Leaderboard

I’m all for it. I’m sick of these German-American descendants distracting me and my fellow Scandinavian-Americans from making lutefisk and mead in our Flight room with their lederhosen and pretzel shit.

I'm willing to give fingers the benefit of the doubt on the whole attempting to acknowledge the socioeconomic and cultural reasons why the pilot corps is predominantly white, but man the follow-through needs some serious work. It's incredibly condescending to suggest minorities don't pursue pilot work and/or thrive in said training environment because the demographics are white washed. Ask me how I know. Segregation is categorically not the answer. The problem is that the suggestion itself is indicative of the very tone deafness he accuses the Service of having in the first place. The fucking irony. Tweaking standards is nothing new. Actually segregating classes though, that reaches a whole new level of FUBAR, in 2018 no less. What strange times we live in. What blows my skull is that all of it fundamentally stems from not wanting to give 13-year O-4s some measure of QOL control. That level of visceral recalcitrance against ceding even an RCH on the one-sided nature of military indentured servitude is why this won't ever be solved by so-called leadership. They almost rather lose a war than ever catch themselves negotiating with their 'human property'. In a way I understand the civilian trope about military membership being cannon fodder and "it was this or Walmart" economic draftee dynamics, as a collective. With the level of treatment we get out of management when it comes to non-economic retention measures, can we really say civilians have it wrong? Don't get me started on the UCMJ in garrison in a military with 1069% more women than when they wrote the god damn thing. Fact is, only a peer war will rip these derelicts off the helm.

And one of the ideas is to essentially re-segregate minorities into their own classes?? Truly unbelievable.

Awesome. So the white dudes can go to the bar while the minorities and women go do show-and-tell after their 3-hop XC to Austin. Who thinks this stuff up and doesn't filter it between their brain and their mouth?

i can't believe they just advocated for segregation. jesus h. christ.

Having to stop for 15 min, after the end of a long-ass day, to have my vehicle inspected while LEAVING the base.

The one on TPN? The idiocy of that dude's question almost baited me into a response. I really wonder if the people coming up with these ideas are actually pilots.

No sweat. They're cutting the T-6 syllabus by approx. 13 hrs, changing Phase 1 and 2 to a Navy style syllabus, and eliminating sorties/requirements and other training from the -38 side all to up the production. Should have plenty of "qualified" pilots on their way to the CAF in no time!

I think you're off target insinuating the retention problem is being purposely fostered in order to de-throne white nativism from white collar pay grades. Take a paper bag, breathe into it, and internalize viewing "American" identity from the prism of that anachronistic 1943 Norman Rockwell portrait may be your formative experience, but no longer represents the experience of the American Street by and large. By mid 21st century, Hispanics (Mexican Americans specifically, which does not equate to all Hispanics mind you) will be the majority of the USA. It is what it is. The sun will rise tomorrow. No need for the swan song. Second, you're conflating issues here. There is NO production problem. Don't buy into that narrative. There's only a retention problem. What should put you at ease that they're not merely trying to run your white ass out of town, is that this retention problem has existed before, when there were even less non-whites in the pilot ranks. Historically, management has always banked on "run the clock offense" in order to solve it. That being, economic hiccups that stop airline hiring have always yielded those loud-mouth military separatees to crawl back to Uncle Sugar's teet when the airlines unapologetically give them the F-word treatment the morning after the economic crash. The problem here is that in 2013, this is no longer the historic case. Specifically, the boomer retirement numbers, plus the post-BK and targeted consolidation of airline capacity (and rocketing load factors) by the remaining airlines has made a one-two punch that promises to last too long for the DOD to be able to effectively rely on 'run the clock offense' in order to solve this iteration of the same retention problem of yesteryear. As a result, they're flailing publicly. Instead of being leaders and having the stones to publicly acknowledge the problems that make the 2013+ exodus different, they coward like the derelicts they are and create the fallacious "production problem" narrative, breaking AETC's back in the process, especially when you consider the absolute zero chance of the T-X being fielded in time to make a difference. That's it man. Two different issues. No conspiracy theories here. You want to focus on the first one? Have at it hoss, but it's got zero to do with the second one. The airlines have had that issue forever too (read late 80s affirmative action hires at US legacies, military females included at the time mind you) so this theory isn't unique to the military. Don't be this guy if you can help it...

Well in Hercs there's someone to get your ATIS.

That. Is. Depressing.

Nothing shocks me anymore....The more ludacris the plan the more likely to be said out loud, owned publicly by “leadership”, and ultimately implemented. Nothing will stop the US air force.

Because your first V1 cut SHOULD be in a 120,000 lb, 4 engine airplane.

And I quote, "Turboprop pilots... if the Air Force could send T-6 students direct to turboprop aircraft, which platforms would be willing to accept? And what would need to be taught"

Dibs on the "Puerto-Rican/Italian married to an Asian" flight commander job.

"grouping minority pilot trainees together at flight school" uhh, what? I thought Truman nixed that idea back in 1948.

This guy was also asking how people would feel if students went directly from the T-6 to C-130 units. You know, since they both have propellers.

No, we actually didn’t. One of our guys killed a dude on his own. “We” didn’t have “our guys” do jack shit. Please, for the love of God, don’t ever be a commander of anything. I cannot stand narcissistic leadership that convinces itself that it must solve all problems with asinine micromanagement and mass punishment. Your mentality of “having to do something” causes one to make irrational and emotional decisions that do much more harm than good. Real leaders are much more thoughtful and intelligent than this. This type of leadership has much more to do with the pilot retention crisis than any other single factor. Incidents like these happen when you have 100k people in your organization. You don’t punish the 99.999% when 0.001% screw up. Unless you’re a dumbass. Then go right ahead, this Lt Gen will probably just secured his fourth star for this brave stand.