Leaderboard

In my corner of the 11F world, going to WIC has absolutely zero to do with an individual's career and everything to do with selecting the right individual to lead a squadron's training program for that squadron to be thee most lethal squadron in the world. The 11F WIC is way too difficult to pick someone based on anything else...they'll washout. The MAF has always struck me as career focused instead of job focused, but I guess when you spend a bunch of time droning from point A to point B for hours on end you run out of approach plates and 11-217 to cover and you end up talking about how to get promoted? All I know is that no one talks about this career stuff in the fighter squadrons I've been in for two reasons: 1) there are too many tactical things to learn to have time to talk about someone's career (this is often to a fault) and B) you will be ridiculed for talking about this career stuff in the fighter squadron common areas because of item #1 (again often times to the detriment of careers, but few care). WIC grads around me do the typical FS WO job followed by either teaching at Nellis or Wing Weapons. After that, it's either off to IDE/staff, get offered a 365 and go guard/reserve, or get out altogether and do something completely unrelated. I have never seen any 11F patch in my community ever be an aide/Exec at any level unless they were a graduated sq/cc, and that's to be a 4-star's Exec (the right guy being groomed to be a GO). The guys in my community who are the aides/execs are the non-patch wearers, and they are often the ones who care more about their career moves than they would ever admit (somethings are the same in every community in the USAF).

Can we just enact SCODs for officers already? Can we just do this? One Closeout date for each YG period. These shifting timings make it impossible to do the right things by people at the sqd level Back to the drawing board to try and figure out how to get Flt/CC credit for '08 guys or to draw the line and tell the folks hey I made major without being a Flt/CC you might too.

I would be surprised. Maybe due within the Sqdn in October. If it was due this year it would probably be in MyPers.

I have never personally seen an 11F patch be an exec in the last 7 years; I'm sure there's an exception somewhere, but overall I don't think crap like that happens in the CAF for the most part. Most dudes do two assignments as a patch (SQ/WG level, then OT/teach WIC/another CAF assignment for the most part) then they're off to school/staff or the guard/airlines...you can guess which one of those two categories a metric shit ton fall into.

Guys go to WIC to help their careers?

Good advice. Like I said before I've actually gone to several units and spent some time with them. Everything was positive and I did my best to be humble and not have an attitude. What I am seeing though is that it seems like a lot of the slots are either unofficially already filled before the process is over or they are just hiring their bros or people that they already knew from before. I honestly can't blame anyone for doing that. What I am saying is that it doesn't look like there are so many guard/reserve jobs out there that units can't get them all filled like some people have been saying. We want to see the desire to be in the unit. As my spiel goes to those that visit-we look at it as if you are joining our family. 1 visit isn't going to cut it. We are also going check you thru the bro network. Think of it as rushing a frat. If we constantly see your face, then we know you really want to be part of our unit, not just shot gunning out apps and phone calls to see if anyone bites. One of our last hires said he was stumped at the interview when we asked him to tell us something about him we didn't know. He stumbled because he had been at the squadron so much he thought he had told us everything. That's the level of determination we are looking for. We want you to be around for 10-15 or so yrs, so we are going to make sure you fit in. And you should be sure we are going to fit in for you as well. Never forget it's a 2 way relationship.

Eh, I tend to agree with nsplayr. Big Blue will continue to burn hours on the 4th gen fighters, with no thought of trying to conserve them. They'll SLEP the hell out of them, and then point to the "rising maintenance costs" as all the more reason to buy the latest 5th gen wonder toy.

, but if I am getting cut off at the knees and have no opportunities to "shine" then I'm just going to get out. Double edged sword, this manning plan is. I can only imagine the challenge AFPC has to deal with. When there are plenty of pilots, they are pissed when they have to take a job out of the jet. When manning is so bad that you "have" to fly your supersonic chariot for the majority of your career, they complain about not being able to "shine". Wtf.

What's your problem, Spoo?