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Problem is that the initial PTN trainees were heavily screened, accepting something like 10/200 - only the best candidates. Let’s see what happens when the average stud goes through the program before we talk about it cranking out a better product. IFF, as originally intended, is dead. The writing on the wall is that, should PTN go full-scale, IFF goes away. The washout rate is way down and we at the FTUs have had to drop the hammer where they have failed. We’ve washed out several punks over the past few years that simply didn’t belong in a fighter FTU. We called back to the 435th about the last one and got a canned “he met the course requirements” answer. IFF is simply under the thumb of AD leadership and their “graduate more” mandate. Rant sw - off

I’m a simple man. I see boobs, I press “like”.

You know, a buddy of mine and I were just discussing the impending doctor shortage which threatens to cripple America’s combat capability in the next 5-7 years...🙄

The countdown begins... Remember, nothing sucks worse than being shot with your own gun. All in jest. I do hope the organization who allowed the Chinese to take my personal information no less than 5 times figures out how to keep these things from flipping blue to red.

One of the worst opponents to military compensation was McCain. Hopefully people will be able to undo what he did in his last few years because “he had far less compensation when he was in and it was fine.”

Yeah, we’ll, that’s because we spent a lot of time teaching stuff that dudes had to be proficient in at UPT but never really need in real life. Number of times I’ve needed to do a formation landing in 3,500 hours of mil flying....ZERO. Granted, it’s all good stuff to have experience with but a lot of it is low likelihood contingency items, great to be familiar/safely able, not necessary to be masterful. This goes beyond UPT. Call me full of sh-t if you like but go visit the AOR, it’s PGMs and BOC 99% of the time. I can get a wingman to a CR level in 2019 much quicker than I could in 2005 and the reason is technology. I fully support updating the training syllabus and technique. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

https://cajunsaviationdream.org/

$37.5k-$100k per year for 4 yrs for their bonuses

Thailand's a hell of a place...

Just got back from the range with it. Put about 100 rounds through it with only 1 FTF and that was in the first few rounds. After that nothing else. Ran CCI mini mags through it, bulk federal, and some 40 gr round nose Winchester designed for the MSR 22’s. I will say the trigger is really smooth for this gun, granted i haven’t shot any 2 stage triggers or some really fancy match triggers. For shooting iron sights at 50yrds the MBUS wasn’t bad. The adjustments on them are a little different but not bad. This one will definitely get regular rotation when I go out for sure.

Totally agree... but! if there’s going to be any hope of actually using pay to help solve the problem, we can’t frame it as an admission of guilt or failure on the part of the AF. “Acknowledging market forces beyond our control and taking the most fiscally and strategically responsible actions as recommended by numerous panels of independent experts” is far less likely to be met with Capt Closedfortraining’s “that’s not fair” or Sue Neverservedaday’s “you joined the military” or Sen Goodolboy’s “what’s wrong with your culture?” This is as much about avoiding/defusing irrational arguments against a pay increase as it is endorsing the rational action of making one. Plagiarism-ish: “Subordinates and peers respond to complainers-in-chief; all else see whining.”

Here’s hoping. It won’t happen for me, but I hope the younger guys get a bonus big enough to tolerate whatever the AF throws at them.

Pretty safe to say in this instance.

Fuck that attitude, if your a pilot on a base and you run into this attitude, somewhere along that douche bags chain of command, is a pilot. If you’re more than a snot nosed LT, fix it. Rememeber, behind the silver wings of power, you’re also an officer, dust that knowledge off. Somebody is going to jump on here and say you should fix it as a LT, that’s dumb, nobody listens to them.

Unfortunately the USAF is struggling to keep a generation of people who were taught how to be goal motivated, take risk early and not be afraid to move for a better opportunity. When you can't offer me a meaningful answer to how you are going to continue to mentor/grow/advance me past 14 years of service if I'm not on the command track, and don't want to pay me well, I'm going to go looking other places. Especially in my mid 30's, an age that my civilian counterparts widely regard as the peak years for quick/vertical mobility. I should be in the space shuttle at this point aiming for low earth orbit and you want me to level off at FL350 and accept holding for the straight in to retirement. you bro. Sorry, a little extra jaded today.

I hope he feels like I felt when I left active duty. Man, there are dudes out there making way more than me, spending more time with their kids, and not fearing their inbox. What do I have to do to get there!?! And then I hope he goes to the education office and signs up for a BS from somewhere other than ERAU.

As much as I love the EAA there are some fees that I believe are in the 2-300 dollar range to start a chapter. If the goal is just to get a flying club started AOPA has resources to help you start one. https://www.aopa.org/community/flying-clubs

Fly what you want to fly. Go slay your dragons early while your younger and full of gusto. Either go fast and furious doing the fighter thang and truly enjoy it, worry about that airline gig later, or $$$ wise - Fly Fast jets, go regionals to accumulate not only quicker, but Part 121 time which undeniably helps secure an airline gig (seniority number earlier perhaps/friends help as well), but is not required. The mobility side runs 90% or greater real world missions on a weekly basis and trains 10% or less of their time. Fighter gurus do their kick butt flying most of the time but maybe 10% real world (meaning actual engagements, as defined by y’all) and train 90% of the time for that close encounter/real world event/deployment preparing to save the world as we know it thankfully. I am definitely off base on the exact percentages, but not way off as (having been privy/leading teams at the NGB/ANGRC) to how the flying hour programs were divided among units using O&M dollars annually / POM cycle. The differences between flight hours for training / RAP, etc and actual mission hours (different colors of $ per say) varies significantly on unit mission assignment at times. That being said, hours don’t accumulate like heavies as they drone for hours from A, B, C, D, etc. You want to fly fighters, do that work and fly fast and the rest will work itself out. You will have Fighter Pilot/Airline contacts in your unit and off the reservation. All Military pilots with good record are highly sought after and the airlines sources are dwindling...

Stop talking to this guy, he has no idea what he's talking about.

Quantity has a quality of it's own. At some point, no matter how outgunned or outmoded your aircraft are... If you have more assets in the sky then the enemy has super-advanced fighters and missiles to intercept them, some will get through.

Apparently, Boeing is working on a fix. I hate CNN.

KMWH, not AETC but a former SAC base. It's a still up and running airport with a shit ton of ramp/runway space. Out in the middle of BFE Washington (state) but good WX most of the year. Just have to deal with Community College flight training traffic and TCM and NUW guys beating up the pattern.

RF-4C 1. Ops tempo: Outstanding. Best kept secret. Basically a flying club. As a 1Lt it's your airplane with great responsibility; "All we ask is bring it back in one piece." Flying is mostly low level single ship to where ever YOU and your WSO decide to go that day. Not flying, review your film from previous day, do a tour in the RSU, perhaps a little studying in the vault, shelf check at the BX. TDY's and deployments minimal and considered a good deal. AAR training every couple of months. Night AAR is always scheduled with a full moon. If stationed in Germany always save a little fuel for the fur ball with whomever is trolling along the Rhine. 2. LIfestyle/family: Could not be better. Home every day by 5. No working weekends. If stationed in Germany most have a rental Swiss chalet for the winter skiing months. 3. Community morale: Excellent. Surprising amount of fellow pilots UPT DG's. Some turned down fighters to fly Recce. Everyone works and pulls together. 4. Advancement & Future of Airframe: Terrible, once Recce always Recce according to MPC although I managed a 4 yr OA-37 assignment to DM. (another flying club). NO future dedicated manned Recce airframes. 5. Preferred PCS locations: Zweibrucken, Alconbury, Bergstrom. Oh crap, just got up from a nap. Dreaming it was 1977 and not 2017! Sorry guys, you missed a great time in the AF. 10 years AD then off to a legacy airline.

FWIW, there's a lot of guys who went to AMC first who were able to come to AFSOC (across the entire spectrum from C-21 to C-5 and tankers). These guys have the flexibility to potentially flow back (saw this with an EC-130 guy) to their previous MDS. The flow in the other direction is much more difficult. If you grow up in AFSOC, there isn't a lot of flex to get you into other options out there. If I were young again, I'd spend some time seeing the world in another MDS, and then determine if I wanted to flow into AFSOC or not later on in life. But I grew up limited to two locations and a continuous deployment rhythm to the sandbox over a decade with little opportunity to expand beyond certain theaters. AFSOC is exciting, but it can quickly become Groundhog Day. YMMV.

Well C-146's are not at Cannon anymore. They are at Duke Field in the sunny Florida panhandle :-) https://www.cannon.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1198568/legacy-lost-the-524th-special-operations-squadron-moves-on/

It was funny a year ago when we were dropping 2 RPAs on the Tone side listening to the studs complain about how this is the first time RPASs were dropped at UPT. They were caught off guard when I mentioned that RPAs were in the drop back in 09 when I was a student, were not limited in number given, and were given to both 38s and Tones. They didn't think their situation was quite so bad or unique.

My T-6 flight at Vance (mid-'09 class) had 33 studs. "Super flight" at the time. (Dunno if they still do that.) Out of those 33; three guys got T-38s. Out of those three, one got a fighter.

Would love to hear what these kids think about drops in 2009-2012 then, when half the class got Preds. A decent drop was just getting a Viper in the drop.

I'll add on to the C-130 pile. All AD slick C-130s are J (Yokota is in transition). So you have Dyess, Little Rock, Ramstein, and Yokota. Oddly enough, I've done more cool shit in the C-130J during my last assignment to the 61 AS than previous two assignments in the E and H.