Lord Ratner

AFPAK Hands is the only reason needed to not take the bonus. The fact they are giving it to 06 year group dudes now is probably evidence that they are losing too many people to 3/7 day opts.

I heard the plane was underwater for at least 45 minutes before reappearing on radar... #thetruthisoutthere

I call shenanigans. They are creating an entirely new aircraft from different 767 variants, but the bulkhead would have been too much? I'll bet if you factor in maintenance costs for the vastly more complicated new system, like every single other new system on the -46, it'll end up costing much much more. But who cares? It's what we have now. And since we can't afford enough of them, we'll have real boom pods for decades to come

That's interesting. The Italian and Japanese booms I spoke with and the I KC-767 universally disliked the digital boom pod.

This seems like something we've complained about here. If the numbers don't look good, redefine "good" https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/16/army-survey-morale/24897455/

Congrats! What reg did you use to prove them wrong?

Yes.

The MQ/AC/KF-5B Joint Everything Stealth Aircraft. No more pipelines, universally assignable maintainers, pilots never have to deploy, and JTACs could complete their training on an iPhone.

"2" The new bonus options prove it works. I'm not so sure this will make a huge change to the take-rate. If, hypothetically, someone who wishes to continue serving is unwilling to sign a five year contract for $25k/year, it seems unlikely they would sign an even longer contract for the same annual incentive. For most pilots in the era of the 10 year UPT commitment, taking the bonus is a proxy decision for staying until retirement. There may be exceptions, but I think for the sake of argument we can say that if a pilot takes the (5 year) bonus, they are planning on retiring. UPT + ADSC = 11-12. + Bonus ADSC = 16-17. Maybe I'm isolated, but the only guys I've seen get out with more than 16 years in were forced or TERA'd. So a pilot who doesn't take the bonus either wants to continue flying for the Air Force but isn't planning to do so for five years, or would like to retire, however wants the option to change that plan should he get a terrible assignment or 365. Why would a pilot in either of those scenarios take a longer bonus? Especially when the value of the annual bonus as a percentage of total annual income decreases as that person makes rank? Retirement is a powerful incentive the closer you get to it. Put a pilot 3 to 4 years away from retiring and most, though admittedly not all, will stick it out to get in the paycheck-of-the-month club. This new bonus squanders that advantage, and may actually do more damage to retention since it doesn't address the reasons a pilot might not take the bonus. If Jane Pilot isn't willing to take a 5-year commitment, she's not thinking about retirement as an absolute, so a 9-year commitment would be even less appealing to her. And if she's smart, she would realize that a longer bonus should be accompanied by a HIGHER annual incentive. There's a reason CDs and auto loans have higher APRs for longer terms. Instead, the Air Force should just double the bonus. 5 years at $50k/year. First it's a good chunk of change, but even better, compared to the old bonus it seems even bigger. Second, it entices the people who were worried about a 5-year extended sentence in the AF without exacerbating their main cause for skipping the bonus. Third, you get those uncommitted pilots to that fabled "final PCS" before retirement, and even after the bonus dries up most will stick it out 3-4 more years for the pension. I get that a higher annual bonus may require congressional approval, or more work of some sort, but after talking to people about why they did or didn't take the bonus, I would submit that it would be better for the AF to change nothing rather than move to 9yrs@$25k. It's been argued here that the bonus only pays people who were staying in anyways. I don't think that's true, but I do think the number of people who were unwilling to commit to 5yrs@$25k but are willing to commit to 9yrs@$25k will justify the increased cost. If for every 1 pilot you convince you pay 10 already committed pilots an extra $100k, thats an effective change of $1 million per pilot; now you're getting into the numbers people throw around when they talk about what a new pilot costs. And yes, I'm estimating that at best this bonus will convince one uncommitted pilot to commit for every 10 that were going to take the old bonus anyways. We'll see next year when the numbers are out.

Single seat

The JTR does not expect you to travel between midnight and 6am. If you have a 7 am flight at an airport two hours away, you should be entitled to travel to the airport a day early

I guess the MWS IP vs UPT IP battle hasn't raged in a while. You can't teach brand new FAIPs and recently-upgraded-to-AC-then-sent-to-UPT MWS guys what pilot training is like if you haven't been there. And no matter what anyone thinks, your memories of UPT as a student are worthless. And despite the fact that schoolhouse IPs deal with phenomenally bad pilots as well, it's just not the same. Hell, the 135 and 17 guys don't even see the new copilots until they've spent dozens of hours being taught by civilians. It's a good rule, and the IPs at PIT (who had been IPs in many other planes) seemed to agree.

I don't disagree with that at all. However, I wonder if that added perspective is more valuable than leadership experience gained through running an organization (section, flight, detachment, etc) with a varied set of subordinates. From my perspective (which is limited), many of our "broadening" opportunities are different shades of administrative work, not so much leadership exercises. As someone who does not naturally possess a leadership intuition, I don't think the pilots get nearly enough experience, especially considering they run most levels of the AF.

He's like that normally. And if you're implying you don't want to visit said farm with said pigs living on it, you sir are a liar.

Honestly, I'd love to hear some of this.

From what I understand, there are some pretty big differences between the KC-767 and KC-46. The 46 is more of a Frankenstein. Not enough to call yourself Chuck Yeager, but probably still a new plane. Ish. Also, the Italian guys I talked to hated the digital boom pod when compared to the old style, back of the plane boom pod. But, they also knew their opinion was irrelevant.

Not always true, though a savvy dealer will try to make you think that. Most times the agreed price and the financing are separate for the 0% deals. The 0% financing comes from the manufacturer, not the dealer or his partner bank, and is not affected by price since the manufacturer charged true invoice regardless of what the dealer convinced you to pay. Now, the dealer will try to keep the price higher by any means, to include implying that the low financing rate somehow merits a higher price. A skilled buyer will go into the dealer claiming he does not plan to finance, negotiate the cash price to a defined number, then ask about manufacturer 0% financing. They'll fuss, but not enough to make you leave. Again, this only works for manufacturer incentives, since their target is volume.

You're confusing revolving credit with a car loan. A 0% APR loan on a car, or computer, or vacuum cleaner is not only a real offer with no strings (most of the times), it's fairly common. You see them offered by either the manufacturer (the actual Ford corporation, not the dealer) or the retailer (Newegg.com), rather than an third-party bank. The benefit to them is that they sell the car, mattress, or computer today that you, the interest avoiding consumer, would not have bought until next month if you were paying cash. It's not much different than an infomercial offering 4 easy payments of $9.99. Less pain up front makes you more likely to buy now. Even the credit card companies, contrary to popular belief, are thrilled to have someone like gravedigger use their credit card on everything and pay it off each month for no interest. Don't forget about transaction fees; they may not be charging you, but they are charging the retailer.

You can not personally procure tickets for trans oceanic travel, or use alternative means of travel for trans oceanic. I suspect the same applies to car shipments

More like a bunch of Colonels became O-6s.

Not really. They get an inexperienced direct-to-AC who will upgrade to IP before they have the same level of systems knowledge as an experienced copilot, if they ever get to that level at all. Since the cross flow guys are immediately flagged for "grooming" jobs at the group and wing, they don't fly enough to make great IPs.

I always thought it had to do with ejection seats and flammibility

I hate those lights, but half the time I tell the boom to turn them off I have to hear about how much they help the receiver that we won't see for another 2 hours. They don't make finding a dimly lit runway off the wing very easy either.

Which light? EDIT: Azimuth, lol.

It has a pretty cool air show demo team