Leaderboard

Fifty years ago today, 29 Jul 1974, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger (pictured) issued a program decision memorandum directing the Air Force to consolidate all military airlift forces under a single manager by the end of fiscal year 1977. The Air Force answered the charge by announcing, one month later, that the Military Airlift Command (MAC) would be providing airlift services to all branches. This was partly made possible by folding all of Tactical Airlift Command’s tactical airlift assets (comprised mainly of C-130s) into MAC, which prior to this date had only managed the Air Force’s strategic airlift assets. The goal, as Air Force Chief of Staff Gen David C. Jones described it, was to “achieve better integration of overall airlift” by consolidating “strategic and tactical airlift assets” into one command; in the process, it made MAC the world’s largest single airlift organization. (Image: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library)

Honestly that’s kind of besides the point. Point is some HAF shoe found out aircrew were doing something, and changed the rule to disallow them from doing it.

Oh I did a staff job many years ago with the acquisition/test world…that movie is like their “Top Gun” lol. But seriously, this is what I don’t understand about even those on the right—they literally want us to spend more money on “defense” and desire more wars/conflict. Talk about throwing more good money after bad.

It’s been this bad since about the 60s. Watch the pentagon wars - it’s probably the most accurately representative thing Hollywood has produced.

Cool video and walkaround of the A-37 at Oshkosh this year.

T-6 line IP here, please submit the AGEP surveys (or whatever they're called now...) to actually document the noted deficiencies from UPT grads. Thats the only truth data the Bobs will take at face value to increase the hideously slim amount of actual flight time to earn wings.

RIP

Wade Boggs got nothing on SocialD!

I get it, the AF has 69 other issues but this is more important than it seems, it’s not just training officers to fly but training, evaluating and forming the mind set of who will be the leaders of the AF, if we phone it in for AMC, AFSOC, part of AFGSC, AETC as I guess some of these T-6 only studs will be FAIPs we need not be surprised when as we push thru the mass of studs thru this process, some of which will not be like the hand picked strong swimmers for these small group try outs, the likely problems we encounter Why is the Navy not giving up on an advanced ME trainer? The Army for their fixed wing qual is not cutting back hours. Why are the mins staying in place for ATP and other civ tickets? Even though they have more access to more and likely better advanced training devices, because flight hours matter, getting thru multiple phases of training matter, proving your skills in at least two different platforms matters Choir preaching and I know you understand the problem of half assing things If we really are this behind and don’t have the money then contract everything but a T-6 program to figure out who’s going single seat or crew. Get the big flight training programs like UND, ER, All ATPs, etc… close 1 of the SUPT bases, you’ll either save X millions and still get a better product than T-6 only or kick the hornets nest for Congress to come up with supplemental funds or allow the AF to divest programs to fund I’m all for out of the container ideas to do it better or be additive to UPT ref the program the Lt attended but ultimately it is about a year of training, X hours of flight and simulator training and academics, no matter how much advanced tech we throw at it, the studs today are about the same as the studs of the past in terms of intelligence and skills, they’re going to absorb it at about the same rate and you’re gonna need to observe them going thru about the same number of events to see if they’re who you want flying AF iron, we can teach a bit faster individual tasks but the overall building of airmanship still requires that time in the air Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It might just be me but this thread reeks of Monday-morning quarterbacking. It makes me wonder if any of my close calls over the years had resulted in a Class A what people would have said about my own culture, mindset, scoffing of this or that. God forbid you found out I wasn't wearing gloves and AFE-approved boots along with my 100% wool standard-issue long john's at the time.

Not sure who you've been talking to. I can tell you in my neck of the woods instrument procedures are not scoffed, considering we shoot the ILS or PAR to mins in a snowstorm every week in the winter. The point of saying that everything they learned in UPT is motherhood and will be covered in the first 5-10 minutes of the brief is not to say that those things aren't important. Any 11F who's been around more than a year or two knows enough dead pilots to disabuse themselves of that notion. The point of that statement is to say that you are expected to maintain proficiency in those areas yourself so that when we're in an LFE adversary coord, followed by blue mass brief, followed by package coord, followed by 20 minutes of flight fill-ins, we don't spend what little time we have left briefing up the approaches. Last I checked it's not "11Fs" trying to trim the fat at UPT, but some enterprising General Officers. Those of us who actually instruct at the FTU or MQT in the CAF would tell you that those decisions are making our job harder and more dangerous.

All valid, but I'll take this opportunity for a side quest: our NOTAM system is garbage. Why can't they be in priority order, succinct, typed with human grammar, and void of strange acronyms requiring a decoder ring to grasp?

@Biff_T Thought you may like this. Visiting my parents and found these from my dad’s Vietnam days.