mcbush

Not to give you too hard a time, Supe, since I’m sure it was colder back in the day, but -495F is below absolute zero.

Not the perfect spot for it, but it's already under discussion in the ACP thread:

Can you post the stated requirements for our SA?

While I’m sure this is giving leadership too much credit, one opinion I heard today was that the continuation pay multiplier was intentionally set low in order to dissuade senior Capts and Majs from opting into the BRS, thereby “encouraging” them to stay to 20 instead. But they’re probably just being cheap bastards.

Different bonus, but couldn't find a better place to put this. The AF released the details on the continuation pay portion of the BRS today. Hope you weren't expecting much - it's 2.5x a month's base pay in exchange for an additional 4 year ADSC. Somehow I doubt that's going to change the calculus for dudes at the 12 year point. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1381062/air-force-announces-continuation-pay-rates/

What’s RPI-8?

Also consider that the person being interviewed in this case is the BGen responsible for solving the crisis...

So it begins... What's the over/under on how long it takes someone to challenge the max duration of a "state of national emergency"? 16+ years seems to be pushing it.

Yup, you’re good. Give my best to Charlie!

Noticed an interesting line in the U-2 robot email this morning: "New opportunities are emerging for U-2 pilot selects to PCS directly to overseas assignments after initial qualification training at Beale AFB." Any publicly-releasable details on that? I'm not in a position to apply right now, just curious.

The first thing I always think of from his Sq/CC days was how much he liked to berate people for walking on his grass. There's about a two foot wide berm between the parking lot and the road in front of the squadron that everybody always walks over because it's a much more direct route than going all the way down to the sidewalk. His office on the second floor overlooked this whole scene perfectly, and he would allegedly spend his days peering down into the parking lot looking for violators. Over the years, many well-meaning dudes and dudettes were summoned into his office and dressed down at attention, most of whom were brand new LTs on their first day in the squadron who didn't recognize the importance of walking around said grass. It always rubbed me the wrong way that their first ten minutes in the "real Air Force," having finally made it through UPT and everything else, was spent getting bitched out by that guy. What a way to welcome somebody to the squadron...

Nope. Based on the briefing I got, it sounds like it was a literal shitshow.

https://www.512aw.afrc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1251708/amc-commander-directs-dover-c-5-stand-down/ Dover C-5s are grounded after a second incident with the nose gear. Haven't heard anything about the more recent one that prompted this, though.

I thought so too, but apparently we've still got some in the ANG.

Affirm. They don't have tails yet though... think the date I've heard is FY19. https://www.post-gazette.com/local/west/2016/09/29/Congress-funds-squadron-of-C-17s-for-Pittsburgh-s-911th-Airlift-Wing/stories/201609290230

In the AF, flight safety investigations consist of two parts: the Safety Investigation Board and the Accident Investigation Board. The SIB occurs first, is generally safety-privileged, and is primarily concerned with preventing future incidents and disseminating lessons learned to the relevant parties. The AIB follows and looks to assign cause/blame, and produces a report which is publicly releasable. Is the USMC process similar?

You still get a pension with it, just at a reduced rate compared to the legacy system. There's also the promise of (additional) mid-career bonuses. A lot of the spreadsheets I've seen have come out surprisingly close depending on the input variables. WRT the question above, for dudes who plan to bail in a year or two and are sure they're going cold turkey, it's a no-brainer as something > nothing.

You think we can handle that in this community?! We're lucky just to get the gear down on the right runway.

This is separate from/in addition to the HPO list, I take it?

True story. We got an email from our Sq/CC about three weeks ago saying one of our copilots got picked up for the F-35. According to the boss, he was the only one in the MAF selected for that jet.

I don't think anyone has any idea what you're talking about anymore.

My small corner of AMC has been wearing them for about a year now.

The monetary and personnel costs associated with the PCS grind are massive. DoD spent $4.3B reshuffling its people in FY14, which is up 13% since 2001 even though the number of moves is down 12% over the same span, meaning that total costs are up 28% on a per-move basis. The AF sees a disproportionate amount of that cost too, since airmen, and AF officers especially, are the costliest segment of the DoD to move. Per AFPC's own statistics, we're also PCSing our officers every 37 months on average, despite the assignments reg stipulating 48 months as the standard. If you crunch the numbers, you'll find out that Big Blue could save close to $100M per year if it did nothing but follow its own damn AFI WRT TOS before PCS's. That doesn't even begin to account for the added value in QoL, the likely increase in retention, etc. Here's the GAO report if anyone's interested. Assignments AFI is 36-2110.

What a day it's turned out to be.

I mean, would a 6-900 hour copilot do worse in fighters than a new guy straight from UPT? Honest question since I could see a couple of pros and a couple of cons.