Rusty Pipes

The problem is that you cannot effect change at a Squadron or even at a Wing Level. I applaud Liquid if he says that he ranked his Capt #1 because he was great at his job even though he didn't have SOS and/or his AAD. It works out great for that one guy, but if only one Wing CC is willing to do something like that then it really doesn't do anything. In fact it can actually hurt his people because like someone said earlier, he can say don't bother getting your AAD and then when the next Wing CC has the opposite view you are screwed. I've got some good buds who are currently Sq CCs... some are 2 BPZ Intern types, others were IPZ dudes who went to School as candidates. They can fight the good fight all they want (and they do), but if you don't have several 4 Stars (including the CSAF) buying off on it then it doesn't really matter in the long run. The peak of frustration comes when you hear the majority of these guys say, "I know it is stupid, but just check the box so that... X,Y,Z".

Sarcasm detector INOP. I have several buds who signed up for the Bonus already... every one of them is in the middle of a PCS to School. I don't know anyone that I have talked to yet that has signed that isn't a School guy. So, with the half dozen or so that I can speak about, the AF has essentially paid $125K to a bunch of guys who had every intention of staying in the AF anyway. On the other hand, I know at least twice as many (mostly 11M and a few 11F and RPA types) who have said there is NFW they are signing and either recently dropped papers or are waiting to get orders to drop papers. It will be interesting to see the take rates, but you know they will NEVER break out how many guys sign that are going to School. You can bet anything on the fact that if the take rate is low that they will blame it on the fact that it was released so late. I'm sure they would have got a few more if it was released last Fall like it should have been, but in reality it will just be upper management burying their heads in the sand and not admitting they actually have a problem.

Were those mostly submitted at the MPF on the outbound PCS or did most just wait until they got to Maxwell to put their paperwork in?

That was the actual AFPC stoplight chart. I remember the first year it was briefed I was driving back to the office with the OG/CC and he asked what I thought of the brief. I told him that the Wing Commander just briefed every one of his Officers on his Base that not only is box checking more important than being good at your job, but we will essentially select our future Commanders when they are Lieutenants because if you don't start checking the boxes as an LT then its too late. He said, "I 100% agree with everything you just said." But guess what... that same OG/CC still had every O-3 with an AAD ranked higher than every O-3 without one in his PRF rack and stack from the OG (and there were several shit bag box checkers in that group). I even called him out on it when we were shooting the shit in his office (awesome guy that liked to hear blunt opinions from his staff) and the depressing thing was that he said he knew it was BS, but when the Wing CC briefs the whole Wing that not only are they looking to see if your AAD is done but also when you did it that his rack and stack didn't really mean much either way.

I don't know you or your record as a Commander, but you should probably fill in the rest of the Commanders as to what the "reality" is then. I was a Wing Exec and Group Exec during several O-4 boards over the past few years and even had my Sq CC show me his rack and stack of guys up for the O-4 board as a Flight Commander when the AAD was still masked. They all had one thing in common... whether the number was 10, 20 or 30 folks up for the Board I did not see a single example of a guy who didn't have an AAD ranked above one who did (other than the ocassional guy with an Article 15). I saw multiple 3000 hr EPs (quite impressive for a Capt) who were TDY 300+ days in a year not get DPs while the guy who was dodging missions left and right got a DP because he had his Toro AAD. Granted these guys got promoted, but they sure weren't school selects and were all pretty pissed with the "P" on the PRF. So I guess when we are talking about reality it doesn't really matter what the gray zone reality of the Board is when they are rubber stamping DP PRFs that were determined on a box checked instead of actual professional performance. For two years in a row at my last Base we had the Wing CC give us the AFPC "Officer" briefing and on the slides it straight up said that not only are they looking at if you had your AAD and PME done is correspondence, but they were looking at when you had it done. In fact for ACSC they said that if it wasn't done in correspondence within a year of you pinning on O-4 that it would hurt you! So apparently completing your PME can apparently be a bad thing. I'm not making this up... this was actually part of the official briefing. I would seriously like to hear your answer as to how this makes sense? Does the AF want leaders or managers? Because as of right now I'm not seeing many leaders from the O-6 and above group with the exception of a very few... the rest seem like clones of each other who were promoted in the image of their boss.

Those ATC guys did a great job! Kudos to the SFO Tower folks this afternoon... true professionals!

Ummmm... I wasn't exaggerating from my earlier post. Worked with an O-6 who sat on both O-4/O-5 boards and could not identify an F-22, F-35, C-17 or a C-5 from a picture. Even scarier was the fact that she worked in a leadership position in the Acquisitions field that was in charge of all of those MWS contracts! Granted I surely don't know any of the acronyms in the Finance world, but then again I'm not an O-6 sitting on a promotion board of the U.S. Finance Force either!

I'm most certainly not a senior leader and most of those in senior leadership positions (3-4 Stars) that I have heard speak in the last few years tend to acknowledge the questions about Airlines hiring, AADs, pointless deployments (Ummm... CAOC anyone?), but as far as their plans go they always seem to dodge the questions. So my prediction is they will handle it in true Big Blue fashion by just ignore the problem until they have to react to it... which will be WAAAAAY too late for them to do anything about it.

I hope this is a joke... and my sarcasm detector is inop after drinking all week!

I think you might be giving these ass hats too much credit by suggesting they are Navs. As far as strats go and getting perspective from folks who have sat on boards (O-4/O-5), I was talking to an O-6 in my office who is a contracting officer and that perspective was horrifying! It wasn't the board itself, it was the cluelessness of some who sit on these boards (including this particular O-6). She said all #1 strats are the same and that was what she was looking for. I asked her if the #1 CGO in an Operations Group was the same as the #1 CGO in a MX group... she said yes (even though an OG at some bases has 300+ CGOs and the same MX Gp at the same base probably has 15-20 CGOs). I asked her if the #1 FGO at Nellis, Charleston or Shaw was the same as the #1 FGO at Warner Robbins... she said absolutely and was quite adamant about it. She then asked me why it should make a difference and asked me if I was saying that F-22 pilots are any better than UAV pilots? "A pilot is a pilot... what is the difference?" Ummmm... I happened to be sitting at my desk and pulled up the AF webpage to the images section. She could not identify an F-22, F-35, C-17 or a C-5... she is an O-6 Group Commander level officer and went 0-4 in identifying these jets, yet she is the one deciding who makes the next grade! I guess it is this scary promotion system that lets people like her continue up the chain, but I can honestly say that easily on a daily basis I would see some of the things she would do and say to myself, "How the hell did she ever make O-6?!?" The really scary part is that she got "promoted" to a higher job and her replacement O-6 is just as clueless!

Oh, Airman Chang... so sorry if I hurt your feelings! I'm guessing you aren't used to people challenging you on anything and I'm guessing you aren't used to being talked to like that. Like Recut said earlier, pretty pathetic that some on here felt the need to kiss your ass because of who some anonymous avatar claims they are... that just isn't me; on here or in person. I don't care if you are an E-3 or an O-7... if your idea is stupid I'll tell you it is stupid; needless to say I will never be a General, but everyone from the young Airman to the Wing King knows that if they ask me what I think about something they will get a straight answer. You had some good points and some informative info from an A1/numbers perspective, but when the Power Point slides are done and the pie charts tell the boss what you want him to hear there is always one thing left out of the equation... the real story from the guys who are actually living it day in and day out. If you discount what those at the Squadron level are saying or even worse, don't even ask... you will get it wrong 100% of the time. You might not like what they have to say or the tone they use to tell you, but the bottom line is that they are your target audience in many cases. This is one of those cases. I will leave you with this Chang... People can talk all day long on here about the impending hiring boom from Major airlines in the next 2-3 years and the theory about a mass pilot exodus because of it. 2 yrs ago when the VSP opportunity came out there was talk about the airline thing, but it was at best 4-5 years away. Look at the amount of pilots who were still lined up asking to get out! As an A1 type or as a GO looking at those numbers it should have set off all sorts of bells and whistles about the state of mind of our rated force... Just throwing money at them and telling them they are lucky to be here might not be the best way to go. Just Rusty Pipes' 2 cents...

I'm not saying that there aren't some folks who wouldn't mind going to GF to take a UAV... having 2-3 IP/EP types 7 day opt to find that guy isn't the best way to do that though. You also can't tell a guy who finally made it to NASCAR that you'll offer him a remote control toy car and then tell him he is lucky to have it. That is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the thought process of your typical pilot and it isn't a solution to the real problem. I am not saying that the UMD is short manned or misaligned... I'm saying it is short manned or misaligned for what units are being tasked for. If a Sq is manned at 100%, but that gives them the capability to have 10 crews on the road at a time and they are constantly tasked to have 13-15 crews on the road then telling us that we are manned at 100% doesn't mean shit! Add to that the taskings that these units don't get credit for such as alerts, etc and we get into the mess we are in now. The frustration comes from someone using numbers that are in reality fictional and then lecturing those who are living the reality about how they should just shut up and color or get out because we'll be better off without you. Especially when that lecture is coming from someone who not only isn't currently living it themselves, but has never lived it. I can read 1,000 books about the Coliseum in Rome and fighting the lions... but it doesn't make me a Gladiator.

First off... -852 lame points for "liking" your own post! Your Grand Forks suggestion has to be one of your stupidest suggestions to date and shows that you have zero clue as to how a pilot thinks. You take a guy who probably wanted to be a pilot since he was 5 yrs old, worked his ass off through high school to pay for flying lessons to get his PPL (that would be private pilots license for you A1 number crunchers), spent a year of his life working his ass off in UPT with the hopes of selecting the aircraft that he wants to fly (signing a 10 yr ADSC to fly it), spends anywhere from 200-300 days a year on the road because geniuses like you can tell him his Squadron is overmanned with pilots and even cuts those manning numbers... and when the guys tell you that the theory vs the reality of your numbers is wrong... "Well you could just move to Grand Forks and fly a remote control airplane instead!" Then you are actually clueless enough to say that 1) these guys think this is a good deal and 2) there are people in this or any community that are lining up to take your offer... and should be grateful with hat in hand for your fantastic opportunity. My complaint about the bonus is that the attitude of number crunching non-pilot ass hats in San Antonio and DC is that if we throw money at the problem it will go away and you base this thought on irrelevant "historical data" without for even a second looking more than one assignment cycle into the future or looking at external factors. This mindset in the corporate world would get all of you fired on a daily basis... including the GOs! As far as me being 100% about myself and being jaded? Tell me something... How is the view from the cheap seats??? You come on here and manage to dodge every question about stats that come your way from anywhere other than your soda straw A1 fabricated numbers about Squadrons and manning... you glorify the insane "advancement by box checking" process (one that you are clearly a product of) while ignoring the 99% of those on here saying that there is no actual leadership in leadership positions and tell anyone who disagrees with your ideas that they should do us all a favor and just quit... you look at the VSP disaster from a few years ago and the conclusion you draw is that the AF should have just come out and admitted they screwed up, but completely ignore the fact and reality that the overwhelming majority of all who applied for VSP were pilots! Yeah, I'll bet traffic in DC is a real bitch and the Metro in the summer gets pretty uncomfortable on your way home to the wife and kids. Let me suggest this to you... for the enlightenment of all of us jaded pilots who only care about themselves, why don't you tell all of us your background? Let us know how well you relate to us and that you share our experiences over the past 11+ years since 9/11. Unless those experiences involve spending 200+ days on the road every year in some shit hole that ends in Stan or in Iraq, endless stories from buds hoping their leave doesn't get cancelled so they can go visit their kids who just moved 1000 miles away with the ex-wife because we are "surging" again, or the feeling of nausea every time the phone rings and the caller ID says "######ing Sq Scheduler" because you know you'll need to explain to your kids why Daddy has to go away again... If you can't relate to that then before you tell someone who has lived that for the past 11+ years they should remember "service before self" maybe you should take a step back and take the opportunity to just STFU! Guess what Chang... we aren't all warriors no matter what they told you during what sounds like years that you spent sitting in Polifka or at some Commanders Call on a Staff tour! Every last one of us here in this forum is proud to put on a uniform each day to serve our country and is more than willing to strap into the seat and crank the engines at a moments notice... no matter what is waiting to greet us at our destination! We will miss the birthdays, anniversaries, Holidays, baseball games, dance recitals and first steps because that is what we signed up to do. What we don't need is some ass clown who sits in a cubical and runs selective numbers to tell us that, even though he doesn't do it himself, that we should be "grateful" to be doing it and if we don't like it we can just leave. So before you give anyone else the lecture on here about being selfish and jaded, please let us all know how many combat hours you have logged and how many years you sat at the scheduling desk at McChord, McConnell or Shaw during our great period of "overmanned pilots"! Otherwise... go troll somewhere else.

Champ beat me to it, but Chang... you have absolutely no sense of reality whatsoever! If you think for a second that any Squadron is getting even half use out of any pilot working at the Group or Wing then may I suggest you take a trip to any C-17 Base and have a 10 minute conversation with the young LT scheduler and ask them how often the Gp or Wing Exec flies... or anyone not in the Sq that is on loan or attached for that matter. You do have a nice choice of words though... C-17s have enough pilots to do the mission they SHOULD be doing. Take a step out of your cubical and see what C-17s have been tasked at for the past 11 years. Way over what their manning is set at...

It is this mentality that shows the crew force that people like you are completely clueless about how to actually lead and take care of their people... seeing them as nothing more than just a number and that their service means shit. Big Blue does not give a shit about you and your family... we are reminded of that daily. I noticed you completely ignored the previous post asking you to look at the numbers from the major Airlines as I'm sure the rest of A1 is doing and provide stats of your own to refute them. Good move... that head in the sand attitude should serve the Air Force well in the next few years to come. Don't worry though... I'm sure someone like you will suggest we throw money at the problem. Your claim that throwing money at the problem via a bonus has historically worked and A1 types feel comfortable with that. Tell me something... what were the options 5 yrs ago for a 33 yr old pilot Major who just hit his ADSC?

Wow, brilliant analysis there Chang!!! So what you are saying is that if young pilots start seeing guys who have 18 yrs in getting shown the door with nothing but about $100,000 in separation pay that they may be CONCERNED the AF is being disingenuous??? I really hope this type of utterly clueless understanding of our crew force mentality isn't common with the people in A1 who are anywhere near this decision process. If Big Blue started cutting guys between 16-18 years the only guys you will get to stay 1 day past their ADSC are the morons who are so out of touch with reality that they think this is actually a good idea.

So the numbers make sense to both the Army and Navy, but don't make sense to the AF? Still trying to make sense out of the thought process that says we don't need to offer a bonus to guys (esp 11Ms) past 16 yrs (logical actually) because they know they will stay to 20, but in the same breath say that we are overmanned and have a "glut" of FGOs that they are trying to get rid of. So maybe I'm just a dumb pilot and don't get math, but if you take that same guy and pay him $120,000 for the next 4 yrs and then have him retire at 20 yrs, using 50% of base pay top 3 ($7000) $42,000 for 33 years comes to $1.4million in retirement alone... plus the $480,000. How does this work out better for the tax payer? I'm pretty hung over, so please excuse me if my brain isn't working and I'm missing something here (very possible).

Wait, but you've heard Chang... we apparently have more 11M FGOs than we know what to do with, right? Just go to all of those C-17 Sqs and you'll just see the halls filled with FGO pilots just sitting around wondering what they will do with all of their free time! Just sooooo incredibly overmanned, remember?!? Yeah, we've heard this same tune being played for the past 6-7 yrs... especially after OIF ended. Biggest misconception in the AF and looks like even those in the puzzle palace are starting to believe themselves on this one. Airlift is very simple... we are going to Airlift the top 5% of cargo no matter where it is or where it is going. Yesterday it may have been MRAPs to Iraq, today it could be retrograding equipment from OEF, tomorrow it may be ping pong balls to Mongolia. The amount of Airlift we do will not change, just what we are carrying! POTUS will most surely be touting how OEF is over/winding down and how things will be slowing down for our military (especially during the 2014 mid term campaign)... and a dozen C-17s will be flying around the country daily filled with limos, Secret Service, HMX 1 helos and equipment so he can prove how things are slowing down, right? (Caveat... not too many C-17 bubbas will complain about doing this as opposed to being anywhere in Crapistan; just saying that the MAF world will always be busy, especially the C-17 community).

Hey Chang... you say we don't need all of those 15-20 year Maj and Lt Cols (esp 11Ms)? Lets do a little force shaping with an early retirement offer. Think of all the money the AF would be saving by not having to pay these guys $120K for the next few years and only need to pay 40-45% retirement instead of 50%. You say they would be doing all of us a favor by just shutting up and just retiring at 20... thanks for your service, right? You thought the line was long for pilots applying for VSP???

I think the part that you are missing the boat on is talking about it from just a numbers perspective and constantly saying to take emotions out of it. Those 15-20 year guys are the leaders of your Squadrons. I assure you that very few young to mid-level pilots are looking towards their golden boy 2 BPZ Squadron Commander for leadership and mentorship. In fact the incessant Blue Kool Aid rants about all being warriors and continious badgering about AADs, SOS in Cor etc (shit most of them don't believe in themselves) means that your average young pup has already tuned them out within about the first year of flying the line. Sure they will pretend they are listening, but unfortunately they now learn even as LTs that they are just playing a game. These guys aren't inspiring anyone for the most part... neither are their OGs or CVs or Wing CCs; mostly because they are all essentially clones of each other. When it comes to actual leadership in the AF today the majority of those in what are considered leadership positions (Sq CC on up to GOs) couldn't lead a bowling ball down a hill... and even most bowling balls wouldn't be willing to follow if they had a choice! What is missing is that with this group of guys (15-20 yrs) the AF probably SHOULD consider the emotional aspect of it. Just look at the tone of this group today compared to just 10-12 years ago. Back then all you would hear from these guys to the young kids was, "Dude this is awesome... we actually get paid to fly jets for a living!" In fact I remember back then even having Commanders that (God forbid) were even slightly inspiring! Just look at this forum as an example... the majority of those guys in this thread alone in that demographic are mostly saying the same thing, "I'm just sitting back and counting the days until 20." It is the queep from above and the constant focus on the irrelevant that has changed this attitude from the gray beards between then and now... and that attitude spreads like a virus. Now when cruising across the pond for 7 hrs at 3 am and the senior Capt who is picking the brain of that guy 18 yrs in, the advice more often than not given will be, "Hey dude, I'm here because I have to be... if I were you I'd be pulling chalks and joining the Guard/Res ASAP! In case you haven't figured it out yet, Big Blue does not give a shit about you or your family... you are just a number!" The 8-10 yr guys listen to those 15-20 year guys... they watch very closely how they are treated because the very question they have to themselves is, "Do I want to be him 5 yrs from now?" They haven't been treated very well lately and if you ask any C-17 Sq or OG CC (and I have several good friends who are currently sitting in those jobs) they will tell you they are concerned about the number of experienced guys who have recently been jumping ship as soon as that ADSC is up.

Seriously dude??? You pretty much just lost all credibility with every crew dawg in this forum. Retention numbers??? When airlines aren't hiring and the economy sucks of course retention is going to be high. You don't need an MBA from Toro or an ACSC Masters to figure that one out! Don't think for a second that the retention is any higher today because of brilliant and inspiring leadership from above. Grateful??? Gratitude??? We'd better get those Thunderbirds back up in the air because if this is the retention/recruiting message from our managers at the Pentagon we're in a lot of trouble.

So I guess Chang isn't a pilot then, huh?

Ummmm... got it; so box checking at specific gates to attain a completely useless AAD at taxpayer expense equates directly to getting promoted early and O-6! It also seems that you equate the Masters degree from IDE to being even more useless than the ERAU Masters he got in the box checking process. If you say that being selected for IDE guarantees both a Masters and PME then how do you justify the all but unwritten requirement to have both completed before then? You said yourself that in order to progress past O-5 you need both done prior to IDE. In times of massive budget cuts, sequestration and furloughs I'd love to hear from the perspective of someone more senior than 95% of the guys in this forum and sitting up at the Pentagon how you justify that expense for the sake of box checking? Serious question! There are very few people on here that have heard a valid reason from AF leaders for us to continue funding diploma factories. Do you have one? In fact I'd venture to say that there is a vast majority of folks here who got the same talk from their bosses that I did, "I know it is stupid, but just knock it out to check the box so you don't close any doors." I've heard the "educated force" reasoning countless times from GOs, but I can say without exaggerating at all that my AAD "education" was probably the equivalent of high school level academics. The really scary thing is that even though you will get a large percent of officers ranging from O-1 to even O-10 (reference Gen Jumper) including almost every Sq CC and OG CC I've had in the past 10 yrs who thinks this is either a useless requirement or a distraction, but when Maul complains about it your reaction to him not falling in line is, "...do us all a favor and leave at the 20 year mark. Thanks for your service." One of my past DOs is an O-7 now and a few months ago he was telling me about how much of a colossal waste of time and money he thinks AADs from online schools for box checking are for our officer corps... should he have done us all a favor and left at the 20 year mark too???

You know what else gets annoying... "leaders" at the Pentagon telling the guys who are trying to actually do the job how "misguided and wrong" they are. I like to hear the perspective from guys like Chang, but when I see statements talking about all the guys at the Pentagon making these decisions saying they have been in the field for the past 12 years, well it just isn't true. For example... a recent Sq CC of mine was a 2 BPZ guy who went from a first tour pilot in one MWS to early staff to Intern (real Masters paid for by big blue BTW) to a qual in my MWS (about 18 months on station and managed to become an IP in that time after only being an AC in his first MWS... hmmmm) before shipping off to SAASS followed by another staff tour at the Pentagon for 2-3 yrs and then straight to being a flying Sq CC. No doubt a sharp guy, but don't tell me that this guys has been in the fight for the past 12 years... he hasn't! Was he smart... yup! Was he a leader... not even close! Less than 2 yrs on station and off he went. Don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy and a good manager of the Squadron... but if I had to list in order all the pilots in the Sq I'd want to fly into combat with he would have been in the bottom 25% for sure. If I were a betting man I'd say that a lot of the guys at the Pentagon that Chang is talking about who are making these decisions and running these numbers have similar resumes as the Sq CC I was talking about... in fact he is actually one of them right now (again). We certainly need guys like that, but being smart and knowing doctrine really well doesn't mean you "get it". Like I said in a previous post... guys like that a who were those super fast burners a few years ago were the ones who made the decisions that put us in the situation we are in now. I'll bet they thought they had it right back then too...

You're joking, right? 11F/11M/11X... there is simply no way you can compare the skill set of a FAIP to that of a first assignment RPA type (and before you ask... no, I was not a FAIP). Flying a T-37, T-6, T-1 or T-38 with kids who are trying to kill them on a daily basis and actually turning them from nothing into an actual pilot may not give them the 3-1 knowledge, but I can lock them in a vault for a month to give them that. I can't fly an RPA guy for a month straight and give them 3-4 yrs of hands on flying experience. I think if you rephrase your question then the answer is obvious to any MWS IP... "Would you rather fly with a new guy who flew a T-38 or T-1 for about 6 months four years ago and can quote tactics pretty well or a guy who spent the past 4 yrs flying a T-38 or T-1 who has over 1,000 IP hours and you can teach tactics?" Sorry for the minor thread derail, but first assignment RPA guys to 11XYZ does not solve the problem of losing experience in the CAF/MAF world... and neither does a 5 to 9 yr bonus.