Motofalcon

I have seen this, but also thought it was tied to the “large” vs “small” sq - for what I know, those fields have the designation (which is why you’ll see awards for “Top Small SF Sq” or “Best Large CE Sq”). So folks would be a CC of a small sq as a Maj, then go on to command a large unit sts as a LtCol. Still means multiple commands, which I would bet is a love/hate kinda thing, either you love commanding and want to keep doing it, or you hate it and are forced into it by your AFSC.

In my little corner of the viper world I haven’t seen a maj as a CC, but I have seen O5s who finish their 1-year command tour at Kunsan get asked by big blue if they would like to command a squadron again.

As proud as I am of being a proper single-seat, single-engine, single-tail fighter pilot… I can give respect where respect is due. You’ll never hear me say it out loud in a public forum or at a Flag, but I know Eagle drivers are goddamn good at their job, and I wholeheartedly hope they are my escort team lead on night 1, no matter the theatre. I am proud to be 4G4L with them - 4th Gen 4 Life!!! Happy Birthday fellas!

Actually, what he said (from the article you linked) was: "Every federal government employee will be asked to attest to their vaccination status. Anyone who does not attest or is not vaccinated will be required to mask no matter where they work, test one or two times a week to see if they've acquired Covid, socially distance, and generally will not be allowed to travel for work," So the vaccine is NOT mandatory, but if you don’t get vaccinated you will still have to mask and be tested regularly, along with no work travel/TDYs. Which is already how some bases were operating before this statement was made.

My data is about 6.9 years old, but I was able to get a full-up Masters in Mechanical Engineering through Colorado State University, 100% distance learning. They may now have an aero program? They accepted TA, AND at the time I was “attending” a generous benefactor was offering scholarships to military personnel/vets that maintained a high enough GPA; between those two programs it was 100% paid for.

Shack. His other fb post from earlier seemed worthwhile at face value, especially the phrase about not saying “our punks suck” but actually trying to find the solution to make them not suck. Sounds great, I’m on board (I mean, I’ll still tell them they suck, but also have the resources to make them better.) Then he comes to visit the viper FTU and continually pushes the 6 month syllabus, fully acknowledging that it shortchanges our wingmen and puts more of a training burden on the CAF (overall reducing our tactical ability as a fighting force), but that is overlooked because we MUST produce our way out of this shortage. When all the pieces are put together, it’s the same message that all GOs are pushing, “We value you, but not enough to pay you more, listen to your suggestions to improve, or make any large changes to your quality of life. But we will publicly say we value you! That and your sense of duty should be enough.” To me, it seems like the conversation goes like this: AF: “Please stay, Major Instructor Pilot! We need your experience and IPness! You and your millions of dollars of training are really valuable to us!” Aircrew: “Well, okay, but can you maybe fix this one thing? (Insert your instructional fix here - pay, promotion, ops tempo, etc). Because I like serving, but this one thing is making it difficult for me and/or my family.” AF: “No. Stay or go, we don’t care.” ??????

“I can’t think of a worse scenario than staying because of the money.“ Isn’t...isn’t that the point of the bonus? It’s an incentive to get people to stay who otherwise would leave? The stay/leave pro-con scales are tipped just enough and they literally stay for the money?

Speaking of stress and flying training - I’m not on the facebooks, but I recently heard of a video from either AETC or 19AF that was “selling” the new UPT program/mentality/mindset that was low/zero stress, to include the phrase “no more helmet fires!” You guys/gals seen it? I’ve heard the page is full of comments calling BS for all the same reasons above and that stress in training is important... Things like this make me think having a Facebook would be worth it, but I still haven’t pulled the trigger - Maybe it’s time...

Sorry, can’t help with the non-offering/holding back of continuation, but as far as the 5-year promotion window, I don’t think that will be a factor for a bit. I got an email from the WG/CC that says “the USAF is not implementing the 5-look window for officer promotions for at least the next two years.” Which I guess means that now you only get three looks for promotion? Your former in the zone and 1 & 2 above the zone; I’m tracking that the next O-5 board will look at 07, 06, and 05 year groups. *with the caveat that the board is not supposed to use year group/time in service/time in grade as a discriminator (ie there are no more zones, just three looks) but who knows if the board really follows that.

Well we just started a 4-8 week night phase (all dependent on student performance), so you may be in luck!

Not in the 2.69 years I’ve been at Luke, but it sounds like it worked well and I wish they would bring it back. Get a bunch of reps in a short time period, because seeing something multiple times is good, but seeing it multiple times in rapid succession is even better. This could especially be helpful for Holloman - us at Luke at least have the 161st Guard bubbas out of PHX that we can work with pretty easily (our normal AR tracks are also their local sorties). Not to say we haven’t graduated a student without them ever seeing a tanker, but it’s rare...

“...promote the general welfare...” is probably the catchall. Is it good if Americans are healthy? Yes. Is it good if Americans are wealthy? Yes. I’m not saying that everyone just gets to be rich because America is rich (a la UAE), but to me, healthcare is like the road system. We all pay for it, some people happen to use it more than others, it helps us all. Isn’t that the point of government? To help the majority of the populace?

Fingertip, yes; form landing, no. Why? Short answer (and applies to 4th and 5th gen) - Aerial refueling in the weather. Gotta fly close without killing everyone. Long answer - Fingertip isn’t used tactically, but it is a good skill to have, as I have simply rejoined my wingman to fingertip to get through a cloud layer as opposed to drag him to radar trail only to have him rejoin 6-9k’ later (when going to/from the airspace in 2+2 route or even offset container it’s a lot faster to rejoin to 1/2 and 3/4 in fingertip with 3 maintaining radar trail, rather than string the whole 4-ship out). Note: this is when the weather is good enough to depart/recover VMC but a layer is between you and the airspace. You can easily depart in trail, but to go to trail on RTB only to rejoin under the weather for initial is a lot of comm and work. They are both right answers, it’s just nice to have the option of rejoining two versus waiting for a “tied saddled” call. Also, being able to fly close in order to accomplish a BD check without scaring everyone else in the formation is desired. Finally, beyond looking good up initial (but tac arrivals at 500KCAS are also cool), being close is required when you have to do that formation approach through the weather - which is really the only time you NEED to do a form approach (but not landing).

Fingers crossed...my last acsc course finishes a week before the original board date. If it slips, maybe I can actually get “complete” on my SURF/OPB...

Also yes - we were supposedly that last fighter FTU still doing them (F-16s) and we just got rid of them (both form takeoffs and landings) because the CAF doesn’t need that skill set/hasn’t done them in years.

Sorry, I don’t have it. I simply heard about the video about 9 months ago from a friend at CBM. However, it fits the narrative my buds in the Viper community told me about her time at Kunsan.

Yeah, is this the same Wg/CC who got abysmal results on the climate survey, and then instead of holding an all call/open forum to discuss the results, made a video sitting at her desk explaining why the 14ftw personnel (and therefore survey results) were wrong?

Yes.

This is my surprised face. Then again, it doesn’t change anything at my base, because when the policy changed to allow the squadrons to take care of PT testing, Wing leadership decided to “uphold standards” by continuing to use a Fitness Assessment Cell (ie the squadrons were not allowed to administer the test, there was literally zero change from the previous procedures). Which is a roundabout way of the wing cc telling the Sq commanders “I don’t trust you or your people.”

This is very similar to the old Fighter Air Crew (FAC) year we used to take. It was about 6 different weightlifting movements (bench, lat pull downs, bicep curls, squats, leg curls, and maybe leg extensions?) all based off of your body weight (percentages like you suggest) along with another set of squats at body weight and crunches. Of course this test didn’t mean anything, but you had to pass it by the end of IFF (and then again at the beginning of the B course) or you couldn’t fly a fighter. They have since changed it and it is no longer a test but a “program” leading you to a healthy way of life (read: FW/CCs got a hard on for CrossFit), but I always thought it was BS that I had a test specifically developed for my afsc, yet still also had to pass the skinny test. This also disregards that the current test favors thin, runner types, who are also the folks who usually have the most G-tolerance problems. If I was king for a day, there would either be a test like you suggest, or the test would have 6-9 different events (pull up, push up, sit up, run, squat, bike, maybe swim, etc) - you pick 3. The standards could/should be pretty high, since different folks have different strengths and this isn’t a “one size fits all” (pun intended) so you are expected to do well in events you get to choose. Until I am shown that every human has the exact same size bone structure, any sort of size standard (be it waist, waist/neck, weight/height, BMI) is complete garbage.

We did. But when every airman/NCO/SNCO in the afe chain responds with “well sir, the AFI says...” then I give all that feedback to the oss/CC (who seemed receptive) and went on about my business. I don’t have time to 847 every damn afe reg, and since I can’t order people to use common sense, not sure what other recourse there is that is worth my time. I tried to used the CSAFs “if it doesn’t make sense, stop doing it” mantra, but good luck finding a SMSgt who will let their shop actually violate an AFI, whether it makes sense or not.

Empires, man. During the last exercise on the RoK I participated in, AFE went super-reg-Nazi mode and when we showed in the morning, we all had to individually go to afe to get issued our pistols with fake bullets, but only one person could be in the room at a time (never mind the 5 other afe personnel watching a movie, it’s “dangerous” to have more than one non-afe person in the room near some pistols, in case they snap and start shooting), and we would have to get the gun, arm it in the barrel, put it in the holster on our vests (which we had to fully put on/wear to put the gun in - couldn’t just hold the vest in one hand and put the pistol in the holster), and then give the entire vest back to afe (couldn’t just put it back in our locker where it normally lives) so they could lock it in a cage somewhere (so then we have to check it out again when we step). Reason? “Well sir we can’t have guns just laying around”. Well last I checked this entire building is locked down with armed guards checking everybody, and every single person in here is qualified to carry/use that gun. Not to mention, thousands of people carry weapons (with real bullets!) all day every day downrange. AND afe is behind its own locked door that only afe and pilots know the combo. Many reasons why guns aren’t just falling into anybody’s hands. These empires of people who blindly follow AFIs to the detriment of mission accomplishment/major a$$pain all add to the “this job isn’t worth it” column and that’s why the talent is leaving - the dudes/dudettes about to sign out a multi million dollar war machine, first have to go “report” to some A1C to begin a stupid long process for a damn M9. Infuriating. The cherry on top was during that exercise, when afe wouldn’t post flight/clean our helmets/masks between goes (because yet again, “the AFI says” they don’t have to until the end of the day) one of the afe troops was sitting on their bar-height stools watching a movie, fell asleep, and because his legs were dangling they fell asleep HARD, to the point an ambulance was called. And yes, I will gladly clean my own helmet (sts) and mask between goes (when I have time), but every time I do the afe guys look at me weird because they think I don’t know how to wipe a mask with alcohol and I might break something - I told them “if you don’t want me to do this, then YOU do it, since it’s your job anyway.” Empires.

Trip was an exemplary husband, father, and bro; a truly phenomenal fighter pilot. I can only hope to emulate him. If I may take some literary liberty, "His is a dying breed, and now that he is gone, the world is a lesser place." Blue skies, brother...

Shack.