Leaderboard

Many pilots peg pay in the "acceptable" range. While it is not going to beat United, it is enough to live comfortably. Where the AF is screwing up is the other BS and the poor messaging. The implicit message from multiple angles is "we could make this better for you, but we don't care."

So then do you see the root problem as more a matter of training, or is it more related to w/dependent BAH?

That guy gets to vote. Awesome.

Based on your years of experience flying the H Model ALLTV? The set up on the H Model did have niche capability mainly because it was not restricted to a size-limited sensor ball so it was easy to strap on other capabilities to the same sensor platform. Next time your at HRT go look at 575 that is on display with a piece of plexiglass over the LLTV mount in what was the crew entrance door. MX-20 and MTS-B are fantastic sensors and I would likely choose them in a modern fight but the system on the H Model was fantastic and FAR superior to piece of junk on the U Boat.

Damn. This whole time you were responding to a conversation that was occurring nowhere except inside your own head? Well I hope somebody who bothered to read what I had to say takes some food for thought from it.

This is more on point with how out of touch big blue really is. We all saw it when they upped the 6 year pay by a measly $50 pre tax. They should be paying the $1k at 10 so they can try and keep guys in when they are making their decision points on to stay or not. But alas they missed that chance and like you said they will reap their consequences of the poor miss management of this.

Is my sarcasm detector inop?

This is the same shit that brought us the Black lives matter nothing burger. Try to tell a liberal that blacks in America are committing a hugely disproportionate amount of violent crime, a completely irrefutable fact, and they call you a racist. But in the same breath they scream that we "have to" have a conversation about racist policing in America. Now we "have to" have a conversation about immigration, but call a country a shithole, when that country is by any reasonable analysis exactly that, boom, out comes the racist card. If you dingleberries keep using language restriction and faux outrage to shame people into your way of thinking, Donald is going to tap dance right into another term. Maybe when someone tells you they aren't racist, turn off your inner Maddow and try to figure out what other reasons they have for disagreeing with you.

Mark1, your post is a lot to disgest. I am wondering if your experience with current LL fusion technology is limited to the MX on gunships or if you’re also familiar with the myriad other systems? Because seeing hot projectiles is really just a matter of spectrum sensitivity and imaging resolution (along with operator raining I suppose). That capability exists on platforms that aren’t 1960s H models. What am I missing? On another note, I’ve been out of the ops world for a few years but I’m glad the hubris of gunship superiority in all things is still alive and well! You guys saving the day while the rest of us are happily oblivious reminds me of fond memories. If you could shout at me with a shit radio while your feed is intermittent, then spend an hour trying to hit a single squirter, then not attend the debrief because of crew rest (even though I’m flying again in 10 hours and you’re off the next day) our trip down memory lane would be complete. Just having some fun bro! Don’t send your 28man alchoholic crew to kidnap me & shave my head.

A bigger issue is the fact that we are wasting airframe life on the B-1(and B-52s/F-15Es, etc.) doing CAS in Afghanistan when the AF should have bought the Tucano/AT-6 a decade ago to use instead. Or if you just want a coordinate bomber with long on-station times, we could have hung JDAMs on a 737 (i.e. Navy P-8) a decade ago.

The answer is training....lots and lots of training. The gunpig is not exactly a human factors ergonomic masterpiece. The AC-130H had the FCO and Nav on the flight deck but isolated form the pilots by a blackout curtain, the sensor operators and EWO were down stairs in a booth. The AC-130U has the NAV, FCO, EWO and sensors operators all downstairs in the BMC...yet somehow both platforms trained their way to excellence. I am not bashing the Buff...just one data point early in the war, I have a second data point but no need to dogpile. These are great Americans and they have since professionalized their contribution. In the end the thing that typically makes the U.S. military stand out from the rest is not the platform but the people and the training. Train like you fight and fight like you train...joint CAS can be a beautiful thing.

No way it's "free". Just like the sun will rise in the morning, the credit card companies will get their's! Exactly.

Exactly. Why even deal with these credit card companies when you can just "borrow" from yourself out of your own savings if you just absolutely need something right now that you do not have time to save for?