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What ever happened to the US's stance of "If you start a fight with me, I'll finish it" ??? Seriously. Now it's "please don't start a fight...please please please please...ok fine I have enough dead Americans now and my populace is rather pissed...I'll strike something NEAR you, please don't hurt me" This weak dick foreign policy needs to go.

It usually starts with sq/cc, gp/cc, and/or wg/cc having a spine. good luck.

37th! There've been some not too chill times like early wakeups and late days, but I have genuinely enjoyed every single moment of it and even sitting in a class where I'm about to fall asleep and bored out of my mind I'm still like "damn this is the coolest thing ever." For SA purposes for y'all, I was prior RPA and already had a medical clearance and a PPL so I wasn't required to go back for anymore medical testing or to IFT again. If anyone has questions about URT feel free to reach out. Last year I found out my RNTLD and base 30 Jan which was about two weeks after we heard the selection results. I originally had a RNLTD of 6 May to Columbus with a 6 Jun class start date. I worked as the person who sent out RIPs to people as my casual job, and at least at Columbus, all of our RNTLDs were exactly one month prior to the projected start date. I moved my PCS date up to 1 April because I wanted to escape my last base as quickly as possible and so I got to Columbus 6 Apr. Once I got to CAFB, I was given about a month without any type of casual job to get settled and in-processed. During this time, my only responsibility was to go in and sign a piece of paper at 0800 on Tuesdays. After that month, I started my casual job of working as a transition manager which are the people that in-process all the students who get to base. It was super chill, our schedule was to work 2-3 days a week for a 4 hr shift. For a casual job, you could be a TM like me, or do anything else the base needed like being a sqdn/group/wing exec, working SF, doing drug tests, being a scheduler in a flight room, working the pharmacy, etc, it all depended on manning numbers when you arrived. If you showed up and told the trans flt/cc that you had a casual job in mind then they normally put you in that role. People that showed up with either a class start date or IFT within a month generally didn't get casual jobs since they wouldn't have the time to get spun up/spun down before they left. Most casual jobs let their people go 1 month prior to start dates so you just kind of hang out, and then class activities start 10-days out before your class date. My 6 June class start date got moved back to 11 Sep but I think these days people's dates are generally staying the same and not moving. We were in preflight (academics and sims) from 11 Sep to 13 Dec during which you generally have classes and sims most days out of the week. The schedule isn't terrible at all, we'd have maybe 3-4 hrs of class 3/5 days a week and a sim 2-3 days a week as well. When you didn't have a class or a sim, you were free to do whatever you wanted and be wherever you wanted. I did most of my CBTs from at home plopped on my couch. It's very self-paced and self-guided but the sim IPs and classmates are always available if you need them. I've heard one thing that differed CAFB from the other UPT bases was that as soon as you finished preflight you hit the flightline, i.e. the class ahead of me finished preflight and then the next day had their dollar rides. Because the flightline was so backed up though, my class finished preflight and then had 6 weeks of nothing before we had our dollar rides. But the class behind me only had a few days, so it apparently is really dependent on your squadron and how backed up the flightline is. Now that we're on the flightline, we're on formal release and have been told to expect to be on formal until at least we all pass our trans check which I think is a month or 2? With formal, expect to be in the flightroom for 12 hrs a day before getting released. This past week our schedule was 0530-1730. I never thought I'd say it but those 12 hrs go by fast. We're flying normally 3 times a week and have a USEM event (emergency procedures standup, shotgun questions for the room, classes, etc) generally every day. We have a pretty generous "be able to get back within 15 mins" so we're cleared to go to the gym, study elsewhere, lunch, etc as long as you're able to get back quickly. Again, this stuff is all pretty CAFB and sqdn dependent, but I know that when I was in y'all's shoes last year I was hungry for every bit of info I could get my hands on.

That’s the best, and sadly the most accurate, quote I’ve heard in a long time. For the OP, maybe try calling the heritage room a safe space or possibly a male lactation room? That would probably get instant approval from the Pentagon!

For this upcoming Friday... On 6 Feb 1991, then-Capt Robert Swain Jr. of the Air Force Reserve’s 706th Tactical Fighter Squadron (pictured above as a colonel at his fini flight) made the first air-to-air kill in an A-10 Thunderbolt II during Operation DESERT STORM. The event, depicted in art below, began after Swain was attacking Iraqi tanks on the ground and noticed two distant objects flying further afield. After one of his wing-men marked these two Iraqi Bo-105c helicopters with smoke rounds, Swain flew in to try and take them down with missile fire. When he realized the helos were too small to lock onto with his Maverick missiles, he switched to the A-10’s 30mm nose-mounted cannon, the GAU-8/A Avenger, and successfully took one of the helicopters down that way. At retirement—as the 439th Airlift Wing commander—Swain had flown more than 3,500 hours and 51 combat missions. (Photos: USAF; Artwork by 2nd Lt Katie “Kat” L. Justen)

If you don't have an honorary squadron commander, get that program up and running. A few local big wigs leaning on local businesses to each chip in a bit and you'll be a significant way there. You'll also likely have an easier time making the bar a self-help process and purchasing morale stuff with a GPC. Find a pilot in the squadron that is good at woodworking/construction (actually good, not 'I put together my IKEA desk after only 3 attempts' good) and that would be a huge help also.

I know it’s sacrilegious to say this as a Pilot, but I don’t really wear watches, or care about them..BUT, if I ever ejected, I’d wear this, Cool

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C299B2Kg65V/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng==

Went through your struggle and came out the other end with a successful heritage room/conference room/squadron gathering area that just happened to have a 20 foot bar in it. The AFIs that I referenced nearly a couple decades ago are probably well past gone. My recommendation is to get your Sq/CC to direct you to draw up plans for a squadron renovation 'in the event' of fallout money. We did it for just over $150k in Japan in 2007...so account for inflation or something. Long story short is get your plans together down to the tee and have your Sq/CC "Direct" you to have it ready. The key here is that he needs to get the go-ahead from CE, preferably via a one-on-one conversation with the CE/CC. If you do it right, the wing doesn't find out 'til you invite the Leadership to help christen your new heritage room...which seals the deal on their blessing of it. Your squadron CC should have got a slush fund that should cover drafting of renovation plans. When fall-out money comes, he's just renovating his own building and it should be too late for someone to say no. Whether you contract out the work to real contractors or to squadron members with renovation skill entirely depends skills available to you. I recommend contracting out to construction contractors. Pro Tip: It's not a kegerator, it's a cabinet refrigerator.

These 2 needed a good cleaning. It had been a while for both of them. Brownells BRN-180 10” in .300 Blk Alchemy Custom Weaponry Quantico HiCap

Money. And a chance to get memed, made fun of, bullied online, and trash one's life. American Fighter Pilot lost control and spun out to sea after a cringy naming ceremony in the Sq bar and got canceled. IMO, by CSAF, but I have no evidence of such. Oh wait, this is on AFN? Well, its probably a new cast for "Don't shake your baby" PSAs and that super evil blonde girl that will make you leave your friends, stop going to school, and get you kicked off the team.... Ms Alcohol, aka, any girl.

It's not a careful dance, it's limp dick garbage. I want maximum carnage as our response to the Tower 22 attack, instead they are telegraphing the strikes a week beforehand and blowing up empty warehouses while all Iranians forward deployed get a couple weeks off at home. WTF. No surprises though, the same genius generals who have lost for 20 years are in charge of this retaliatory strike. Of course it's going to be weak bullshit. Bottom line: our enemies don't fear us and so we lose and continue to lose. I've been hoping to kill Iranians since this attack during my third deployment. Fuck Iran, they are a paper tiger and we need to show teeth. All of our supposedly experienced colonels and generals advocate a measured response but we need our boot on their throat or we need to get the fuck out of that AO. Play to win or go home.

From a multigun match a few weeks ago. Not sure why the cameraman didn’t open the iris on his tube more to let more light in, so it’s kind of dark.

While everyone is busy not giving you financial advice... Here's a thought, how about swinging for the fences toward financial independence? Did you have income in 2023? If so, start a Roth IRA, and while you're at it, contribute to 2024 as well. $6500 +$7000 = $13500. Use the remaining $11500 to budget for fully contributing to your Roth IRA on January 1st every year going forward. THEN, when you get promoted, take half of the promotion pay increase every month and put it in your Roth TSP. That's just a start; you should be thinking long term of how to budget so that you can fully contribute every year with your first few paychecks toward your Roth TSP; just takes having about $30k in cash to live off of, then you can set your Roth TSP to 100% at the beginning of the year for a few months. Once your paycheck comes back, save up the $30k over the rest of the year to get ready for next year. Front loading your Roth TSP is an O4 time horizon goal, don't rush it and get into a binge/purge financial cycle. And, for the love of all that is holy, this should be the LAST consumer debt, aside from a house, that you ever touch. You've got a good job and great career ahead of you, use it to live truly well. (hint: if you're single this whole exercise becomes exponentially easier)

Pretty much the same except they don’t say airframes available (at least they didn’t at Sheppard when I went through with Orville and Wilbur). We wore told how many engines we had in the drop and we all tried to figure out what the combination was when our resident crusty bastard came in and said “It’s 3 Buffs, one with an engine failure, and the rest of you washed out”. God Bless you Guido, wherever you are.

Warrant Officers - lmao

I was traveling last Friday and was kind of tuned out. A week late but……19 Jan was the 33rd anniversary of my first combat mission in DS and the kills #3 and I (#4) got that day while escorting the strike package. 1300z, day mission, 2x Mirage F-1s. AIM-7s. It was a good day. 😜

UPT was a while back for me, but I think the basics of taming the fire hose still apply. For me, the most important thing was repetition. Studying written/classroom material, learning procedures, boldface, instrument approaches, contact flying, etc. need to be ingrained to the point that minimal effort is required to recall and use the information. I will say, if you've gotten to the point that you have a college degree and a USAF commission and you don't know how YOU study written material and info delivered in a classroom, I don't think UPT is the place you're suddenly going to figure that out. For me, reading the source material prior to class was key. Notes taken in class can then be correlated with what you've already seen at least once during your reading. If possible, I would then go back and re-copy my notes (cuz I write like shit when I'm trying to follow along in class). This would allow me to cross-check the gouge and source material with what I wrote down in class and make sure the info in my notes is accurate and also allows me to see it all again. Now at least my notes are something I created that I'm familiar with and can be used to study from later. Take advantage of any free time during duty hours to sit down with another student pilot and quiz each other on the rote memorization that is required of everyone. Repetition. IFR rules for clearance limits, min enroute altitudes, holding entries/airspeeds, etc. all will come more easily the more you go over them. Boldface has to become like breathing. However, there's a secondary part of learning boldface that often gets neglected. It's one thing to be able to write them and say them without error. It's another thing altogether to be able to actually complete them in the cockpit. Once you've got the BF memorized, start making your regular pattern of repetition include sitting in a cockpit trainer or even just a paper cockpit and actually reaching for the switches and performing the steps. You're not memorizing BF just to fill a square. That shit is going to save your aircraft and maybe your life. Wind the clock, slow down to get it right and know exactly what each step of the BF is going to require you to do in the cockpit. Prepare for EVERY mission by chair flying it from stepping to the jet until you're back in the squadron. The more you think through every aspect of the mission at zero knots the less you'll have to think about it when you're actually flying. There aren't enough sorties and simulator periods in the syllabus for the luxury of only trying to master everything you need to while you're actually in those training devices. Go through the steps required of you on every mission from the walk-around, cockpit set-up, checklists, engine start, taxi, takeoff, radio calls, setting up maneuvers and entry parameters, instrument set up for approaches, etc. If you have to sit in front of a paper cockpit set-up in your room with some kind of stick and throttle substitute in your hand, then do that. If you can close your eyes and visualize what you need to, then do that. Radio calls you make at the same point with the same information in them on every sortie should require zero effort. Controls actuated and procedures necessary to accomplish a touch and go, closed pattern and another VFR approach off the perch should have no pause to think about what comes next when you're in the moment flying the jet. The bottom line is that if you wait until you're doing 200-500 knots with air under your ass in the pattern, working area or on an approach to think about these basics that are going to happen on every sortie, you probably won't have enough extra brain cells to deal with the new stuff you're trying to learn or any other curve balls that Murphy might throw at you on any given day. Repetition is your friend. Seeing a trend yet? Most of all - enjoy yourself. UPT was one of the best experiences of my life. If it's not, then in my opinion, you're doing it wrong. There's never going to be another time in your USAF career when all that is expected of you is to live, eat and breath flying, show up on time prepared with a good attitude and get paid to do one of the coolest, most challenging jobs on the planet. You will make yourself miserable if you constantly stress about your performance. The more prepared you are, the less pressure you will experience. Don't worry about class rankings or trying to be #1 and help out your bros. If you help your classmates get better, you'll probably make yourself better in the process. The rankings will be what they'll be. If you're a solo dick out for yourself that's probably going to back-fire. It's pretty hard to be that way for a year without people who matter noticing. Use Friday night and some of Saturday to blow off some steam and lower the stress level (whatever that looks like for you). Depending on what's coming, maybe spend some time Saturday in the books and for sure get back to it on Sunday so you're prepared for the next week. Know your weaknesses and do what's necessary to minimize them. I didn't want to deal with distractions. I didn't have a TV, I lived on base and until my T-37 cross-country I slept in my Q-room every night from the first day I set foot on the base to start UPT. Maybe that seems a bit extreme, but it goes by fast and the results you produce will stick with you for life. I hit the club hard on Friday nights, had a girl to hang with after that and maybe Saturday too and kept it simple. I was very lucky to get an Eagle because no matter how well you do there's always stuff out of your control. But I brought my A game, did my best and things went my way. That's about all you can do. It was a blast. Have fun.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/did-you-know-a-man-bought-all-the-spare-b-2-windshields-and-used-them-in-his-daughters-tree-house-the-usaf-had-to-buy-them-back-to-replace-a-damaged-spirit-windshield/ Wonder what the Ops-Mx mtg slides said? Parts plus 1 tree house disassembly and 1x blank check?