guineapigfury

I'd like to see the breakout by airframe. I'd bet you have RQ-4 take rates pulling up the average. I don't know any of my peers in MQ-9s who plan on taking the devil's money. I'm also curious how they factor in separations to these numbers. If dudes are pulling chocks the day their UPT expires, do they end up in that denominator? Are the only counting 11Us as RPA guys? As someone stuck in this RPA bullshit, i'm inclined to regard any "good news" about the RPA community as either propaganda or outright lies.

I watched it once out of curiousity, but the shooter wanted us to watch it. So reason to both watch and not watch it. I enjoy a good strike video as much as the next guy, but it's different when those about to die are innocent people.

The background check only catches people with past issues. So if the shooter has no criminal history and no mental health record, then the system worked properly. People are often reluctant to report friends and family for mental health issues until it's too late. Someone knew there was something wrong with the Columbine shooters, Adam Lanza, Dylan Roof, the Aurora theater shooter and on and on. Noone called the cops, that's the DFP.

I think the video was taken by the murderer. The three victims are occupied with the interview and it looks like they don't notice he's there until the shooting starts. I could be wrong and I'm not inclined to watch it again.

OTOH, using the standard USAF PT shirt saves those soon to be Lt's the cost of a PT uniform later. I share your disdain for the crappy PT uniform.

I wouldn't worry about the contractors pulling dudes away. Guys would be leaving whether those good deals are there or not. Not being a USAF RPA pilot is the cake, contractor money is the icing on that cake.

We cannot adequately man the Active Duty CAPs we have now, and all indications point to us never being able to. Putting the CAP increase on outside agencies is a rare acknowledgement of the gravity of the manning situation. Now we just need to adjust the plan for contractor CAPs from 10/90 to 90/90.

Mad Max was pretty awesome in 3d, you've missed the boat on that at this point.

I don't think the dad to be attempted to change class dates, he was shocked they wouldn't let him leave. We were in the "allowed to leave base on the weekends" phase of training, the issue was him leaving town. I have no idea if you can change dates or not.

My gouge is 9 years old, so YMMV. A dude in my flight at OTS had a pregnant wife, she was due about 3/4 of the way through. Even though he had a good plan (leave on Friday afternoon, birth on Saturday, return on Sunday) he wasn't allowed to go. So he missed the birth. Our SQ/CC at the time was a notorious douchebag, so I'm not sure if this was OTS policy or just this dude being an asshole for the sake of being an asshole. Hope you have better luck than my friend!

We'll know if that's a feasible plan when the 18Xers hit the end of their ADSCs.

If those separations are driving a crisis, then yes they should. That's what we have in RPAs right now. Clearly defined follow on assignments would help manning. If a guy shows up to an RPA squadron with 2 years of ADSC and no hope of going back, he's probably leaving at the first opportunity. If he's got a 3 year tour with a ticket back to his prior airframe, the USAF probably gets 3 years of RPA work out of him instead of 2. Or maybe he doesn't 7 day opt and the USAF gets 3 years of RPA work instead of zero.

It's generally not a waste to send a guy from RPAs to manned, because he'll stick around. The choice is often between sending a guy back to real airplanes or him separating.

Details man, you can't just leave us with nothing. They really should pull guys to the side beforehand and give them a heads up if they're getting an RPA.

DAFSC is not your core AFSC. 18A3A is what the position is coded for, this does not mean you are being recatted. If you wish to recat, you submit that request via your ADP. So unless you did that, you should still be an 11X. If you do recat, you become an 11U not an 18X.

No. Deployed commander, he got to finish his 365. He was almost relieved of command for some completely unrelated buffoonery. The only thing I could figure was that some other shit was going to hit the fan and they were keeping him around as a sacrificial lamb.

We are looking at an improvement to effective Ops manning in 2017, which will be temporary if enough 18Xers throw in the towel as their ADSCs expire in 2018. That's my prediction based on talking to the 18Xers I know. All the other suck (Midshift, boring job, assclown customers, no travel, and CONUS desert locations) isn't going away. SQ/CC quality does seem to be improving, but I'm working with a relatively small sample size. If you want to never travel and have the chance to pull the trigger, this job that offers that. I think that's a shitty trade, but there are a handful of dudes who are happy. I'm the last guy who would ever defend the steaming pile that is MQ-9 pubs, but this guy fucked away not one but both of the single line boldfaces.

Yes, 18Xers are just as miserable minus the added resentment of "I graduated UPT for this bullshit?". Shiftwork is harmful to your health (physical and mental), the mission is mind numbingly boring and unrewarding, the customers are often clueless and unprofessional, there are incredibly limited opportunities for TDYs and deployments, you have significantly reduced chances for promotion, the bases are mostly in awful locations, and many of the squadron commanders are not credible IPs. It's one thing for a Lt Col who's BTDT to ask you to push the margins a bit, it's another for an O-5 who Q3'd his checkride because he doesn't know the boldface to make the same request. 0/10, would not recommend.

MQ-9 schoolhouse is just south of Alamogordo, NM. It is a shitty location, especially if you're single. However, it does offer a normal length commute (as opposed to Creech) and a days only M-F work schedule. Quality of life is therefore significantly higher than on Ops.

Ugh, fuck autoland. Launch and Recovery is the one break guys get from the neverending suck of Ops. It's worth the manpower bill for that reason alone.

On the bright side: you will sleep in your own bed at night (and day when you're on mids), your peers are good people, killing the enemy is fun, and you'll get out of your UPT ADSC early when you get passed over for Major.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news: expect to be stuck in RPAs for the indefinite future. The RPA spring VML webinar said they would not even start thinking of sending dudes back until 2018ish. RPAs are a shitty life and things are going to get worse before they get better. If (and it's a huge if) the 2016 manning surge works, they may be willing to release guys back to real airplanes. The bad news is that 2018 is when the initial batches of 18Xers see their ADSCs expire and I expect a significant majority to separate, reducing RPA manning even further.

There is a significant increase in RPA FTU instructor manning happening right now. Will they be ready when the influx of students hits? Maybe. Will there be enough instructors in Ops squadrons to teach MQT to the new guys? Maybe. It's going to be a rough 2016 & 2017. On the plus side, this new wave of dudes should hit their first squadrons about 12-18 months before the first batches of 18Xers reach the end of their ADSCs. So there is a chance that increased manning may improve QOL enough to convince them to stay. But I doubt it.

Misread your intent, my fault.

Laugh all you want, but I've never seen as many perma-DNIF folks as I have in RPAs. I can count on one hand (and have a thumb left over) how many line flyers* I know who have done back to back ops tours without having some sort of major medical issue. *Does not include daywalkers.