Rusty Pipes

Let's be realistic here though, it would be fantastic if the AF would follow the lead of other services that do this for everyone, but they are only willing to do this for their "fast burners!" This would decimate the pilot force in the long run. Hell, it would decimate the entire officer corps! Hmmm... I'm a crew dawg with a 10 yr ADSC that the AF will pay to send to Harvard or Stanford for a few years to get an MBA? So after getting kicked in the junk since 9/11 with deployments and shoe clerk buffoonery, not only do I have an option of going to fly for Southwest or FedEx... I have an MBA from Harvard!!! The AF gives pilots enough reasons to get out ASAP already, making the folks they need to keep the most even more marketable on the outside doesn't help their retention rates. And seriously... If someone is forking out some decent coin out of pocket to get a legit degree from a good school, 99.9% of them aren't doing it because they think it will make them better officers over their 20 yr military career or to help establish a better educated officer force. I would have loved to have used TA to get a real degree in something I was actually interested in, but not only are we telling guys that they need a Masters, they are saying that they will be looking at WHEN you got it! So I flushed thousands of taxpayer dollars and way too many hours that I could have spent with my family down the toilet to get a completely useless and unwanted Embry Riddle degree that most certainly didn't make me a better officer or leader!!!

Looks like you need to have been a prop guy to be considered based on the link. Anyone know of people who didn't fly Hurcs, C-12's, or P-3's doing this?

I guess it all depends... was the EP caused by your hard landing on the ILS where you were two dots high after overspeeding the flaps? Seriously though, just play the game. If it is a different evaluator I'm sure he already knows that this is checkride part 2. Bring it up casually in the pre-brief once... "Yeah, we knocked out 90% of the profile on Monday before we had the EP, but at least I get to fly again." I'm not sure what you fly, but if able I would plan on knocking out whatever you missed on ride one first. Give the evaluator the chance to say, "Dude, you're good, mind if I fly for a while?" If he doesn't then just fly the thing like you're supposed to... the jet and the ILS don't know it’s a checkride! Chances are the evaluator is thinking more about the stack of OPRs, awards packages, and the dumb ass change of command he got roped into and is just happy to not be in the office!

The "magic" will be all of those folks who were duped into applying for VSP and were then turned down as well as all the guys coming up on their UPT ADSCs that have seen good dudes get their walking papers at 15 yrs. Remember that the SECAF was surprised at how many rated officers applied for VSP? It will be interesting to see what happens in the next year or so as far as airline hiring goes. If the talk of grand hiring actually happens then you'll see Big Blue start to scramble by doing stupid stuff like offering bonuses to all the pilots they just non-vol'd to staff!!! I know everyone gives AFPC a bunch of shit, but I know some really good dudes down there at the lower level that will be the ones having to deal with picking up the pieces because of the shit sandwich passed down from the top. Only time will tell, but I know lots of guys who are keeping All ATP's pretty busy these days and asking to be extended on their assignments so they don't pick up a PCS ADSC. The next year is going to be very interesting!

A guy in my Sq was recently passed over for the 1st time and talked to some Lt Col promotions shoe down at AFPC for his "non-selection counseling". The short story is that he was told that due to over manning, when he likely gets passed over for the second time next year that he will most likely not be offered continuation and it was suggested that he should start preparing for that. So he then tells the shoe that the Res Sq at his base told him they were looking to hire someone and would love to hire him... he just needed to get out of the 1 year left in his PCS commitment. He asked what either the ADSC waiver or Palace Chase process would be or if he could point him in the right direction for who he needed to talk to about it. The shoe told him that he could apply if he wanted, but it was extremely unlikely that his Palace Chase package would even make it past the initial stages... BECAUSE HE IS IN A CRITICALLY MANNED CAREER FIELD!!!!!!!

I know 3 11M's getting the boot... all 3 were completely blindsided. I know a larger group of 11M's who were just passed over for the first time on this last board that are stuck in limbo. The biggest bull shit about their situation is that if they use the same criteria as this year's board then all but one of them (OTS grad with a Jan or Feb service date) will have the same fate next year, but they're being kept in the dark. The biggest dilemma for them is whether or not to punch out now while there is a chance they can get on with the Guard or Res at 14+ yrs in or wait to see what happens. Of course if they do that then they don't get the $120K (pre-tax) invol-sep pay, so they walk away with literally nothing. If they wait then they will probably have a much harder time finding a unit that will hire a 15+ yr guy... especially one that is twice passed over! It is sickening to see the AF putting these guys and their families in this situation! Of the guys I know, two of them have the wife who doesn't work to stay home with the young kids so they are the sole earner in the house. The other's wife had a really good job when they got married and would have most definitely been making more money than him right now, but had to essentially put her career on hold for the past 10 yrs because she had to obviously follow him to shitty locations where they didn't have good jobs in her career field (and its not like she can just jump back into the industry and make $150K after being out of it for so long). Just like the rest of us, these guys and their families sacrificed what was by every account the most important 10-15 yrs of their lives by saluting sharply and just taking every shitty TDY/deployment that came their way... literally years away from their families; and this is how Big Blue thanks them?!? And for the guys who were just passed over for the first time who have done the same exact thing, they don't even have the moral courage to be straight with them? Hmmm... I don't remember seeing any of this come up during the "Year of the Family" e-mails or power point slides! I have one buddy (11M/Eval Pilot) who finally had to show his cards to his boss last week when he turned down a PCS telling him that he was going to be getting out next fall when his UPT ADSC is up (I'm sure the 179 to shit hole X will be soon to follow), but more importantly know 3 other guys in the same year group who said they are waiting to see what happens to the guys just passed over this year to see if they get booted next year to decide what they're going to do. These are the fence sitters that everyone keeps talking about and the AF is making their decision pretty easy; the topic came up in a discussion about all of them scheduling their ATP, which tells you what direction they are most likely leaning in... all from the same Sq! I know a few guys down at AFPC (O-3 to O-5 types) who see the writing on the wall and are screaming as loud as they can (mostly because they know the mess they're going to have to deal with), but nobody in management is listening. I really hope that they are way smarter than all of us who can see the writing on the wall and there won't be a mass exodus of pilots in the next few years for all the various reasons, but the track record shows that they are simply looking at dealing with today and saying we'll deal with tomorrow... tomorrow! Not only does this suck for the guys who are getting pink slips after 15+ yrs, but what is going to happen to those of us left behind? The guys getting booted or who will be leaving, for the most part, are your line flyers who have been taking the brunt of the last 9 yrs on the road. Your fast burners will still be off at some High Flight deal or planning the Wing Change of Command or doing Habitat for Humanity... and we all know that there is no way that the Ops tempo and 179's will go down. That leaves us with the guys who can't get out because of ADSC and the guys who have 4-5 yrs left until retirement that aren't on the command track and currently flying the line who are going to once again carry the extra weight. Again, I'm not sitting in the meeting with the CSAF or the boss at AFPC when they are discussing this and therefore don't have the ever elusive "Big Picture". Those guys wearing stars on their shoulders are way smarter than this crew dawg... even with my rather impressive and extremely marketable Embry Riddle masters!!! Unfortunately they are always surrounded by a bunch of "yes men" who are either so far removed from the line (if they were ever really on it) or have just drank so much blue kool aide that they won't tell their boss what he DOESN'T want to hear. They may be brilliant and all of their town criers can yell "more with less" as loud as they want, but when you have those 5 lowly toll booth collectors and you suddenly cut it down to only two lowly toll booth collectors... you're going to cause a traffic jam that we're all going to have to sit in, no matter how brilliant you are or how many "yes men" you surround yourself with! We're in some pretty heavy traffic right now... I'm worried that we may end up in grid lock. Damn it... I knew I should have taken the train!!!

It would be fantastic if he became CSAF and pulled a Jumper saying that AADs were dumb and masked them, but it would be a huge culture change for the current management who most likely will still use it as a discriminator even if they aren't supposed to. I was working on Maj PRF's for a CC the last year that AADs were supposed to be masked and the Sq CC had his own rack and stack spreadsheet. One column was "AAD Y/N"... and guess how he had the guys ranked? They made a big dog and pony show about how the Wing CC was not going to know if they had an AAD when deciding DPs, but they went to the Group ranked 1 thru 13 and then left the OG ranked 1 thru 69. Yup, the Wing CC had no idea if they had an AAD or not... he just knew how they were being pushed by the Sq and Gp CC. I don't know how the other flying Sq CC's ranked their guys, but I know that in my Sq every guy with an AAD was ranked above every guy who didn't have one. Just remember, in just a few short years it went from the AF saying if we want you to get an AAD we'll send you to get one to not only saying you need an AAD, but judging you based on WHEN you got it! It would be nice to have it change; just don't expect the management attitude to change overnight.

Fogelman was definitely the real deal. He was a guy definitely interested in taking care of his people. Pretty impressive to see a CSAF walk away when he saw bull shit thrown around and wasn't going to be just a Yes Man! What I would give to have him back right now!!! I wonder what he thinks of our current AF management today and what changes they have made since he left? Would the #1 concern of LT's flying missions in combat be SOS in correspondence and an Embry Riddle Masters if he were CSAF anytime in the last 9 yrs? I know we sure as hell wouldn't be wearing blues! If I recall corrctly, he made BDUs and Flight Suits the uniform of the day even for AF folks at the Pentagon on his first day as Chief!

Funny you say that... USAFA did have a Marshall Scholar in 2010. Guess who else did? UTA, Maryland, U of F, Mizzou... USAFA's last Rhodes Scholar was 2008... so did grads from UTA, Univ of Oklahoma, Ohio State... And the "data" I pointed to compared all engineering programs vs. just comparing schools with undergrad programs. I didn't compare USAFA to MIT, Stanford, and USC... he did. I was just pointing out that although it does have a great engineering program, you can't really compare it to even some of the major public Universities in the U.S. that have not only Marshall and Rhodes scholars on their faculty, but Nobel prize winners, etc. I am not bashing USAFA one bit, it is a fantastic school and has a great engineering program... one that would certainly kick my ass!

Oh, I gave up on being frustrated years ago. Unfortunately its way too easy to point out stupid crap like this... just don't point it out to your boss or any "senior management" because there is a good chance that it might have been their idea!!!

I certainly don't want to pass bad info, so I stand corrected! I guess the 10% Truth Rule is universal to all services... even at The MUFF!!! As far as rationale goes, there is obviously a rationale for all the completely stupid things we do in the Air Force! There is rationale for wearing blues on Monday, wearing reflective belts when you are walking 10 ft to the shitter at the Deid at 3 am, deploying hundreds of people every year to the CAOC when 99% of what is done there could be done CONUS, deploying AF airman to be convoy drivers in the desert when some Cols are assigned personal drivers to work in Kuwait, deploying boom operators and loadmasters as "escorts" to stare at 2 TCNs who take 3 months to build a bus stop that could be done in 3 days, a Wing CC at McGuire who made people wear PT's to the Base gym or while running on Base, or kicking out 15+ yr pilots for being passed over when everyone knows the AF is going to have a big pilot shortage very soon in order to save money... yet forcing these same people to spend millions of AF budget dollars every year to get useless Masters degrees that very few will ever use for anything. That would be fantastic if IDE/SDE built "strategic thinkers", but for the most part it seems to be a big penis rub where everyone is told what fantastic leaders they are and are taught how to rationalize all that is ridiculously stupid!!!

I may be way off on this, like I said it was just word of mouth. The word of mouth came from a Marine and an Army O-6 I worked with who both said that they did go to their version of SDE, but did not go to their IDE (in-Cor instead). The reason it came up was because they were pissed that they had a bunch of AF folks working for them (deployed) and they were all so focused on SOS, ACSC, and/or Masters classes and were giving me the big WTFO? As far as they were concerned, when you were deployed then that was where 100% of your attention should be focused and to the AF guys their actual deployed job seemed to be secondary. I also have a good buddy who is an Army O-4 that is currently a 4 Star's Aide and said he did it in-Cor and is not going in Res... of course he may be the exception.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I think we need a little reality check here. USAFA is ranked the #5 in the country (behind West Point) for engineering. But read the fine print... it is #5 for schools that only offer an undergraduate degree in engineering. Obviously there is no option to get an advanced degree from any service school, but you're comparing apples to oranges because the stat you are most likely referring to only compares them to other undergrad only programs. I'm not saying that they don't have a good engineering program (they do). However, when you look at the list that compares all of the overall engineering programs at US colleges and universities the list from US News on college rankings goes from #1-129... USAFA/USNA/USMA aren't on it. What is on the list are dozens of State colleges and universities that have AFROTC programs. I don't think USAFA should be shut down by any means, but lets not speed by putting USAFA in the same sentence with MIT, Stanford, or USC... or University of Michigan, Arizona State, University of Florida, University of Texas Austin, University of Maryland, University of Massachusetts (Amherst and Lowell), University of Missouri, etc... all public schools with AFROTC Detachments that ARE in the top 100, just to name a few.

You're missing something important here... The Army and Marines (not sure about the Navy) don't send their "fast burners" to school in-Res. I don't have service stats so this is word of mouth, but I have good friends in the Army and Marines that I was deployed with who said that pretty much anyone who wants to go to school in-Res can go, but it is looked at often as someone "taking a year off from the fight". They didn't really undersatnd the AF mentality... "Why would you ever take what you consider your best leaders and take them away from leading your folks to send them to school for a year and then to a staff job for another 3 years after?" I didn't have a good answer for that other than the fact that most of the folks that they would consider actual leaders get out of the Air Force as soon as they can because they refuse to deal with the BS!

Of course... lets kick out the people who want to stay in and keep the people who want to get out. I've got a better idea, lets take the people who are pissed off and fed up with the whole program that want out and then pretend we're gonna let them out to see how much more disgruntled we can make them. Apparently morale and retention was way too high!

Another simple example: When my daughter is done doing her homework she likes to watch old cartoons like The Flintstones, she thinks they are hysterical. They think that my daughter has no business being in a school because she is a girl... and they actually ARE The Flintstones. Because they live in effing CAVES!!!!!!! I do definitely see the nepotism though... you know, like when their president is looking to have high level drug warlords run certain parts of his country and he picks his very own brother to be the highest level drug warlord in the whole country. I guess he just trusts him! Oh yeah, and we also don't stone women to death because they get raped... just another small cultural difference I guess. Sorry, ThreeHoler, I get your point and this is not a slam on you... I've just flown way too many flag draped transfer cases out of Afghanistan to say the major problem is cultural differences.

Seriously Murph, foreign policy? 99% of the country live in effing caves... CAVES!!!!! Maybe we could explain to them that we are giving them billions of dollars to build up their infrastructure. Of course since their literacy rate is 34% they don't know what a billion is anyway. We could try to explain all of this to their tribal elders who are around 40 yrs old even though they look 80... because the live in effing CAVES!!!!!!!

Does anyone know the actual numbers of folks who are being kicked out because of this? Anyone have any inside baseball as to whether or not this is the new standard? In other words, can the guys passed over this last board count on 30 Nov 12 as their last day in the Air Force? I'm guessing that Big Blue won't show their cards on this one to keep their options open.

If I don't spend another day of my life anywhere near that shit hole it will be too soon! Here is what I think we should do... Petraeus should gather all the Tribal Elders, "Gov't Officials" and even all the terrorist leaders and take them to some mountain top with a nice view of a remote valley (plenty of remote valleys in that dirt hole of a country). Then they should just set off a small scale nuke in the valley for them to look at... "Listen here you ass clowns, we're all leaving... we're all leaving now and we aren't coming back! If we hear you even say as much as a Jihad knock knock joke we're gonna turn this place into a giant bowl of glass like we should have done almost 10 yrs ago! Any questions?!?" I'm guessing a bunch of them will run across the boarder to Pakistan to let their buddies know, so hopefully word will travel fast over there! BTW... When was it that they announced the troop withdrawls from Japan, Germany, and Korea again?

The guys I know were told they would be out by 30 Nov. I don't know if that means anytime between now and then or if that is the actual date.

"bloom where you're planted", huh? I don't know if you've noticed, but not much grows in the desert ! It definitely is about making the best of your situation though and just hoping that your timing is right. A lot of that timing will also depend on who your boss is at the time. I've seen that one go both ways! I've seen Dude X who was on a fast track to nowhere suddenly become the greatest thing in the world because the new Sq CC happended to be from the same ROTC Detachment 20 yrs ago. I've also seen Dude Y who was the shit hot pilot/officer go from strated OG/Wing OPRs to nothing and get passed over a year later because for some reason the new guy just didn't like him. For the most part I've seen guys be able to accept that and be happy to just ride it out to 20 knowing that at least as a crew dog they can train the new guys to be the best pilots they can be... well, that was until last week.

Great points Chuck, but here is the $120K question... Why now? There are targeted goals of getting down to these numbers, but the AF has no idea how many folks they are going to be losing in the next year or so. I'll tell you one thing though, if the line down the street and around the corner for pilots who put in for this latest VSP train wreck was any indication then our pilot force is going to get decimated of experience (Of course the SECAF being surprised that so many pilots applied for VSP should tell you that senior management doesn't quite get it). I'd say the hundreds of pilots who were hoodwinked into applying before being told they weren't going to be considered are pretty much out the door at their first opportunity. A buddy of mine in the Res said he called the local ATP guy to get that knocked out as he is starting to put his stuff together to put in apps in the next year. The guy had to put him on a wait list because he was already pretty booked for most of the summer... mostly AD guys! Obviously nobody is going to be advertising that they are going to be jumping ship at 10 yrs, so we won't know until it actually happens, but I think Big Blue jumped the gun on this one and will have to turn around in the next 1-3 yrs and have to pay these same guys to come back. Let me just throw this out there as food for thought. I did my fraud, waste, and abuse throw away Masters research paper on the FAA raising the pilot retirement age from 60 to 65 and actually learned a lot about airline hiring. Prior to 9/11 the airlines obviously hired from two pools... military trained pilots and those who either originally went to an aviation school (Embry Riddle, South Dakota, etc) or just did it the really hard way of paying their way up through the ratings from FBO's etc. The aviation schools are really expensive since you have to pay for the actual flying on top of the normal tuition and since 9/11 there have been very few jobs out there... naturally their enrollments went way down and hasn't improved much in the past 8+ yrs. Why would you pay a lot of extra money for 4 yrs knowing there was no chance of getting a job when you graduated? So what was probably closer to a 50-50 hiring group between civilian and military is now pretty much going to be mostly military. I wasn't a math major, but this is what I see... 10 yr Maj w/ 3,000 hrs + 9 yrs of shitty deployments + good dudes getting booted at 15 yrs + Southwest hiring + Res job = Mass Exodus and a Decimated Pilot Force

The bummer of this whole mess is that everyone knows that if you get passed over twice that you can get kicked out, but when was the last time they decided to not offer continuation for not making Lt Col? They have pretty much offered it to everyone and now just stopped with no warning! I know several guys who were offered continuation through 20 as Capts! 5 yrs ago there weren't a ton of folks getting hired to fly on the outside and of course the economy wasn't the best, so the majority of these folks might have stayed in anyway. The problem now is that there are going to be plenty of flying jobs on the outside and these guys hitting 10 yrs have been getting bent over with TDYs and deployments the entire time. Just the fact alone that the airlines are going to start hiring again in significant numbers would have hit the AF pilot force pretty hard, but now Big Blue hasn't given them ANY incentive to stay. In fact, I'd say they are actually giving them an incentive to leave. The Guard and Res are going to be lucky enough to be flooded with talent because I think most people learned the biggest lesson of post 9/11 separations to fly for the airlines is to keep your day job! AD is going to be definitely hurting for experienced pilots in a few years, especially with this back door RIF. Another unintended consequence... with continuation possibly ending and a lot of folks leaving at the end of their ADSC there are going to be a lot less bodies to put in the CAOC and OEF deployments. Are 365s going to be the new norm for everyone in the AF now? Not helping the "stay in the AF" recruitment team any! AFPC also just non-vol'd anyone with 120 gates to staff this year (few exceptions). Are they going to have to turn around next year and drag those folks back to the cockpit? I'm sure many would rather go back to fly, but what a pain to have to PCS again so soon. It is easy enough to sit here and say how dumb they are for doing these things and we may very well not have the Big Picture, but Big Blue has proven one thing over and over and over again... we LOVE to repeat mistakes!!!

To protect the innocent I'll say it was an East Coastish AMC base. Stat is off by 2 though. My bud who is the Wing Exec said there were 6 guy up for the board and nobody in the OG got promoted, but there were 2 DPs that went to non-flyers (both school grads) so it was 0/4 with Ps in the OG. Not sure what the cut off criteria was, but he said all had IDE COR/AAD done and none had any bad paperwork. None were in-res school grads and only one guy had a staff tour, but considering rated staff was being manned at something like 3% for years I don't think many folks other than school grads or special program folks like interns had a chance to do staff. I know there has to be discriminators, but what are we doing to ourselves as a force? I'm sure lots of you saw the AFPC briefs on Officer career progression over the past 2 yrs. It has gone from, "You need to get your Masters" to "When did you get your Masters?" "Do IDE in Cor" to "When did you do your IDE in Cor?" Was anyone else saying WTF when the slide said that you should complete ACSC in Cor before you pin on or it will look bad? So somehow you can complete it in Cor and check the box and it is a negative on your record?!? Do we wonder why the other services laugh at some of the things we do? A few years back I had recently come back from a CAOC deployment just before the Sq was about to head out the door for a flying deployment to the Deid. We had a lot of young pilots who had never deployed and/or never been to the Deid, so since I just got back and been deployed there several times flying the Sq CC asked me to talk to the guys about it at a Roll Call and answer questions. Do you know what they were asking me? "How often do they do SOS testing out there?" "How long does it take them to grade your test so you can sign up for the next one?" "Do they have an Embry Riddle campus out there?" "Do they do tuition assistance at the Ed Center?" REALLY?!?!?!? Not a single question about flying, Ops Tempo, average flying mission! The thing is, you can't blame them! They were going on a combat deployment and their biggest concern was SOS and getting their Masters classes done because that is what we have deemed as important as a service for our officers. I personally know a couple of these guys who were passed over at said base, and while they certainly weren't trying to be CSAF by any means, they were still playing the game and checking the right boxes, etc. The AF is in a tough situation with these guys and should do the right thing by being straight forward with them, but we know that won't happen. If nothing changes for next year then these guys already know what is going to happen... unless they are in the less than 1% who gets a 1 Above DP then they know that they are going to get booted next year with over 15 yrs, maybe Nov like this round of twice passed over guys. If the AF already knows they are going to do this then they should let them walk with Sep pay now... save the $110K they would have paid them for that extra year and give them a fighting chance to save some sort of military career with a retirement. At least then they may have the chance of getting picked up by a Reserve/Guard unit at 14+ yrs as opposed to 15-16 yrs where it isn't worth it for the unit to hire them on. Unless they were prior E's or late to rate they could probably all just walk now, but then they wouldn't even have the Sep pay to show for it. I'm guessing most of these guys will be just flying the line until then with the young guys, but chances are they aren't going to be singing the praises of Big Blue to the kids. Its just a bad situation for everyone because of the way it was handled by the AF which is unfortunate and is only going to hurt unit morale which sucks. Of course we all know that a year after they pay these guys $120K to get out they are going to call all of them and offer them another $120K to come back and then probably sign another bonus!