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So glad I retired... In many ways it is sad to watch this happen, but in a twisted sort of way it is gratifying. I used to love the Air Force and serving, but a small group of spineless leaders sold their souls to get promoted when they could have fallen on their swords and sound the alarm. Who knows, the outcome might have been exactly the same. It sickens me that I put faith in some of these guys, Christ I flew with people like Rand and really believed the bullshit. I truly hope you guys and girls don't end up as jaded as I am. Now it feels like I am comfortably sitting on my front porch watching a kid poke the hornets nest when I told him 10 times what would happen and while I don't want anyone to suffer, I will feel a small bit of satisfaction when he gets stung.

FY 2000 or thereabouts, Toners could drop a bomber. Then it went away. It's not earth shattering change by any means. The ethnocentrism of the Air Force track system is retarded anyways. We're now prepping for T-38 instructors to come from T-1 tracked MWS guys who've never flown the thing. Of course, PIT is such a high-ROI water-into-wine making outfit, they'll have zero problem cranking out quality.... As to expectations, manning is falling apart but it sure is a great time to be a T-38 student. It's like an episode of the Oprah Show. YOU get a fighter, YOU get a fighter! LOL There's some real shitbags being pushed who would have never made the cut back in mid 00s, and we've tried documenting away and trying to bring solid candidates for the B-courses, but in this environment it's about impossible to wash someone out of UPT/IFF. In time, this too will change again. It matters none, timing and luck has always been the driver, et al. I sleep with a clear conscience, let the B-course IPs sort through the guano. Not on me brotato chips. --BREAK BREAK-- On the AFRC front, the last email I got was the ART-to-AGR retro-conversion plan that's being thrown around, as they grapple and panic on an 5-year on going 55% ART manning rate, after the whole six years of pushing the ART conversion on everyone during FY11 when the airlines were merely hinting at opening the floodgates. Ah vindication sure is sweet. Fuck em. Let them eat cake for 15 years of non-choices and garbage treatment of their operators. It is an absolutely great time to align fuselages into whichever status you want to be in long term. Make no mistake, just like the airline hiring, once it stops, and it WILL stop, the hiring will also freeze in the military side and whatever chair you have at that time is the chair you'll have to like for quite a while. The only way they can change the ART dynamics for the better is to allow that job to be considered USERRA-eligible based on the part B. That way airline aspirants can mil leave into an ART. But since it's being driven by the part A (civilian), no dice. Same thing for the AD recall volunteer call. You give the guy a flying club gig for 3 years and all these junior guys will jump at it. Pilot shortage fixed overnight. But big blue ain't interested in giving out good deals. So they'll sit on it and keep sucking. Oh well, suit yourself. P.S. One gratuitous pot shot observation of the airline gig. You know, for the greatest job in the world, people sure spend a lot of time hiding from it in the military. Any job is great when you're the senior guy. I judge a job's worth by how the middle guy does. From my vantage point, the middle guy at the airlines does ok, and I'm certainly not making a plug for an AD-on-the-cheap ART job, just keeping it balanced. I was a trougher in the mid 00s, I know what the airline job looks like on the back end of the waves. No free lunch fellas. Everybody walk with the Mk 1s uncaged and tracking now. No excuse in the age of the internet.

It was in the porch brief from our functional. Official AFPC brief. He also mentioned Moody standing back up for full UPT ops. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Words from our (bomber) functional today... 11X bonus raised to 35K as already stated. No 12B bonus (12F not addressed) despite large manning shortfalls. Work underway for 11F AD recalls. Policy may drop as soon as 4 mo from now. All future T-38s to fighters, non-recs to bombers T-1 FAIPs and some directs will fill bombers MAF to accept fewer total UPT grads overall based on perception of ~100% mobility manning No mention of stoploss. Palace Chase: Less than 6 mo ADSC - likely to be approved 6-12 - rare More than 12 - very unlikely random leadership comment: "AFRC/ANG will be broken in 3-5 years" Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Direct democracy is exactly what the framers were trying to avoid with how they structured the Constitution. I would argue we should go back to electing Senators by state legislatures. With 32 states under Republican control, you can see how that would change the national Senate's composition today. And this isn't just because I'd like to see more Republican senators (I think both parties are hopelessly lost) but I think it would give the states a greater voice in Washington as was originally intended. Senators would then be accountable to the state legislature, and states could even choose to recall Senators if they become too entrenched and loyal to Washington instead of who put them there. This would also help to decrease the effect of densely populated urban areas in Senate representation, which was another reason for indirect election in the first place. The founders believed the Senate was the higher house, and wanted to trust choosing those who serve there to state legislators who could/should have greater discernment in who they chose. The framers were much smarter than I, and I believe if our state reps were electing our Senators, people might care a little more about those elections closer to home. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Where is this info coming from, and has something like this happened in recent memory? I wouldn't've expected to ever hear something like this. It sounds like almost a complete revamp of the tracking system.

It's a trap!

It's not bad for the individuals in AFRC, it's a sign that the organization itself is in trouble. My squadron went from completely healthy to unable to fill its full time positions in just 6 months. Each week a new full time guy is getting a call from the airlines and bailing for a TR spot or retiring completely. I do not know who is going to be around to run the squadron next year. It may be the best time ever to join the AFRC if you can get into the type of position that you want. Job security should be high and progression appears to be practically unlimited.

Ask her to buy you a car instead. It will show that you are an alpha male and call the shots.

Sounds exactly like aviation in the later 1930s. I had one GO rationalize keeping cyber within the USAF because his vision was that we are the masters of all things which travel through the ether. I was like "wat?"

Probably worthy of its own service because of how different a medium it is to any of the other services; Bender made a case, though, at his 2015 A/TA speech that every service will have cyber needs of some sort that are unique to them (although mostly in the customer service sense). Maybe a cyber entity for the operations supplemented by the regular NIPR things within each component. Whatever it is, it isn't sticking it inside AFSPC sts, that's for sure.

AFRC Results message has been released. Congrats to all those selected. Next board is May 17 with a deadline of 31 March 17 for submissions. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Big blue will screw this up and piss off more people. People who signed the bonus a few years back willing to stay as long as they can fly operationally will be given IFF and "other" 11F billets while the return to AD guys will be given the enticing assignments to get them back which will just piss more people off. Our leadership is not skilled/smart enough to enact this correctly. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

The following is slightly out of the lane of the way this thread is going but important nonetheless. I'm a right wing guy, but this lefty professor has my respect and attention. Beside his profoundly insightful books on human behavior, he and some of his colleagues have formed the "heterodox academy" to promote a politically neutral college education system that holds accountable bat sh1t crazy commie schools that squash free speech. Here is his annual letter on the state of his organization. It is insightful like the rest of his writings. https://heterodoxacademy.org/2017/01/03/heterodox-academy-our-plans-for-2017/ Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I look forward to (hopefully) receiving this phone call...and telling Big Blue exactly where to stick their "offer". Barring WWIII, you couldn't get me to go back for any amount of promises or compensation. The grass is most definitely greener out here. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Conversely if we expanded civil service beyond a military draft I think we could combat that. I'd imagine the loss of freedoms might have an effect. 20-23 year olds find themselves teaching English to Hadj on some super FOB or running a warehouse full of water bottles for a year of your life would have a real effect on our taste for "nation building."

Actually the planes fly just fine if the base network, telephones, skynet, gps, etc are down. For a while anyway.

Let's see . . . - AD senior leaders clueless/unwilling to acknowledge MAF pilot shortfalls . . . heavy drivers feel unappreciated - A-word hiring is huge/not going away & MAF mission is directly applicable to a-word skill sets . . . civil sector makes heavy drivers feel really appreciated (showing it through compensation packages) - Something like half of airlift & tankers are in the AFRES/ANG . . . Guard & Reserves need AD heavy drivers, sending demand for AD heavy drivers even higher - From what I read on here, folks already in AFRC have little desire to stay past 20 . . . Guard/Reserves need even more heavy drivers - Folks separating from AD little prob getting hired by the airlines . . . heavy drivers don't need the Guard/Reserves - AFRC's inability to fill taskings drives AD requirements even higher, driving up AD OPSTEMPO, which further pushes folks toward the exits I'm sure glad Big Blue is only short on 11Fs. What could possibly go wrong?

If you're going to be a C-17 guy, the last thing you want is a lawyer wife that's drained your cash on a new car. You'll need income to pay for the flock of bastard children you have in Rota/Constanta/Germany, etc.

A voluntary recall could get some guys back for an assignment if the AF did it right. If a dude who is just finishing probation at an airline got an offer of his choice of bases, it could work out. Wouldn't mess up his career at an airline unless he overstayed his 5 years mil leave. If they offered in writing a 3 year assignment with only a 3 year ADSC to a fighter squadron in Europe with no individual non-vol TDYs (only deploy when the squadron deploys), they'd get some guys for sure and the gaining squadrons would be better for it. Imagine how much better of a squadron it could be if the SQ/DO or SQ/CC honestly didn't give a single thought to his career after that job? Problem is, the AF will just pork it away and has show itself to not be trustworthy as an organization.

MFLAC, call A&FRC for contact info. They're confidential, don't keep records of any kind and most people I know who've used them (including myself) would recommend.

Voluntary? These dudes got out for a reason. I highly doubt Joe Ex-11F wants to leave his cush job with Delta to voluntarily come back to this happy horse poop. Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

Here's the notes from Gen Bender's lunch chat I mentioned before. Please note these are his words mangled by my interpretation. Overall I found the time spent with him worth it, not a dog-phony show, and informative. I was also confident that the future of Cyber is at least vectored in a good-direction, despite my disagreements with some of where we're going.So the first was, "We're the best advanced Air Force of the Industrial Age." Which was echoed a couple times in other thoughts and comments as we ate and talked. Overall, he appeared to be getting at our ability to dominate Air and all aspects of it, but being ill-suited to continue to dominate Air as we struggle to get a grasp on Cyber. If we don't grasp how Cyber impacts Air Operations (ex. Maintainers utilizing web-enabled laptops to update maps, AOC NIPR/SIPR Access Points, ICS/SCADA systems overall, etc.) and make sure we've covered those attack-vectors, we're not going to succeed. Some of this can be seen in the Ukraine Artillery hack or not. "The days of the pilot on the pointy end being the only operator are old fashioned and over. We need a focus on teamwork because everyone is impacted by cyber, not just our Operators on the keyboards. On a football team--who's the operator?" This was a comment after a discussion about how we're going to differentiate between operators, maintainers and users of the AFNET. Gen Bender was not of the mind to spec out a separate Cyber Mx line (I am). Because if you're operating on the domain for Mx, that's still operations. He doesn't want someone to think of the domain as Air, and we "hop off" the domain to do Mx. Cyber can't allow that mindset. Interesting thought, not sure I agree.There was a good discussion about a technical track for Cyber Officers and Gen Bender said it's something he's taking back to the CSAF. Because the retention problem is going to be very different from the pilot one (pays, privileges, smaller outside hire opportunities) and the specifics required are more specialized. So a pilot can spend an assignment getting spun up on an airframe, and stay within that airframe. But we don't' have any of that in Cyber and taking someone from ICS/SCADA systems and throwing them into Router Exploitation is very different from F16->F15 or even F-16->Drone. (Note - please correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption.) It was also pointed out that we can't just have a cadre of technical experts at the O1-O4 level and have no one moving up the chain to advocate for capes and resources. It appeared lost on my fellow O's, but it's a good point.There was also some discussion about AFSPC as the home for Cyber. Because cyber has to be fast and that is not AFSPC. They'll spend decades on a project and it's ok, because: rockets, satellites, and the void. They fail one launch, at that's a cool $2B instantly gone. But if we spend 2 years on a cyber project, it's already outdated and we're behind. 3 years to POM for a project? GTFO (my words, obviously). He said he brought that up to the CSAF/SecAF, but as we're AFSPC now it's where we've got to work. But it's in the whole cyber mind that AFSPC isn't working out, and the efficiency wasn't as good as expected.I didn't take notes on this, but he spoke at length about the culture change and really needing to work on that and make sure we get it right. Which means bringing the right people in and getting the training right. On training, "...right now we're taking in new Airman and treating them like they've got no idea how tech works. Everyone starts at baseline zero with no regard for previous experience." He did say they're developing a test to judge aptitude for cyber capabilities, similar to the TBAS. Training for us is a realy problem. Our training pipeline is not responsive, nor does it address the AF's needs beyond warm body. I can't take a Airman out of tech school and get them prepared to start working in our operational units sooner than a year. There's topics that aren't even covered in school (ex. virtualization) because AETC doesn't want to pony up the cash for equip. Additionally, the on-going training is woefully out of date. On culture it's more about making sure that as we push towards ops that we get it right. If we can get more of you guys into cyber to educate our oncoming senior leaders (and me) about what real ops is, that would be great. EDIT - Forgot this one. He also spoke about how we're doing applications and software. Specifically mentioned the dog-shit(my words) software USAFA is using for their student actions. How he approached SalesForce about possibly utilizing their applications and got push back from corporate AF asking what experience that commercial developer had running large university management. Turns out SalesForce support a ton of universities, enough to have a dedicated portion of their site for it. Also, costs less than $100 per student.

The 345th Bomb Squadron at Dyess AFB, TX is having a rated/non-rated hiring board to select new applicants to join the “Desperados.” Applications will be accepted through 1 Feb 2017 and interviews for those invited will be held on 4/5 March 2017, during our UTA weekend. This board will be to hire both off the street and rated Pilots and Weapon Systems Officers. Attached you will find the requirements to help you assemble your application package. Questions can be sent to 345BS.Hiring@gmail.com. Good luck to all that apply! 345th Bomb Squadron Request for Applications.docx

"You'll always lose money chasing women. But you'll never lose women chasing money" -My mom

Ah.. ye of little faith.

I bought a convertible as a Lt waiting to start UPT. After UPT, I sold the convertible to buy a wedding ring for my fiance. 5 years down the road we got divorced and now I have neither a wife nor a convertible. I miss that car.

Please check with your WSO before posting.

Try asking the Wing Historian. He might know and he'll probably be overjoyed to know that someone knows he exists.

Nope.

This is exactly what happens now. Republican voters in CA, NY, and IL are not heard since all of their electoral votes go blue and it most likely depresses their turnout. With a national popular vote or proportional EC, every Republican vote in CA would actually count - so would every Dem vote in Alabama. Speaking of Alabama, which is a reliably red state and voted 62% for Trump, let's see how it stacks up on federal give-and-take: The Federal Government provides roughly $60 billion annually to AL (includes the same grants, services, and direct payments as your total for CA) and direct federal funds account for 36% of AL's state revenue (about $8 billion). And AL contributes only $19 billion back to the feds. While the dollar totals for CA are greater, it is also the most populous state in the union and it takes roughly the same as it gives. Look, I'm not trying to defend anything about CA - I've never lived there, never want to. My point is that we can look at these numbers for every state and find blue states that give more than they take and red states that take more than they give. And they all rely on federal money in their budgets no matter how much they like to bash the feds. This is a good point and highlights the role of states' right in the presidential election and EC - thanks for adding it to the discussion. I would counter that the 17th amendment was a clear move toward direct democracy, by instituting statewide direct election of senators. Wouldn't the next step on that path be direct election of the only federal office? And isn't "all votes are equal" a worthy goal? But where would that leave consent from the states? That's why I think keeping the EC and changing it to a proportional distribution of electors would maintain the state/fed mix while minimizing the chance of a disconnect between the EC and national popular vote results. I agree - changes to letter and spirit of the Constitution require an amendment. To be clear, I am not personally advocating for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. But it is certainly relevant to this discussion. My personal preference would be to keep the EC but award each states electors as percentages of the state's popular vote, rather than winner-take-all or apportioned by congressional district since we all know those are gerrymandered to hell nationwide. Absolutely it would change the way presidential campaigns are planned and executed. And I absolutely agree that voters in every state would be energized to participate, even in hard right and left states, because they will have an actual impact. That only happens in IL. We're proud that our cemeteries have the highest turnout in the nation.