Leaderboard

Or you can post memes while drunk.

As a prior 14N once upon a time, my instinctive response is point out the poster's final words and say "Lts are best seen and not heard". But I'd be lying if I didn't say that career field, like most others in the AF, has placed the rockstar holiday party or morale day coordinator well above the dude/dudette who can actually do their damned job. I know I'm preaching to the choir. But I'd wager that Lt has spent more time calculating when he/she will be due for PME, 0-4 board, etc. than he/she has spent in the 3-1 or on JWICS reading products that have to do with their current job.

How about we keep the number of rides in UPT / FTU and use tech to make a much better product in the same amount of time? What if... - Studs entered the turn circle correctly the first time they flew it because they flew it with VR 69 times before BFM-1? - Studs knew where to put their jet in ACM on the first try everytime because VR showed them where to go? - Studs learned a solid cross-check with the help of VR to free up time for more tactical tasks? The things we could push them to in the FTU and UPT while still giving them plenty of rides to make dumb decisions that scare they to death with the safety net of an IP. We might be able to rationalize all the second assessment FTU IPs when their abilities are that much better... Nevermind the fact that we become a superior fighting force.

Hawaii sent out invites early this week. DC still delayed after being activated, going to reach out to them soon and try and get an update. Jax said initial phone interviews late August so probably a week or so. Long Island was never involved with that process so can’t help you there. If you got an interview with them though and it’s been that long I would reach out to the POC.

Trump also does a great job of trolling the media, liberals, and leftists...but I repeat myself. Trump throws out comments he knows are going to set those people off and they fall for it every. Single. Time. They will spin themselves into a frenzy much like a cat after the little red dot of a laser pointer. Can't say I approve of the technique but it can be entertaining to watch.

To leverage tech adequately, you have to pay for it. Which the USAF doesn’t have the ability to do well.

I would’ve loved to see climate surveys on Curtis LeMay and SAC back in the day. I know nothing about this woman and her command style. But as an American citizen, when I hear that she “definitely made the wing a better place in terms of its war fighting capability”, then I am a fan of it. Completely agree that you don’t need to be a jackass to get results, but I swear in today’s military that being “mean” is viewed as worse than letting your warfighting capability slip. I don’t get it.

I think you get a pass on being a jerk if your name is Patton or LeMay. Some random space wing CC has no reason to be a doosh.

That's a nice set of Floggers right there

This is not the same kind of dominance that Ferrari or Red Bull had. Mercedes has won something like 80% of races and 90% of poles in their run. Red Bull was won just over 50% of races and had less than 70% of poles. In 2012, 7 different drivers across 5 different teams won the first 7 races. Ferrari and Red Bull were superior. Mercedes is dominant. Shit, Mercedes has more front row lockouts in 10 years than Ferrari does over 70. Yes, boring races and the occasional boring season are normal, but this has been an extreme. Sent from my SM-N975U using Baseops Network mobile app

Anyone else tired of "this new generation will learn with less flight time because they grew up with electronics" BS? Yeah buddy, all your current captains and most of your majors did too...wanting the same for less doesn't make it work.

Yes. Sincerely, An Embraer pilot

I'm not saying "do what we have always done" or "F that high tech wizardry." I'm just tired of leadership claiming that the new generation can learn with less experience because they had smart phones as kids. It's a poor justification of continual cuts to the training pipeline. Now ops units have to do as much training as the FTU to get mission capable co-pilots, and they still barely have basic skills down. (That's a knock against the training program, not the students.)

Dude, he does it to everyone. It's not some pre-thought out plan to troll...he says dumb shit like a Lt fighting the debrief. There's no though to it outside, "Get out of trouble/say something "smart"/slam the person mean to me." People still acting like this dude has a plan...how? There's been things he's said that has freaked out Ben Shapiro, the folks over at FoxNews, and Drudge. Real bastions of SJW thought. Unless we've now changed the story and all media is against him?

Anyone else feel like they’ve been nonstop waiting to hear back from Units since January? I understand COVID, but man the “pending or lack of response” is killing me, I’ll take a yes or no at this point just so I can have my mind at peace and not left in limbo.

At some point in your career, you will realize how little the Air Force actually cares about your flying ability.

There will be more mishaps if they go this route. We will then get a fancy CSAF flight discipline video and the cycle will continue.

This mail in voting shenanigans is hilarious. It's both party's overblown fears (voter suppression + voter fraud) rolled up into one shit-show of stupid.

But it *is* a specific aircraft silhouette -- a Flanker -- and even if it weren't the front-line fighter of our peer-state enemies, it would be in violation of the "rule" in that it *does* depict a specific airframe. It should have never made it past the initial design review for that to begin with. Of course it wasn't intentional, but the fact that the mistake made it through multiple levels of review is what is disturbing. Even worse, the apathy shown toward fixing the error (and, bizarrely, the doubling down on the mistake and digging in of heels to *not* fix it) is a *real* cultural problem, yes. In a culture that is steeped in symbolism -- as in, nearly everything the military does has symbolic meaning -- having an organizational emblem with Flankers overflying the graves of dead American soldiers and a folded American flag is a Russian or Chinese propaganda victory if there ever was one. We should *all* find that disturbing and offensive and massively disrespectful to those who've given the ultimate sacrifice, the very people that organization purports to treat with dignity, honor, and respect. Would you be okay if, say, the "mistake" was putting a folded Chinese flag on there instead of an American flag? Or if a casket came back with a Liberian flag over it by accident? Ludicrous. I guess "excellence in all we do" is just as empty a saying as "Dignity, Honor, Respect".

Uh, Prosuper, I uh, talked to the pilot. He was smoking, he was coughing, he didn’t smell very good and he was wearing a tight blue flight suit. He didn’t speak much English but I think he said they would be leaving on time.

Plus, there's this great vis-recce powerpoint making the rounds. pa_vis_recce-2.pptx

*super angry that a 14N can’t tell a USAF single engine from Russian twin-engine*

All of that. But it’s not a straight apples to apples argument here. Our job is to put cargo where it’s needed, and if you dodge all the SAMs and then put her into the side of a mountain on the instrument approach in shitty weather you still failed. No kidding minimum length heavy weight TOLD can be a pretty complex discussion, especially when you add in combat factors. I’m pretty sure most fighters don’t get hung up on TOLD and climb out performance because it’s not something they ever need to worry about to the same degree. They also don’t have to talk on the radios to 10 different countries in one flight with shitty radios and different accents and procedures and not all of them necessarily friendly with us on a routine basis. Just like I don’t worry as much about taking down a complex IADS with enemy fighters in play even though it’s way cooler and more exciting because I’m a side show during that if I’m even in the air. It’s just life. agree to disagree. I think the MAF is behind the CAF because the MAF refuses to take a risk, and has extra time on its hands not studying in a vault and uses it worrying about how to make general instead of be a good pilot. Back to the original topic, I think a herk pilot could come from either of our current training platforms and do fine, but depending what you take out of the heavy track syllabus I think it could put a real strain on the tac training at the school house. edit to add: The starting point was a group of copilots straight out of the school house that are ignoring half the GK they need to succeed, and my theory was because they were all 38 studs coming in together, nothing more. If you knew my background you’d know I’m for being tactically proficient.

I hear you. This is a constant struggle. However, we are always going to have a steady stream of copilots whose GK is trash..but at a certain point, we aren’t going to be able to use that as an excuse. When shit hits the fan, these guys better know the basics and then some, a lot more than that. Speaking for tac airlift here but the next conflict will demand that they are masters of their craft but are also able to understand integration, datalink, degraded ops, you name it, 6-9 months after they show up to the squadron all while getting the goods to our brethren on the ground. Want to know why the MAF is so far behind the CAF? Why we rightfully get all the ATIS jokes? It’s because our copilots struggle through something as simple as TOLD or comms while their peers are putting warheads down range. Got it, different mission sets..but I firmly believe we don’t challenge our copilots enough. Many of them will rise to the challenge, and those who don’t will be left behind.

Yes. Don’t get me wrong I’m all for their interest in getting better at advanced tactics. But they are spending no time studying or understanding the basics that are way more likely to get them into trouble. I was also a few deep when I wrote that. Ive never seen a real issue with 38 guys in the Herk.

Replicate, that's a bold statement. They polish up procedures, techniques and establish a base of knowledge to make flight training more effective by getting the student to a level of proficiency and confidence that important stuff is emphasized over switchology but they are not going to give a young pilot at that point in their training what they really need, real world experience. Quality pilot training costs money, deal with it AF.

Spoiler alert: no one does.

And there are C130s. 7 month FTU, 3-4 months of it is tactics, formation, and airdrop. Are students from the new system going to be ready or is it going to be on the FTU to teach some of this basically from scratch? I had the benefit of going to Corpus, which was designed as a C130 prep course taught completely by C130 pilots on the AF side. So honestly I don’t know what right looks like.

Speaking of killing flight training, RPA operators will no longer be going to IFT. So no stick and rudder time, and no background in aviation for robot operators in your stacks. May the odds be in your favor

Copy that with resignation.... CRM, Mobility Mission Fundamentals, Experience in managing a crew, executing a mission, flying a more complicated jet, Multi Engine non-centerline experience and just more flight time, etc.. there is a certain amount required to be safe, effective and ready to fly the big iron. This topic in other threads has come up (deleting most or all of Heavy track Advanced Trainer Phase III in SUPT) and there is a reason why (written in blood unfortunately) that the FAA and other Aviation Authorities around the world require a certain amount of time to hold certain certificates to exercise privileges, you can't just get a few hours or even 100's in a good high performance ASEL and then with minimal training go to a Transport Category AMEL and be truly safe and ready to learn to fly those aircraft. The experience acquired in the T-6 is good but not the same as acquired in the T-1. You need experience in a jet modified to simulate somewhat the maneuver performance of a large jet, has most of the systems (albeit at a smaller scale and lower complexity) of a big jet and time with a simulated Co-piglet IP running checklists, keeping track of all the parameters of your mission as an AC (timing, fuel, WX, objectives, ORM, etc..) and synthesizing all that simultaneously, continuously to get the mission done well. There's no IFF for heavy dudes but just my two cents the Mission Fam phase of my T-1 time was valuable to introduce us to AR, Heavy Formation, Basics of Low Level with simulated Aerial Delivery, etc...call it our IFF and if yours truly were empowered I would expand it for NVGs, Short and Unprepared Field, Dry contact AR, simulated Mobility Multi-Ship Missions and the planning required for it, etc... This would mean you believe the purpose of SUPT is to produce quality, strong aviators and AF officers prepared to begin careers executing and learning to lead the Line of the Air Force and your acceptance that this will take time, money and patience. Not holding my breath for this based on what this thread is teaching me about the forthcoming plans for SUPT... I'll accept that but it still doesn't change my belief that the MAF deserves a quality product. If AETC wants to deliver that product thru the T-7 and and going back to UPT I'm fine with that or if they want to keep SUPT and refurbish the Tones to squeeze more life out of them or get another jet, I'm fine with that. What I am not ok with and what I believe every Heavy Aviator who gives a shit should be mad as hell about is the apparent attitude rearing it's fugly head that our jobs are so un-challenging compared to fighters that we don't need a robust and established Advanced Trainer Program following Phase II. To hell with that and any GD bean counter and his evil minions trying to screw Heavy track students.

How to tell the other pilot to get ATIS.

T-6 syllabus should be done with cord mid-May. Lots of contention...lots. T-1 and T-38 tracks (which there still are, as of now), are set to be figured out in the upcoming months. The real intent is to set up students as “universally assignable” after T-6. Which is a bit funny when I watch a T-38 trained FAIP go B-2 while we could send a T-1 grad, but whatever... UPT 2.5 at this point adds sorties to the T-6...for everyone (that’s a GREAT thing). The problem starts when it’s vision depends on “early access” (which is neutered by regulations) to decimate phase 3 training leading to winging students from T-6s. Training identified pilots within AFA/ROTC is mandatory. The current “scuttle butt” for phase 3 is fine on the T-38 side...create a new syllabus that incorporates VR while combining the 38 and IFF syllabus. Fine for bases that have IFF anyways... The situation on the T-1 side, while we seem insistent that the AF is incapable of buying another OTS T-1 is much worse. We give them 737 sims or some shit to train multi-engine stuff, AR, etc. Worse, we think we can do it in the T-6. We (19AF) just DON’T want to put money down here. Myopic. It’s just not a term for in the cockpit looking for traffic. It’s bad right now. We’re going VERY fast, and the outcome is going to be WAY less than ideal. In reality, the fact that these changes are taking root, is a victory for a large number of O-1’s straight through O-5’s that have worked outside their means for years! It has been hijacked and distorted by leadership over and over, but leadership moves on, but the insurgency has continued. It has taken root and is now close to becoming reality. UPT 2.5 is not leadership trying to cut sorties. It is the work of people who know better trying to do what is needed. Thinking of Billy Mitchell is a better analogy. They are still trying to tank it...even at the SQ/CC level. People do not like change. You will hear it’s about pilot production, It’s about making more pilots faster...that is not the point of these people. It’s about making BETTER PILOTS. If they can be made faster, great! If there is anything legitimate to weigh in on, it’s what MDS’s could take a winged pilot out of UPT, and what MDS specific top off a MAF pilot needs in a T-6 or 737 sim to be ready for an FTU. ...or heaven forbid someone come up with an idea that’s better, because the MAF track conceptualized is a straight mess. What are you doing to improve your Air Force? Complain as you like, provide constructive criticism for sure...but, I can promise you this stuff is not borne from the mind of a General (although those people should be Generals one day, but never will be.) Lock up the enemy before you release the weapon, ~Bendy

The train will not be derailed for the golden children! https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/19/inspectors-said-her-toxic-leadership-was-worst-seen-20-years-she-just-became-1-star.html?