cahone to land an ART job. These days, an FO on 2nd year pay at United makes about as much as a GS-13 step 5 and works about 1/3 as many hours per year. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that this is a bigger monster than the ARC can handle since they've tide their hands trying to man military organizations with civilians confined to a lack-luster benefits/retirement program. They should make all full-time ARC positions AGR, but I'm not sure they can fund that. If I were on AD not taking the bonus and looking at getting picked up by an airline, I'd be rushing ARC units with ART/AGR vacancies. There's high probability you could pick up a temp-ART job while you wait for your call. As soon as you get your call, you're a free agent, but still have a traditional ARC position to stay in. If you get out of AD with 12 yrs in (4,400 points) and you can make it to 20 years/5500 points in an ARC unit, you're looking at $3,000+ per month as a Lt Col when you turn 60. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

They're the same "level" but once you get beyond MAJCOM it's all the same in big-blues eyes. The RSAP (rated staff allocation process) has thrown the whole stratification of staffs on its ear to get certain staffs healthy this year for the summer VML. 618 AOC has a lot of talent coming in to the tune of graduated Sq/CCs, school guys, WOs, etc. Luck and timing my friends, luck and timing. Bloom where planted. Chuck

Why is this so damn complicated to get it certified? I once refueled from an Italian 767 tanker with boom and drougue......WTF USAF? Stop being a shitshow, build the damn thing, we'll figure out how to get gas from it, it's not rocket science.

I feel bad for the selects...they are going to Altus and will get thrown in the KC-135 FTU...and they will probably never touch the -46.

If I was a wing commander, I would question the mental faculty of any B-1 aviator who volunteered to go to the BUFF. I keed, I keed....

It would be helpful to know what a gray zone "P" PRF looks like for O-5 IPZ. I have no idea what a record at the "cut line" would look like. I don't have access to previous years PRFs. If I knew what a PRF right on the edge of the promotion line looked like (assuming all boxes checked and no big negatives) I would probably be able to better discern my chances.

We would do that like crazy when we had to play stupid ROE games with CDE or continuous PID. Joke was always that IED emplacer is going to have a hell of a time figuring out which one is the red wire in a few days.

I wanna open a cataract center in the 'Stan. All the lasing I did sure can't have been good for everyone.

Due to the competitive nature of the AF I don't think that will matter if you are looking to be a select at your board or get selected for school later as a candidate. It really depends though and if your senior rater is pushing for you then good things can happen. However, a consistent record of #1 strats sprinkled with DGs and a strong senior rater push with a high DP strat are what is going to matter to a board. There are people out there who have done well as late bloomers, but that is rare. I'll admit I'm getting old and crusty, and can be pretty jaded, but Big Blue is going to do what it is going to do...so keep looking for people to get selected for leadership too early. One of the biggest things that I saw that disgusted me about this stuff in the AF was when my DO got called to do other things unexpectedly. There was no one else left at my base that could leave their current job who had gone through school and staff to take over as DO, so they put in the best Lt Col non-school/non-staff guy. The dude absolutely rocked it and everyone really looked up to him. He did an outstanding job, but as soon as someone with the right "credentials" showed up he was immediately yanked out and the "credentialed" person was put in as DO. That left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, I shouldn't have been surprised.

You guys want to get good strats and pushes in the USAF....learn outlook/excel/memo writing skills at a young age. Those $7.50 an hour secretary skills will get you further than your $3 million pilot training education. Don't crash a jet and be a good exec, you'll go places. No kidding. I wish this were sarcasm but it's not.

Good critical thinking Chang. Requiring CGOs to have masters degrees for advancement never had second order effects before. Should be fine this time too. Kind of standard for A1 though - can't think more than 1 assignment cycle down the line.

I do not have anything negative I am not sharing. Really it comes down to I haven't seen a lot of other O-5 PRF's to compare myself to. I was hopeful ( and thought I would) get a DP but realize that I am on a small staff and my SR doesn't have an outright one. I probably would have gotten one at my old wing. I figure I must have been going against a bunch of IDE in res grad guys at the MLR. I have not personally talked to my SR about it because he is a 3 star and has a very busy schedule and has been TDY a lot. My supervisor (O-6) said he would be surprised if I don't get promoted. This is the first time I have ever gotten a "p" (of course it's only my 2nd IPZ PRF) and have never been an exec so I don't really know how to compare myself against the competition. "P" has always had a negative connotation amongst my peers--like once they hear you got a "p" they assume you are going to get passed over.

You couldn't have waited 3 months to make it a full decade thread bump?

some attempts at plotting track/drop probability