Leaderboard

Dam inspector: The dam is leaking and it’s losing water Dam engineer: well we need to find the holes and fix them so the dam doesn’t break Dam General: just keep adding more water so the lake stays at the current level

Did anyone else have to re-read that closely to notice the 's?

Sure. Give pre-commissioning studs a google cardboard and some 360 youtube videos with pilots doing normal stuff. Highlight the crosscheck where the pilot's looking. Cheap fam, gives context, and teaches good habits early.

We must seize the means of production and promotion!

Because they'll learn bad habits that need to be broken in UPT. Even in UPT, IPs fight bad gouge and the occasional group of weak swimmers that chair fly together and make each other worse.

Can’t, they took that out of the syllabus.

I'm just happy they finally expanded the 12X bonus to all the dudes left out over the years. Every older WSO I know is jumping on that thing with both hands...but as we often comment here, they were already planning to stay until retirement.

Syllabus standardization... that’s the one where we sacrifice effectiveness in order to avoid a kid whining about not getting his jet of choice? We’re talking about guided sims in advance, not an entire UPT phase. If a kid going through USAFA ends up better prepared for UPT than somebody off the street, it sounds like USAFA did it’s job. Also sounds like a great start for rolling it out to all pre-commissioning sources. It all comes out in the wash. The OTS kid may be a 2,000 hr airline captain and aerobatic competitor. The ROTC kid is going to be able to talk to chicks and rock a road soda through the main gate. Ivan doesn’t care about perfect syllabus standardization.

Think syllabus standardization. If academy pilot-select cadets had pre-UPT training at the academy, that training would still need to be taught to the ROTC/OTS studs. No real savings in time. Best case is the ROTC/OTS studs get the same training at their UPT base prior to starting UPT. About the only thing someone needs to do before UPT is maybe learn ops limits/boldface, and show up willing to work hard and learn. If a reasonable percentage of students can't learn the info in the time allotted in the syllabus, then either the time allotted or method of instruction needs to be corrected. Otherwise, it's like saying you need to do sos correspondence before you go to sos in-residence.

If an enlisted member gets a special bonus for their career field downrange the entire bonus is tax free. The stipulation for max CZTE only applies to officers.

You're very opinionated. ~Bendy

I'd rather separate and get an airline gig and hope to get hired on with a guard unit to finish my 20 than to waste away in the desert for another 7 months. YMMV but i've done enough deployments in my time to know when it's worth it and it's not.

Perhaps, but this is an issue for all kinds of programs, activities, & clubs at USAFA—cadets are constantly bombarded with various opportunities. USAFA has 12 T-6 sims; the first ones showed up in ‘02. They’re pretty old, visuals are limited, and don’t have motion; but I’m told they fly like the real thing. I flew Tweets, so have no basis for comparison. Biggest problem is USAFA leaders reject the notion that the institution is, in part, a trade school. Training is a four letter word to USAFA educators—in their minds, if cadets have free time, they should be taking more engineering classes, dammit! TT

Maybe a school for pilots. Learning at the undergraduate level? Undergraduate pilot school?...

Why isn't someone putting VR T-6 headsets in the hands of cadets who have a pilot slot long before they ever set foot on a UPT base? I know I would have given my left nut to practice in the T-6 before I ever set foot on a pilot training base. Is there any portion of a young officer's career where they are more fired up to spend hours practicing in a f*king sim? Give them a bit of guidance and let them do it on their spare time. Better yet, make it part of flight screening.

They can't force you to do anything beyond your ADSC, but the choices you're left with may complicate your personal life since you chose to marry an AD chick. I was join spouse for two assignment cycles. The first time, her functional pulled a rabbit out of a hat and matched her to a ground job near me, flying her with a local guard unit (drug deal). The second time, our good deals fell apart due to manning in the Viper world and her lack of IP-ness so we ended up matched to white jets. If they can't get you a job in your MWS near her, they may offer you a white jet near her and try (seems like they've been successful lately) to stick you with the 3-yr ADSC for PIT. You don't HAVE TO take it, you could say no since PCS and/or training ADSC would take you past your UPT commitment. Overwhelmingly when I've seen dudes do this, the AF keeps them at their current assignment for the extra year, often with a 179 or 365 as a "thanks for your service" gift. I've seen a few rare cases where they PCS a dude anyway (to a location that doesn't require re-training/ADSC) and only get the ~1.5 years out of them there. For us Viper dudes, that means Korea. BL - you'd likely end up choosing between (A) staying at your current base and (unless they can delay her PCS) apart from her until you separate, or (B) taking the PIT job and getting stuck with the 3-year ADSC. Footnote - I was one of the lucky ones who got out of the PCS ADSC. When I PCS'd and went to PIT it was contentious but I signed the ADSC paperwork (adding 7 months to my ADSC) based on which battles I chose to fight. When I got to the UPT base, I called the ADSC office at AFPC and put it a magical trouble ticket based on the discussions above. Two weeks later, they whittled back my ADSC to UPT date. Looks like they are not doing that so much, coincidentally the shit has hit the fan with the pilot shortage...likely not a coincidence. Edited to add: ThreeHoler is right - AD was more than fair to me/us when working join spouse stuff. Matching KC-135 and Viper wasn't easy; sounds like your match isn't easy either. That was your choice, not AFPC's.

Do a barrel roll!

This is all I keep seeing...

This statement right here (17D, I love your sarcasm) points to exactly what's wrong with so much of the world today.

show us where Elon touched you...

So, in your opinion he's a failure if not all items that he invests in produce tangible results?

Specifically, enough distance for Sandy to mow down shitheads around you just before Jolly drops in. The effective range of the GAU-5A (considering barrel length, twist rate/bullet stabilization, muzzle velocity, ammo specs) was carefully compared to 'distance' data from friendly weapons to set a minimum threshold. The max was limited by available space in the seat kit. We sent a weapons SME and AFE tech to a conference a few months back to ensure the GAU hit all those requirements. I'm only familiar with what one MDS had to give up in the seat kit to fit the GAU, but given the ground picture in CENTCOM I'll gladly take the GAU over those other niceties.

Ironic on his part.. inflation adjusted, we get paid less than he did to fly.

If we can get students to land the hang glider on the moving target, they PA to Thunderbird lead.

Was just chatting with a coworker today about Air Force issues. For the past decade plus, the military had been in a situation where they felt they had too many folks. The common response to complaints was, "Well, if you don't like it, then get out!" Now, the military has too few folks, and they're starting to realize that they need to start fixing the things that folks complain about in order to keep people in service. The Air Force in particular has had an extremely difficult time transitioning from the "then get out!" mentality. Rather than realize that folks are in fact voting with their feet, the Air Force just tries to throw more money at them rather than deal with the real issues and complaints that folks have.

I would have a lot less negative to say about UPT next if we just didn't hack the UPT syllabus to shreds and reduce the PIT syllabus significantly at the same time without any "test" groups or anything resembling a stepped approach. It was "Oh crap we behind timeline hardcore" to "solved timeline issue." It is one thing to mess with VR and see how we can leverage it, to already make cuts to the syllabus and then look at VR to make additional cuts before actually doing any kind of real testing.

Assess objectively? Yeah, sure. I won't disparage the bros on the line who have been charged with conducting this experiment, but to think that this "process" will satisfactorily represent the larger issue is a pipe dream from the outset - at least from what I've heard. I'll stand by to be corrected. The impression I'm under is that the set of folks who have been selected to participate in the Austin experiment were selected based on criteria that made it near-certain that they would succeed. Certain individuals are likely to succeed no matter what they do. If we did in fact choose these types to "represent" the viability of a program so it can serve as justification to implement change large-scale upon a group that is a non-representative superset, we're lying to ourselves. I won't for one second state that the Air Force shouldn't investigate better ways of doing business/hacking the mish - but I also won't entertain the idea that this idea was born in a vacuum. It's a response to a separate problem, and a convenient way to save some dough.

Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. Gun is for my wife she is looking for something lighter than her 1911 I will stick with my XDm

I’ve never strapped into one of these VR contraptions, but so far, my experience has been that nothing replaces your ass in the seat of a real airplane.

It's not unheard of in Air Force Global Suck Command. One of my 16A bros is wing exec at KBAD right now. During my 6 years at Minot I saw it happen at least once, and I know another BUFF patch that volunteered to deploy from a Barksdale flying staff gig to the OIR MPC at the Deid in support of one of the Minot squadrons (at a time our OSS was struggling to find bodies). Dude's leadership told him "You can't go to be on the MPC, but you can go to be the 379th wing exec."

When bananas are outlawed, only outlaws will have bananas.

Herkbum, you’re way too nice. OP...There’s a lot of info and you knew it yet you still chose to disregard the search function and roll in without doing your homework. Saying you’d take a C-130 as a “last resort” on a military aviation message board...YGBFSM. Good luck getting hired.

Ok, so i understand there is info about rushing units and what not. But i am trying to rush units that seem to hire from within. The reason for going this route is due to the fact that i don't have the flexibility of moving around and i am also running out of time age wise without needing an age waiver. Currently i am 28 and about to turn 29 in a month time isn't on my side. Also i just relocated and bought a condo about 10 months ago due to my wife's job, so the intent is to have about a 400 mile radius of travel and apply to all within that radius. Not super keen on driving 6 hours a few times a month but i am really trying to do what i can to join the reserve or the guard. I was curious if anyone could provide P.O.C. or help me connect with the right people within the 400 mile radius of Nashville, TN. Im really trying to go after a C-17 unit, that is my preference but can deal with a C-130 unit as a last resort. I applied to the Jackson MS unit back when they had boards but didn't get an invite, Memphis hasn't hired since 2016 and they are my preferred unit of choice travel wise, and there is a unit in Dayton, OH at wright patt. There is one more C-17 unit within my bubble but i can't remember where it was off the top of my head. For C-130 units, there is a unit here in nashville, one in Louisville Ky, Dobbins AFB, Maxwell AFB, and Charlotte NC which i think are in the process of transferring to C-17's not sure if this is accurate or not. Could anyone shed light on how i can break the ice with these units and work my way in with no prior military experience. Still constantly working on how i can market myself with little flight experience and no military background other than having a father who served in the army and a grandfather who served in the navy. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. I wish i would have started this journey earlier, but thats life.