Fuzz

It's okay. At least their augmenting pilot will be a 200hr copilot. I'm sure they'll be fine in the seat together while the going AC takes a nap at cruise... We had to kick back a mission because the only people available was an IP and two less than 200 hr copilots. The IP brought this up and we turned down the mission.

It's not great right now as it is, we are thin all around but we are really missing experienced IPs. The few that are left from the RIFs/VSPs or those that bailed for Airlines are heading to staff/school and the year groups behind those have been decimated by years of Non-vols.

He’s already said they’ve been ordered by 19th AF proceed on this idea. Also he readily admits the only people “involved” was “200 UPT IPs”, OG/CCs, AETC staff, Altus and IFF, no reach out to Ops units or even FTUs as a whole. Also he’s at 500+ comments and counting, most of which are telling him it’s a horrible idea.

We have 3 GS Civilians now, one SARM, one Support (Handles all our programs like Sec. Manager, AT, etc) and a UDM. They have made a world of difference being able to offload all sorts of programs that require continuity on.

I can completely see the AF boning this up, their track record with personnel management is in line with something like this.

I didnt even notice that, finance had zero clue and could only answer with "our system says this rate so thats what we pay you", makes me wonder why we are paying an E-7 to regurgitate what a computer shows him with zero critical thinking.

Anyone else notice the new 2018 pay tables published by DFAS? Bigger raise than the August announcement and theres no longer a seperate pay table for the enlisted flyers. I asked my finance about the changes and they less helpful than if I hadnt even bothered to ask them the question.

He has 2 DFCs, should have bought him a drink a heard some good stories.

Concur we are seeing a downward trend of the quality of new pilots, historically some variation of the bell curve has applied and is manageable. However, that middle ground is slowly disappearing and weighting heavily towards the lower end of the spectrum.

They brief this incident in our annual CRM refresher class, the look on every face of the 15 or so pilots from new copilots to EPs was nothiing short of disbelief. Ive read a lot of safety reports where crews made a bad decisions in a time critical situation and I will withhold criticism because I could easily find myself in a similar situation anytime I step. However this crew was in literally no hurry and neglected pilot 101 shit that every qualified crewmember knows.

10% rule applies especially given the source but wouldnt surprise me.

If we didnt have to keep waiving NMR for a couple of weeks at the end of the semi for the 2nd or 3rd consectutive semiannual period so a good percentage of our pilots didnt go NMR or if we werent barely keeping people current with proficiency being a pipe dream then I would give some thought to the dual qual. This says nothing about the additional time required to even stay qualified, not just talking sims/flying but time required to be a baseline compotent pilot in said 2nd airframe to mitgate the risk of buying a Q3 and hurting your current or post-mil career. As it stands now, I just dont see it being feasible. The only way I see it working is if we got back to a healthy manning level where pilots could be pilots and not travel coordinators, personnelists, finance etc.

I'm not saying there's absolutely nothing we can't learn from those countries but we are the most powerful fighting force on the planet. They way we do things works, last I checked other countries aren't sending advisors to train our military. Also lets be honest about the military capability of our FVEY friends independent of the U.S., this is not a slight at their ability but they rely heavily on us. Also Israel is its own cat, they are a country surrounded by a dozen other countries that would wipe them off the planet first chance they get. They don't have the luxury of choice, the need all the bodies they can get.

This is a great point, while it is expected people upgrade and I understand that, adding an incentive pay for taking on additional responsibility (especially for upgrades like large package leads and WOs) could also help.

Yeah Oakley makes videos showing the impact tests on their lenses and all their lenses exceed ANZI standards. I've seen friends hit in the face with line drive baseballs and the doctors tell them the only reason they still had their eyesight is due to their Oakley sunglasses. I get where you are coming from with the line of duty determination and my previous comment still stands since I'm never required to wear eye protection in the first place.

It's located in the Squadron Bar section:

That's the stupidest argument I've heard, not a chance the POS sunglasses the Air Force issues me provide better protection than Oakley lenses. Also if we really care about impact resistance what about when I'm not wearing sunglasses? Pretty sure anything that hits my Mark 1 eyeball when I'm not wearing them is going to hurt regardless, so unless UPT is also issuing clear lenses to be worn at all times that argument is junk.

Where the hell do these people come from? Honestly who gives a shit about sunglasses as long as they are within regs? I got issued a pair in UPT and a $5 pair from the gas station wear better quality and more comfortable. Sorry I'll stick with a quality pair like my Oakleys instead of that shit.

You obviously have never been to an AMC base because ATC works 24/7 as do many shops in the OG as well since we are launching missions from home station at all hours of the day.

^This. It needs to be a identified track, not just any random pilot passed over for promotion because we know there are people passed over because they spent too much time flying the line and those that are passed over for other reasons. It needs to come with protections and benefits for starters, not being the guy to eat whatever 365 comes down to the base repeatedly, not eligible for staff, not required to do PME by correspondence etc.

I don't know where you are getting this stuff about lunch and the 1st Sgt becuase in the Ops and MXG world working lunches are common. For those airman on meal plans at the chow hall, its called getting your food to-go and coming back to your desk to continue work. I'm lucky to get a break for lunch most days of the week and as for PT/gym, yeah not a chance. I could maybe do one or the other some days but if I want to leave work before the sun goes down I can very rarely if ever do both. Night classes might be good for promotion but the mission comes first. If both can't be accomplished then you have ammo to get rid of the non-mission related stuff or work towards other solutions. The mission of the AF is to "fly, fight and win" not "take night classes, do bake sales and go to lunch". If you behind and there are deadlines to meet (i.e. jets launching or people PCSing) then people stay till the work is done.

I don't know how it works, it was established before I arrived at my base and we still have it several years later.

Our contractors handle it on networked computers too but we also have another contractor who handle our NIPR & SIPR networks instead of the base Comm.

Even with all the queep and other stuff that have been repeatedly mentioned on here, this is my biggest gripe about the AF. The continuous inability to properly resource us to do out jobs and I'm not talking MC rates etc. I'm talking about small stuff that forces us to jump through our ass to figure out how to do our job because nobody knows how the hell to get the one program suite we need to do it. Other things like the continuous daily struggle to get computers or printers to work which suck hours of productivity each day. Flying around the world with no international cell phone unless I want to pay for it on my plan out of pocket and having to rack up international charges from my hotel room which the JTR doesn't reimburse. Better yet, when technology like ADS pucks or GPS moving maps on iPads which provide crews with an significant boost in SA are just now being appproved for use if you want to go pay out of pocket again. There a lot of big problems with the AF but those are to be expected in any organization, its the small things that add up in a daily basis. /rant off

My OPs Group hired a contractor to manage CFPS/FV on our computers instead of Comm.