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Hell no, I would do it again tomorrow. There’s a lot of sport bitching from mid-career types like me, not in small part because the AF trained us to do a job that pays very well to do a quarter of the work on the outside. I wouldn’t trade having been an Air Force pilot for anything. Now if landing on boats is your thing and you feel compelled to do Naval aviation, have at it Hoss. But I’m willing to bet a few beers that the grass is no greener on that side either.

It would have to be an apples to apples cycle, I.e. rotating 3-4x F-16 units between an AOR rotation, capped at 120 days, back to a reconstitution cycle/workup cycle, then a MCO cycle including your trips to Red Flag. I’m not contesting that F-15E mission sets /= Viper METLs for major combat operations. However, I’d argue that our current construct in theater is largely “get in stack, drop bombs on coord, NTISR, AAR, sit in stack.” Again, within same MDS, trying to separate the training/readiness requirements from the VEO/low intensity fight from the high end/kick down the door training we still need. I don’t know if AEF was trying to address that since it’s been an abortion my whole career and reduced to “you all are enablers.”

Tyking, don’t take the sport bitching on this thread as an absolute measure of what being an Air Force pilot is like. It really is the best damned job in the world, we’re just all pissed because a handful of doucher bureaucrats continuously do their damndest to ruin it. That constant fight wears people down, the airlines look like a relief with all the money for nothing angle, so every indiscretion seems like the world is ending. “No morale patches! Fucking hell, the good old days are gone!” “Wait, now the CSAF is doing mustache March? That’s it, I’m shaving it off and heading to Delta!” Which they have the option to do of course, because they’re an Air Force pilot. Guard, Reserves, AD; you can’t really fuck this up. As long as you fly well, work hard, and be a bro, you’ll be fine. Just don’t join the Navy.

Someone has not been paying attention.

We also had a lot more experienced pilots making sure they got the job done and flew home.

The only problem with this is compare how good an F-15E of F-16 unit is at air to air mission sets compared to an F-15C unit. Same with those multi-role fighters compared to A-10’s at CAS. Or any multi-role unit compared to a single role. This cycle works for those SOF units because the missions at their core (with notable exceptions like AFO, etc) are the same regardless of the environment. Get to a compound, secure it, take care of business and get out. Not so for multi-role assets used across the spectrum of conflict. This is why you need units (CAF or SOF) that handle the missions we are doing with VEO and let big blue train for the big fight. I can’t imagine how hard it would be in a Strike Eagle unit to train for the variety of air to air METLs, then all the air to ground stuff across the spectrum from CAS to AI, and then be expected to be ready for a VEO deployment or maybe to defend Taiwan.

How much of that USMC/USN take rate were helo pilots? I have a hard time believing that’s all fixed wing.

I scanned the whole thread. The same types of words occurred in nearly every response from the Gen: Listening, measuring, communicating, understanding, discussing, engaging, facilitating, thinking, ... Doing anything? Not so much. Same as the last 5 years. Same as the next 5 years.

USMC has 457 fixed wing aircraft of all types. That’s how many KC-135s we have. They’re not in the same game we are.

A few things about PTN: - PTN is not a watered down version of UPT with fancy toys. Because UPT is already a watered down version of UPT. If you look at programmed syllabus hours per student right now in UPT, it is 20% less than it was 5 years ago. That's across flights, sims, and academics. So the question should not be "why has PTN cut all this time out of pilot training and trying to pass it off as okay?" Instead it should be: "the time cuts are already happening at an institutional level. What can we do to maintain some semblance of quality?" We can b*tch about timeline guidance that comes down from on high until we're blue in the face, but that won't change anything. In my opinion, PTN is the only part of the pilot training enterprise that has that has actually made PROACTIVE attempts to maintain quality with reduced timeline. - If the students were handpicked, how is this experiment valid or scaleable? Valid question, and I'll do you one better. The instructors were handpicked too, and I'd argue that's even more important. If your entire squadron is made up of experienced spec ops, fighter guys, and high time faips, the quality of instruction is going to be better. The youngest instructors at PTN had 600+ hrs, which would be considered medium to highly experienced in a normal UPT squadron. UPT is having a crisis of instructor quality right now, and it absolutely needs to be addressed if/when this gets scaled up. - I hope people can recognize that PTN doesn't need to be declared an absolute victory or an absolute failure. The air force seems to be airing in the direction of absolute victory while everyone else (mainly online) is in the schadenfreude failure camp. If we're mature about this we should realize that there's a mixture of good and bad. We should take the good and scale it to UPT as a whole, and also be willing to call a spade a spade and not cling to the stuff that didn't work. - The opr system is broken - We should have bought more raptors - I'm not that drunk.

If I don’t wear a normal flight suit then how will everyone know I’m a pilot? And if no one knows I’m a pilot, then why bother being a pilot?

In the AMA a Navy guy mentions that the Fighter Take rate is worse than ours. The Helo take rate was fairly high because outside the DoD options aren’t the same. He also discusses how they “reduced squadron slots” that were already undermanned. Squadrons use to have 4 ADOs, but they could only fill 2 slots. So they cut the number of slots to 3. This means that instead of “50% manned” they are now “66.666 repeating of course” manned. Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Unless the statistics are lies too.

Having gotten my wings during the great RPA scourge that was 2009, I considered myself lucky to get a manned platform. I think we had more RPAs in some drops than a year of pointy nose drops. That being said, times have changed and I hear Big Blue is hurting for fighter pilots. But if you know without the shadow of a doubt that you want to be a fighter pilot, find an ANG or reserve unit to hire you. UPT will be hard enough w/o having to always compete to be #1-2/30. Me? I went in thinking I wanted fighters, mostly, then my mind changed when I saw other cool missions in the AF (and when I realized I wasn’t the best pilot at UPT). Again, probably wouldn’t do it differently today, but back then I had absolutely zero idea how to get a job Guard/Reserve, let alone become a pilot. It’s a best kept secret from 2Lts. I’d highly recommend checking it out seriously.

This is highly situation dependent. First, it is possible to interview with a Guard unit and stipulate that you're looking for a full-time position. If they don't have one available, then you opt to go elsewhere. If they want you badly enough, they may do some horse trading. Second, considering the airlines are scooping up just about every able-bodied military pilot they can get their hands on, the competition for full-time positions in the Guard may not be the feeding frenzy you think it is. Of course, YMMV depending on the units you're rushing, their manning and a myriad of other factors. But, I wouldn't just assume that locking in a full-time spot is out of the question.

Having a readiness cycle would be a nice idea in the flying world: preparing for routine deployments on one side of the cycle, then training for the high end fight post deployment. That might have a side benefit of shortening some of those 179s for you guys in the CAF if your community goes to a 4-part training/deployment cycle. It’s done with certain units in SOF and it seems to work out fairly well with units having dedicated workup periods for different, yet complex mission sets. Granted, if your MDS is low density/high demand and limited to a couple units, it’s probably not going to work.

If you're going to fly, stay AF. The aviation grass isn't greener in other services. Except maybe CG, but they have their own issues.

Man if I had a dollar every time I heard someone in the squadron say that. ‘Cause your 2-3 deployments to OIF/OEF/OIR is the only war will be fought. Gtfo. I was reading about the debacle that was Allied Force. Dudes going into a pretty robust SAM MEZ daily, and the AO was fairly small too. And that was only 2 years prior to OEF.

And you expected something different from the people who manage only HPOs?

If only a member of Congress read a forum like this...

I talked to some of the Kelly Viper guys and they said the PTN studs there did great. I’m sure you could talk to another IP in the squadron who thinks those millennial cucks are worthless, but that was the info I got.

Looks like a typical recovery into Bagram to me.

Best sushi: Soi bistro best Thai: mama nus, Thai chef close second

I'll take it if you pay for shipping.