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Sad that someone who finished #2 in his class in UPT feels like he "misprioritized" during UPT due to a pt test failure. This is what the USAF focuses on folks. And then wonders why the good people leave.

I'm not sure how it will affect you while you are in training, it might affect your training report. Failing the test isn't good though. If you get the reputation of the guy that sucks at PT, it will definetly affect they way your leadership looks at you. You really need to knock the PT Test out of the water the next time around and not ever fail again. One of my buddies is a C-130 pilot at hurlburt and he failed his PT test, got a referral and was passed over for Maj.

Could I outsource all of my OPRs, award packages, staff meeting slides, and decs to India for $5k a year? Could 10 pilots pool money together to pay for someone to sit Top 3 every day?

Chang is Butters... BUTTERS IS CHANG!!

Note: If your follow-on training is scheduled for less than 20 weeks but goes over 20 weeks, you can get an extension on the OPR closeout date.

Nellis lodging is legendary for trying to steer you where THEY want you to stay. With non-A letters in hand, politely tell them to eat a dick and stay where you like.

I'm waiting to hear your response to this email. If you are who you pretend to be, then the impending 11F shortage HAD to be in your crosscheck. Go ahead, try to reconcile it. Keep telling us that "everything is fine" and throwing more money at the problem will fix it. Wait until a problem is very public and too late for elegant solutions, then try to fix it. Yup, it's all about the money.... JQP - 11F Crisis (direct link) JQP - 11F Crisis

Opportunity in disguise? You're just 3 PT failures away from being in the guard (not being serious.... But seriously)

A referral OPR for a failed PT test? IIRC, a referral is mandatory if your OPR period closes out with a failed/expired PT test. Which means that even if you fail one, as long as you can make it up and pass before your report closes, you shouldn't get a referral. If CCs are giving referral reports for failures above and beyond that, well, that's some solid douchebaggery right there. General bit of free advice for folks that struggle with the PT test: adjust your testing schedule so that it DOESN'T coincide with your OPR close out. Shoot for the first or second month of your annual reporting period. Then your second test will fall in month 7 or 8. Should give you plenty of time to fix any failures prior to a report closing. Or just get to the gym more often, it's not that hard of a test.

I believe MtF's point was that most real estate investors fail to discount with an appropriate illiquidity factor and perhaps overlook the true costs/risks of real estate (especially as your capital structure becomes more complex as a real estate mogul). Most of the squadron bros who were focused solely on any investment (be it RE, equity, debt, Iraqi Dinars, etc) didn't understand how to compare apples to oranges as they considered their investment options. When the light came on, nearly all of them realized that tilting a portfolio too heavily to one strategy brought with it some unanticipated tail risk and unforeseen opportunity cost. ...and second-order effects, as well. Consider your estate plan and how real property (and mortgages) will transfer to your heirs. Probate ain't pretty in some states and trusts cost cash. I would use personal preference as a cautionary tale, considering folks tend to find comfort in the numbers they've crunched. You can look at it as confirmation bias, but everyone likes to justify their ideas as the right ideas. Assumptions in your cap rate can be way off, just like that equity analyst's assumptions when he misjudged Target's cost of capital and expected dividend in his Gordon growth model. Valuation is valuation at some level, so I believe you can approach real estate just as you would an equity investment. Projecting those cash flows into the future is certainly tricky no matter what you're analyzing. While stagflation may be an exaggeration of the current environment, having some real assets in your portfolio certainly helps. Rent-producing assets have been a nice addition to those seeking current income, especially against the current economic and demographic backdrops. Rent inflation vs. CPI is a pretty stark contrast (over the last 3-ish years). 11F..., if you enjoy a consumer-centric theme, I would encourage you to investigate a 50/50 portfolio of consumer staples/consumer discretionary from various perspectives, not just total return or income. Being an active retail investor is a tough business, and I appreciate your conviction. If you're curious what type of data you're up against, cruise over to RS Metrics and see the real-time info they're selling.

Anecdote: some B52 deployed CCs say "no"...but they can't stop you from bringing the family over on your dime. But the jackholes can also put you on mids/12s, or restrict you to base, deny local time off, or other nasty anti-family time tactics. Not saying it happens...but it happened and discouraged a bunch of younguns from bringing over family. But, when you think about it there are a lot of TDYS/deployments you can easily turn into mini (expensive) vacations: I "took" my spouse on many TDYS to various places over the years, CONUS and not...often, we rode the same aircraft and stayed in the same hotel and drove the same rental car...I claimed the appropriate expenses and paid for thr rest...you get the idea. Example: I had to go to Macdill for a Centcom thing for a week. Travel days were Mon and Fri, meetings Tues- Thursday. So we flew down the previous Friday after work, had fun in Orlando until Monday evening, then we drove to Macdill. I did meetings, she did her stuff (sts) and we spent the last weekend on Siesta Key before flying home Sunday. Even had all the stops in DTS as pass/no Per diem days. Perfectly legal..did this kind of thing often. The AF may be tired, but YOU can still look for morale- building things to do.

Make more attached guys that would fly the bare min and always put in availability for only 2nd go, but never after 3? F that. How about we just have our own promotion boards so dudes Tripping over their johnson to compete against the finance Capt or pharmacy tech with an extra 20 hrs a week to throw towards planning parties or being the Asian Pacific Islander heritage month POC?

Option C is to promote officers in severly undermanned AFSCs to Major the same way we do Captain and 1Lt. That might help retention in the career fields that are truly hurting. Unfortunately that would foil the "get passed over so I can get out of my UPT ADSC early" technique.

They redirect their hate to the booms.

Just one more piece of BS tipping the scales. Problem is that the talent the USAF needs to retain is generally skilled/educated...and those people generally marry similar people. My wife has to work jobs at 1/3 the pay of what she'd get using her degree in an established career. Also, what about the loss of equity/stability we deal with moving every 2yrs and 8 mos? Sorry, I am generally a critic of lavish benefits but this is BS. Send the wrong message to young airman also about maximizing financial efficiency (roommate/living below means). Oh, I forgot, financial efficiency and the USAF are like oil and water.

I love how living within your means is considered abuse in Congress.

Last crew took it.

That came across as speculation/rumor mill, I linked an authoritative source.

A Crew Chief more eloquent than myself wrote this and has been making the rounds. I remember her as an love hate relationship scooping snow off her at K.I. Sawyer.

You are right Chang! One of the things that kept me in was the stuff I can only do here. But doing PME in-res has near-ZERO impact on creating actual leaders. The good leaders in the USAF usually have been good leaders their whole life. Unfortunately the USAF thinks sending someone to Maxwell is a magic leadership ticket and had weak metrics for finding its real leaders. That's why people are jumping ship. The guys I would have followed into WW3 as a LT have jumped ship. Sadly, many of the guys I thought were risk adverse ass kissing d-bags with zero natural leadership talent went to school and are on their way to running things.

I have never met a single officer who went to ROTC or OTS who wished they'd gone to USAFA. I've met plenty of USAFA grads who regret not having a normal college experience.