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The following valid reasons have already been stated: 1. We can always get thousands of college grads so sign up to be officers and pilots. We can't retain the experienced ones because we don't pay them enough / they're assigned too much queep. 2. We love it when enlisted guys are motivated enough to become pilots. We've been rewarding hundreds per year with pilot slots and commissions for the past 50 years. This new enlisted pilot program shows neither an appreciation to enlisted guys (because we're not paying them) nor an understanding of #1. 3. There is a lot more required of being a pilot (ref my previous post) than a good ASVAB score, especially since that test is focused on nuts and bolts. High school doesn't measure anything but GPA. We don't pick officers based solely on GPA, or for anything other single measure. Some other country does it differently? IDGAF. European and Israeli "high school" grads are different than ours. They also go to a multi-year academy-like officer training school. The Dutch one is 1.5 years, IDK about the others.

So, looks like I'll be running straight up the gut for the next year and a half. Selected September 2017, inprocessed this past week with the 340th FTG at Randolph. OTS: 9 Jan to 9 Mar ...2 days later: SERE: 12 Mar to 30 Mar ...4 days later: Water survival: 4 Apr to 5 Apr ...5 days of driving later: UPT (Vance): 10 Apr (report date), 24 Apr 2018 to May 2019. Not only did I get SERE before UPT and 2 days after OTS, but no real breaks in training, just PCS travel days. Let's get this party started!

My ops group has stiff-armed the majority of bullshit additional duties out there. The officers are all concentrated on primarily mission-related duties as well as flying. There is so much (worthwhile) work to be done to improve our platform and way of doing business. We couldn't afford to have a "flying-only" guy that doesn't help out with that. Pilots don't just pilot. Flying a plane is hard, but regular Joes can be taught. Learning all the technical shit is doable. Handling EPs is tougher. Formation is tougher. Doing all that in a jet is tougher. Doing that in the middle of the Pacific is tougher. Being responsible for multiple aircraft doing so is tougher. Add in weather. Add in GBAD and air threats and their intent to employ against you. Oh yeah, employment, that's why we're here. What, where, why, when and how will we use the thing? Meld that with everybody else's plan in real time. Who figures all that out and takes the responsibility for doing so? Who figures out how we're going to do that tomorrow and in ten years? The pilots (and navs). It sure isn't some mystical puppet master, and if it is, he's a pilot. So yeah, I want somebody with the ability to graduate fucking college first.

. It's absurd. The amount of time, money and energy going into ideas that will NOT fix the exodus is just staggering.

30 Shades of Blue

1-2 slots is a hell of a lot different than a classic assoc TFI. I have one AD dude in my guard squadron, if each AD guy had an option for one or two (not 15 or 30) seasoned dudes, that would help a lot of folks. edit* I didn't look at the dates posted; hadn't seen the thread. Sorry for the delorean ride back to April.

I don't necessarily support them but these are long term plays, not short term recruiting efforts. I wouldn't expect to be able to definitively tie individual accessions to them. The DoD paid the NFL millions to allow for "patriotic" displays at NFL games over the last decade. Servicemembers watching the games from the sidelines getting highlighted on the big screen. Surprise reunions between deployed members and their cheerleader girlfriends as the game returned from commercial break. Flyovers at prominent games (yes they paid to have the opportunity to perform a flyover). To the viewer it looked like the NFL supported the troops and was therefore gifting the attention, but that was not the case. What does the military get out of it? Every 10yr old in the country that wants to grow up to be a professional football player, 99.99% of which have no shot at it, will remember that their sports heroes (seemingly) idolize members of the military. When their sports dream falls apart and they need an alternative path through life DoD hopes they'll remember the positive vision of the military that was displayed on the field. As much as knowing that the NFL had to be paid to act like they support the military cheapens it, the reality is that it's probably the most powerful recruiting tool the military has. I'd bet that the general appearance of servicemembers being greatly respected by society at a venue that draws hundreds of millions of viewers over the course of a season will draw more recruits than all the air shows in the country combined.

Sorry. I am a full timer. Not that easy unfortunately. I have enough to keep myself busy, for now.

Competition? Bad government spending? You're slipping into conservative territory, bad nsplayr. Bad,Bad, Bad. :)

If it’s zero I agree time to re evaluate. I’d rather throw that money into air show demos.

Agreed. The current plight of the AF reminds me of the Upton Sinclair quote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." I am convinced that trying moral persuasion on the bureaucracy is impossible as individuals become dependent on it financially and in some ways spiritually (best word I can think of to describe the personal investment of one's prime working years and efforts) to change it as they have spent their working lives building it, maintaining it and defending it on that 20+ year career. I am no different as I just passed year 18 and at peer levels advocated for change, when given the chance by fate honestly spoken my opinion to superiors but not fallen on my sword and just left dropping the mic for effect. The AF is so ossified it will take an outside reformer with enough previous knowledge of its faults and enough authority to enact change but will have to reenter the institution leap frogging all the traps that preclude change. I think AFA is too joined to the AF establishment to be an honest advocate for a reformer, what other organization could AF members, vets, etc... rally under that could seriously garner attention and advocate for a modern Billy Mitchell?

Oh, this shit again? Jesus, how little memory this place has.... Yeah, this is just going to attract the unhirables period dot. No offense to the retirees who can't or won't do the airlines and wouldn't mind playing jet pilot for a paycut, this is statistically not going to carve up enough qualified volume to matter. I know I know, broad brush, but we went through this shit when they tried to ram the ART conversion at DLF. In the end they had to relent and give us the carve out to the policy. There were simply no takers of consequence. It's always been the same shit with ARTs, prototypical dudes who value getting any federal job as long as it's in this one town, or with townie-dependents, plus an unwillingness or, more often than not, outright inability to get hired at the airlines. And the toxicity that arises from ART leadership out of that demographic is a well established quantity amongst TR circles. None of this is new. The problem in this particular variation of this bad idea, is that from a straight GS perspective, it gets even worse because the payscale delta gets ridiculously worse from the AGR/AD benchmark. And we haven't even dealt with the survivor benefit issues when a civilian pulls military ejection handles vice ARC, vice AD. RegAF guys simply have no clue on these nuances. You guys think it's merely about living the simple life post-retirement and getting to fly a fun(ish) clapped out jet, but work dynamics are much more complicated than that. Don't be naive, the friction associated with doing the same job as the other guy for an almost 50K paycut does not go unnoticed. You can't keep AGRs and ARTs from each other's throats, and you think a non-SSR table -2181 series GS making flat GS-13 like a goddamn border patrol guy schmuck, is not gonna dagger at the ARC full-timers or AD green suiters over what he deems a fair level of participation in the organization for his paycut? And now you have an AD OPCON SQ/CC that has to tolerate the same level of title V scoff as they currently tolerate from the sim cadre leadership? Look, I get the schadenfreude for giving UPT IPs a paycut is strong on here, but the second tier effects of this proposal will make the UPT environment more toxic than it already is, by opening up the doors for these statistical-outliers to keep doing this job for a paycut in proverbial Del Rio. Extremely myopic. And I do know that the dynamics of places like Pensacola were not as rosy as described on here either. I know because we have a guy from there who double dipped as a green suiter and tan suiter, and is now at United when they finally gave him the finger about GS-13 as a T-1 pilot for the nav program down there. The level of toxicity was incredible at that outfit, and people left in droves. And that's in P-cola, CBM DLF and END have no chance of this gaining critical mass. The only proposition of this bad idea we had heard about on the ARC side "town hall" early this year that I think might have gained traction, was civilian contractor UPT at KAFW. Internationals only, all civilian run, fort worth in order to get these yahoos enough of an geographic incentive to do my job for 50K less, with that crappy FERS retirement, without the ART SSR pay even. The reality is that the people who could staff these billets as qualified (aka mil retires) are statistically insignificant. This isn't conjecture, we literally went through this exercise in 2013. The rest of the applicants will be the broken toys from the OPM/USAJOBS cesspool who mine that hiring system. Complete unqualified retards. We had anywhere from affirmative action web-footed african american lesbian secretary, to a no-shit ARMY tank driver with a PPL, to a female Affirm action UND graduate 23yo fresh CFI with no turbine experience.. all flagged as qualified for my job (when I was a T-6 IP). Let's stop wasting each others time. And it went nowhere when informed and rational heads prevailed. We just wasted hundreds of man hours repeating ourselves until it predictably went nowhere. And lost people to the airlines due to nothing more than lack of predictability in the midst of this terrible idea being proffered as a threat to their career prospects within the ARC. Stupid. The fact that this end should have been self-evident to the people in charge, was my only gripe over the entire god damn question. You guys keep tilting at them windmills though.

ers this should be about who should get paid more if you have dependents or not. This thread should be about the year to year ass raping DOD has doled on its members by screwing us out of pay for housing. Housing that in many cases has gone up and we continually get paid less.

I second the career impact for spouses. In fact the extra $100/mo doesn’t even come close. My wife has a Masters degree and is way more talented than I am. However moving every 3 years means she is pretty much starting over every PCS. I can’t even thing about how much money it has cost us to serve our country. I personally think single dudes should just be forced to live in the barracks, I mean since we are talking about what’s really best for the service right Mark1?

most people have issue with this because the AF isn't solving a defined problem set. problem: pilot retention AF solution: enlisted pilots huh? i think a lot of us are skeptical that the AF is shooting for angles behind the scenes and not showing all the cards they're wanting to play and a lot of us are calling bull shit on their actions. big blue has a history of bluffing with 7 2 and now they're getting called by senior pilots holding A A. which makes me think this isn’t about enlisted pilots but something else.

Nailed it, some of the snowflakes on JQP’s article on this matter stand to benefit by reading what you just said.

He has 2 DFCs, should have bought him a drink a heard some good stories.

FOr f sake. Buy the guy a drink and have chat instead of ridiculing him online.

Enlisted Pilots? We already have a program where motivated E's can become pilots, it's called OTS. It works too. I know because I'm one of them. If an E thinks going to college while working is too tough....then pilot training will be impossible.

So, they have to start a bunch of briefings with "I'm the dude who drew the dick in the sky.", then get high fived and free drinks all night.

Wow, that is the quickest I've seen any bureaucracy take action

What if We're the troll and Chang is normal?

Going guard enlisted to active duty upt stud, I feel everyday like I'm driving the sole car toward Washington in Independence Day.

Expand the TFI concept to allow 1-2 AGR spots in AD SQs. Sure, not a lot of true ANG/ARC guys would want to spend their days in an AD Sq, but if they all reported to a regional ARC commander instead of the AD SQ/cc then the AGR would have top cover from his boss on queep/infighting. This could kill many birds with one stone if you got someone that worked well and wanted to homebase there for a decade or so. It would Help manning at a cheaper cost, keep pilots in, and provide some continuity to AD squadrons that often need it. While I'm sure there would be one or two CCs that would feel threatened by someone with a long term relationship to the SQ, most would absolutely love to have someone on hand that could talk about past history, bad ideas that didn't work, projects that failed and were buried, and someone to help him with conflicts/relationships with other orgs and long-timers (civilians) on base. The guy would probably end up as a ridiculously experienced graybeard in the unit mission as well. Might also help calm/balance those rare 1/100 commanders that roll through and absolutely end up destroying a SQ.

Summarily fire anyone who gives the slightest fuck about straight or curly quotation marks. Seriously, if we have time to worry about that shit we must have way too many chiefs and not enough Indians. Time to start pruning 0-6s and above in a major way. In my experience, senior officers do more to impede the Capts, Majors, SSgts, and TSgts than to empower them. The AF needs a culture of far fewer senior officers who understand that it's the mid level talent who gets shit done.

The only thing that will fix the Air Force is a no-shit shooting match. Within a very short period of time, the weenies will be fired because they can't lead in combat, and the warriors will rise back to their rightful place at the top. The American public has become fat, dumb, and happy and that's why the Air Force is in the state it's in. Excellence is borne of strife, not prosperity.

Profound.

You are welcome to vote, but there is a $75.00 charge to do so.

God, not this again.

I really don't get this irrational fear of credit cards. Credit is a tool, and like a hammer it can be quite helpful if used responsibly. It can also break someones face if used improperly. I have one credit card and it is from USAA. I have paid the bill off every month since getting it. I have also received $400 cash back. I have paid USAA NOTHING for the card. It has no fees, and I have not paid any interest. They paid me $400. If I had an irrational fear of credit cards I'd have $400 less in other accounts that are earning ME interest. Over the long term that will turn out to be ALOT.