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My personal preference of CSAF would be a career ops O5 straight to CSAF. That would shake things up.

Now, all of those women who weren't joining the Air Force because of that blasted 3rd verse of the song will decide to become Airpersons. Mission-critical issue solved. Leadership at its finest.

Started going to AFG in 2002. Was last there in 2018. I visited most, if not all, C-130 capable airfields in the country. In addition to the most important/worst part, the human cost, we watched the bases go from old Soviet buildings, to tents, to B-huts, to shipping containers, to hard billets, and then abandoned. Buckets to port-a-pots, to cadillacs, to proper shitters, then abandoned. The continuous pouring of square miles of concrete at every airfield. Giant bases created in the open desert and then bulldozed. The contractors everywhere. We looked down on the continuous train of supply trucks stretching halfway across the country from Pakistan. Watched the 24/7 arrival of equipment, MRAPs, M-ATVs, earthmovers, construction equipment, trucks for years on end. All used up and now rotting in giant graveyards. Trillions of dollars disposed of in that wasteland. No point, just don't know what to think of it all.

Dudes, Seadogs is doing what he does best again and being a massive troll, ignore and do not feed.

You guys are lacking a bit of vision. I've played around a bit with some of the "AI" visual recognition stuff. If you keep up with self driving cars, you know they've got an incredible ability to identify objects in an object-saturated environment. Spoiler-alert, we've been teaching them for free. Every time you have to "prove you're a human" to get into a website or complete a form, you're actually doing free work. Moving your mouse is what proves you're not a bot. Clicking pictures of stop signs, businesses, and traffic lights is just you teaching the AI how to filter out those objects. Remember the wavy words you had to type out? Those were words in books that the scanner couldn't read because of how the spine of the book warped them. You helped Google in their digital library effort. Remember the blurry 3 and 4 digit numbers? Looked a lot like the numbers on the sides of houses and buildings didn't they? You were helping Google maps figure out the actual location of addresses that their algorithm couldn't read from the street view pictures. How hard do you think it will be for an AI to figure out what type of plane it is looking at? Will it be able to visually notice the difference between an F-35 and a flare against a nice blue and white sky? How's the F-35's visible-spectrum stealth capabilities? Cameras are cheap, and AI is getting cheaper. The new computer to power Tesla's full self driving program is a few thousand bucks. Think they can squeeze that into a missile? I just hope we have the leadership to develop it first. I'll take Elon over our military acquisition complex any day. I think he's proven us wrong enough times to listen to. Or do we think pilot training and ACSC was harder than creating a self-landing reusable rocket, industry-changing luxury electric vehicle, or online payment system for the masses?

I don't care about the gender neutral stuff... but I do care that they removed the line about those *who fly*. That's some everyone's important #iserved BS.

The 122d Fighter Squadron is planning to hold an Inexperienced hiring board on Sunday, 17 May 2020. Please contact Maj Stanley Cheng at 122fspilothiring@gmail.com if you're interested in visiting the World Famous Bayou Militia over March or April drill (14-15 March, 4-5 April). Cheers, Lt Col Sam Joplin Commander, 122d Fighter Squadron

I have a buddy that applied. He got word either last week or the week before that he was invited for an interview this week.

Weird, cause I know that one guy has an interview on the 5th but nobody else I've talked to has heard anything. I know half of them just deployed too, so that may also complicate things

Agree with pretty much everything that has been said. Having the PPL should help already. If you haven't, get some feed back from the interviews you already had. Hopefully they will tell you exactly what their thought process was. The unit that hired me gave me feed back and I took it to heart and kept applying. Just keep pushing. I applied to the same unit 4 times over the course of around 3 years and interviewed with them 3 times before they finally hired me. Getting my PPL and being persistent showing I really wanted to be there is what I think finally got me the gig. Rush units and hangout on UTAs if they will let you. Even if its not a "meet and greet" weekend. Some units will let you do that.

We have the technology to build the next Airwolf if we wanted to. Shit has been using AI to ID adversary aircraft since the 80s! Supersonic helicopter with retractable missile launcher and guns for A/A and A/G msn? Pssshhh, child please. AI, Big Data, Machine Learning, Cyber, Airwolf, and etc. The issue will always be the government is inherently bureaucratic, not suitable for private sector agile innovation...*unless* the innovation is urgently needed during a time of war/crisis. Because that's when the USG will bust down doors and red tapes to get the end product they needed. There is a reason why we have acquisition regulations, lengthy safety and technical review boards, contracting officers. To ensure an even playing field and standards are met before and during the acquisition process. We are not building plastic DJIs out there with no factor of safety and mil-specs. Also see the JEDI contract/mess. Another factor is the private sector tech startups are run by 20-30 year olds, who are intimately familiar with the technology. Government *SENIOR* leaders barely have enough time to read power point slides and make decisions from there. They might be able to recite some buzz words at ACSC or SOS like AI, big data, data fusion, next-gen to impress the junior officers. But do they really know enough or have the political will to really innovate? Last year, a certain prominent USG agency hired a new CIO, and his first order of business was to ensure SSNs are protected during e-mail transmission. Really? That might have mattered maybe in the 90s... So yes, while we without a doubt have the capabilities to build whatever we can envision, the bureaucracy is what will kill any true innovation. Sorry for the generalization and rambling...

Pick the mission you want to do and put no more thought into it. Hopefully you’ve gleaned from above that EVERYONE is on the road, has long days, works weekends, and does it all with varying levels of outside-work issues. I have friends who thought heavies would be the jam for reasons you stated, they hated it. Other friends same story, but with fighters. LL for those guys: pick the mission you’ll enjoy, not the one you think will have “better” QOL, time at home, least workload, etc. If you can’t stomach that idea for the next 10 years, then in all seriousness stop now. I hope you don’t though, because I think you’re young and think your problems are more difficult to manage than reality; you’ll be fine and continue to figure life management out as you mature. That’s not meant to shit on you, we’ve all been through it in our young-mid 20s (I took e-leave in UPT also).

You're going to have to do something more to entice me to come back out of retirement... again.

Yes? By the way you’ve written it, I’m not sure if you think it’s possible or it’s not.

Honestly, most of your packet is slightly better than mine was. And your GPA is way better considering you were in engineering. Like one of the other guys said, one downside could have been the high hours with no license. So I'm sure the PPL will help in that area. The other downside is your age, I even though you aren't in waiver territory, some units will still think you're too old. Most probably won't though. Plus, you're getting interviews, so you're on the right track. Now if you have been getting interviews with no success, id shell out the money on Bogidope. Emerald Coast does guard prep too, but I don't think they typically advertise it. They are both great services and good investments. The cost is a whole lot lower than travelling to 3-4 more interviews and a tiny price to pay to hit the lottery and get hired by a guard unit. Edit: And apply everywhere, you are getting too old to be too picky. Sent from my SM-N975U using Baseops Network mobile app

Based on what you’re saying is important, I’d recommend you SIE from UPT (kind of kidding). The only thing that will allow you the stability to be home a lot and focus on your family is FAIP or RPA. Everything else from the traditional T-38 track or T-1 track is gone a bunch. It’ll vary of course, but you’ll be away from home a good amount in whatever you fly. Even if you aren’t going to CENTCOM, you’ll be away from home a good bit (example here is PACAF Eagles and even they go to CENTCOM some). Abandon the dreams of getting several years off of ADSC for Palace Chase. The longest I’ve seen is 9 months and that guy was basically kicked out because of his actions and being a piece of crap. Most dudes get 6 months. I’ve heard of up to a year, but that’s super rare. Who knows what it’ll look like in 6-7 years though, but temper your expectations. For dreamsheet stuff, find a mission you would like and pick jets that do that. For example, if you want to do CAS and nothing else, don’t put Raptors first because the jet looks cool. And unsolicited family advice: Plenty of guys have great family lives and adventures with spouses/kids in all assignments. It truly is a quality over quantity thing and being gone a lot makes you appreciate the time you actually have. Plus, if you pick purely based on your spouses desires for an assignment you don’t really want, that’s a recipe for disaster/resentment.

Elon is comparing some future theoretical capability that might exist with a capability that is operational and actually sitting on the ramp today. As someone far smarter than I once said, "the F-35 is a great 2000s fighter". Such a comparison is difficult to take seriously.

You must not be in the CAF. You’re a bit behind on current military capes, both US and near peer. That being said, the fire control decision won’t be given to a computer regardless of its ability to ID a target. That’s 3/4s of the reason F-35s are manned.

Better to just bid reserve and get 75 hours of pay for not flying. That open time is going to get gobbled quickly, esp. this time of year when it's pretty scarce to begin with. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Update to this, I took my TBAS today and scores came in like an hour. My PCSM is 84 at 20 flight hours currently, and 201+ is 99. I went and visited the 187th Airlift Squadron in Cheyenne this past weekend and had a blast. There were 15 or 16 other applicants there but I'm feeling pretty confident. Thanks for all your advice, now I can get to work and finish up my PPL!