Leaderboard

Buckle up kids. 5 yrs of an airline slump means good retention and if you thought big blue gave less than two f-cks about treating your time and family well before when people could bail, now watch as people have no options. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

No, but I've had a few where I couldn't believe they didn't get fired.

We can, leaders just won't make the decisions to cut the bullshit deployments.

Fortunately, there's a solution. https://imgur.com/gallery/BlK4jzM

I think we've been lucky that this is only the first fatality on formation landings in recent memory. I stress recent memory, because I have zero doubt that there have been many in the past but our memories are short. However, this is at least the third serious mishap (I think all class A's) during a formation takeoff or landing that I can think of off the top of my nugget during my career. And I'm not a safety guy and don't pay particularly close attention to incidents during types/phases of flight that I don't do (like formation takeoffs/landings) so I'd be surprised if there were not others. I understand your point (at least I think I do) that we need to train military pilots and formation takeoffs and landings are a difficult challenge to master. The fact that the specific challenge doesn't necessarily translate to the CAF isn't relevant and I agree. I remember drawing the fuel system diagram during a T-37 ground eval. I couldn't even pretend to draw a fuel system diagram of the F-16. Also, that T-37 diagram was complete BS and I bet only had a vague similarity to how the fuel system actually looks. But, if you can't memorize a diagram and regurgitate it, you're probably going to have a hard time memorizing other stuff that you need to know by heart. However, as I said earlier, the majority of fighter incidents happen on takeoff/landing phase or in close proximity to another jet. The CAF doesn't require a formation takeoff/landing skill set, so we are teaching UPT students a useless skill set (just like drawing a pretend fuel system). If we are testing their ability to learn and execute a skill set, why not test them on one that won't get them and their IP killed if they mess it up? Fighter pilots occasionally die practicing BFM. BFM is a vital skill-set that you can't exchange for a safer one. It seriously sucks to lose lives, but that's an extremely unfortunate yet unavoidable part of our business. Formation takeoffs and landings is the exact opposite of vital, so why lose lives for it?

That is not easy question(s) to answer. My answer/solution to the problem of unsustainable benefits for retirees and dependents is stop digging that hole. At some point say everyone who joins after this date will have these choices of retirement plans and dependents would be covered under these choice of plans. Choices to retirement/benefits being ones that likely will be similar to ones in the private sector but with sweetners to encourage recruitment/retention. But they would and will have to be less expensive than what we have now. The private sector gave up on lifetime defined benefit systems about 25 years ago, the government (fed and state) follows the lead of the private sector, it just takes longer for them to change. If we wanna get serious about fixing this liability in the DoD financial obligations, we should look at buy out packages for members for whom it makes sense, if they are young, responsible and financially savvy it could work for both parties. Buy outs would be generous and paid to achieve the long term goal of changing the financial direction of the DoD's pension & healthcare liabilities, pay a good bit up front to the members to save money in the long term. I'm not ecstatic about any changes to the retirement & benefits systems but I know that it has to be done. Our lifetimes are much longer than when the systems were designed, the array of services is much greater and more expensive, we are mainly a married military now versus mostly single young men and politicians who usually think short term and implement programs / increases regardless whether they have a plan to actually pay for it leaving it to others to figure out to pay for it set this problem in motion. The future will be more taxes, less benefits and more risk transferred to the individual to pay for the accumulated irresponsibility of past generations. The inevitable change to the DoD pay & benefit system is just a manifestation of that. Not trying to be Debbie Downer but I'm realistic. Getting to work earlier on this will make it less onerous in the long run. Yup, but we have to extend that idea further. I like going to Germany TDY as much as the next dude but they are an example of where we don't need to be forward deployed or based. Wealthy nations of the developed world used to the USA providing a lot or most of the military deterrence keeping them safe, prosperous and free will have to step up or get used to being intimidated by regional bullies. As to bullshit deployments specifically, the best appetite suppressant for that is additional pay for the deploying members paid by the requesting Combatant Command. More for the member and keeps the Command from growing herds of Power Point rangers.

Yeah, I personally know multiple fighter pilots who have turned with other nations’ aircraft in the last decade. Way more than I ever expected. Thats what happens when the ROE is basically “you stay on this side of the river/point/airfield, they will stay over there. Except sometimes they won’t. But don’t let them not. But don’t do anything about it if they do. Got it??”

I’d argue that you need to watch the Navy F-18-Syrian Su engagement, and really learn anything about what ops were like in Syria. BFM isn’t just going for guns, and ROE often requires a visual identification and signaling on guard/headbutt before engaging. Getting close to, merging, and even shooting down not so friendly aircraft has been an occurrence in the very recent past. Now, while fun to do, I have never seen a legit necessity of a form landing.

I'm not just talking individual BS deployments, I'm talking sending full up fighter squadron aviation packages to go fly CT on the other side of the globe. My last two "deployments" were completely worthless and did nothing but kill morale. We used to have to tell people no for deployments because we had some many volunteers, no we're having to force people to deploy. I get the idea behind these "presence maintaining TSPs," but we are fucking broke and morale is in the shitter. Cut those out, flow us into real combat deployments and you will spread out deployment cycles for everyone. We came home from our 2nd straight TSP and were already schedule for our third, just 19 months away. Our local leadership called whomever controls that flow and basically said, if you send us on another TSP, "I won't have pilots to fill the trip." ...and he was right. This also has a negative impact on retaining the amazing talent that we have in Guard MX. These deployments have killed more marriages than all our combat deployments (in my 19 years in the same Guard unit) combined. The AD has fucked away their retention so bad that they're now tagging a shit ton of our (non-flying) officers and enlisted leadership to go run AD shops overseas for 6 months. Dudes are deciding it's just not worth it to stick around.

Hardly ever, and we pushed the HAF to create a standardized and streamlined process for them to do it. ”No” is a 4-letter word...

It warms the cockles of my heart to read that many of you know how to decline SIDS/STARS. I'm proud of your written and verbal communication skills with Air Traffic Control. Well done. In the future, how about just saying "I'll take a descent to below FL180 and Cancel IFR" ? Works every time and no one give two shits about what you filed. VFR really isn't scary. Try it some time. However, I didn’t start this thread to discuss that nonsense. I started this thread because I was very interested to continue the discussion about the value of wing landings after a very tragic incident. To Hawg15, MotoFalcon, YoungNDumb, Brabus, et al… I get your point. You don’t do wing landings in the CAF, and you see it as “increased risk with no benefit”. However, from a “risk management” view… and from a “training viewpoint”… I don’t support nor agree with you. You’re not wrong. I just don’t agree with your "risk threshold". A few thoughts: I just googled “T-38 Road to Wings”. It was the first time I’ve perused that in quite some time. I don’t see jack-shit about wing landing mishaps in there. And in all of my years of being around the T-38, I don’t recall any Class A mishaps on wing landings. Road to Wings seems to validate that. There sure are a lot of mishaps on low-levels, single-ship landings, etc… Do we still do those? Now we have the FIRST Class A fatal on a wing landing, and overnight it becomes a prohibited maneuver after 60 years? Does having a fatal outcome on a maneuver disqualify that maneuver as a good/important/valuable item to be accomplished by a military aviator in training? To my way of thinking, it is not whether formation landings are “practical”, though I believe they are. But it is also about learning a skillset of precision… control… discipline… precision… and some mastery… of something I would expect a top-notch military aviator to be able to show some competence in. Much of what is done in UPT is done to instill confidence and aggressiveness. “Aggressiveness”… is that bad word now? Should we stop flying wingwork with 3G’s and 90 degrees of bank? It appears that isn’t a “CAF maneuver”… but as mentioned elsewhere, the skillset is valuable. How interesting. “Training for a skillset”. What a concept. Yes, we need to mitigate risk. Got it. However, the nature of the beast is that we cannot eliminate it. Flying can be dangerous. And we will never stop having mishaps. I’ve done dozens… and probably hundreds… of formation landings in the T-38. I was PIT IP when we did formation touch & go’s. I was there when “leadership” got rid of formation T&G’s because they felt it was too risky. I recall pilots telling me how formation T&G’s were a dumb idea… and yet they had never briefed, flown, or debriefed one. Getting winged as an AF pilot should be challenging. And it should prepare you to fly not just within the “heart of the envelope”, but also toward the edges. And when those items are flown toward the edge, we put an IP in the jet to mitigate the risk. Those newly winged pilots will use those lessons and skills when they go off to their F-35 and B-21. If wing landings are honestly “too dangerous”, then knock it off. But are they really that dangerous? Pretty much, I’ve taken 600 words to say what Hacker said in 60. But I ask you: what else would you cut out of the UPT syllabus because “the CAF doesn’t do that?”. Reap what you sow.

https://www.mypanhandle.com/news/eglin-plane-crashes-after-flyover/?fbclid=IwAR2vjFyJH7uCT2Mcqy5CMOD6GXo-cPsjUbniCkWG45pEItVKBtj49-ugPmM Reports are the pilot ejected.

Rates are at the bottom again and the economy is worse than before. I think rates will stay low for a while. Maybe small swings here and there but overall they should stay low to encourage the economic recovery we need to get back to normal. Just hit me up towards the end of the year. Jon

You'd be surprised about how much HAF/ACC actually pushes back against the Joint Staff...but we all have a boss, even at that level. JOINT is spelled ARMY so we're fighting a cultural battle in some regards.

https://www.307bw.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2188024/making-history-reserve-pilot-flies-the-u-2-for-the-first-time/

Another win for ACES II. Glad to hear the pilot is safe, always awesome when that happens. Went down an ejection seat rabbit hole, didn't know there was a new system out there (ACES 5), pretty fascinating tech. Conversely to the tech of today, the seats in the BUFF are OG so not only does a lot have to happen just to get those things out, specifically for the RN/N the jet itself needs at least 250' to get one good swing in the chute.

100%. Time IN the market is better than timING the market.

That's not quite what United's bid meant. At worst it set up about 2500 to be furloughed, starting in Oct. Which definitely sucks, but is a hell of a lot less than 5k. As for Delta's news, it also tees up 2500. Which also sucks, but is far less than 7k.

Well the media is latching on to the idea that DAL is 7,000 pilots fat this fall so we must be furloughing 7,000 pilots. 🙄

At that point it was BFM. If you are looking outside maneuvering in relation to another aircraft, I’d argue you are past the intercept. Besides, you just let Fat Amy carry you around.

Don't forget this one...

First and foremost, stock market doesn’t equal the economy. The economy is, IMHO, headed for a serious recession (if not full Depression), but that doesn’t mean the corps that make up the stock market are hurting as bad as average Americans. They have a faucet of cheap debt and bailout cash to keep their profits up. ~$3,000,000,000,000 in freshly printed bailout money, with a solid chunk going to corporations to buy back stock, pay bonuses, and take out more cheap debt to lather, rinse, repeat, is a large part of the stock market continued push. Unemployment benefits and salary loans pushing off the inevitable are trying to stop the bleeding, but it’s not gonna hold. Oh, and the fact it’s an election year and I’m sure more than a few Rs and big money backers think (probably rightfully so) a tanking stock market will hurt election chances (hence higher future taxes), my guess is we’re in solid early-mid 2008 market between Bear Sterns failing and before Lehman went belly up. If it survives to the end of the year (no matter who wins the election), I’ll be pretty shocked. The real estate market might not be far behind, as unemployment hurts demand and the fallout of AirBnB pushes a glut of homes onto the (longer-term) rental and purchase market, I don’t see it being pretty. Then again, I’m an idiot fireman trying to fly jets and not a trader for Goldman Sachs, so what the hell do I know?

The Columbus tanker guys have been deployed out here in Guam for the last little bit so that could be why they've been quiet on replies lately. Hope that's helpful.

Don't get suckered. You are here:

Solid For everyone else I was at PCSM 92, AFOQT Pilot 98, 99 Nav, 91 ACAD, 93 Verbal, 80 quant and still not pilot select for 19OT3. Guess there were more pilot slots this board and it does seem to vary wildly depending on the time of year. Everything is timing in the military ugh.

So how do you get people to stay in (or join in the first place)? Can't reduce ops tempo. Can't increase bonuses. I guess you could kick all the dependants to the market for healthcare to save money. You could also cut BAH so it no longer covers renters insurance and only 95% of the expected housing cost and make the member pay the rest out of pocket, while divesting yourself of maintaining base housing and contracting it out to the lowest bidder. You could cut retirement and make the member take on market risk for their retirement.

Wasn't the 1 year vs 3 year cuts driven by the SECAF?

Well. I'm embarrassed. I thought he was legit asking about just another UPT flight. Had no idea of the differences going on in UPT today though. This thread was very insightful so thanks to all who contributed.

They gave him 3 years over which to make the cuts, and he screwed the pooch by making them all in the first year...which then made us short people a year later when surprise the needs changed. That was unsat.

I’ve done 100s upon 100s of form landings. Not once was it actually required. I never had issues with them in any jet...but... That being said, in my 19 yrs and 3500+ hours, the closest I ever came to (perceived) dying in an aircraft was a T-38 form landing on the wing where the lead student flared high and slow and my student tried to follow. IPs took the jets and both of us went around in AB, I tried to just keep the gear from going through the wings and touched down, the other jet stayed airborne but veered towards us almost hitting us. Really scary, we both came in the sq white faced. I just don’t find the juice worth the squeeze on this. Form low approaches to closed in sequence.....90% of the training...6.9% of the risk. Valid and smart trade-off. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

No, I read the indictment, not Fox & Friends hot take on the “facts.” I’m the last person to have faith on the DOJ/Feds, it’s called a “court of law” not a “court of truth.” If the Feds didn’t disclose exculpatory evidence, that’s a Brady violation and it should absolutely be dismissed. But that also doesn’t negate the fact Flynn lied to Pence, which was the reason why Trump fired him. And no one can be compelled to talk to law enforcement. Apparently Flynn was too stupid to realize that. The irony in this is the same guy who started chants to “lock her up.” I guess what you view as “good” depends on where you fall on the partisan line.

They all go back to the mothership at some point Going to a point in the article referenced above on the backstory and the mid 2010's effort to divest the A-10, I watched the exchange between McCain and and Welsh: https://www.airforcetimes.com/video/2016/03/03/mccain-slams-usaf-chief-welsh-on-a-10-effectiveness/ I understand Welsh's point that he really didn't get a chance to make as McCain was cutting him off, we have X dollars total in the Dept of the AF appropriation, that X is always less than missions/things we need to do or buy, so some don't get done or bought. He should have turned that into give me more and I will save it, BCA be damned. If you're not going to give me more money, give me more authority over the AF appropriation to re-program resources and fix the glitch. You're a 4 star chief of a branch, you're not going anywhere but to retirement after this, fight the good fight and even if you don't win, you'll make great TV making a politician squirm when you retort to his sophistry with a solution.

California is so stupid

4x10s is the way to go!

Thanks haha, I can be a little dense sometimes, after 1 or 12 of those 16 ounce cans

Flynn was not charged nor plead guilty to perjury. He was charged with making a false statement to FBI agents. But the false statement is only a crime if the underlying reason the FBI was interviewing him had a basis in fact for such an investigation. Which it did not. According to FBI documents and personnel engaged with this at the time. That info was never revealed to Flynn or the court, despite it being mandatory to do so and the judge specifically ordering DOJ to provide any such. Then DOJ scoffed at the notion. And then the material was released last week. It was revealed that Flynn's interview basis was not material, therefore the lie (which the agents said they didn't think he was, btw) to the FBI doesn't matter legally. If he lied to Pence, that's between them. Both sides agreed to drop the case. The judge is now making up a charge of perjury to the court because Flynn pled guilty to the court. Twice. The judge seems to think that's perjury. Not a lawyer, but I'm fairly sure that this isn't the first time a defendant has made a guilty plea only to seek to withdraw it later. And the de facto prosecutor that the judge has appointed was a co-author of a very anti-Flynn and DOJ op-ed in Monday's Washington Post. Doesn't seem to be a disinterested party. Shenanagins on the part of the judge and most likely to be stomped on at appeal.