Leaderboard

One of the most pertinacious and wrong ideas which senior Air Force leadership has embraced is this: every standard is equally valuable therefore if your zeal for all standards isn't equal you are unprofessional. They believe a lack of rigidity about seemingly 'small' rules, like Friday patches, will result in negligent fratricide or crashing aircraft, etc. They see (based on faith) a direct link to extreme outcomes for overlooking small infractions. The idea you might ignore trivialities to prioritize important things like victory or safety is anathema and their minds are unable to process this situation. Those of us outside their bubble intuitively understand prioritization is a natural human phenomenon and should be embraced rather than shunned. We want young Captain ACs making decisions keeping missions on task & timeline rather than stopping a joint ROC drill because someone's sleeves are rolled up. But these cultists are like celebrate monks looking at sex, convinced it's the source of all ills and endlessly devising rules to guardrail us from it... not understanding it's literally necessary for the species. In combat prioritization is essential to success; even a cursory examination of military history would prove as much. Look no further than the Taliban and NVA for recent examples proving uniform compliance isn't tied to battlefield objectives; examples are numerous proving the absurdity of their core idea but they can't have the discussion. I've tried. Ask them for proof that selective standard enforcement will result in mission failure and they might have anecdotes but zero data. There is zero data supporting their belief. Ask them if standard compliance is so important, what is our process to test new standards before instituting and what is the process to repeal if data proves it isn't required? No answers. You'll go to SDE and study works from historic military minds, who all sported beards, then be told beards are incompatible with military success. Then you'll go on an exercise with Allied nations who have beards, call them our indispensable partners, then with a straight face tell ourselves beards are unserious for military professionals. This example is just beards but uniforms are the same. Go find paintings of the continental army defeating forces of the tyrant King George and tell me which military has the most standardized uniforms, lol. The answer to your question is the moment you embrace ideas asserted without proof, cannot rationally convince those who ask for proof, trust only those who share your idea and ignore your own obvious intellectual hypocrisy... that's the moment you've gone full retard in pursuit of rank. At that point even losing multiple wars is insufficient to free your mind, you've been captured and are unfit to lead despite what rank or position you hold. This is the unfortunate state of our Air Force.

This is a great analysis, but you left out one key point that I fear might be more causal than anything else you wrote. The people at the top instituting these policies made it to where they are specifically because of their ability to master the very insignificant processes that we're talking about. You are asking them to admit that the very core of their success, and thus their identity, is not only irrelevant, but detrimental to the real mission of killing our enemies and breaking their things. They will never do that.

Hegseth quote from today " If you're a rifleman and lose your rifle you have hell to pay, if you're a General and lose a war you get promoted"

BQZip's mom, who was there cheering on her daughter.

I see nothing wrong with this. The USAF has become a jobs program for [emoji637]/[emoji639] of the force. I want my support office workers to understand they are office support, not warriors, aircrew or Mx so wear blues M-Th….that’s how it was before [emoji[emoji6[emoji640][emoji638]][emoji640][emoji6[emoji640][emoji637]]]/[emoji637][emoji637] and I liked it better. If they take this out on pilots, it will get pushback but I think it’s intended to fight the lack of discipline in the enlisted ranks among support personnel. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

The first Helo...wow! Firefighters.mp4

Some people (who aren't dinosaurs like you 😂🤣) thought that skeletor was referring to the guy who followed Mosley, I forget his name, but he was another skeleton-looking mother fucker.

Man, can't tell you how nice it is to hear all of that. I'm sort of in the opposite position of you; I'm on a platform with a bad maintenance record and honestly just want a break from flying (primarily to have a more stable home life). I know "the grass is always greener...," but I'm hoping RPA will be a good fit for my family and I for the last part of my career. Praying we both get the job we're hoping for!

Hasn't anyone in CA thought about how much carbon those helicopters and planes are putting into our atmosphere? Such selfishness just to put out a little fire...

Guess McP and Skelator a happy to know they are being dethroned for the most hated CSAF. Glad I’ll have my 214 shield by the time this happens.

Zero chance it will just be 'office workers'

Obviously. If the planes weren't flying, they wouldn't have got got

Chang said you can easily perform you RPA duties in blues.

Books have been written brother...to very poorly summarize it, Putin wants to restore a vision of what the USSR used to be. Remember, he started as a KGB guy and most of those dudes are still pissed at how it all turned out. While many of the old school are nostalgic for a Russia that looks like the old days, I think Putin is a bit more pragmatic and that matches with his actions. He wants buffer states against NATO, not that he thinks they will invade but the close borders enable nationalism within those former proxies and nothing scares a good communist dictator more than nationalistic hopes for freedom. Putin wants to maintain control AND expand his influence and he knows a key component it the economy. Russia, despite its 23,000 miles of coastline, has no warm water, ice free ports, with direct access to an ocean. Not only is Russia landlocked, but they lack land where they can grow crops. Russia can be divided into three main areas. The tundra which is 32% of Riussia's land mass, is found north of the Arctic Circle which is WAY too cold for trees and crops. The subsoil is permanently frozen, sometimes to a depth of several hundred feet. Then there is the Taiga which represents 1/4 of the worlds forest. The soil is boggy and is again a huge area of Russia unusable for agriculture. Finally, the Steppe which is basically a large plain and the only area Russia and grow crops but unlike much of the rest of the world, in that the regions that receive the most rainfall, are the regions with soil least suited to agriculture. Its growing season of 5 – 6 months is also significantly shorter than the 9-month window western Europe has. The access to deep warm water ports and thus the world's oceans presents SEVERE challenges to Putin. In the event of war, Russia wouldn’t be able to get out of the Baltic Sea. To get into the North Sea and on into the Atlantic Ocean from St Petersburg, a ship must pass through the Skagerrak, a narrow body of water controlled by NATO members Denmark and Norway. Then there’s the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, also home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.The port however is simply too shallow and too small to facilitate large scale cargo operations. The port is also poorly connected to the Russian heartland, reducing the profit margin of exports, and increasing the cost of imports that come through the port. Even without conflict Putin's ability to get his goods, energy and resources to market. When you take these factors into consideration and his belief that Ukraine IS Russia his moves make sense. Taking the Crimea was ALL about access to open water...even with the limitations of getting through the The Turkish Straits, to include the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. Invading Ukraine proper gives him the bread basket of Europe. When you look at the calculus of what he has to gain combined with a feckless U.S. administration it makes sense. His mistake was not realizing 30+ years of Ukraine freedom and nationalism gave Ukrainians a resolve, combined with U.S. weapons and his military leadership being complete stooges he is struggling. I am not normally in favor of giant sums of money going to other countries, but in my knuckle-dragger opinion it is money WELL spent to take Russia off the stage for a generation as a hegemonic near-peer. But hey what do I know, I flew in circles for a living.

Who is the 2nd person you're thinking of? Tony McPeak and "Skelator" are the same person.

Finland was a Nazi ally that later joined NATO. Russia is only defending itself. /S

Last year my commander was notified 7 days prior to official release. My understanding is 7 days is the standard. Good luck everyone!

We were at peak Iraq war last time it was enacted

After today’s confirmation hearing for Hegseth, I imagine he’ll be confirmed with little to no problem.

The InterWebs is hinting that they’ve heard ACC briefs, that starting in June, UOD will become blues. Man am I glad I retired

Way, way earlier than we all thought. The longer I was in, the more I realized the "good dudes" who became bad leaders were just pretending all along.

Haha, ok, as someone who applied for RPA that's good to hear. I know not everyone loves RPA, or any job for that matter, but it's good to hear you like yours. And I'm right there with you; Chief of Flight Safety and checking this forum and all of the AF pages 10 times a day for info; the wait sucks.

I think if its just the open ranks inpsections the AF will be getting off easy. I have read much worse.

So what do you do with the remaining 33.8 seconds?

There's sloppy seconds, and then there's this. Last dude must thought, "this is what it's like to screw a bucket of jizz." The big question is, after all that action, does @Biff_T call dibs? BTW, that's 40.8 seconds per dude. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/onlyfans-bonnie-blue-claims-she-121944402.html 1,057 Men in 12 Hours

Last year commanders were notified the same day the results were published. Who knows. “end of Jan” is so relative. Did they split January into halves? Thus making the 16th the end of January? That would be the best possible outcome. My current job is making this wait unbearable. I instruct and fly (MQ9) twice a week and sit at my desk the rest of the week waiting for news. Good or bad, I don’t care. I just want to know if I need to prep for a move.

Except for the Eagle guys, they clear out all the crew chiefs.

True, but insurance companies can't control federal, state, and city lands which are grossly mismanaged making them not just fire prone, but a ticking time bomb. Every time I walk through the forest near my house I marvel that the big one hasn't hit yet. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for forest management nation-wide. Also, I read that California prohibited insurance companies from dropping policies in areas that were affected by the fire (obviously only affecting future renewals not current policies), which might decrease their leverage for change. How anyone can think it is ok for the government to force commerce that was declined for non-discriminatory and purely reasonable business reasons is absurd. A second order effect of that might be the increase of privatization of fire fighting, which would be a rather funny thing to happen in CA. The rich people and their insurance policies already do it so it might start cropping up in the upper middle class. Net result would be the average families continue to get screwed even worse, which is par for the course in liberal states.

I’m going to be honest, I've never interacted with a SWO who wasn’t an idiot/completely clueless. I have interacted with sub guys who were great. My personal number of interactions is not statistically significant, but I know a lot Navy pilots and they support my limited-experience conclusion. Put that butter knife to good use!

In the end I think insurance companies will be what drives a lot of change going forward. Want insurance in California? Here's what you're (state and individuals) gonna do. Insurance companies are the pseudo regulatory entities of our entire lives. I was laughing with a buddy the other day about how the FAA doesn't regulate aviation, insurance companies do. Florida building codes were substantially updated in the early 2000s for new construction to better resist hurricanes after a run of destructive storms.

WSJ has a good article this morning talking about exactly the infrastructure stuff you mentioned. A utility company was widening a fire road and fire-proofing the electrical lines. They got a $2M fine and a cease and desist order in addition to the rehabilitation they were forced to do because they damaged some plants.

I work with a retired Navy SWO who worked on said cruisers. He places the blame ENTIRELY on the F-18 Drivers.

It’s a girl!

We pay people more, and ban them from owning/trading anything but TSP "letter" funds or their functional equivalents. Seems like a fair solution. Term limits don't really work the way people think they will. Everyone expects it will turn Congress into Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, but really it just prevents anyone from getting particularly "good" at being a legislator. Which just transfers even more power to lobbyists and staffers, because people in office literally don't know how to write a bill.

What a weird way to visibly show people you voted for Kamala.

Just notified by my CC. ENJJPT SELECT!! I really hope some of you that haven’t heard or won’t hear prior to the public release see your names on the list! 99P/96 PCSM/ PPL Cheers 🍻

Glad you’re finally asking for help understanding this since we know you sure as shit can’t articulate anything with respect to global politics.