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It's the classic Jurassic Park illusion of control. You use a shitty website to search job listings that you have the quals/year grp/knee pads for, and rank your top choices. If the CC who posted the listings also swipes right on you then you get a match. AFPC takes this match and does the following:

Either way, she was going to be accused of being a DEI hire no matter what her history/performance. We can crow about how rules should always be followed, but then get pissed when we/family/friends don't get "exceptions" when we feel they're warranted. I feel like giving the family time to lock down the social media from the coming onslaught was warranted. Highly likely the family has already been doxed on some forum/site and is starting to receive threats. Or not, can't know for sure. I can't speak for the process, or reasons by the CC's/big army. I assume good intentions by default, worked well when I was in charge (and still does). Same as allowing exceptions when I could was a good tactic. Just trying to be empathetic to a family who's daughter/sister was a pilot who's now dead and being looked at as the cause of the worst air disaster in decades. Shit just sucks all around.

I have zero issues whatsoever with the army response. There wouldn't have been the need for the Army to withhold the name to give the family time for damage control if Trump hadn't painted them into a corner with his completely out of line comments. Everyone else is still trying to get the facts straight and pull bodies out of the Potomac, and we have the leader of the free world talking out of his ass in the least possible productive way during a crisis. DEI is toxic, but even more toxic than that is blaming a crash on DEI less than 24 hours from the accident when you have zero facts to support it.

"Allvin[4] graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1986. During his time at the Academy he played team handball with USAFA Team Handball.[5] " - Wikipedia Hand ball. He played collegiate level hand ball. The gig line thing is making sense now.

Checking out a dude's gig line sounds pretty gay.

Not to worry... I'm sure that the usual YouTube channels are in high-gear solving the mystery before the NTSB. Make sure you subscribe.

Regardless if the Biden admin had these deals made or not, the fact is our neighbors didn’t give a shit about the problems or executing anything to help solve them. That is until they got a Trump boot up the ass. I don’t care if there was zero “heavy lifting” and all Trump did is threaten something in a tweet. I care about the results, and so far, the results have been exceptional and the majority of the country is happily receiving all kinds of things they voted for.

Emphasis on the “Rudder” of the stick and rudder skills. It does teach you a lot. I got my endorsement after a few hrs, but it took some time to feel comfortable with a cross wind landing. Hell, at this point I’d hope the AF sends these poor kids to hot air balloon school just to get them some more hours in the air.

Having done GO/VIP support for more years than I care to remember while I was on AD I learned GO's can individualize their uniforms in ways no one else can. Super annoying when having to explain that shit to Amn. BREAK BREAK Got this from one of my Capt's who did some amazing stuff on the cyber side. Good to know the fuck-you games haven't changed. "My assignment dropped last Monday, and it was to a CyberOps Sq that I didn't bid on, nor did they bid on me. I had matches on all my bids (pretty high ones as well) but AFPC was not helpful. So last week I talked to just about everyone I could (Major Gen name, Group CC, new CC, old CC, AFPC, people in, people out) to see if I could get at least my 2nd bid which was the 90th. AFPC said there were slots open there, but didn't want to fill them because they can't give every CC everything they want (even though we matched). So very frustrating to say the least. My supervisor was really helpful and was really seeking justification, and they kept flip-flopping on "well we have plenty of people with his skills", which my supe said no you don't, and "well we really need him". Wife and I decided we are going to 7-day opt..." So, now I'm helping my boy prep his resume and job hunt for a first gig in the low $100K's. He'll def be making more than me within 5 years, probably 2 if he tries even a little. Good job AF!

I dislike that when a tragedy occurs, the first thing the media does, besides mess up the facts, is go calling to politicians for comment. It's just part of their shock value to a story.

The US military has been favoring/helping certain demographics for years before DEI was even a thing...

I think TW is great training and does make a better stick & rudder pilot overall (because laziness and below average skills are punished more immediately and apparently). The better stick & rudder skills gained tend to transfer to flying as well, even though TW only technically affects ground handling and takeoff/landing. Also flying GA aerobatics helps improve aircraft handling skills, even transferable to jets. If we’re going to go for pre-UPT training, a fleet of citabrias could do well.

Okay, that cut and paste kind of went bigger than expected. ADMIN NOTE: Fixed it for you! https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2025/02/05/the_armys_special_treatment_of_capt_rebecca_lobach_1089352.html The Army’s Special Treatment of Capt. Rebecca Lobach February 05, 2025 Favoritism Inevitably Draws Scrutiny: The Army’s Special Treatment of Capt. Rebecca Lobach Fuels Speculation and Dishonors all Who Perished in the Recent DC Air Collision On Saturday the U.S. Army released the name of the second pilot—reported to have been pilot in command—of the Blackhawk helicopter that collided with American Airlines flight 5342 over the Potomac River, killing 67 people. This was a marked departure from Army policy that states “Names, city, and state of deceased will be withheld until 24 hours after next of kin notification.” This was the standard process used to identify the other two members of the Army’s flight crew, Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves, and Staff Sgt. Ryan O'Hara. It is the same process used to identify soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan—a process I followed as a military public affairs officer for over 20 years. Army public affairs officials followed the same procedures to publicly identify soldiers who died in not-too-distant helicopter crashes in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alaska. Yet, in an unusual deviation, the Army selectively withheld Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach’s identity for an additional two days. When her name was finally released over the weekend, the Army included a family statement of eulogy that praised Lobach and requested privacy. Army officials claim that violating its own rules was done to respect Lobach’s family’s wishes, but that decision casts an unnecessary shadow over her service and memory. Working a casualty release is a difficult task. I remember each one that had to be done when deployed to Afghanistan as public affairs director for the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division. Each time while combing through a fallen soldier’s deployment photo and service record, there was a painful awareness that I was handling information that would soon devastate this fellow paratrooper’s loved ones back home in the U.S. The entire brigade would be placed under an internet blackout to ensure the news did not leak out before the family was notified in person. This practice is taken seriously, and rightly so. Much of its dignity comes from its predictability and equal application. No matter the rank or position of a deceased soldier, the notification process is supposed to be the same for all—and was until now. The crash over the Potomac is a very unusual tragedy for many reasons that are being unraveled by investigators. The Army’s special treatment of Capt. Lobach adds to that complexity. The information shared by the Army and Lobach’s friends indicate that she was a stellar soldier. However, stellar soldiers do not ask for special consideration—they demand equal treatment to prove that they are one among a team. Yet we now see a movement to essentially canonize Lobach as a hero while civilian remains are still being recoveredfrom the submerged and fragmented passenger jet that her aircraft knocked from the sky. Army officials rushed to defend a single pilot among a flight crew of three and 64 dead civilians. This treatment echoes a 2015 Army study warning that male soldiers are driven instinctively to protect female colleagues over mission completion. In this instance, we see that tendency strangely playing out in a way that reflects allegiance to intersectional theories and bandwagon effect as much as complementarian instinct. Over the weekend, several Army public affairs officers and Pentagon reporters expressed heartbreak over Lobach’s passing, implying she was uniquely victimized above the 66 others killed. In contrast, they were largely silent when the identities of the other soldiers and jet passengers were released. Some narratives even suggested that the president was to blame for the Army’s deviation from standard protocol. Army officials surely knew the risk of this event becoming politicized and encouraged it through their unprecedented actions. Beyond violating military regulations, the Army strategically released Lobach’s identification on a Saturday—a classic public relations tactic used to bury news. Meanwhile, it appears her social media history was erased, despite the insistence that she was an admirable public servant. The inclusion of a family eulogy in the Army’s announcement further signaled that her passing was somehow more profound than the rest. Why? The Army’s actions invite speculation. The best way to honor Capt. Lobach as a soldier would have been to treat her like any other. Instead, by attempting to craft a heroic top gun narrative around her, Army officials took a path that increased concerns about the circumstances of the crash. This is a textbook example of the "celebration parallax"—as if the Army intends to prove that women receive no special treatment by giving one woman special treatment. I have followed air crash investigations for decades, worked numerous crisis communication initiatives since 2005, and teach crisis communication at the collegiate level. Never have I seen an airline spin a tragedy into an opportunity to highlight the greatness of a pilot when pilot error was likely involved. American Airlines is focusing its response on caring for the families of the 64 passengers lost on flight 5342, while the Army appears preoccupied with nurturing a politicized narrative. Early evidence suggests that cockpit mistakes contributed to the collision. Yet, in no prior case have I seen an airline or government agency publicly promote a downed pilot as a hero within 96 hours of an accident. Something is very different about this case. The point of this essay is not to ascribe blame. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will get to the bottom of what is likely a complex set of factors that passed 67 lives into eternity. Rather than rushing to offer one pilot as above question in that investigative process, Army officials should focus on following their own regulations, addressing systemic safety issuesin Army aviation, and prioritizing public service over institutional image protection. Now is the time for introspection and hard questions—not attempting a flags of our fathers public relations play. If the Army wanted to lessen the grief suffered by Capt. Lobach’s family, it used the worst tactics possible. Those who deliberately hid, and are hiding, information from public view activated the Streisand Effect, drawing further attention to what they want to hide. Unfortunately, such malpractice is characteristic of the Army’s public affairs apparatus at top levels. This is the same field that resisted recent guidance from the acting Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (ATSD) to implement a social media pause. It is the same group that failed to address false rumors about the paternity of Master Sgt. Matthew Livelsberger’s daughter after his tragic suicide in front of Trump Tower on January 1st. It is the same military career field that ignored an admonition from then Secretary of the Army Mark Esper that the Army is the slowest branch to respond to press inquiries. The Army’s public affairs code of "Maximum Disclosure, Minimum Delay" is often cited but never enforced. This is a well-known problem that refuses to self-correct. It will demand attention from the Pentagon’s new leadership to force a solution. Regulations lose legitimacy when selectively enforced. Lobach’s family is not the first to request privacy, but they are the first to receive such overt preferential treatment in recent military history. This sets a precedent that will make the jobs of commanders, public affairs officers, and casualty notification officers more difficult going forward. I feel tremendous sympathy for the family of each soul on both aircraft and cannot begin to imagine the pain each one feels. That pain was not lightened for any of them by the Army’s agenda-based actions since. I call on top public affairs officials across the Army to remember your oaths, and put them into practice. Chase Spears served as a U.S. Army public affairs officer for 20 years. Among other pursuits, he enjoys writing about courage, civil-military relations, communication ethics, and policy. Chase holds a Ph.D. in leadership communication from Kansas State University, where his research focused on the political realities of military norms and actions. He can be found on X, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Substack at @drchasespears.

With current Army hour trends that absolutely tracks within the normal. We don’t have 1000 hour deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan as the norm anymore to skew the normal. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The standards I worked on. I was in Stan/Eval so standards were in there somewhere. If dude on the ground wanted a round of 105 he better get it. Right where and when he wanted it. And another If the gunners mustache was too long, I didn't give a shit. If the nav had the wrong color purse, I didn't give a shit. If the eng had his hat on backwards, I didn't give a shit. If the pilot had the wrong socks, I didn't give a shit.

Can someone post these dudes email addresses? Maybe some counseling from the retired is in order.

I think the accountability will come since it's the NTSB's job and not the Army's. If it was the Army's I'd have a pitchfork with you guys. They've covered up so much corruption I'd have a hard time with them saying it was "an accident." Not sure on passenger families perception, but again it sucks all the way around.

When I was in the 8th one of the CCs was a fat bastard, so we all tried to be fat bastards. "Hope the next CC is not into cliff diving"

Of course they are all in on, it's a survival instinct. I remember back in UPT a crusty reservist talking about how you see pilots get into whatever the new boss is into. If he's a big church person, everyone finds Jesus. If they're into biking, everyone gets bikes, etc.... At our UPT base, the WG/CC loved biking, so there were lots of bikers. When I showed up to Luke, the WG/CC was into crossfit (or his wife was) and so suddenly crossfit was the thing to do. He even made the studs do it during academics.

Get ready y'all... we're living out the book "Catch 22."

They are the older generation...if your gig line is straight then everything else must be good as well. I am not saying we don't have standards but we should have just as much focus on innovation and warfighting. Most of these clowns are cud chewers...Alvin and Slife...are NOT warriors.

Sat in a wing staff meeting yesterday, wing leadership is all in on it. When he started to give the "if I can't trust you to wear the right patches, how can I trust you to make the right decisions in the aircraft.." speech I swear I could hear the boots song playing in the background and my desire to reach out to the embassy kicked in. 1 more year of this BS.

He should have nominated the dude standing to Jensen's left....GREAT American.

One more thing in this discussion on pilot training, this may seem vain but really it’s not, it’s what the AF should feel about it’s on going thrash is shame. Without a rigorous well funded and kinda difficult / challenging training program to become an AF pilot we lose prestige. Sounds vain but not really. Would USAFA, USMA or the USNA command respect if they were easy universities to pass or poorly funded and obviously not prioritized in funding and leadership support to effectively OT&E? At some point, the highest leadership of the AF (civ and mil) should see this and just cut this Gordian knot, ie we will buy this aircraft / establish this program Just my opinion worth what you paid for it Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

And this is why DEI is toxic, but moving on... I get your overall point about empathy for the young Capt-- but how do you suppose her unusual treatment is perceived by passenger families? I'm sorry for the family of Capt Lobach, it's terrible to lose a child and especially so having to hear her service disparaged. But if she did in fact cause this collision her privacy concerns are subordinate to victim family rights for accountability and Army transparency. We'll cross that bridge if the investigation validates what's been publicly released so far. I think it was a mistake for the Army to deviate from SOP.

Yeah dude, welcome to negotiations. Like I said early, your predictive track record ain't great, so let's re-engage when we have some results (or lack of) to discuss. It's been 2 weeks.

That's a small part of what I think his tactics are. You left out the many and varied ways that America has to exert pressure. Tariffs for example. Bombing the everlasting shit out of enemy infrastructure. I absolutely believe we would have put tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they didn't play along. Still might. That's not the end of the world for anybody, and Trump will look strong (to everyone except for the people who refuse to acknowledge him as anything other than the devil). You have to enter a negotiation knowing what winning looks like and what losing looks like. You also have to be willing to walk away. The trick is to come up with more than one definition of victory, especially since you don't enter the negotiation knowing exactly what the other side wants or needs. When you have multiple end states that you can consider victory, you can adapt based on your growing knowledge of what the other side of the table is after, what they're willing to lose, and what they can't afford to lose. It's dynamic, and the biggest problem people make when negotiating is acting as though the strategy is set before walking into the room. You've lost before you've begun that way. I don't know you, so obviously I don't know your disposition or negotiating ability. But this isn't a particularly clever or complicated one. Start by kicking the door in. "We're going to take over Gaza and do everything the Israelis have dreamed of for the last 60 years. BUT, just in case you thought I was giving Netanyahu and early Hanukkah gift, it's going to be American land, not Israeli Land." Now you've got every leader in the Middle East paying attention. First off, every single person with an IQ higher than a shoe size knows that removing the Palestinians from Gaza and dumping them somewhere else solves the Gaza problem forever. There's no easy way back in there, and the rest of the world will only pretend to care until the next trip to the grocery store or Trump's next press conference. The dirty little secret has always been that no one gives two flying fucks about Palestine, other than as a tool of leverage against the US and Israel. Now that half of the Middle East is trying to align with Israel against Iran, the Palestinians have far less support than they used to. As long as the Israelis or the Americans don't slaughter the Gazans, no one is going to go to war against us to defend their rights to live in Gaza. This is where you stay flexible. I suspect what he's trying to do is get Jordan and Egypt and Saudi Arabia to sweep in and take over the management of Palestine. No one cares when Arab dictators kill Arab protesters; as long as it's not the Israelis policing things, and they won't have to if Saudi Arabia steps in, then a lot of the problems are once again solved. I mean he even said that Jordan and Egypt were on board. I don't believe that they are, I doubt they were even warned ahead of time, but now they have to pretend like they were in on some sort of planning for this or it's going to make them look like the president of the United States is just walking all over them. That's another key component of negotiating, when you say sensational shit, it's best to say something that the other side doesn't want to deny. Look at how Netanyahu responded. Now let's say, like you suggested, that they just call his bluff. Here come the tariffs. And we cut off aid to the Middle East, at least the countries that aren't playing along, and every single one of them requires us in some way. More so now than ever. All of a sudden, just like Canada and Mexico, we've got common ground and a quickly resolved misunderstanding. Or maybe they call that bluff too, okay, throw another pressure point or two out there. The more of them that are rejected, the more justification you build for doing exactly what Trump said, relocate the Palestinians in Gaza (I suggest moving them all to the West Bank and creating a unified Palestine that the world can then ignore forever), and turn Gaza over to Israel. That's what should happen anyways. But the point is, there are a shitload of outcomes that Trump can consider a victory, because the status quo is so unfathomably catastrophic. It's almost difficult to imagine how the situation would be worse, other than of course by having hundreds or thousands of American troops dying in Gaza. But you've got your head in the sand if you think that's going to happen. It's a hell of a stick to wave around though.

^^^^^This^^^^^ Totally agree for myself specifically. Hours upon hours wasted cleaning in the early nineties especially when the AR type wasn’t so “prolific/Lego Gun” for the civilian masses. I absolutely despised it and was able to shoot a few other piston driven weapons from Team guys and I was easily swayed to instant jealousy (I am not a Team Guy by any means, but they took pity on me thankfully). Most piston’s weapons have at least a folder variant unless it’s an IWI Tavor, Bullpup types, etc. It’s been a known factor for a long time hence AKs, FALs, AUG, etc and understand their environment of use which is unrelenting. Even my poor attempted copy (Sig 556) of the Swiss SG 551 series still chugged on past a couple thousand rounds before I rotated it too the adverse conditions exit port. Everyone has a choice with great strides in ammunition tech these past couple of decades which is fantastic and the AR has come so far from its original self. So much better now if you’re into them. *I shuttered a bit when you mentioned after blank shooting cleaning parties.

2014 seems to be a VERY important year. Hence why PRE-EMPTIVE BIDEN PARDONS are all backdated to 2014. another coincidence I’m sure

The problem is the uneducated idiots spinning narratives will take that and just add it as a log to the big bonfire of “we’re becoming a dictatorship!” Anybody who honestly believes we are positioned or ready to conduct such an operation is outside the room with the current force restructuring and belt tightening going on with the force you would need to actually do it. We are cutting massive headcount’s in our brigade combat teams to make do with the new budgets. You don’t do that preparing for a war/occupation/rebuild that requires bodies and not bleeding edge tech. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The problem right now (and the one AETC 5/8 is trying to work around) is that the T-6 portion of UPT is fucked/is the bottleneck right now. The T-6 fleet is in bad shape, it's getting worse, and there's no easy or expeditious way to fix it. The T-38 is well past any reasonable service life, and the T-7 is obviously delayed. This IPT concept is the latest attempt to get to the 1500 pilots/year production goal that the AF can never achieve. Believe it or not but the money issue for IPT was actually one of the smaller issues getting the program started.

Kirby publicly voiced that concern. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/us-airline-pilots-fight-their-unions-increase-retirement-age-2023-08-22/

Career badges are impossible to decipher. Give rated wings, kill all the other badges and give them basic tabs not broken out but broad. CE, WX, SF, ATC, etc. don’t make 10 different identifiers for each career field. Gives people pride and makes it easy to see what they do. Pilots do it with flight suits, let everyone else have a little morale and pride as well, within reason.

Some of you assholes (def not me) are felons again for a few more days according to the ATF.