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The new AFPC Patch

The bag (green and tan) are required for ejection seat platforms so it won't go totally away. I just hope they won't prohibit it's wear for non-ejection aircraft.

Your FSF should have the info. It was distributed via email last June or so.

Like I said, it's a data point. Hopefully current and future generations can adjust the mean closer to it.

Your CC gets the info 7 days before "official" notification, once you get "official" notification you have 7 days to opt out. 7+7 = 14 so.........

duck you're getting out?

Get the hell out of here with your new ideas. We would rather just keep trying the ones that have failed and got us into this mess over the last 2 decades!

Allow me to summarize: MC-12 dudes= disenfranchised, type rated, mostly ATP holding, bitter dudes (and chicks), mostly T-38 trained, with an assignment left. More than 1,000 hours per down range, in a stack, doing stuff. UPT Grads= lots of time left to pay it back, good at making corn, can station keep for the most part. Air Force= Short on people, experience, good deals. UPT= At max blast, still can't fix the leak. 11F= Super short on folks, but somehow still too cool for school. OA/X= Investors? Possibly you! Take the author literally, yea that doesn't make sense. Got it, copy. Over. Fusion, synergy, sygma 6, buzzword. Mix it all up, doesn't sound too far fetched. Take your initial cadre of 11F'ers, throw in a bunch of your pissed off, MC-12'ers as the first classes (add a few UPT grads for good measure), who are itching to get back in the game, give them a program to make their own, give them the all holy "buy in". Guess what the Air Force gets? They don't take a bunch of 11F's out of the game. They possibly retain a bunch of experience in the mcdozen dudes that are definitely gone otherwise, UPT keeps sending people to the pipelines, who loses out? The 11R pipeline? Who's overmanned? Ok. Whatever. (insert conclusion here) Also: Handle of Bulleit Bourbon or Rye at Costco $31, 750 of Noah's Mill $44. edit: A ton of these people are T-6 and T-38 IP/EPs time meow. It really isn't that crazy.

I think the bigger difference is in how we employ. Reaper is a precision/surgical/assisination strike tool, we have reallly gotten away from doing traditional CAS, which is what the light attack would be doing. I will be the first to admit, I would probably need some extra rides, I’m by no means arguing that you can take someone from a ISR/ GCS platform, give them a quick T-6 refresher and call them a expert in the A-29/AT-6/whatever. The drone is very misunderstood plane, and it draws hate easily, hell I still do hate it, but I caution against assuming it’s a walk in the park. There are some very complex environments and situations you find yourself in if you aren’t the shitbag doing transits (or forced there because you suck) and not having a window forces you to develop a lot of your senses and tools to build a solid battlefield picture. It really does help build your aviation skill set overall when you return to normal flying. Again, not trying to argue that a RPA bubba is equivalent to a 4 ship A-10 lead, but I caution people to being closed minded, I was before I went to them and have be surprised. I went to CBM, and was a UPT D, maybe in your cases they grabbed the bottom of the barrel, But I can print you my training reports, and vouch for several other bros from CBM and the other bases that dudes were getting snagged from the middle and top ish portion of their classes.

Sure, but I think the AF is missing a large pool of potential drivers by making the program a -38 only assignment though. Reality is we have a shortage of pointy nose types, and the trainer we are using to make new ones is only getting older and more expensive to maintain. Using a initial cadre of CAS experts (A-10 guys) to start off think the AF could motivate a lot of MC-12/RPA/U-28 types to stay in and utilize the ISR/attack training they have already received. Are some dudes going to wash out? Sure. Send them back to where they came from or a large airplane that needs bodies. In the end, what is more feasible, safer, and cheaper? Trying to shove even more UPT trainees through -38s to go to this program and/or replace all the pointy nose types they send to light attack, or take already winged pilots that need a home? Whatever ac they buy is going to be cheaper to fly than a -38 per flight hour, spend that money on a extended syllabus for dudes that came from T-1s. And I don’t for a minute buy the “mindset” argument. There are plenty of 18x ers that never have flown in a T-6/T-38/T-1 that have kill numbers well into triple digits (and some of them 1Lts). Just my 2 cents, and a solution that minimizes the pull the program would create on the 11F community. Disclaimer: I am biased, I have a T-1 and RPA background and would give a testicle to fly light attack.

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

Not true. The F-22 5th gen capes were used a few weeks back to penetrate hostile Afghanistan airspace and drop GPS guided bombs on poppy processing facilities. Rumor has it the targets were highly defended by pitchforks and shovels.