Leaderboard

O-5 Board updated again. Approved by SECAF on 25 May and reported into OSD on 27 May. If it follows last years timeline, public release should be end of June (29th maybe?).

As many have alluded to, tasking levels from the COCOMs tend to keep MAF assets maxed out on what they can commit to. So when a flag exercise comes around, AMC will task and cancel and retask again. The average tanker bubba will see yet another TDY pop up on their schedule a week prior or so. Juxtapose that with the fighter unit that has the exercise on the calendar for six months and actively planning for the last three. They want to do secret squirrel stuff, so no one in the MPC without a read in. The poor LT tasked as the planner gets a time, place and offload, and not much more. That ends up with the tankers supporting the exercise without really playing in the exercise. Sometimes we do it better than that. Occasionally we even get something out of it. But most of the time we're just retasked and back in the desert.

It’s not hard, but I’ve sat in those MPCs and I’ve yet to see a fighter dude ask more than ‘what’s your max offload’. I can speak tactical stuff all day, did it for 14 years prior to flying the tanker, but it’s hard to integrate when you’re basically told to sit in the corner and color. That said, fault is also on the tanker side too. If you ask an average tanker guy what’s a max detect/max engage ring for an SA-whatever, they probably don’t have a clue.

I have never heard of the "Detroit Daily News". But if it is like everything else that is left in Detroit, I wouldn't give it much credence. Looks more like a National Enquirer story that some gullible reported picked up on and didn't make an effort to validate it.

I commuted 1200 miles for 24 years but early on realized it was not worth racing home on the last flight to save a buck just to be wiped out the entire next day. Having said that, I was single and had an airport car the entire time. The locals were very friendly at the home base.