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I was sitting at the DFAC enjoying my 69th egg meal in a row (thanks night flying), when a heated conversation at an adjoining table started. These old timer reservist were going into detail about the numerous broken jets they were being asked to take with increasing regularity. The conversation was a life saver as it informed younger inexperienced AC's like myself at some of the possible issues with accepting these aircraft and becoming normalized in the new standard that was continuous creeping in. Back then generals and commanders all made plea's about the importance of our mission, the utter vital need for our aircraft and its mission etc. These old timers were derided by commanders and a few of the younger folks as being checked out, in it for themselves and angry that their flying club was interrupted by deployments and the war. Fast forward nearly 10 years later, and I am seeing the same #$%, and amazingly for the same War that back then was already well into its 7th year. We are being asked to do more with less, fly aircraft with faulty ejection systems, suspect o2 systems, electronics that have KNOWN common place failures that have resulted in substantial fumes. B1's recently had their own enjoyment with their system, KC-10s with egress rafts/slides and much more. But that is cool, your a brand new IP Captain that knows every thing has done every thing, and was raised up in this system that long ago normalized this bull #$% and now you don't know how otherwise to operate. You look at those fleeing for the Airlines or the Exits and either are reacting out of jealousy or anger that it wont be you any time soon, and rather than thank them for their service as they leave and perhaps learn something of their time in, you try to find fault with their decisions and pin every thing that is wrong on them and their attitude. Understand that those old timers at PIT have seen this same crap 3-4 times already, the revolving door of innovation, the joke being that there has been no innovation. I and every other PIT IP would LOVE to have UPT production done at Randolph, it would be a dream come true. My favorite assignment was my UPT base, the comrade and joy of teaching new pilots how to fly is the best. I hope you are right just for that reason alone. PIT isn't some magical beast, you can absolutely do the training elsewhere, but PIT acts as a geographical fence, on manning, sorties, support etc. Tearing down that fence (ask the 135 guys) never has produced anything short of a backlog and further capacity loss in the pipeline. If you think somehow you'll be able to produce an IP at a UPT base faster than at PIT your insane, especially once scaled up. Perhaps one or two you can jam through, but at some point very quickly you start to have to weigh UPT PFT vs your in house PIT, and those calculations always get jacked up. At any rate, don't take our lack of #$%^'s given for a literal statement. If they(we) really didn't care we wouldn't be complaining on this forum for one, wouldn't be pushing for better accountability of T-6 nation maintenance issues, and wouldn't be fighting (and failing =\) the reduction in syllabus and emphasis on production over retention. We are tired, and exasperated at how things are looking for all of our futures.

says the current PIT IP working 6 hour days... KIDDING (not really)

It depends.

Just got an interview with SWA with: 2,800 total 1000 hrs in T-6 1500 hrs in KC-135 Not sure how close that is to “min time” but probably pretty low comparatively.

Read her book and everything will become clear on her.

^This. Plus not only this but more Q3s, more PIT IPs with ZERO prior T-6 instruction experience (though some of them actually have been our stronger IPs but for others its a challenge) and to top it all off we have CUT our syllabus by a substantial number. As for this tirade of utter crap, Read the above quote for why your getting a shittier product point the blame at big blue for inability to retain any one worth a damn. As for IPs deciding to limit their risk due to OBOGs / Smoking in the cockpit with some common sense restrictions versus tone deaf UPT bases deciding the meat packing must continue regardless of risk well you just showed your naivety and youthful ignorance there. I have had both smoke in my cockpit from our EFIS issue as well as OGOGs reduce my cognitive ability in half (Granted half of near zero isn't much). Just because you special education students (some of you not all I suspect) at the UPT base are willing to take the risk doesn't mean we are dumb enough too. Since the recent SIB release however alot more confidence has returned into the system and more importantly confidence that the issue has a resolution in sight, I suspect our restrictions will be removed shortly. ^Don't hate. Good deal police watch out here! To be honest for my first couple of years here at PIT I worked just as hard if not harder than at my UPT base. Now that I am nearing the end I've made the conscious decision to give minimal #$%^ and limit my day to the max extent possible.

Dang man, who pissed in your cheerios? Nobody here at the 559th that I know of refuses to double turn or has personal wx mins that you describe. Your buddies are lying if that’s what they are saying. Maybe T-6 PIT used to be a place where IPs don’t work especially hard, but that’s not true at all right now. If you look at our 7/30/90, our guys are flying their asses off. In fact, due to the dynamic of the squadron (no FAIPs or junior O-3s) our O-4s and O-5s fly a hell lot more at KRND than I saw guys of similar experience level fly when I was a Vance IP. It’s not uncommon for O-4s and O-5s to double or triple turn every day of the week here. My briefs and debrief are 60-90% longer here than when I was at Vance. Teaching UIs is a lot different than teaching Stan, and a lot more difficult. Personally, I’d much rather be teaching Stan than UIs. It’s easier. More dangerous, but easier. I think most guys at the 559th would agree. PIT is getting guys with less and less experience as the AF bleeds experience. Unless you make PIT longer, guys are not going to be as good as they would if they had more experience. Believe it or not, leadership above the 559th recently believed that we were “overtraining” UIs and pushed us to PA guys as soon as they got up to MIF. The guys in the 559th fought hard against that BS and got it overturned. Look, PIT is different animal than a UPT squadron. Most guys here are on their last AD assignment. They speak their minds more and leadership gets away with less BS since guys aren’t thinking about their next assignment. That dynamic actually serves all of T-6 nation.

OMG I just had a waking nightmare that she becomes Secretary of Defense during a second Trump term.

So a little karma for the 560th is what you’re saying?

My theory is that it all boils down to a generational issue with leadership. Our current senior leaders and fossilized bureaucracy didn't grow up with technology however they have been exposed it enough and have seen its benefits over the last 20 years. When it comes to the execution and what kind of skills and resources are required, they're clueless for the most part. They understand that they pay Lock Mart or NG or Boeing some astronomical amount of money and years later something magical appears on the battlefield This magical thing is proprietary and doesn't talk to anything else it wasn't paid to talk to. Pretty soon we need a new magical thing and so the cycle continues. They're just starting to figure out that the pace and quality of commercial industry has outpaced the defense industry and there's a LOT of things that can be done on the small scale with COTS tech and so the new word of the day is "Innovation"! Everybody innovate! Perfect example: Electronic Flight Bags. Let's use a tablet to replace paper FLIP...makes perfect sense. The tablet brings exponential capability to the cockpit vs. a paper FLIP book, but it also comes with exponential support requirements. It takes a couple airmen to order the FLIP, open the boxes, and stock in on a shelf. To support an EFB program, it takes hardware, it takes software, it takes management of said hardware and software, it takes a network infrastructure, and it takes smart skilled people to properly configure, deploy and sustain it all. And oh by the way the local comm squadron has/wants nothing to do with it...so fail there. I listened to Goldfien talk on the WarontheRocks podcast...he was raving about how we can use inexpensive off the shelf simulators to help pilots chairfly. I'm thinking to myself, dude we had this 10 years ago! A guy in my UPT class built his own T-38 sim in his house....and here we are just now figuring this out. Better late than never, but the bottom line IMHO is we're headed full speed ahead in a direction the Bobs don't understand, and the technical knowledge and support requirements for this "innovation" is more so than ever, and will require us as a service to rethink our IT model...putting IT specialists back in the units, shit canning NIPR, leveraging the cloud, putting contractors in place to execute the innovation at the direction of the green bags....that's how we'll be successful.

Counter point- maybe they don't get around to it because the metrics briefed to leadership are good. Pilots doing the work only masks the problem. Let it fail. Sent from my SM-T700 using Tapatalk

I told you cotton-pickers Massa is not in the business of bartering with his human property. That's not rhetorical; they literally mean that. That's why the CSAF guidance feels like double-speak to you all. The point of the ADSC is to utilize labor at-will, in ways the civilian support structure has the legal ability to say no to. And they do, which is why our mx is broken and can't surge with the whims of the ops side, while we spear chuck at each other pointlessly. Labor surge-demands such as the VR implementation is but one of a thousands of examples how regAF burns through its human capital, exacerbating the retention problem regAF doesn't consider a bona fide problem in the first place. You guys think of middle managament retention woes as the bug, they consider it the feature! It's called the devil's money for a reason. Are we all new here or something?...

^This. Our recent OG meeting it was stated and I quote "This will need to be done on all our backs otherwise it wont happen" Apparently he didn't get the look on my face of "then don't let it $#$%^ happen...

The Bob's are banking on all this VR/Sim/P-mission innovation to cut down the number of sorties required to make a pilot or a UPT IP....but they recognize it's not going to get them to the magic number to "grow our way out of it"...I can't remember the figure, but well over 1K new pilots a year. The idea of another UPT base has been lingering for a while, and on the surface Randolph would make the most sense because the infrastructure is already in place. Still...i don't think the math works without buying more iron and hiring more help. There's only so much you can do on the ground. What really grinds my gears is all this balls to the wall talk about innovation and guess who's left holding the hammer to go execute...all the folks in flight suits. Go ahead and pin on your comm and contracting and cyber badges, if you didn't have them already. PIT dudes are skipping flying to work 12 hour days building VR sims and 360 videos...WTF

People from TX can smell a rat from 10 miles.

I fail to see an argument here for why PIT should remain the school house for UPT IP's. You say you're getting a worse product of UIP and PIT IP, I read that as UPT bases already have a corps of young and motivated IP's used to teaching to a brand new student. Would I rather be taught by someone with receny flying with a student vs a PIT IP whos flown with a student maybe a handful of times in the last year for a re-blue? PIT is loaded with people on their last assignment that dont give a shit, which you admit to. Why would I want people to go through a program where thats the majority of people they interact with? What kind of tone does that set for how business gets done in UPT? I would much rather them go to a UPT base with the young O-3's and faips that actually give a shit to inculcate the new IP's with the pace and attitude of that base. SPS has proven it can work. Make RND another UPT base and the production problem gets much easier to solve.

It is actually well-known that it takes exactly the same amount of energy to decelerate a spacecraft in a closed system as it does to accelerate it... even less if you consider the friction of space and the reduced weight of the spacecraft after fuel burn. It IS well known that a de-orbit burn occurs in... orbit. Not a closed system by any stretch of the imagination. Even if your question had a valid premise, and it wasn’t your first post ever here, I doubt we would solve interstellar travel on this forum. Sorry.

This type of idea is cyclical. I’ve been around long enough to see KC135 AC upgrade training go from FTU to in-unit back to FTU. In-unit upgrade and training is all fun and games until the units can’t afford the training fence so they start squawking back at the FTUs to “do their job.” Before you know it you have AC upgrade (or some form of it) back at the FTU. Everyone loves the idea of in-unit training until your 90 day program takes 180 days because there is no training fence, and you’re still working at the Wing, and your wife just had a baby (or is divorcing you...take your pick). Then we all just wish for a while that we could just go TDY for training so we can actually study during the day and rest at night. Going to PIT for me after 15 years of MWS flying was challenging in multiple aspects. And while I didn’t enjoy the month of delay I had at PIT (I would have certainly experienced a similar delay had my training occurred at my gaining UPT base) I was glad for the opportunity to be a bit more isolated from the mundane at home so I could spend the time I needed to spend studying.

Fighter guys boost isn’t because they fly less.

That’s disappointing, you would think that someone who was an Air Force Officer and helo pilot would be educated enough to not fall for this new wave of progressive socialism..or maybe she just wants the easiest path to votes. At least McSally has been a fantastic rep and an outspoken defender of national security and service members.

Communism. Not even once.

In my congressional district in central Texas we have a former USAF Helicopter pilot named MJ Hagar running against my Congressman, John Carter. MJ had been shot down in combat, rides a motorcycle, and graduated from University of Texas AFROTC det 825, which was my det also. I didn't meet her in AFROTC because I had been in the Air Force two years when she was born. John Carter is kind of a douche, and I'd love to go out and knock on doors for MJ. The problem is that MJ is running as Democrat and favors open borders, gun grabbing, impeachment and is very sympathetic to socialism. This breaks my heart that such a good person is so misguided.

No different on the -38 side. Sq Training have been pulling their hair out with hooked TI rides for inability to brief/debrief/fly in general.

It’s the same shell game they play with MWS FTUs and cutting sorties that just end up rolling into MQT at the Ops SQ.

Pushing PIT in house UPT has been an "idea" for years. I heard it when I first went through PIT in 2012, again while at UPT, and again now. I won't be holding my breath. How does shifting IP production from one base to all the UPT bases, help those bases? They now need more manning / sorties / metal to support the increased sortie requirement to fly their IP upgrades as well as their current UPT students. Where does that come from unless you actually completely kill PIT. I'd LOVE to have UPT students here instead of PIT UIs honestly, but I cant find a rational that would provide any kind of timeline efficiency, infact it would be a net loss as far as I can tell. This is just antsy new commanders getting all uppity with the new word of the day "Innovation" push and instead of innovating they are pulling deep into the dirty ass crack of ideas already tried / failed and polishing a giant turd to get some love.

Oh, you're a B-1 guy? Sorry, we didn't realize that. You better call the CEO directly. He's expecting your call.

most airlines have a military multiplier. .3 per sortie or whatever. Volunteer for more deployments?

I did a 6 monther (7.5) to Tampstan during this. If you can’t find lodging for 55%, with a non-A, proof of CTO consultation and independent justification to your commander, it’s waiverable back up to 100% by your CC. Glad it’s going away, it was an ass pain that I was fighting finance every day of the week over it.

Here's about as specific data as I can get you: 50/50. As of this morning, my logbook has my Purple flying time with 732.2 hours, 365.9 is day and 366.3 is night. This is the context: I have been at FX for just over 2 years, so still quite new in the grand scheme, but at 80-ish% seniority at the company already due to the constant hiring in the last two years and the steady retirement flow. I'm on the A300, which is nearly all domestic flying, with a little international that goes very senior. I am at about 69% (NS-TFS!) seniority in the right seat, and for some perspective the Bus is a relatively senior airplane because of the domestic-only widebody flying: the top half of the A300 FO list is very heavy with senior FOs who have been parked there for years and are not moving. The bidpack for the A300 is about evenly split between day flying and night flying, with a lot of variations of it (out-and-backs, multi-day trips, hub-turn overnights etc) of both day and night flavor. My seniority progression (in terms of schedule bidding) has been rapid, to say the least. - After completing training, 3 months of reserve, most of which was A Reserve (night flying). - Could hold secondary lines at month 4 out of training (secondaries are flying lines made up of scheduled trips and sometimes reserve days. Some months had nights, some months had days) - Held commutable night flying lines at 12 months at the company (9 months out of training) - Can hold commutable day flying lines at less than 2 years at the company. The interesting thing is that night flying doesn't necessarily always go junior. Over the last two years, my day/night balance has pushed over into 60/40 days and 60/40 nights, depending on what I bid and what I can hold, but up to this point it always trends back toward the center of 50/50. We shall see what it brings in the future now that I can consistently hold commutable day-flying lines, and that's what I intend to keep bidding. For some further context, I had originally intended to bid over to the 777 as soon as I could, due to a bunch of factors that @JeremiahWeed has posted about in these threads before. However, the last two system bids at FX have seen a lot of A300 FOs leaving for greener pastures (either 777/MD FO, or 75 Captain, or even A300 Captain) and very few FOs coming *to* the Bus. This is mostly because the guys coming off the 757 have a much easier transition training difficulty & footprint going to the 76 than to the Bus. What this means is that my seniority continues to rapidly advance in the right seat of the Bus -- in fact, scheduled to go up 30+% in just this next 12-18 months. So...I kicked back the plans to leave, and am instead going to enjoy a little taste of seniority (rather than "juniority") here this early on in my career at Purple.

You are making a couple false assumptions.."it is well known"..and premises. I suggest you research the laws of thermodynamics as well. There is nothing to be discovered