guineapigfury

I've done electrical construction work and it's fairly involved. You've got to hire skilled dudes if you don't want them electrocuting themselves and they don't come cheap. Putting new stuff in is actually faster than tearing old stuff out and replacing it. I'm horrified at how Big Blue wastes money, but there's a pretty good chance they're getting this one right.

Multiple PT test failures. Consider gaining weight to keep things plausible. 4 Fails could be accomplished in 9 months if you take the full 90 days between retakes. There's no separation pay if you go that route.

The 11U numbers are misleading if you're considering overall RPA pilot retention. The majority of 11X pilots in the RPA communities are still 11M/B/F. Only those who recatted to 11U are going to show up in the RPA take-rate.

The DNP affects promotion, not retention. On your friend's second look, the Wing CC will indicate to the board whether or not he should be considered for retention. I believe the magic words are "fully qualified" and "not fully qualified".

Parking, credit cards? That's nice. How about a military discount on a flamethrower. Just email the good folks at XM42.com. Legal in 48 states.

I'm guessing different pots of money, plus contractors don't add to your TriCare and PCS bills. If you offer them a competitive salary, you'll reduce your turnover and therefore training costs.

In their eyes this is likely a feature and not a bug.

I have never met a single officer who went to ROTC or OTS who wished they'd gone to USAFA. I've met plenty of USAFA grads who regret not having a normal college experience.

This dude catfished himself via online homosexual harrassment and then alerts OSI? Is that what I just read? Where do we find these guys?

Sorry about the delay, heres the info from myPay.

Here's my anecdata from the last year in my current squadron: 4 evaluators and 9 instructors dropped their papers. There are plenty more lined up to follow them out the door as soon as ADSCs or enlistments are up. The 6 dudes in my Squadron going to MEBs are all pretty damn good as well, so that doesn't help. I've seen a handful of top notch dudes take the money, but for each one that does it seems like three punch and two break. I hope it's going better elsewhere.

I'll have a look at the W2 schedule on myPay tommorrow and post an update.

We're almost to the point of having to do double PRFs since we won't have the results for 2015 before 2016's are due. It's almost like they do this shit on purpose; clusterfuck as performance art.

If we go to a primarily enlisted pilot community in Global Hawks, where do we select the Global Hawk SQ/CCs and DOs from? Assuming you want to select from those with RQ-4 experience you'll be picking from a much smaller pool of candidates. You could go with the "import a random LtCol with no RPA experience" technique that has been such a catastrophe in MQ-9s.

There are other options such as writing the Do Not Promote Me letter or failing multiple PT tests. But those options are going to take time.

They had this opportunity this year; very few took it. Most of the SO's I know have no desire to crosstrain. They can take one glance to the left and gaze upon misery and resentment clad in a flightsuit and decide this isn't for them. Contractor SO pay is better than active duty pilot pay.

Because then you have to pay them officer money.

This is the opposite of what I heard on the last VML webinar I listened to (spring 2015). The gouge then was some, definitely not all, might go back "2018ish". With the ramp-up and the impending 18Xodus, I find it difficult to believe they'll let anyone go in the next few years. Where is this new info coming from?

No, but it's tax deductible.

This is excellent financial advice, after UPT you can use your flight pay to cover the divorce.

Where's that Sgt who turns in people for FB posts when you need her?

This is sadly apropos.

A leper colony can want healthy people all day long, but the other islands will always ship their lepers first.

My anecdata is that I know a couple dozen 18Xers. Once you filter out prior enlisted folks and late rates, I know exactly one who wants to stay. I'm just trying to get out before they hit us with stop loss.

Retention is bad now, bad enough for the CSAF to publicly admit his shit is in the street. We will have a better picture on the problem by late 2018 when the 18Xers start hitting the end of their ADSCs in large numbers. The data point to watch for will be dudes with approximately 7 years service. These are your dudes who joined up to specifically fly RPAs. If Big Blue can't retain them, the RPA enterprise is officially fucked. Surveys indicate we should expect retention somewhere in the neighborhood of 30%. On the plus side, there should be lucrative opportunities for contractors for the foreseeable future. On the Active Duty side of the house I expect this problem will get worse before it gets even worse.