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MX is asking for a pilot to go get it, otherwise it's an OPS CNX for the morning go.

Wilt Chamberlain right? The dude who played for the Lakers and Harlem Globetrotters? This was when he signed his contract and told the world how good he would be.

Hey folks, Big news today. The AF has officially adopted a new (more lenient) color vision policy that is more in line with the Army and Navy. Waivers are now available for ALL flying classes, including pilot applicants, as long as your CCT score is at least 55 with each eye on all cone types (i.e. red, green and blue letters). If you have recently been disqualified for color vision and you think you meet the waiver criteria, PM me and we'll see if we can get a waiver put in on your behalf. This will certainly be no problem for anyone recently DQ'd at Wright-Patt. If it was at a different location, there may be a little more legwork, but it should be do-able. If you are not sure whether you meet the waiver criteria, I'm happy to look into your physical and let you know.

That's the "why" behind all of it. That's what the entire bureaucracy of the USAF is for.

Interesting, why did wing commanders have to provide a “yes or no” if they were going to second guess all the recommendations!? God this level of incompetence...

I'm jealous of you guys with your completed projects!!! I've been building a Waiex-B for the last year and a half (really more like 8 or 9 months of actual work between deployments and TDY's...), and I think I'm about halfway done. It's like a somewhat cheaper/smaller RV-6/7. So far I've spent about $20k on the complete airframe kit, but I haven't bought an engine yet. I expect my total cost in the end will be $35-40k. I'm deployed now and can't wait to get back to work on it! This is my first build so I have spent plenty of time scratching my head, but overall it has gone together fairly easily so far. I'm hoping I can at least have the airframe pretty much together before I PCS, otherwise it's going to be a huge pain to move it. We'll see. Pics attached. The aft fuselage is pretty much done, I just can't attach the tail or rivet the top half yet or it won't fit out my basement door. The forward fuselage is where I left off when I deployed. The wings are 99% done and in the garage for storage! Kit info here: https://www.sonexaircraft.com/waiex/

As much money as that looks like, it’s way less than training their replacements.

Fuck off already.

Looked it up this morning and for anyone else wondering......It is an ART bonus of $18k that is separate from the current 25% incentive bonus currently in place. It requires you to be past your UPT commitment and less than 24 YAS. Supposedly the 25% is going away very soon to be replaced with whatever your locality pay is so in my case, I am getting a ~7% cut from what I am making right now (our locality is 17.65% and I am not eligible for the ART bonus due to my UPT commitment)....I'm surprised they limited the ART bonus to guys outside their UPT commitment because my UPT commitment has 0 impact on whether I stay and ART or go airlines where-as another $18k/yr would entice me to stay around more when it's on top of the permanent raise....

I don’t get this at all. If they’re going to review every candidate, then why get rid of the PRF, especially since they got rid of the PRFs after they were already written? I assume they are now sifting through stacks of OPRs to second guess all the commanders’ decisions... What in the bloody hell.

Thanks for the info. Not bringing the family really isn’t an option for me. I did speak with Alamo. $2550 was the starting price for their two bedroom apartments. Trying not to spend $700+/month out of pocket though. I got a little time so I’ll keep looking.

Eh well sounds like it won't be an issue filling slots (sts) but if for some reason there is a push to get a C-17 there let me know and I'll do the homework to see if we could get one in/out of there without making national headlines...

What do tou think will happen next majors board? Back to old system, or round two??

Duck I know you have more skin in this game than I do. But thanks for reaching out. The lack of news from this doesn’t surprise me at all. I think you’re correct that it will be a little while longer before they get the info out. Somehow I’m not surprised by this whole thing anyway and that they would mess it up and loose face with the masses.

Don’t they use this same process for Captains every year? Shouldn’t they know exactly how much work goes into it?

So the Air Force has a board to promote (or not) up to 100% of its eligibles to O-4. It then uses a ridiculous amount of time to second-guess itself about said selectees? I’d say something along the lines of “YGBSM!”, but that would imply my being surprised by this revelation.

Did they not talk to anyone in SAF before they decided on 100% promotion opportunity? Never mind.....why am I not surprised?

Majors board update. I got to talk to the Promotions people at AFPC and she confirmed my suspicions. The AF didn’t realize what a huge undertaking it would be at the SAF level when they got rid of PRFs. They have spent the last 2 months combing through thousands of ROPs for the people selected for promotion looking for negative quality indicators. It was taking so long to do this, that they had to send up the attached O-5 BSC board to the SecDef otherwise they would have run out of the previous year selectees to promote. She seemed to confirm that the rate was not a 100% selection rate, but that’s all I could get. Based off her comments I’m thinking we still have at least another month and a half before we get notified.

At the amount we buy fighters 6th gen will only be 15-20 jets but the program will be in the trillions.

Already done...6th gen; it would be ridiculous at this point to create another 5th gen fighter. Now finding a way to re-open the Raptor line and produce more of those, abso-fucking-lutely! We need more, and if Japan will pay, then go ahead and let them have some Raptors.

Although I encourage my mil friends to come over to the airline side every chance I get, I will not criticize them for deciding to stay in. I have a few good friends who are truly on the good guys’ side that are in their prime to make the jump to the airlines. And yet, despite the increase in pay and quality of life they have decided to stay. I had lunch with one of these guys a while back and he told me that he felt that he had a responsibility to stick around in order to provide the same mentorship to the young guys that he had experienced years ago. My hat is off to the guys who make that decision despite the continued sacrifice and the state of the USAF today. These men and women have far more patience than I do. Of course I’ve made sure they know that I will walk their resumes and rec letters into HR The moment they decide they’ve had enough.

I know of a guy in that situation who ended up in a reserve squadron for seasoning and has the choice to stay or go back once seasoning is over.

RVs are awesome planes and I had the order form filled out for an RV-7. However, after talking with quite a few builders I decided to hold off, maybe down the road. Orbit gave a pretty good description above about the various RVs. I'll add that I really wanted the RV-9 but after lots of research figured you're much better off with the RV-7. They're pretty close to the same plane, but the 7 is aerobatic. This is huge for resale value! If you like the Kitfox, you have got to check out this guys videos. His day job deals with filming/expensive cameras, plus he lives near a bunch of BLM land, which means he can land anywhere can make awesome videos. Also, check out the Rans S-7 or S-20 if you're interested in an alternative to the Kitfox. I've flown with a few Captains recently that have built the S-7 and they love them. I've flown both, they are a blast to fly and they're essentially the same plane, but the 7 is tandem and the 20 is side-by-side. I ended up going with the Rans S-21 and my wing kit is showing up to my garage in a few hours. I don't really care to fly aerobatics in an aircraft that doesn't have an ejection seat, and would rather bounce around the local dirt strips, with the occasional weekend trip. It's relatively new, but much of his stuff is being reused from other kits he has designed. It's STOL-like but will cruise around 155mph @ 75% with a 180hp motor. For me the build time/complexity was a huge factor, and that's another place this plane excels. Given that it's all aluminum (CNC milled parts...read very little drilling/deburring) and built mostly with blind rivets, they're forecasting 500 hours, not including paint. Based on a few bloggers that have already started their wings, that seems fairly accurate. On top of that, there are very few times where you need another person there to help you, which is key since I live by myself and don't want to have to always bribe my buddies to buck rivets for me. Here is one that is already built. It's hard to tell in the pic, but the doors and roof are all lexan...great for visibility. Cargo space is pretty awesome and is easy to access due to the large door and seat that fold down quite a bit.

I wasn’t expecting the PAP Smear.

2006 commissioning year group? Filling squadron cc billets?

Just saw Game Night. It was okay. Not the worst movie I’ve seen, but I have no clue how it got such high ratings from RT.