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Must not have liked the guys rotation technique.

2000 hrs and I've never in all aircraft I've flown heard the technique of "rotating early to ensure the nose is up by rotation speed." It has always been "pull the stick back at rotation speed." I don't blame the guy that much, it sounds like there is a community wide culture/understanding of this is how it's done (at least from reading the AIB). To me the logical fix is refresher on what TOLD items mean, stop this trend of rotating early on purpose, and do not put the gear handle up until FPM/CDM is at least 3+ degrees above horizon line with a positive VVI. If after that you're concerned with a gear overspeed, mitigate via increasing pitch and canceling AB early if required. I think this is a lesson learned that applies to all fighter aircraft. I can't speak for heavies.

Why are you opposed to VLPAD? 3 years to start (probably can add more if you want later), all the benefits (pay, retirement years, etc.), and no prison sentence (AKA ADSC) from AD. I'm curious what a "full transition" to AD buys you over VLPAD. Also, I'd like to add...

Passenger identified as Vincent Losada, 93, of San Antonio. Mr. Losada, a B-17 bombardier, lost his right arm after being hit by flak while returning from his 25th mission in the European Theater. 93 year old San Antonio man identified as 2nd victim in fatal Fredericksburg plane crash 1st Lt Vincent Losada, 839th Bomb Squadron, 487th Bomb Group. Vincent Losada 1st Lt Losada, second from right in front row, with the rest of the crew of "The Big Drip Jr". Teare Crew Another shot of the crew of "The Big Drip Jr", 1st Lt Vincent Losada third from left in back row. Teare Crew The Big Drip Jr Two Purple Hearts

One year ago today. Stuck was a great guy.

I've had a hard time coming up with what to say about Hook. Nothing I seem to write is fitting enough, so I'll just say blue skies and tailwinds on your flight west, brother Hook. It was an honor and a pleasure to be your friend, squadronmate, and fellow aviator.

We lost a great one this weekend, Chris “Hook” Dupin. He was a board member here (although not active for awhile). Hook was a an F-15 WSO, TPS grad, and about to separate to the Reserves (I don’t think it had been finalized yet but I could be wrong). He owned a flight school in Destin and was really building it up, which was one of the reasons he was separating. Hook was flying with a student in his RV-12 (I actually flew with him in it the day after he bought it for the company) and crashed shortly after takeoff. He survived the crash but succumbed to his injuries a few hours later. I’ve been at a complete loss for words since I found out a couple days ago. I didn’t know him as well as many (and it’s obvious from the posts on Facebook about how loved he was), but I knew him well enough to know he was one of the best officers and men that I knew. We started a charity together a couple years ago to help send vets to flight training that some of you may remember us posting about here. He loved flying more than anything (other than his wife, and even she questioned that!). Sometimes I really hate airplanes. https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20181119/victims-identified-in-niceville-plane-crash-photos Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Perhaps, but based on how many O-5s the Air Force needs, I don't know how choosy they can be. At least, that's what I tell myself when I work on my PRF with no school and no staff.

have we ruled out whether he was task-saturated with getting ATIS yet?

It’s amplified in select-hire organizations. The beauty of being able to pick dudes who share your values comes with the curse of homogeneous values: right or wrong.

This is what I pictured...

And yet they will be shocked when the take rate is so low...in my opinion based on little to zero facts, those who take the bonus where likely already going to stay in. Those on the fence $35k might be enough to sway them, but it doesn't stand a chance to keep those already planning on getting out. They're going to need a lot more money than that. My profit sharing check every year (to date at least) is at least that much, plus I make more as it is, and I work far less at my airline than I would on AD. The AF can complain that they are short pilots and look perplexed all they want when the masses leave, but the reality of it is the airline industry is much more appealing to most than AD. Until they realize that and get serious with their bonus, they aren't going to sway many people to stick around.

The AF doesn’t want to retain and/or bring on qualified folks nearly as much as they want to tell congress that they are struggling to retain and/or bring on qualified folks. Priorities, man, all about the priorities.

When they give you a dumb answer, make sure you mention AD is sitting fat on pilots and bonus take rates are through the roof.

Some people will tell you that you should go Guard/Reserve to guarantee a certain airframe. There's certainly a lot of truth to that. But if you are making the decision between AD and Guard/Reserve to avoid being an RPA pilot, I would offer that your odds are similar if you make either decision. If you earn an AD pilot slot, you have 'guaranteed' that you won't be an RPA pilot based on the current situation in UPT in which no one is dropping RPAs. That could change. Similarly, you could be hired by a Guard/Reserve unit and be 'guaranteed' that you will fly a certain airframe and that you won't be an RPA pilot. But I have heard more than one story of an individual being hired by a unit only to be halfway through UPT and find out their unit is switching airframes. And yes, that switch has been to an RPA. There are certainly plenty of caveats and dynamics that play in to those situations, but the bottom line is that I would caution you to be making a decision on AD vs Guard/Reserve because you don't want to be an RPA pilot. There are plenty of other worthy reasons to be making that decision. Can't say I blame you for your line of thinking though! Just checking your blind spots.

More on Losada... https://www.kxan.com/news/local-news/loved-ones-remember-wwii-veteran-killed-in-fredericksburg-plane-crash/1607617993

How long are you willing to do AD (assume you want to go to 20)? As Kenny said, I imagine multiple VLPAD tours (or simply extending one) will be fairly high probability of success given the AF's shit managing of the pilot force. I wouldn't make assumptions - you need to talk to some U2 bros. Be honest with them on how long you plan to stick around, and if you're the right fit, they may just give you the shot you're looking for. Also, if you simply go back to AD (not VLPAD) you're not going to have the same "power of choice" you do on VLPAD, so what makes you think you'd be going to the U2 for sure? At least via VLPAD you are a terrorist AFPC most certainly will negotiate with, and in the end you will have the freedom to walk away if the U2 doesn't work out (assuming you're not willing to go back to AD for a different assignment).

I agree with this. My game plan would be consecutive VLPAD tours. Each tour is your negotiation, accepted by you, eligible for the bonus, and only 3 years long. Do that until you get your active duty retirement. I dont see the AF solving the pilot crisis anytime soon, so I think VLPAD is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Homestar.... your level of blue koolaid consumption is commendable. Your comments make it sound like “since I had to, YOU have to”

And even more obvious right there on the DQHB: a line in your duty history.

I'm just a helicopter pilot, but aren't you a Nav?

Still shopping the Scorpion?

I looked into these jobs a few years back when we moved to California. Very dynamic, interesting flying for sure. I’m in SoCal so the length of the season was a non starter for me (two young kids at home) and I took a cushy airline job. Tons of respect and hats off to the guys that do this job though. These guys literally saved my home last year when it was threatened by the liberty fire. Had there not been air on scene very quickly, there’s no doubt in my mind that hundreds of homes would’ve been destroyed. Instead, one home and an out structure were all that was lost. If there’s anyone here who worked that fire, PM me. Seriously. I owe you a bottle.

If you think SOF is some great panacea to CSAR, ask the Strike Eagle crews that flew in Desert Storm about that subject. I can history too!

To pile on, the net loss of pilots is only part of the story. In my mind, the even graver issue is the hemorrhaging of highly experienced pilots--which has been ongoing for some time now. A reasonable proxy for experience is looking at how many Command Pilots and Master Navs the AF has; after all, it ain't that hard to reach that milestone, if one has even a remotely ops-credible flying career and bothers to stay in until the min 15 yrs of rated service. Per the data in RAW, we had almost 2,800 Command Pilots at the end of FY08; ten years later, we have barely 2,100. In the same time, the number of Master Navs dropped from 1,300 to less than 600. If you go back a little further, in FY04, we had almost 3,700 Command Pilots and 1,900 Master Navs. Clearly, we've had a massive brain drain over the past decade and a half or so. So, doing math in public, we have as many as 2,900 Senior Pilots and/or Navs filling command, staff, or Wg/OG flying billets that a decade and a half ago would've been filled by more deeply experienced Command/Master aviators. Conclusions? (1) You shouldn't be surprised by questionable rated management decisions, when AF commanders and their staffs are largely devoid of experience (2) To the extent that recent mishaps are due to crew inexperience, you can count on things getting even worse. Commanders gotta have their flyers on staffs; units will continue to get robbed of experienced aviators, leaving flying units ever-younger TT

One more...just a few days ago Hook posted this video to Reddit. I’m sure you’ll all appreciate it! [emoji482] Hook! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's not like this one came down to a split second mistake...his decision to rotate at 120 etc etc was apparently made long before the day of the mishap.

Kenny - I thinks it's understandable that someone from a multi-role, multi-ordnance fighter would scoff as you are. However, don't discount the impact of MDS culture, especially with a single mission, single load-out (more or less) fighter. An air-to-air fighter doesn't have the myriad of ordnance and potential takeoff variables that say, an F-16 has. On most take offs, the TOLD data is a square filler. Sea level bases and an overconfidence in a/c and engine capes could easily create an environment where things like density altitude is not in the cross-check. I'm not saying it's right, but I can understand how they got there. For the the first two decades of the F-15's existence, pilots didn't even compute TOLD. Every takeoff you rotated at 120 knots. Full aft stick to get the nose moving and adjust after that. Mil, Burner, missiles, training load, clean, 1, 2, 3, bags... didn't matter. Or did it? I'm sure if someone took the time to compute rotation and takeoff speed, they would have varied somewhat in all the different scenarios. Takeoff speed? WTF is that anyway?😜 It started in FTU with the aborted takeoff discussion. The guidance for some "issue" on takeoff went, that if you're at or past 120 with the stick moving back to rotate, then you're going. If you're not there yet, then you abort. Of course, there was always the caveat that if it was a "no shitter" (whatever that is was up to you) you could abort above that knowing you had the hook. That was for mil power on an 8K runway. Anything longer just gave you room to work with, but didn't change the decision process. How's that for TOLD? Even after we started putting TOLD numbers on our line-up cards, not much changed. I also wouldn't discount the effect the FTU training environment may be introducing to this cultural problem. If you actually read the report and look at the data, it's pretty clear that there's a huge trend throughout the F-22 community to rotate early, even in FTU. That makes it pretty clear this stuff is being taught early on. Another thing to consider - There's probably a bunch of ex-Eagle guys wearing coats and ties and teaching sims and academics who may be throwing out some questionable techniques and info from "back in their day" that's being gobbled up and retained by "Stanley" the newbie Raptor dude. I think back to more than a few bogus techniques I had to unlearn thanks to some retired F-4 guy, now sim instructor, throwing out something he thought worked great. Some bigger stuff but mostly little things. I ended up with an audio only version of my HUD tape during what anyone would argue was the highlight of my career thanks to one of those sim instructors teaching me how to set up my cockpit for start. But, I digress. It's pretty clear from the report that this is much more than one guy not reading his line-up card and being a dumbass. That's not to say your points about not checking safely airborne, etc. aren't valid. As others have mentioned, we're not talking about a huge amount of time from brake release to gear up and I'm sure muscle memory and expected timing took priority over a more accurate check. At least the result was a shiny a/c underside, some personal shame and hopefully a better approach to takeoff ops and not another nickle in the grass.

I prefer blondes.

Dude, you're so old...you were old when I joined this board as a stupid student and I'm already old. It's like me talking about the model T when the kid is trying to tell me how cool his Tesla is. If you were subjecting yourself to this monster out cluster of a fvck right now, you'd shoot exactly as many people in the head as you had bullets...minus one. As for the PRF... if the strats had gone down the side in lieu of the worthless "stellar pilot" openers, there would be another entire line to talk about your career. Not saying it's right, or that there is more (as using the UCI shit on there at all would make me think there isn't. (No offense) There should be an entire thread on this forum with successful PRFs. Bendy