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I've posted this before but my last PT test was a month before I turned 49 or 50. One of my best friends was in the group and he was 47. There was a Captain around 31 and 6 enlisted from around 20-28. I figured I'd get crushed since I'm not Joe Workout. As it turns out, I ran the 1.5 in about 10:20, with my bud about a 10:40. The last 2-3 were simply pathetic. Of course, being the sensitive guys we are (you U-2 guys know the other person... Dingle), we heckled everyone with jeers of "Old guys rule!!". Frankly, though, it was sad to see. Our youth are not in really good shape. (epilogue: after we were done, we went to the bar and drank. Old guys do rule...)

At least one wing commander has it all figured out.

My best tactically minded instructors don’t want to teach at the FTU. They want to fight and do ops. And I want to keep them in the fight inspiring and leading and teaching. It’s a fallacy to think I could send them to the FTU and they’d sustain motivation after I crushed their career aspirations because they were good. That’s how we lose our best, not how we fix broken systems. I have other great instructors who enjoy teaching the basics. Those are the IPs I wish I’d had when I was new and they are a precious resource. Managing instructors is a matter of matching talents to missions suited to their personalities and desires.... just like managing anyone. Totally separate from the discussion of appropriately matching talent to task is the question of what to do about “bottom folks.” It’s a huge challenge. There’s more options as officers age (although never a good place) but no where I can send a bad captain without the gaining unit suffering.

This is NOT the case in the U-2.

It's always good fun to see two early-20s airmen, with a sub-30 inch waist, stagger across the finish line with 5 seconds to spare on their min time, fall down and puke all over track. Meanwhile, 5 of us "unfit" old guys (37-44 year olds, without the 30 inch waist) that have been done for ~2 minutes, wonder where do we find such men. True story...last PT test.

The good in that is those tactically minded instructors can instill that sense of mission and tactics early in a pilot's development, and build a solid foundation for the ops units later down the road. Or they can send the bottom folks to the FTUs, and then turn around and complain about the quality of the new pilot and how the FTU sucks at producing a tactically minded pilot.

I'm shocked that the party of personal responsibility refuses to accept personal responsibility for running a shitty campaign that only pandered to his base, and did nothing to win over the moderate US. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.html It's almost as if years of yelling "Benghazi" and "Buttery males" desensitized the media to your ridiculous claims, and now require you to actually produce proof of wrongdoing. Does it get tiring playing the victim?

Remember when the news outlets dutifully ignored the story about Donald Trump and some Russian hookers engaging in piss-play in a hotel? I don't believe the election was "stolen." But Victor Davis Hanson puts it best when he explains how it was "rigged" through a concerted effort to suppress negative information about Joe Biden. If you have an hour, this is a great look into the pro-Trump perspective. If you don't have the time, watch from 4:45 - 8:15. Do I think it means the SCOTUS saves the day? No. The media problem isn't something the government can solve. But everyone laughing and scorning the Trump team for making bold claims in public that never materialize in court sure seem to be forgetting the Adam Schiff (D) show on CNN for several years assuring us that Donald Trump was a Russian puppet, and using his position on the Intelligence Committee as standing to back up the claim. Yet nothing was every taken to court. There is no honest way to argue that the same standard has been used on Joe Biden as has been used on Donald Trump. That hypocrisy is very, very visible to conservatives. And whenever (D) voters get into a conversation with (R) voters, there is a general refusal to admit the clearly obvious difference in treatment between the two. And when that is pointed out, inevitably it's some variation of but Donald Trump is so much more offensive. He cheats on his wives! His businesses fail! His kids are only doing well because of Daddy! But to say these things in such a manner completely ignores the reality of politics. Bill Clinton was getting his dick sucked by a 22 year old in the oval office, while very much married. Kennedy was flying 19 year-olds around the world for drug-fueled orgies, also married. Sanford, Gingrich, and plenty of other republicans too. John Edwards had a love child while his wife was dying of cancer. Hillary Clinton literally ran a server in a bathroom that she had destroyed when it was discovered. Then lied about having the emails from the server. These people are monsters. And going back before Trump, George Bush, by every account a decent man, was called a Nazi. Mitt Romney was maybe the most charitable politician in history, and he too was smeared as an evil monster. And don't even get me started on Brett Kavanaugh. So is Trump a horrible person? Yup. But not one fucking percent more horrible than the parade of Democrats and Republicans who hate him so furiously. And now Joe Biden is getting a pass for his kid clearly and obviously using the family name for profit, and kids are off limits? Didn't seem so for the Trump kids. And when evidence (yes, first hand testimony is evidence) comes out that Joe Biden was aware, well that's just one guy saying some stuff. If photos of Tiffany Trump snorting coke while she worked for a Russian company making $50k/month in an industry where she had zero experience or skill were to make it public, the whole world would erupt, and we all know it. I wish both side would be more honest about their candidates and their beliefs. But we're human, we don't like to admit any shortcomings of our own team. I'm just as tired of my god-fearing Christian airline captains acting like Trump is a good man as I am of democrats or centrists pretending like their preferred politicians are somehow less corrupt or less dishonest than Trump. Bullshit.

100% agree here. Maybe it's a matter of poor career expectations management? I know when I was a 2LT, the expectation/"standard" was 2 ops tours, and one outside ops (UPT, FTU, white jet, AMLO, WIC IP, etc). Want to make Lt Col? Probably need to go to staff after 3 flying tours. If not, you probably can just fly your entire career and still make it to retirement, but likely as a major. Sure, there are non standard paths, like green door, TPS, U-2, etc, but they have their own path. So it shouldn't be "crushing career expectations" when following the career path norms. But like you said, it's a matter of matching talents to missions suited to their personalities and desires. I think the MyVector assignments process helps here, since there's more visibility on the different jobs out there as well as the ability to bid on the desirable jobs. I'll admit I wasn't happy I got sent to be an UPT IP, especially as a C-17 airdropper, but it turned out to be my favorite assignment so far in my career. I just didn't know what I didn't know. The AF is trying to fix not taking care of officers who fill jobs needed in the AF that traditionally have not completed well for promotions (AETC/formal instructors). Increased emphasis on promoting formal training instructors (and maybe school selection?) should help. The AF needs good people out in the ops units, but it also needs good people in training units as well. It also needs good people on the staff. And each one of those organizations plays an important role in keeping our AF strong.

Already taken by the 130th AW. https://www.goang.com/locations/west-virginia/yeager-air-national-guard-base.html

And diet. And beer. But nobody wants to change that.

We'd probably be better off having everyone get a PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) certification instead of SOS. That was more useful than anything I learned at SOS....

You clearly understood the intent of the post... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

He was a complete raging asshole...but one hell of a pilot and an American hero. RIP

I vote we rename it Huggy AFB.

*Airbus enters the chat*

Well, he lived life to the fullest. 🍻

I am amazed she had the cajones to give a "pep talk" to the team. Had she been a military brat, maybe she would have known about never passing up the opportunity to keep your cake hole shut until you've been around the squadron for a while.

I'm tired of hearing the non-jingle U-S-ay-ay jingle, that's for sure.

Anyone else annoyed by their constant advertising and sponsorship of halftime during football games? I think that they could come up with a better way to spend advertising dollars, given the vast majority of NFL viewers aren’t eligible to sign up. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dang - she only lasted ‘About Half A Scaramucci’:

We've got a TSgt personnelist in my squadron with pilot wings. She was a C-12 pilot in the early 2000s, resigned her commission to raise a family, and then reenlisted. Of note, she says she works harder as a TSgt than she ever did as a Major (I can vouch for her work effort now). When she hits her 20 good years she'll retire as a Major... It's the ANG so YMMV.

Unironically believing that Trump is blundering idiot that stumbled into building skyscrapers with his name on and becoming POTUS. 🤣 🤥

Now you're just being disingenuous. They voted that one down cause it is being combined with the TX case. Take your head out of your ass man.

Not too many people understand you SLaCK. You’re all over the place, very emotional, and quick to judgment over assumptions.