guineapigfury

The other side of the coin is that otherwise good dudes start to go off track once they get sold down the river to RPAs. It's a constant struggle to not give in to apathy in the RPA business. Things guys would never do out of concern for their career (on and off duty) gradually become acceptable risks because that future career looks blighted and the only rank you aspire to be promoted to is "Mr".

At OAKN, most guys just buy 1 for 20 dollars on the boardwalk.

Three cheers for the parachute shop!

Sadly, this needs to be taken into consideration.

I saw people wash out of ASBC, stupidity has no floor other than rock bottom.

I currently work with a few of these, and the difference there is that the standard is retiring as a Captain and they will let their pilots focus solely on flying if that's what they want.

That's the one I was thinking of. Thanks for helping the new guys, my life would have been much easier if someone had done the same thing for me.

I suspect he uses multiples in a particular game and gives them away as mementos to who he played with. Sort of like how a president will use multiple pens to sign an important piece of legislation, then distribute them to people who were involved in passing that legislation. Or they might be dodgeballs to be used in a game between the POTUS Allstars vs Average Joes, televised on ESPN8 ... the Ocho.

This is a retention issue, not a fairness one. The military encourages you to get married. Guys get married. Now that they have the added responsibilites that come with a wife and kids they are less likely to leave the service for the unknown of the civilian world. Now the military gets to pick who it wants to keep rather than being to stuck with those who stay. Crafty.

Let me guess, they sent an email to your old email address after you PCSed. I've had that one happen. The talent level in most Finance shops is too low to handle the level of power they have. No money should ever be deducted from a servicemember's paycheck without the member's consent or Squadron Commander's approval. Your Squadron CC, not the Finance CC. Zero dollar fix that could be implemented tomorrow.

Students sharing lodging on cross countries was the standard when I went through UPT in 2007-2008. Be glad that there is still TDY at all and that they aren't issuing you MREs instead of paying you per diem. You sometimes share rooms on real world TDYs, so I don't see what the big deal is. Also, if students are whining about this, they need to have their attitudes recalibrated.

C130 Driver, sounds like you'll be fine. Chairfly, study, and MAKE SURE YOU GET ENOUGH SLEEP. Chairfly means sitting in a chair and going through the entire sorty. Say every radio call, get one of those giant T-6 cockpit printouts and touch every switch at the right point in the checklist. When you get to a maneuver whether it be a loop or pulling closed in the pattern, recite the parameters to yourself. Study: Know the boldface and ops limits cold before you start academics and you'll be ahead of the game. Once you get that giant stack of pubs, put together the In Flight Guide and then memorize the VFR pattern for both runways and the auxiliary airfield. The first part of your training is very landing pattern centered. I forget the title of the pub, but there is one with all the parameters for everything and techniques as well. This book is your friend. Always take notes during debrief. It shows respect to the IP, and white paper remembers better than gray matter (especially after your second event of the day). It always shocked me to see guys sitting there in front of the desk with nothing to write on. You'll learn less and look like a jackass, so don't be that guy. According to our base historian, the washout rate for UPT has held steady at around 6%. My class of about 30 lost 3, which was a little high. 1 Medical DQ not related to flying and 1 each in T-6s and T-1s for not being able to land the airplane. So stay in that top 94% and you'll probably be fine. Good luck.

If someone has info on this that's better than RUMINT, I hope they're passing it to the appropriate authorities. I think watching a few guys with chickens or stars on their shoulders PCS to Leavenworth while incurring a 20 year ADSC would set a useful example to their peers.

I had a sim instructor at Vance who crawled away from one.

There are probably several male tambourine players, flautists and jazz dancers stampeding, or at least sashaying rapidly, in your general direction leaving behind them only a Roadrunner style cartoon dust cloud and tell-tale trail of sequins. Be careful what you wish for, even if it is legal now.

Good. Servicemembers should get that sort of stuff from the internet, like normal people.

I'm a deployed UAV pilot, flew KC-135s and MC-12s formerly, take my advice for what you will. 1. UAV training is shorter than pilot training, but not by too much (I can't speak for Global Hawks). Use the search function. Length of training should not drive this decision. All of the UPT locations suck, as does Alamogordo where MQ-1 and MQ-9 IQT takes place. Call that a wash. You can wash out of both, so bring your A game wherever you go. 2. Expect going the UAV-direct route to close the door to flying manned aircraft. The majority of UAV pilots right now are guys forced into UAVs sometime at after graduating UPT. The vast majority of them want to return to flying manned aircraft. All of them would be in line in front of you. Retention and morale are grievous issues in this community, which is why the 18X career field exists. However, those few people in this community who are happy are the ones who chose it in order to be home with the wife and kids. Your family situation, your call. Understand that just because you aren't on the road doesn't mean you will be at home. 60-80 hour weeks are normal. 3. There are several active duty bases for 1s and 9s: Off the top of my head: Creech, Cannon, Holloman (FTU), Ellsworth (9s only) and Whiteman (1s only). Global Hawks are Grand Forks and Beale, IIRC. There are also Guard/Reserve units in various locations. Google works for you as well as it works for me, so I'll let you figure it out from here. 4. This is what you should probably give the most consideration. The USAF is more family friendly than the USMC, but this is a difference in degree, not in kind. On base housing is nicer, that's about it. You are a number on a spreadsheet somewhere and Big Blue gives exactly zero fucks about your family. The military is the military, and we're at war (or at least "at counterinsurgency"), so expect that shit to be your priority. You can expect to deploy. Reread the first five words of this post. Also, the LRE trends young for two reasons. First, as a brand new Lt in a flying squadron, you're at the front of the line for any task the Capts and Majs in your squadron would prefer not to do. Most of them have deployed already, so guess what you're going to do. Second, instructors are in short supply (ref that sentence about retention and morale), so they can't be spared for the LRE since so many noobs need training. Relocating is a wash. You can moved with next to no-notice in any community. Finally, I'll be blunt here: your wife doesn't seem like she'll be happy as a military wife. If she isn't happy, you probably won't be either. You know her better than anyone, so again, your call. Also, Threeholer, Nunya and Matmacwc are giving you excellent advice.

75% of the officers in my MQ-9 squadron agree with this statement.

Agreed; if you're leaving anything on the table, you're wrong.

FTFY. I've been in 7 years and I've marched in formation exactly zero times since OTS. I've stood in a formation maybe three times, two of those being unit pictures.

That llama was the shit.

Looking at PRFs is probably a good idea, but do enough guys have Q2s and Q3s for this to be a useful discriminator? I've been in 7 years and I know about 6 guys with Q3s. Half of those were good to excellent pilots (including one patchwearer). My other concern here is that there is no similar event to a checkride with which to evaluate MSG types.

In addition to that, I always assumed OPR/EPRs were inflated so people who separated would still have something shiny to show possible employers when they're looking for a job. Below average guys get to walk out the door with prospects intact, promotion boards can read between the lines for what they're actually looking for. I think it's the same way with PCS medals. Big Blue gets to do something strat like for $0.69 of ribbon and tin, and if a guy gets the "wrong" medal the civilian HR guy with no military experience thinks "WOW! This guy has 3 Air Force Achievement Medals!"

Smart man. Good luck with UPT.

Concur with Noonin and Ravens52. You won't have time to take care of the dog during UPT. You won't be able to go home during the day to walk him on your lunch break, so after a long day of flying, stand-up and studying you get to come home every day to a pile of shit on the floor. It isn't fair to you or the dog. Further, if you do show up single with a dog expect to be forced into the dorms where you can't keep the dog. Dogs are awesome, but this is the wrong time in your life to get one.