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Didn’t see in the original email where it said a 14 day opt instead of the normal 7 day opt? (Maybe I skimmed over it?) Either way, it’s one of the hidden land mines under this new system: ”providing as much as 11 months’ notice”...AFPC’s clever way to get you to show your cards that much sooner and bone you with a 180/365 as a parting gift.

Completely anecdotal but worth mentioning: In my Fort Rucker class we had a guy we'll call Ryan. The kid just could not hover. Maybe his instructor wasn't the right match, couldn't make the right connections for him, whatever. Or maybe the syllabus didn't afford Ryan the time and free space to focus on his weak area when we had a full list of other contact maneuvers to work on. Trying to be a bro, I invited Ryan over to put on my HTC Vive and I spun up the most accurate flight model for a Huey I could find (DCS Huey for the record). We spent a good hour drilling the required control inputs and hand-eye exercises demonstrating the various aerodynamic phenomena involved in hovering (and make no mistake for those who haven't flown a helicopter, hovering is all experimentation and feel till you get it.) No shit, within that hour something finally clicked and Ryan was getting it. The next day we saw that kid hover the way he was meant to in the helicopter and it wasn't a problem from then on. I bring up this story because I can see how as a function of part-task training, you could easily accelerate learning for very specific skill sets in undergraduate training using technology. To the extent that these accelerative events would add up to producing an extra pilot (or however many extra pilots) without sacrificing quality is obviously the big question. I'm just saying that I can see how there is value in holding the experiment.

It used to be that when I read a post and would see that someone had "Liked" it, I could click on the Like emblem and the person's that gave the rating would show up. Now, it does not do that (hasn't for sometime, actually). Glitch? Or planned change?

The Flight approved OCP jackets cost way more than even my fully loaded A2 from pops.

Seen that too.

It's been said over and over but there's simply no way to replace the inherent stress of the actual cockpit - heat, sweat, JP-8 exhaust, noise, G's, shitty radios, garbaged up comm, and on an on. And of course the knowledge that if you screw up you could wreck an actual machine or kill an actual person, including yourself. Simulation can certainly teach some skills, but you just can't replace the experience of being in an aircraft with all the external and internal stressors. Sure, you can safely fly an airplane with fewer hours but your experience bank will be that much smaller and you'll be a worse pilot for it. Bad bad idea. And it will be hailed as a great success.

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.

Shouldn't the fall vml guys have been notified on Friday that they are on the list? I'm ready to get out of here and I got nothing... Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Lets be honest and fair here man...a strong majority of the Republicans and so-called 'conservatives' voted for this crap in the House, and several Republicans in the Senate voted to allow it to go forward as well. For most of the GOP, I think it was purely political as they don't want the government shutdown to change the narrative away from the Obamacare disaster in prep for the Nov 2014 elections, and for the Dems, they wanted to get rid of some of the sequester and be able to show the country that they can govern. So in other words, politics won the day. But make no mistake about it, this was not a result of reduced spending. Check out how much the government will spend this next year and the compare to 2007 or 2008...and then if you really want to be sick, look at how much we spent in the early and mid 2000's compared to the late 90's. To be quite honest, even if the GOP wins the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2016, I'm not so sure real fiscal discipline will return to Washington anytime soon.