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I don’t think the Iraqi Air Force would agree with that.

It’s not a non sequitur when you argue that law enforcement should be held accountable according to what you view as moral instead of what is codified as law. That was your entire argument 50 minutes ago. Sure, you can say what you want, but you didn’t merely say you thought it was wrong, you argued others should be held to what you view is wrong instead of what is in the law. It does indeed follow then that we are legally accountable to the law, and not to your thoughts.

I’ll raise you ~8.69 pilots per sortie, 1 engine, and 3 tails 💪🇺🇸😆 To the OP - leave out the stuff about CAS and just sat you wanna be a fighter pilot and support the guys on the ground. No shame in saying you’d rather fly manned and no need to really explain that. GL!

I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree on many points, thanks for the opinions.

Then here it is directly: other countries have freedom of speech. A few other countries actually have greater personal freedoms, including speech, than the United States, although we rank highly overall. What is your evidence that there is not free speech in, say, New Zealand? How about Canada? The USA is great and I love it here but come on, you can’t just throw out a claim like you did with zero evidence. You are correct that Americans consistently rank #1 in terms of cultural acceptance of all speech, including hate speech. But to say there is no “freedom of speech” literally anywhere else is not true. No freedom is absolute and if you accept that you can’t yell “fire” in a theater to protect public safety, then you have to admit that there are limits. Defining what acceptable limits are vs which limits might infringe on people’s natural rights to express themselves is up for debate and each country handles that slightly differently as you would expect.

On the bright side...posters in here from both sides of the arguments are typing some well thought out points. I wish the public in general could engage in rational discourse instead of (to use Griswald's phrase) slinging monkeyshit at each other.

No shame in knowing you'd rather not serve in the military if stuck with drones (my feelings exactly if they had been around when I went through), but I wouldn't necessarily say it out loud. Just stress your desire to fly military "fast" jets and stick with Guard/Reserves.

People follow the law for three reasons: 1. They believe the law is just 2. The are afraid of getting caught 3. It's just not worth it to fight back (minor nuisance) At the end of the day, the state only has force as a tool to enforce laws. If you aren't comfortable enforcing a law at gun point, it probably shouldn't be a law. All the stupid laws only work when everyone agrees that they're good and just. That requires a common culture of shared values.

Or the pacific theatre.

Sounds like you want to fly the Viper.

This. Especially this when viewed through the recruiting lens you mention above. Right now we end up with officers populating the support world who joined in response to a call to be great leaders of men, to be warriors different than the corporate world, to be basically special operations desk pilots... meanwhile, people with a genuine interest in HR go to work at FedEx (or some other highly rated HR department in a company larger than the Air Force.) I’d way rather have somebody interested in the work than somebody interested in achieving some perverted model of self-actualization that requires special military attributes of office work.

The Lawfare Podcast had a good analysis of the legal justification for the DHS surveillance and federal response in Portland: lawful but awful.

As opposed to having them focus on being “warriors” instead of doing their job? I say have them take ownership of what they actually are.

Called Jacksonville this afternoon and they said to expect delays for the telephone interviews as far as mid-August, and for everything else to get pushed to the right.

For what it's worth, here's my advice on pilot training. Don't worry about getting non-vol'd to helos, they only really give those slots to people who make it known that's what they want. But like others have said, just keep an open mind. I'm going to let you know right now that your class is going to have a bunch of dudes just like you who think they are drawn to fighters, or CAS or whatever. A lot of them are going to struggle with airsickness, basic aero, pulling g's, and basic formation. There is a moment in UPT, usually early in T-6 formation, where students realize what they thought was a graceful, fun roller coaster in the sky is actually a hot, sweaty, stressful, painful, violent, very difficult mess. The T-6 formation phase creates a lot of T-1 converts.. and that's not a bad thing. People just don't know what they don't know.

I was there married with kids and single. Loved it both times for different reasons. I can't understand why people detest it so much. You have modern shopping, conveniences, English is common enough to survive but still plenty of culture, I just can't see why people hate it.

So you are making a statement that “it’s not true.” And you provide no evidence. And just after you bash me for providing no evidence. That’s odd.... And if I were you I would research freedom of speech infringement a little more. Both on the US being the only place and the fire in a theater argument claim you make above. Both things you argue are wrong. The Supreme Court has also ruled on it. Interesting stuff. And saying fire in a crowded audience when there is no fire isn’t a freedom of speech issue. Speech that is dangerous and false is not protected, as opposed to speech that is dangerous but also true. “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.” This means that speech which supports law-breaking or violence is protected unless its purpose is to incite immediate criminal action or violence and it is likely to do so. Canada has sent I believe over 3000 people to jail for not using proper pronouns or what some ambiguous person in government considers hate speech. That isn’t freedom of speech. Comedians being sent to jail for jokes? Really that’s freedom of speech? New Zealand has limits in a similar way to Canada on their so called freedom of expression. Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (BORA) – provides that everyone has the right to freedom of expression, including the right to seek, receive, and impart information and opinions of any kind. However, s5 of the BORA provides that freedom of speech is subject to limits. The BORA does not have supremacy over other legislation. Subject to section 4, the rights and freedoms contained in the BORA may be subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Hate speech isn’t a thing. It’s just speech. For a country to have freedom of speech there has to be a willingness to offend. There is not a freedom from offense. Some stuff above was taken from other sources. Look it up if you want. Not claiming the above is all my words.

I agree that some people don’t know what they’re doing out there as they’re defacing and tearing down some of these statues, and that’s a problem. But the vast majority of protesters aren’t rioters, or looters, or tearing down statues. What difference does timing make when they bring up relevant issues that they want their civic leaders to address? There will always be a vocal minority in every movement that tries to hijack the narrative for their own good or exploits the situation to do things that aren’t representative of the greater ideology. Our history isn’t going anywhere. We’re still going to know who Stonewall Jackson is and everyone is going to know that Woodrow Wilson was the President. I do believe there’s great value in preserving these statues and art, the same as any other artistic piece, I just don’t think celebrating things that are so contrary to the values we collectively hold makes sense. How many statues do we have of Andrew Jackson, as is that a concern about his historical relevance?

All good info above. I think the most important thing you can glean from this forum is the general consensus that controlling your destiny with a guard/reserve spot is preferred over the dynamic nature of AD assignments. That being said, there’s a gotcha to every good deal in the Air Force, even guard/reserve. For instance, you could get picked up by a Viper unit, discover that military flying is a different kind of challenge and that it’s not clicking as fast as you expected, and you find yourself struggling. Fast forward to the end of phase 3 and your unit no longer has confidence in your ability to pass IFF/B course and they drop you (seen it happen). Or, you get picked up by a fighter unit and they switch to an RPA unit while you’re in UPT. Guess what you’re flying after you graduate... I’m not saying this to deter you, and truthfully nothing anyone on this forum says should discourage you from pursuing what you want. On the active duty side, my personal opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a fighter pilot to be a fighter pilot. And in fact, once you see how much work they put it that doesn’t involve raging, pulling Gs, and shooting guns, you may realize that the desire to be a fighter pilot for the sake of the achievements alone is almost required to stay motivated enough to put up with endless hours studying threats and counter tactics, getting crushed in debriefs, and having to accept that your best is never good enough. The benefit of the active duty side is that you’ll have the ability to pursue a different lifestyle should you realize that it interests you more. There are a lot of really cool missions in the Air Force that aren’t highlighted well, even in UPT. But if you want fighters, I wouldn’t worry about “chances” of getting a 38 slot. UPT IPs might back me up on this, but nowadays, if you’re good enough, you’ll get one. If not, it’s not a reflection of you as a person, and your instructors have seen a enough studs come through to know what they’re looking for. You’ll end up generally where you belong. You don’t wanna be the last guy that barely squeaked into 38s. Best of luck in whatever you pursue. Sounds like your head is in the right place.

And talking condescendingly to someone about how they should read books and take classes to learn how to focus their thoughts is a typical strategy to belittle and ignore someone's points (an ad hominem attack) when you aren't hitting the substantive parts of the argument. You are now just attacking me, not my argument. Focus.

Other countries have freedom of speech. Your argument is that America has the only real freedom of speech because other countries prohibit some things like hate speech. Well, as you said, you can't say fire in a crowded movie theater, so I guess by your logic, no one has true freedom of speech. Focus.

Don't buy into those press freedom rankings man. Germany is near the top and it is illegal to criticize political Leadership there. Tell me how that is free press. To be clear you can criticize policy to some degree in Germany as they do have sometimes healthy political debate but you certainly cannot criticize the personification of an office.

Why does everyone think Korea is a bad assignment!?!?!?

I actually had vipers as my number 1 up until about a year ago when I got the chance to meet some hawg pilots. Between them, and hearing from some friends what the A-10’s are doing in current conflicts made me place it number 1. Tbh F-16’s are probably 2 or 3. The point of the post, was to get feedback from other people on RPA’s, and whether I should look into active duty at this stage of my application process. I know things change regularly in the Air Force so that’s why I was asking about it.

I just hope you’ve got a 0:0 seat with that ratio. OP, Dude, surely you’ve heard someone say “just be a bro” in regards to an interview. Guard units are looking for dudes to be part of the family, so keep that in mind, but if you’re getting comments about being too informal then maybe you’re going overboard with that. No one here can pin point why you weren’t hired because there are so many variables (in-unit hires, the other dudes have better stats, were more personable, had better answers etc.). As far as your AD questions, unless there’s a UPT IP etc on here willing to track down every drop in the last year and sort out the percentage of fighters there were and how many of those where CAS assets I don’t think you’re going to find what you’re looking for (or you could compile the data from The Drop Night Thread and get a rough wag). If the idea of being 10 yrs from now and watching a flyover at a football game and hating yourself for not rolling the dice and trying your hand at AD for a fighter slot gives you nightmares then maybe you need to talk to a recruiter about an OTS application. I’ll caveat that to say If I could go back and go Guard I’d do it in a heartbeat.

To the OP. No one here is trying to "crap" on you. @HU&Wgave you feedback that some people pay for. There is a shit ton of knowledge on this forum, I'm sure that's why you came here. Take that feed back and apply it. You wanna do CAS, A-10s and Vipers are the way to go. If you end up AD, the Strike Eagle does a lot of CAS. (Check my math, but I don't think the Strike Eagles Reserve unit hires off the street) When you say you want CAS and then mention the F-35/F-22, but don't mention the Viper, it throws some people off. That is where the research piece comes in. Look into the Viper more. You simply know what you want, that may be true. However, the feedback you're getting here is to keep an open mind. As someone that hasn't been through UPT (myself included...hoping for Vance sometime in 2020) you don't know if you'll like that type of flying yet. They are only speaking from experience. I say keep pushing for what you want, with an understanding that for some reason or another, you may not end up there. But where ever it is, you'll like it. If you haven't already, look into some Viper Guard/Reserve units.

Be that as it may, no HR professional or accountant signs up to work for Deloitte for a year in Southwest Asia, another year in Korea and 3 years in Clovis, NM. Until the Air Force is willing/able to shed it's largest detriment to QOL -- bad locations -- it will not be competitive in recruiting professionals who want to reap the rewards of excelling in a particular career field. It has to focus on the one thing that makes it unique: service. I also struggle to see how further divorcing the MSG from the Ops Group will benefit anyone.

I think I get where you’re going, but I respectfully disagree with your notion that cancel culture leads to destruction of monuments, art, flags, etc. I can’t fundamentally get behind the idea that a group’s ethical or moral dissent equates to a harmful anti-cultural or ethnic cleansing movement. Cancel culture isn’t Nazi Germany. Cancel culture isn’t the Rwandan Genocide. Cancel culture isn’t The Crusades. Cancel culture is probably an overly misused, faddish approach to raising public awareness to highlight a topic. I know you’re probably not saying what’s going on now is going to result in something as horrendous as a genocide, but the tough conversations and opposing viewpoints we’re seeing now, that some may consider synonymous with “cancel culture”, could in fact be a crazy idea not so different than women deserving equal rights (Equal Rights Act) or minorities deserving equal rights (Civil Rights Act), and are just difficult to grasp and support in the moment but is common sense in hindsight. I believe few people exclusively want to destroy monuments, art, flags. Instead they want to have a conversation about why and how we celebrate these symbols and individuals. We don’t celebrate monuments of the kings or queens of England in our public squares so why do we do that for generals of the confederacy? If Milley, Goldfein, and the rest of the Joint Chiefs unsuccessfully tried to execute a coup d’etat next week I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t be celebrating them 50+ years from now with public statues and buildings named after them. However, I wholeheartedly believe we would know about their background, accomplishments, and the history behind the events like everything else in US history. What you don’t hear is people asking for these historical artifacts and heraldry to be removed from museums. I don’t believe people want to rewrite history, they want to address who and what celebrate. Historical context matters. The US has done some pretty f’d stuff over the years and people recognize that. Our civic and social leaders have supported things in the past that would be distasteful today and people recognize that. But when you decide to celebrate something that was contextually f’d up and/or distasteful both then and now, it’s not hard to understand why people would have issues that.

Interesting thread. To the OP, please consider some advice. You have a lot of passion, and decent objective stats. If your posts here had been an interview, I would put you as a maybe. Your core claim of purpose has a few flaws. “I’m hugely passionate about attempting to become a fighter pilot, not for the “cool” factor but because I truly feel an intense passion for the mission, especially CAS.” Specifically, combined with your major concern “I know for a fact I wouldn’t want to fly drones.” These statements together mean you’re either ignorant (have not done your research) or dishonest (it really is for the cool factor). Perhaps neither of these are true, but that’s the way it comes across to this old salt. I’d recommend analyzing what your priorities really are, and go after them without any shame or false humility. Good luck.

Are we to act on one’s own morality then, or within the law? Because there are plenty of things that different groups of people consider immoral that are legal.

No job posting yet but the 117 ARW in Birmingham AL is gearing up for a board in November with packages due in October. Should have the package requirements sent to me in a day or so if anyone needs them once I receive them.

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This is the only reason. Just curiosity

Definitely worth a read (click on the title for the full article)... Farewell to Ned Stark Col. Jason Lamb, AKA Col. “Ned Stark,” is a career intelligence officer who in 2018, began writing a series of provocative columns for Air Force Times and War on the Rocks about leadership development in the Air Force and where it had gone wrong. They went viral, sparking debate across the service, and even prompting Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein to offer him a job. Though Lamb ultimately decided not to join Goldfein’s team, he revealed his identity last year and consulted with Air Force leadership on personnel issues. He is retiring July 31, and now lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Shack. Studs also don’t realize how many badass and different missions are out there besides warheads-on-foreheads. When I went through T-6s, every Friday an IP from a different platform would brief us on their mission, family life, lifestyle, trips, etc. I knew at least five classmates that realized they wanted AFSOC/AMC after all.

Not sure if this belongs here or in the airlines thread. Qantas is sending their final 747 off to the graveyard and the pilot took the opportunity to draw a kangaroo in the sky on his way out.

Dafuq is all that ink? We tracking every bomb successfully dropped off the aircraft now? 🤔

I'm just going to say you need to do a bit more research. I can understand your frustration with the guard/reserve side but if fighters/CAS is your dream then probably your best shot. For example a UPT class has about 20 or so active duty people. Each class gets about 2-5 T-38s on average. We are talking about a 10-25% chance you even make it to phase 3 on the right track. Then you have to simply not suck to get a fighter now a days and that may sound easy but it may not be. All I'm trying to say you really need to look at yourself in the mirror like so many others and decide if you went heavies would it make it all worth it. If not then honestly the Air Force might not be the best place for you because you will get screwed almost every step of your career. Other people with more experience please keep chiming in because I think our buddy is about to make a rash decision he may not be happy with in the end

OP your gouge on RPAs is old. The community is a lot happier than back in the day and the mission set those guys are doing is insane (SCAR, AI, CAS, etc). I don’t even think you can drop unmanned out of UPT. Today, MQ9s are busier employing for CAS than any of the aircraft you listed including the A10. If you want CAS manned, gunships should be top of your list. Consider marines for attack Huey’s too but you said no helicopters? I’ve done manned and unmanned feel free to PM for pros and cons of each.

If you were really “passionate” about CAS, you wouldn’t have that list. You’d have A-10, AC-130, F-16, F-15E, etc. And UPT is a great meritocracy to a point. I can’t guarantee you wouldn’t end up in an unmanned cockpit, but you can control everything in your power to prevent that. The better you do there (ties directly to how hard you work, your attitude, your aptitude, and a few breaks), the more likely you’ll end up with something you want.