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You, my friend, are insightful. You haven't seen the POWER of the dark side. Screw the flight pay. You don't know what you're missing. No Sir,... you just need to imagine being terrified at 55 knots. Or negative 4G's. Or inverted on a straight-and-level pass at 200' AGL. I was bored in my '77 Corolla... until I learned to DRIVE it. Yes. And I respect the hell out of those that have the drive to actually build/create. Those are the type of people that also give back. Can't wait to see you at a fly-in, Brother!! And Reno is next month. Beers are on me. And you know what? That lifestyle will impact the relationship you have with your kids. And wife. And it will be very positive. Good on you, good Sir. Ah... silly, silly, Grasshopper. Give up your love of such things as golf, motorcycles, golf, cars, golf, and... did I mention golf? These things were created by Lucifer to steer you away from your Aviation Destiny. Well,... keep the fast car. But only if it doesn't keep you out of more aviation. Being able to drive to your 60 mph aircraft in a car that can do 165 mph is kinda worthwhile. I think. This makes no sense. Whether you rent or buy Item #2, you simply need to do it. As for Items #1 and #3, I have no advice to offer. A quotable quote. The first girl I kissed wasn't much of a kisser. Neither were the next three. Thankfully, I didn't give up before I met #5. Some airplanes just don't respond well to inputs. It might not be a problem with "that type of airplane", but rather with "that particular airplane". I remember my first Extra 300 flight in 1996: indescribable. And now... with 110+ different aircraft in my logbook... I'm happy to say that I'm over 25% of the way to my goal. They are truly, unique experiences. Not to mention the amazing people I have met along the way. I should have written a book. Awesome thread, jspace.

I don't have a plane, but an unusually large number of other U-2 guys do. Everyone is dual qual'd in the T-38 and, even though there are lots of out and backs, cross countries, formation, and low levels, dudes still want to fly on the weekends. It's primarily because of Beale's location in the middle of the West Coast. Turns a 3.5hr drive to Monterrey into a <1hr flight, and the fun factor is way better. Professional pilots don't fly because it's better than their day job, they fly because driving sucks.

ASAP reporting should never be punitive. Otherwise nobody would report.

I miss my iPhone app

This is just a culture thing within the MAF. If you bend metal, everyone associated with the flight gets a Q3, irregardless of the facts or if you could have prevented it. This is same command that tries to track down aircrew for ASAP reports when self reporting a breach of flight discipline, or court martials a pilot for an off DZ drop. Non AMC MAF units like LTS can make smarter decisions, but rarely do since the leadership is drawn from AMC.

Ew.

If it fucks, flies, or floats it's cheaper to rent. Thats the main reason GA is hard to get involved with for me.

Everything I can afford is too goddamned slow and lacks radar/guns

CK didn't become persona non grata when he took a knee; he did it when he wore socks depicting cops as pigs and a shirt idolizing Castro - even a high school education should have prevented him from that level of hypocrisy. Even at that: plenty of asshat players have still found employment when they can play serious ball: TO, Pacman Jones and Vick were a few. What sealed the deal with CK was when it became obvious that his only good season in SF was a result of a strong Harbaugh team hitting on all cylinders. He sucks, plain and simple. Maybe, if he weren't such an asshole, he could get hired as a backup. So could Johnny Football. It's not about race; it's about how much benefit you offer and at how much cost (both monetary and in terms of associated drama). His risk/reward just doesn't make sense to any team right now. That's what you get for being an a$$hole.

Here is the link to the AF Portal page and snapshot of the pilot stats. https://www.my.af.mil/gcss-af/USAF/ep/browse.do?programId=t0ECF2BB852AD5A280152C257EBA7018E&channelPageId=s330D98A14DFE211B014E2178A7BD03FF

I am sure many have done better than me at UPT and many have also done worse, so FWIW here is the advice from an "old" ANG Captain that got tankers on track select night: You have got to want to be there! I know this sounds stupid, but you would be amazed at how quickly the "new" wears off and people start b1tching about UPT. The same thing happens right before assignment night - people forget just how lucky they are to be flying ANYTHING in the AF. Thus, you get someone literally CRYING IN PUBLIC about getting an A-10 instead of an F-15. WTF!? Anyway, I digress. You must be willing to put in the work. That means generally no Halo marathons, no drunken parties during the week, and no constant jabbering to your girlfriend who is 1200 miles away. At least during the week. I'll get to weekends later. Remember why you are at UPT - to learn to fly AF airplanes. There is only a finite amount of time in the day, and if you don't prioritize it well (see my examples above) you won't do well at UPT. You have to be consistent with your work ethic. There are TONS of things that need to be done on a daily basis. Academic exams, EPQs, stand-up, briefings, plus usually 2 or 3 actual flights per day. Toss a checkride in every few weeks just for fun. In order to keep everything straight, you MUST keep your nose to the grind stone. For me, I spent at least 2 hours a night studying (except Friday and Saturday). I would get home, spend 1-2 hours with the wife (eat dinner, walk the dog, f*ck, whatever) then study for 2 hours, shower, and go to bed at 10pm. Up at 5am and repeat. EVERY NIGHT. For the entire year. There is no shortage of things to study, so you must study/read something every night just to keep up. If not, you will get behind quickly and the pace of UPT is such that once you're in a hole in one area it is very difficult to recover (to the point where you do well vs. just getting by). I will caveat this by saying that you need to study and work hard, but don't panic about it. There were many nights that involved a few beers while chair flying! Gotta keep it real. CHAIR FLY - CHAIR FLY - CHAIR FLY. I can't stress that enough. As the SRO of my class, I was fortunate enough to be one of the 'go-to' guys when folks had trouble. I was always amazed that guys would tell me "Yeah, I know the procedures for a no-flap straight in" but when I would sit them down in my living room and say "Talk me through it - in excruciating detail. I want to know every single thing you are going to do...every switch, radio call, where you're looking, etc." and they could not do it! They would miss steps, forget checklists, or not know the radio calls. If you can't chair fly a mission at ground speed zero, you will never be able to do it at 200 knots with an IP staring you down. As a side note, helping others chair fly is one of the best ways to study, IMHO. If you can teach it to others, it shows you have a command of the information. Again, there is a never ending amoung of information to cover so you had better chair fly every night (esp. in T-1s when you're shooting 6-8 different approaches every flight. Lots of details to remember, and the more you know before you step to the jet the better you will do in the air.) There's an old saying that goes something like "Never let the airplane go somewhere you mind hasn't been to 5 minutes prior". Chair flying gives you the ability to rehearse everything the day prior. Sure, things will go wrong or change, but if you've practiced the "perfect mission" 3-4 times before, you'll be able to focus on the changes and not get wrapped up worrying about the basic profile. The ability to remain calm and excel when the profile changes is one of the things that will set you apart from the rest of the class. Perhaps some of our FAIP mafia on here can comments on that...but in my experience, that was the case. Anyone should be able to fly the profile as briefed. But how people react when the feces hits the rotating oscillator is when you find out how they really perform, IMHO. Balance. You must balance the day to day stress of UPT with your life. For me, I would stop worrying about UPT stuff on Friday after our last event. Party it up at the club, drive to San Antonio, whatever. We'd go boating, travel, or BBQ on Saturdays and Sundays until about 5pm. Then it was time to eat dinner and hit the books again to get ready for Monday. Use the weekends to catch up on your life...spend extra time with the girlfriend/wife/kids, go do whatever you do for fun. The people that never let UPT go soon self-destructed. Those are just a few things you can do to improve your chances. It's true that natural ability plays some part in success, but it's more mental than anything else. You can learn the monkey skills of actually flying the airplane. It's keeping your SA and being able to answer IPs questions that is the real b1tch - and the part of the equation you have direct control over by studying/chair flying. You will never hook a ride for a firm landing [hand-eye stuff] but you certainly will if you bust out of the MOA [brain power stuff]. That's where work ethic, consistency, and attitude come into play. I know some folks reading this will say, "He's full of sh*t! Everyone has GOT to study! Everyone has GOT to chair fly!" You'd be surprised how many people I knew that spent 0 time outside of the flight room studying. And they all got what they deserved on assignment night. Whew. Guess I got off on a rant there. Sorry if I was long winded, but that's my perspective.

I'm not defending Johns by any means, but if you're referring to crews getting taken down via data points derived from MFOQA, from the one instance I heard of involving a C-17 crew in the AOR, gross negliance and failure to maintain simple principals of basic flight discipline led to them getting taken down. That said, ASAP reports and info derived from MFOQA data should not be punitive (in 99% of the instances).