Leaderboard

I could write an entire paper on how the mobility Air Forces delegitimize flying skill. But the bottom line is this: for the most part, you don't have to be good to accomplish our mission. Because you can be quite bad at the actual skill of flying and still get the mobility mission done, guys are able to focus their early careers on superfluous shit, while maintaining only a baseline competency in the jet. Since this strategy optimizes your chances for promotion, especially within Mobility, these people end up in positions of power. And since they weren't competent in the jet, they perpetuate the idea that skill in the jet is not as important as the skill of paperwork, and being an exec, and other non flying related tasks. Since the reality is that you can be bad in the jet and get the mobility mission done, this mindset is able survive. What commander who got where they are by being terrible in the aircraft is going to promote a squadron culture of being skilled in the aircraft? Because people are generally proponents of the way they got to their position in life, these weak pilots deemphasize skill, sometimes actively.

This. I get tired of hearing that phrase to describe the same old bad leadership. I don’t care if someone was a “good dude” before they get to the DO level. Let’s see how they are when they have something to lose. Let’s see if they’ll fight up or fight down, once they start becoming part of that Big Blue Club (BBC). For most leaders, once they start deepthroating, they become addicted to BBC.

good dude does not equal good leader

AMC's command track program is crossflow, which is switching from airlift to tanker, or tanker to airlift. Your CGO of the year types are typically the ones selected for that, and winning that type of award has little to do with tactical credibility in the MAF, On the flip side, the tanker patches have the credibility, but the MAF has never valued them as command material. Because of a fairly heinous deployment legacy, the tanker WIC spent a decade having more class slots than applicants. As a generalization, tanker patches don't have records that compete with the crossflow guys. You can spend an entire 10 year commitment never meeting a patch wearing commander. But more than likely, your commander, and his commander, will be airlift guys. And obviously, the path to command is flying a different MAF airframe. So early on, you realize the critical path toward senior leadership is min running toward IP, becoming an exec, and off to another airplane. Follow that with school and staff, and then find yourself in command of a squadron where the senior Captains have way more experience than the guys leading them.

Hahaha, oh god, never met a more dangerous pilot. Fair enough, you got me there. Never said it was right to pawn off problem children to other communities, but not so sure what else to do with them. I wish they would just stop promoting mediocrity like in your example.

This would support my argument in two ways. First, there's nothing that says C-130s can't be like Fighters, where since skill is required to support the mission, there's a higher incidence of skilled pilots in Leadership positions. However, because of the existence of the Phoenix reach program and a general desire to swap commanders into different airframes, bad pilots from other heavies that have distinguished themselves through paperwork are still able to take over C-130 squadrons as commanders, bypassing the requirement to be good at flying C-130 missions. Last I heard there were more C-17 pilots taking over C-130 squadrons than the reverse, so even though C-130 pilots may require more skill to accomplish their mission, the net effect of the system, thanks to Phoenix reach, would be the same.

By “weeding out the suck” you mean send to different communities in the MAF, yeah, the C-130 community is just as “guilty” as any other community of doing that. Reference: https://www.kansas.com/news/business/aviation/article171734662.html

Write the takeoff time and tail number on your hand, problem solved

Don't hit me Be where I expect Look good coming up initial Questions? No? Thanks!

Sort of, but sometimes the young/patch/2 below/never a DO/WGCC's boy takes over your squadron and all you can do is shake your head in disbelief the first year of their command. The fighter community is a small, close knit community but it's difficult to breach the door into the "chosen" few, most of their bios look like they went to college for the first 18 years of their career.

My guess is it has something to do with the youth movement in tanker leadership, combined with the lack of tanker experience among those leaders. Case in point: the ARW/CCs at both McConnell and Seymour Johnson are dudes who pinned on O-6 at 18 yrs and are Wg/CCs at 20 yrs into their careers. Both assiduously avoided the air refueling community for at least a decade. The McConnell CC never previously flew the KC-135, and the last time he flew the KC-10 was 2005. The SJ commander is slightly better; he actually started in the KC-135, but was gone from the community for 13 years, from ‘03-‘16. If the Wg leadership’s dearth of tanker experience is any indication of group & squadron CCs’ backgrounds, clueless/clownish leadership should come as no surprise. You want good leaders? Put people who know what they’re doing in those jobs. TT

This is pretty moving.

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