pcola

This is one of the most obvious, yet somehow completely revolutionary, ideas I've seen/heard. If the AF had to meet a real bottom line (not the kind that comes "up front" in a lame ass email,) then we'd have an IT department that would've been all over this years ago. Instead, we have no means of making this a reality, so...back to business as usual. Hundreds of man-hours spent per each and every completely inadequate and utterly archaic performance report "form."

Negative. Refer to AFI 36-2107 page 9, note 1b. MPS will try to get you to sign the ADSC paperwork. Don't do it, refer them to the AFI I just referenced.

Stratfor publishes some very informative analyses. A Little tidbit of information...the AF actually provides all of us with a free Stratfor subscription. Log in to the portal and click on the "Library" tab. About 2/3 of the way down, on the right side, is a link to Stratfor. Free full access to their site. Back to the topic at hand...

FIFY The retirement argument is a moot point. The parts of your post that I left are already in progress, regardless of any changes to the retirement benefits. If they change the retirement (and they should) it won't effect any currently serving member (just like redux 1.0.)

Crew directed mx.

I was sitting on the mil ramp at Hickam last week, waiting on mx, and watching all the airlines land on 08L. Of course, we're grading all the landings, when along comes this baby blue 767. We were all like "holy shit, what's he doing? Look at that! Whoa! Shit!" The flare looked similar to the one in the linked video, except he ended up stopping the wing rock, but must have gotten slow as hell in the flare, because the mains ended up touching down with a very high deck angle, very nearly a tail scrape. As the jet went by, I was not at all shocked to read the logo, Korean Air. I wish I had my iphone video running.

Sac or Davis to the East, Walnut Creek or Berkeley towards the bay. Vallejo or Oakland if you like to live dangerously.

I said that tongue-in-cheek, but want to be clear about your comment. You can NOT crosstrain to the C-5 if you "put your mind to it." First, there is currently no opportunity to crosstrain from the 17 to the 5. The best shot would be to FAIP, go OSA, or tanker. With both FAIP and OSA, you have to get an MWS after, so it could be the C-5 as well as any other MWS. If you go tankers, you can apply to Phoenix and crosstrain to an airlifter, but the odds are far greater that you'll get a 130 or 17 than a 5. Just a numbers game as far as that goes. Just so you're clear, the "top" of the strat pool get selected for Phoenix, but where you go is completely up to AFPC's randomness. If you want to have any input in that part of the crosstrain decision, you have to know somebody with clout.

I suggest you FAIP and bide your time for a C-5! In the end, it will be worth the wait.

This. And... You said that in reference to the following quote: I don't care what career field you come from, you are an idiot if you considered USAF Pilot's above post as anything other than foggy recollection or outright conjecture. Yet you fly off the handle claiming that he cited "procedures and numbers as fact." WTFever dude. Get lost.

5.6M YouTube views in 2 days. Some of the comments on the YouTube "news" video are hilarious. One guy says the source has been identified as someone named "Bart Simpson." Well done, Spur. Well done indeed.

Made my day. Literally, I have been laughing all day at the thought of how this shit could have happened. How many morons did this list of "names" make it through before it actually made it to air? Un-fucking-believable. Good to have humor in the light of such a tragedy.

You're a smart guy... Surely you know that words are shit - even on a forum of nothing but words. Acknowledge, Acknowledge, Acknowledge... Words - they may get you promoted, but they won't get you respect, nor will they fix any issues. You say that you can't fathom how to better acknowledge how ragged our force is...right after you acknowledge that our BS AAD requirement is bad policy and a waste of time. How about we acknowledge a tired and overworked force with a reprieve from the BS, and not another wordy acknowledgement? Novel idea, right? The solution isn't that cosmic, but it somehow seems overly difficult for senior leadership to either grasp or embrace, not sure which. Stop wasting our time with extraneous nonsense when what we really want is to be dedicated to the mission. Actively de-emphasize the AAD at the CGO level. Tear up the SOS correspondence program (we're all supposed to go in res anyway, right?) And stop telling us we're over-manned when 80% of the Sq still has use/lose leave in August.

This is of very little consolation when the Sr Rater puts the most emphasis on #6 when filling out the bottom line of your PRF. Its too late for me, but I hope they are successful at blocking the AAD all the way down to the Sq/CC rack and stack level, because that is where it currently does the bulk of the damage. I'm at a very competitive West-Coast AMC base and I know from experience that if you don't have your Masters, there is a good chance you'll be overlooked for those top-tier OG and Wg jobs. I've even seen them consider PME and AAD completion when selecting POCs for high-vis events/visits! This shit is out of control. And I second all the comments about the challenges the young guys are facing (shit, I am barely beyond the "young guy" group, and I'm sure that I'm a relative babe compared to some of you old fucks.) But when I got my wings in early '06, nobody was lecturing me about getting a Masters. In my first assignment from 06-09, very few of us LTs were working on AADs (I wasn't.) But now, it's all the young guys talk about around the Sq. I'm getting sick and tired of having co-pilots stumble over very basic ops limits types of questions, only to hear them at the scheduling desk talking about their TUI or AMU or UMT. I was a Sq exec when the first round of Lt-to-Capt PRFs hit, and an OG exec when we were doing RRF forms for new guys facing the RIF. I have zero doubt that this shit played a huge role in sparking the intense interest amongst the brand new guys in this careerist attitude that used to be reserved for the FGOs. I am currently working at the Wing level, and I have a pretty good rapport with individuals from the 3 different heavy MWSs at my base, and I know for a fact that a mass exodus of new-FGO 11M experience is looming. Between the -10, -17, and -5 communities, I can't even count the number of guys that I know or have heard of that have interviewed and are awaiting their chance to pull chocks, but I can think of very few guys that are verbally committed to the bro network to staying. This, combined with what I said in the preceding paragraph, is disturbing. We (the AF) have the "experience" switch preselected to "jettison," while the up and comers are too busy working on useless AADs to bother with learning the jet/mission.

Somebody delete pawnman's post ^^ before anybody gets any bright fuckin ideas.

If I go reserve with 16 years TAFMS, do you really think it will take 15-25 more years reserve time to accrue 4 more years of TAFMS? Honest question, because I'm trying to gather some data myself regarding this point. I'm currently working on the assumption that, as a MAF flyer, it will take me 8-10 years of AFRC flying/deployments to accrue the remaining 4 years of AD time I would need to start pulling an AD retirement. That's assuming no possibility of sanctuary, and no AD recall.

Please do this! I'm in the "ADSC expiring in 2016" group and would love to be one of your data points. I can tell you right now, that even with 4 years prior-E time, if given the opportunity to bail in 2014 I'd gladly become a member of the reserve unit across the street. In fact, that is my plan for 2016, even though I'll have 16 years of service.

Excellent article and couldn't agree more with his philosophy. It's a shame he's out of the fight.

Copy. So we're talking apples to oranges then. AFPC's "glut" (and their numbers overages) are not the 11Ms we need. Most high time O5 and O6s aren't flying the line and mentoring dudes, and I know very few passed over 18-20 year Majors that are doing it. What we perceive as a shortfall in the Sq is the new-Major MWS-experienced types that are walking out the door in droves. Killing the bonus would get rid of what we need, not the 18+ year O4-6 types that are actually causing the overage. Bravo!

On several occasions you've mentioned a "glut" of FGOs and the fact that the "numbers" don't reflect the impending exodus we at the crew dog level are yelping about. Could this have anything to do with the fact that for two years no one was eligible to get out? When the last of the 8 year initials hit their ADSC and made their decisions, that left a period of two years where no one could get out. Of course that led to a "glut." I think over the next few years the numbers will reflect what we are seeing/hearing/feeling at the Sq/Gp/Wg. I'm expecting a decent bonus in '16. Either that or I'll be taking my 16 years of service to the reserves.

I could give two shits about the OP, but as far as general advice goes, this is gold and should be mandatory reading for all newbs. Not true. All you have to do to succeed as an officer is to spend your allotted TA at Box Check U in a timely fashion!

Same numbers...different take: I think we can all agree that PME can be considered continuing ed for a professional officer, so it follows that it is a "must" for anyone wishing to continue to advance in the profession of arms. So, I will only consider the officers who have completed PME - the method of completion is irrelevant and will not be considered. Without breaking out "P" vs "DP," 1855 officers had obtained (note I didn't say "earned") an AAD prior to the board. Of those, 1774 were promoted - a 96% promotion rate of those with an AAD. On the other hand, 691 dedicated officers decided to focus on their primary duties and did not waste time obtaining a fraudulent and useless AAD. Of those 691, 513 were selected for promotion. A 74% promotion rate of those w/out an AAD. Comparing apples to apples, the AF decided to promote 96% of officers with an AAD and only 74% of those without. I'd wager that 0% of the AADs polled in these demographics actually provided any real, tangible benefit to the AF. OK, so maybe a handful of those AADs could potentially prove of some use to an AF Officer at some point in their career. In the interest of fairness, we'll call it 0.69% of those degrees will at some point provide any hint of "force development." Considering my take on the real value of the average AAD, is it not fair to say that the "system" is obviously placing promotion emphasis on a metric that has no bearing on the ability of the individual to perform at the next higher grade? And some of you argue that this system is working? The stats are resoundingly clear. If you waste taxpayer money and use TA to obtain a useless, diploma-mill, box-check degree, you will be promoted. If you refuse to toe the line, you are wagering your career and there is a 1/4 chance you will be "let go." The "rock bottom line" (to quote one of my favorite AF party lines) is that the "system" is weak and corrupt, and real leadership has been replaced with a number of excel spreadsheets and a horde of pencil pushing paper bitches that refuse to expend the effort to get to know their people and rate them according to actual merit. The message is clear: "Your leadership ability and technical proficiency do not factor as long as you meet the metric and fall beyond the objective 'red line'." And no, I'm not bitter, just another CGO looking into the fishbowl. I was one of the "368" in the quoted demographics.

The problem isn't in identifying who falls above/below your "red line." The problem is in the criteria that defines the line.

GRENAAAAADE!

I deleted the post you quoted because I was on my 3rd or 4th finger of Macallan when I wrote it, but then agreed more with matmacwc's post...I decided I had made the common error of assuming too much before the facts were known. While I do not know what caused this incident, I do know that the MAF community is squeezing the training budget right now, and while that may or may not ultimately be the cause of this incident, it will be problematic in the long run. At my base, we are currently not authorized to fly anything in the jet that can be accomplished in the sim. That means no (zero!) transition for anybody with more than 500 hours in the airplane. And for the brand new folks with less than 500 hours, well, they can accomplish half of their required M010s in the airplane - no more. The sim is a useful training tool, but it is not the end-all, be-all. And hours, in the MAF community, does not always equal proficiency. How many of those vast hours are at cruise or in the bunk? How many of those hours culminate in an autopilot ILS to a full stop at the end of a 23 hour day? Again, not speaking specifically to this incident, but when you can't train to the skill that you don't use very often, you lose proficiency in that particular skill. However, I can't argue that focus is not also an issue. I definitely agree that careerism is a cancer in the AF rated community, and is certainly leading to a degradation in the quality of the current and future generations of ACs and IPs.