Leaderboard

Bring back fix to fix

Yeah, I'm sure he's going to take a real hard line. Ya know, like he did with the Khashoggi thing.

Agree 100%. This stupidity has got to change. The fact that military bases are soft targets is criminal.

I was chatting with some old who retired 20+ years ago dudes the other day, they had flown F-4’s, vipers, eagles, hogs, the spectrum and they were asking about what the flying was like these days. A lot of “I can’t believe you guys don’t do xyz anymore! That’s all we did back in 19xx.” I did my best on an unclass level to explain our weapons and technology. Hearing things like the how PGMs work and the TGP capes blew their minds. The look on their faces when they heard the lowly A-10 from their day now had a color HMD, PGMs etc was classic. In the end, I realized that these guys were stuck in time and their legacy viper/hog/eagle was nothing like the ones of today. That’s why I am all for change and applaud our leadership for breaking the cycle of “well, that’s how we trained in 1995 and I turned out ok.” Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Sure glad no one else was concealed carrying besides the shooter. He could have gotten hurt.

Totally agree there are many scenarios where datalink, etc. is a min force requirement. I’m with you, but I would still like young guys to show up with more general air sense, the ability to know where other things are by comm/time and bull/map correlation (e.g. decent geospatial awareness of the AO without having the answer on a screen), and better multi-tasking ability (especially with degraded/denied blue capes). I bet the IFF/UPT syllabus could change to leverage what tools they have to grow those types of skills. For example, I’ll probably never do a lowat ingress to 10/20 pop again, but maybe, given the tools they have available, that’s the best way for IFF to put the pressure on a guy and make him Mx SA on 3 other aircraft while executing threat reactions, making radio calls and maneuvering in 3D to not hit the ground and accurately fly the attack. The tactic is not exportable to an F-35, but the holistic lessons of geospatial awareness and multi-tasking under stress is. Now that shit is funny!

Concur overall. But it was a good laugh in the bar after a hot pit F-35 sortie where no datalink worked and I flew visual “old school” tactics the whole time. We mostly joked about how all of the Lts would have rolled inverted and ejected had they been in that situation. Tailoring needs to happen, with less focus on archaic syllabus items, BUT there is still value in some baseline fighter pilot skills...the young guys rage with all the Gucci shit working, but they flounder when their technology pacifier is taken away. And it’s not their fault, they weren’t afforded the opportunity to build those baseline skills like we were; now they have to build them in the CAF.

Change may be slow, but at least change is happening. Since I joined: Master's degrees are masked, we stopped picking school selects at the O-4 board (everyone competes yearly now), you can decline school without prejudice (can turn down school after receiving orders without having to separate), 365s are on the decline (still more work to be done here), helmet art is back, sleeves can be rolled up, lots of civilian contractors have been brought (back) into the squadrons, etc. Can more be done? An unequivocal yes... there are so many other things that still need fixing, but things are changing.

In regards to a lot of those foreign schools or special oppurtunities, the majority of aircrew find out too late about them. I had realised after talking to a few of the people selected that many of those slots are filled by people who spent their whole career trying to get there. They are smart and write the entire story of their OPRs on what makes them ideal for that oppurtunity, the pick a master's degree tailored for that result, etc etc.... If you are just now deciding Korean ACSC is your tea when you are doing your school apps, you are too late. There is a dude that is 4/4 in Korean, volunteered 2 short tours there and has a master's in Korean Military History or something like that already.

Took me about two years to get through Navy training when JSUNT was at PCola and AF UNT was at Randolph. The Navy doesn't care about timelines, at all. Cancel for weather? Eh, we'll work you back into the schedule when we can. Go DNIF? Well, we'll pick up your next event when you're better. There was never any pressure to "get back on timeline". No double turning. No weekend flying. You graduate when you graduate, and it doesn't matter how long it takes.

In general, the answer is no, it's not slated to be a UPT base. As to the T-7, if you're a FNG reading this thread because you got orders in hand, don't worry about it, none of you will see the T-7 as an undergrad. Even the 2023 number is optimistic right now. Good luck at DLF. It's only a year for a Guard/Res guy. Ironically, I did 8 full-time years there as an AFRC guy but that's for another thread LOL.

They also do English language training and some other training as part of the FMS training. When I went through several of the foreign guys I went through with would be given a lot more opportunities/rollback. They were typically only one or two from their military in the country and so they sorta ‘had’ to pass.

True, but at least in my little corner of the Air Force, it's been a game-changer. Civilian continuity in stan eval, training, UDM, and scheduling have improved the QOL in our combat squadron by leaps and bounds.

I didn’t apply for school, but if I did it would’ve been to one of those foreign ACSC deals as a backup to what I primarily want to do. I would’ve appreciated the ability to say “no thanks.”

So who got to take turns kicking the everliving shit out of the other Saudi studs who stood by filming it?

Yep! https://www.wpafb.af.mil/Welcome/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/853108/usafsam-fci-medical-flight-screening/ I called and asked what they mean by you just hand carry your medical records. They said this is only for patients who have had corrective eye surgery.

That's a quote straight out of OFP of Facebook. Dudes lots their shit when someone mentioned we don't really do formation takeoffs/landings anymore.

You need buy in from commanders to change culture as well. With the civilian help it's easy for some bosses to feel like you have lots of extra time to start new projects as well. There needs to be a clear culture that you job expectations are focused around operations and execution and not building admin systems and queep.

Lets not forget that nothing short of a solid hand full of these Saudi students have direct Royal ties. I remember a dude a class ahead of me at CBus was like 14th or 15th in line to the throne on the heirarchy, and he was sure to let everyone know it. I remember another Saudi needed help taking his car to the gas station. Noone ever showed him how to pump gas before, someone always did it for him his whole life. I really want this even to shine light on this but if they can pay money to a FTO to run planes into a tower, the murder of a few officers isn't going to change anything.

I flew the tweet, dropped BDU’s from a T-38A with a manual pipper and I still have become completely reliant on datalink and other technology to the point that when it fails, it’s mission degradation. Yeah, I’m more comfortable than the young guys when some stuff fails but that doesn’t happen often. I’d hate to dust off my manual bombing skills on the fly. We were saying the same thing about datalink/HMD/PGM reliant Lt’s in 2012 and most of those guys we worried about “what if” have all been just fine whether it be combat in Syria or training at home. In 2003, my b-course IP’s were saying the same thing about my class because we had EGI and if that failed...watch out, those dumb f-ers can’t navigate with INS drift. Every generation is one computer glitch away from catastrophe, only to be saved by their tacan, eyesight and stby pipper. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I think it will have an impact on retention, but it isn't overnight. You're not going to take a guy with airline apps already in and TAPS already scheduled and convince him to stay with a civilian hire. But if we can make life better for the folks at 6-9 years in, we can influence their decision in year 10+.

19 AF only cares about developing fighter pilot candidates. They want to completely get rid of the T-1 and graduate pilots to the MAF with minimal capability.

In limited cases, yes. I heard the instructors could not tell a difference between them vs a UPT grad. Caveat, these people were super sharp which is why they were selected. It shows you can train a good product on minimal flying if you select the right people. This could go down the wormhole of are we as a AF selecting the best pilot candidates. I don’t think we do. Other variables...how is IFF doing on training a product? When I went thru, very little was relevant to what I saw in the b-course skills wise. It was BFM and dive bomb-centric with legacy wingman admin focus. Today, wingmen are expected to fly formations based off sensor cues at 6.9+ miles, work their systems and have tools like HMD and data links to free up flying workload so they can maneuver to a large bubble in space to release their PGM’s. It’s a far cry from following lead to vid your target and roll in for a weapons pass. Whole new world, I say embrace it, move on. Accept some short term pain and flailing while we experiment to make things better. *IFF has complained about the UPT product for as long as I’ve been in the USAF and I’ve seen specific people they thought were bad UPT products go on to be tactical leaders in our most advanced jets. Because guess what...being .2nm wide on the way to the MOA or setting bad aspect on a BFM set just doesn’t matter much in reality. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

If they’re making the five year window 2BPZ-2APZ it won’t change shit just like how the new sub-categories won’t change shit and how the 2-line PRFs only make us waste less time writing PRFs but won’t change how the board works.

Sure, as of recently, the T-38 track was designed to produce the standard legacy wingman in attitude and aptitude. Tons of tac form, how to take direction as 2 some blatantly outdated things like a bunch of formation landings. The avg standard was based on setting the foundation for a basic F-16/F-15C wingman. We need to shift our training on the fighter side towards the “cough” 5th gen wingman mentality. Unfortunately the T-38 really can’t do a lot to prepare kids to fly jets like the F-35. I’d say airmanship, the basics of handling/tac form, form approaches are valid but there’s no reason to spend 20 flights focusing on tac turns. UPT next has shown that we can put the “right” people in fighters with a fraction of the training vs legacy UPT and they can excel. Of course kids going to legacy fighters might need some prep but those skills can be focused on in IFF tracks and polished in the B-course. I say cut the syllabus, place more focus on specialization during IFF to meet the needs of VASTLY different skill sets required in the spectrum of current fighter aircraft inventory. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Someone please remind me why the fuck we continue to spend billions of dollars and send thousands of troops to defend their catbox shithole of a country?

Eliminating the bonus completely would actually be pretty smart. Since they’re unwilling to raise it to a level at which it would actually change someone’s mind from leaving to staying on a large scale, might as well get rid of it completely. The only people (for the most part) who take it were going to stay anyway... free money for them. Might as well waste that money on other Defense Industrial Complex garbage.