Toro

Guard/reserve hopefull, As mphamer said, it's always a good idea to keep as much as you can stand. That being said, here's what I keep from the list you mentioned - - Orders - I keep 2-3 copies of my PCS orders of my current assignment. Finance rules now say you have to keep your travel vouchers, receipts, and orders for some ungodly amount of time (I want to say seven years), so you'll basically need to keep them in some form or another. - All Medical records - Not sure how the guard works it, but for AD these are kept at the base clinic. Definitely hang on to anything you have. PhlashNU04 mentioned the shot records; they used to make you maintain these records and if you lost them you were pretty much screwed. Now everything is in the AF-wide system and they're phasing out the records. They'll issue you a printed-out shot record on request. - SGLI - I keep a copy of this along with my vRED (virtual Record of Emergency Data) - DD214 - No idea what this is - Security clearance paperwork. Abso-friggin-lutely. Nothing is more aggravating than losing this information and having to track the addresses of everybody you've ever know to re-submit an SF 86 (the investigation Form). Recommend you also keep an electronic version of the EPSQ. A couple other suggestions- - Now that LES are available online from mypay, I save e-versions of this indefinitely. - As I mentioned, save travel vouchers for seven-ish years. - I keep just about anything that MPF also has a copy of. This includes OPRs and citations for awards / medals / ribbons. - Once you start flying, keep a personal copy of all your Form 8s (checkride summaries). Hilarious! Good call!

No, it was supposed to be real time. We use ACMI all the time, and this was a step above that. The AWACS controllers were watching aircraft route around 3-D terrain and trying to deconflict flightpaths and determine who was dead. It was a decent job at portraying the chaos of an RTO, but the graphics were silly.

Abso****inglutely terrible. I went and saw it with a bunch of buddies (all aircrew) and the quote that best summed up the movie was "Man, leave it up to the Air Force to fag up something cool like Red Flag." Here are just a few of my beefs - rant switch on... - The main character is an F-15C pilot, yet all the footage is F-15E. WTFO? I know the IMAX makers said something about him being a great candidate because his dad was a pilot, but who gives a crap. He didn't do any acting and IMAX faked everything else, so why not get some F-15E dude and make up some story about his dad being a pilot? - CGI footage of the planes at low altitude. - The dude flies a solo F-15 to Nellis. Except for FCFs, OCFs, and wingman aborts, we never fly solo. - Every time the red flag briefer made an irrelevant comment ("Good morning, today is Thursday"), every person in the room would simultaneously pull out their pens (click-click-click-click-click) and start writing. - As eowizard pointed out, AWACS scopes weren't even close to real - it looked like something out of Battlestar Galactica...even had real-time HUD footage of the aircraft. Gimme a break. - Contrary to what IMAX would have you believe, Red Flag does actually consist of more than flying around at low altitude and popping off flares every 6-9 seconds. If I had a quarter for every unnecessary flare that was expended... - As Wxpunk mentioned, the explosions weren't real. Of everything that blew up, there was only one shot that was not staged and it was very clearly a different quality of film (stock footage). - Along with that, the F-15s strafed as they were level to climbing. We can't do that - nose has to pointed at the ground. - After his kill, the Aggressor flight lead "Tractor," clenches his fist and yells out "Yes!". I hope his buddies don't let him live that down. I suggest a replot of for him. - Total trucker comm during the fights....though not enough of it. Red Flag is an absolute comm nightmare and I don't think they got across the point of how hectic and confusing it really is (they attempted it for about 6-9 seconds in the AWACS, but it could have been played up much more). So most of you might think I'm being nitpicky and that the stuff I'm complaining about wouldn't matter to the casual observer. Absolutely correct. My beef is that IMAX had a golden opportunity and they pissed it away so they could dumb it down for the masses. There was no need to do that. With only minor changes to the movie that would not have detracted from he overall flow, they could have kept it true to absolute chaos and excitement of Red Flag. Pretty unbelievable that somebody got paid to be a technical advisor to that movie. Rant switch off.

My former Ops Squadron had just under 100 people - about 15 of which were enlisted. Realize that this was an F-15E squadron, so you've got twice the number of aircrew (pilots and WSOs) for the same number of jets. You'll see the commander just about every day. Unless you actually have business with him, you probably won't interact with him other than at aircrew meetings and in the bar.

As Tweet FAIP pointed out, you need to get approval from the DO (yes, that means Director of Ops). The other thing that matters (primarily for the T-38) is that the place you're going has equipment (start carts) for the aircraft. This drops a lot of non-military airfields out of the equation. That's what Continuation Training is. You're not going to get the jet for any longer than a weekend. While I'm sure everyone would want to do this, the main reason is that when the jet is cross country, that's one less jet on the home flying schedule that is available for student sorties. At best, you'd be able to leave before a four-day weekend. A cross country will greatly help a students flying abilities, but that's not the reason that instructors go CT. They go to get out of town and have a fun weekend somewhere on the governments tab. You'll rarely see a T-37 or T-38 crew do more than one approach to a full stop at their final destination.

Ditto what Rainman said about the follow on. I personally know 6-9 guys who took an ALO from an Ops assignment. They were guys who were very unlikely to get an Ops-to-Ops assignment, but after a year as an ALO they were back at another Ops unit.

I was just watching an interesting documentary on the Military Channel about life on a deployed aircraft carrier but they didn't talk much about the origin of the personnel. Anybody know how the makeup of the carrier works in relation to an AF deployment? AF deployed bases are pretty much made of individual squadrons from different AFBs. It seemed like everybody on the carrier was from the same location, but they never really specified. And how is the carrier commander chosen (somebody who is already a commander)?

Unless you go to AFIT, you'll have to work the Master's schedule around your flying schedule - mainly meaning you'll have to take night or online classes. For the most part, guys don't have a problem being taken off the schedule after 1700 if they're going to night classes.

Concur with BaseOps, and you also need to consider the distance. It's like 900 miles between Vance and Wisconsin - not exactly a quick trip. It's going to be a 12 hour drive each way, or a half day of travelling by plane. At best you could pray for a lot of four day weekends so you could have just two days to see each other. Leave is given on a case-by-case basis and generally only for emergencies and special occassions. He's not likely to get it more than once or twice (if at all), and not for more than a couple days. As far as rentals go, I can't answer that, but a thread just popped up in the General Discussion section about Renting in Enid. There's not much there just yet, but you may get some more info in the next couple days.

A motorcycle can be shipped with your household goods (at least, it can overseas) and is therefore free as long it fits in your allotted weight.

There was a T-38 FAIP with me at Columbus who started having serious back issues and when it came time for his assignment he had to go to 135s because of his back. He wasn't stoked at first, but he loves it now.

No, Letters of Counseling get removed from your record when you get to a new assignment. There are also Letters of Admonishment (in between the two on the 'bad' scale), but I don't know how long those stick with you.

The Strike Eagle can pull 9Gs, but we can't maintain it for any considerable amount of time. Depending on weight, altitude and engines, we can generally sustain around 5-ish Gs. It's not a whole lot, but I wouldn't try to do it with a messed a back.

Fosterbeer, Quite possible the most creative and funniest post I've seen here in a long time. Outstanding!

At Seymour the 333rd and 334th don't share a building like the 335th and 336th, but we occassionally swap pilots like Hacker was talking about (I'm flying with the 334th today). For the most part, it's just interaction at the business level, then back over to our own squadron. We rarely walk over there just to BS with somebody because the squadron is down the street from us. Lakenheath has a consolidated building for the two Strike Eagle squadrons, then a separate one for the C models. The two E model squadrons interacted a good deal, but we rarely did anything with the C models. On Fridays you'll see everybody mingling together at the O'Club. So I would say that if squadrons are physically located together, they seem to interact a lot more.

BS. First off, stop bringing the IP into this. His actions and motives are unexcusable, but that's an entire case in and of itself. If you're involved with this case then you know what I'm talking about. If the students didn't think they were cheating then why didn't every single UPT student at Columbus have that same test? If they didn't think they were cheating then why didn't every single member of their class at least have that test? By your own oddball definition of cheating, they were in the wrong- Some had the tests, some didn't. That's an unfair advantage. That's cheating, you just said it yourself. I can't believe you honestly feel that somebody needed to define cheating for you. I guarantee you that they won't need another scandal to define it. During their inbriefs, guys starting UPT from here on out will probably get a crystal clear explanation of what's acceptable and what's not.

They only way you could go into 38s with another class is if you washed back. Unless that was due to a medical condition, I wouldn't hold your breath for a T-38. I've heard of commanders trading assignment drop aircraft between bases, but never Phase III aircraft.

This should actually say, "If you would like to help out the studs at CBM who are getting removed from pilot training for cheating on EPQs." Not to dredge up the whole 'Gouge' thread again, but this issue isn't about gouge. It's about flat-out cheating on EPQs and involves other issues "unbecoming" of officers. Back to the subject at hand...don't take this the wrong way, and I'm not trying to be overly cynical, but I don't think this is going to do you a whole lot of good. If you are directly involved with this case then you know that there is more involved than simply cheating. The people directly involved know that and the discipling authorities will, if they don't already, know that. This is a good concept in theory - let the world know that the atmosphere of cheating is widespread throughout UPT and to some extent these guys are being penalized for something that has generally been overlooked in the past. But what would you expect to happen from this? Judge:What have you got there? ADC:Sir, this is sworn testimony from rated pilots, all of whom swore that cheating occurred throughout their pilot training as well. Judge:Wow. Well, if everybody else was doing it, then I guess it's okay. We've obviously jumped to quickly to our conclusion here, lets reinstate these students. Not quite. Probably something more like this. Judge:Wow. This shows a disturbing trend that needs to be dealt with. We're going to ensure it doesn't continue and we're going to start right now by making an example of these 11 officers. Apply this rationale to what has happened at the Academy in recent years. What if the cadets had tried to use the "Well, everybody's doing it and it's been going on for a long time" defense to charges of sexual assault and drug use. No, I'm not saying cheating is anywhere as bad as those two charges, but it's the same irrational defense and it's not going to work. Next question - why are responses being gathered to a hotmail account vice a representative with a .mil account? And what's an ADC and why aren't they soliciting these responses directly? As I now step off the soapbox, I'll add that I will send a message...while it may get the UPT leadership to open their eyes, it's not going to save the 11 students who have been removed from the program. If the intent of this collaboration of UPT accounts was to change the atmosphere at UPT, then this might work. But the intent is to save these guys who are in trouble. Too little, too late.

Agree with Thud Ridge - I just read that about a year ago. I always have to give a plug for "Strike Eagle" by William Smallwood about the debut of the Strike Eagle in the Gulf War. Another good one, and a fairly quick read, is "Stranger to the Ground," by Richard Bach. It's a fictionalized account of his experience in an F-84 turned into a the story of a pilot (himself) sent an a single ship mission to ferry classified documents through a storm across Europe.

Thou asks...State of the Union Transcript

:confused:

Strike Eagles in ACC (and I think throughout) don't have to wear the vest at all any more. A victory for us since the thing is useless in our pig of a jet.

You fill out a dream sheet very similar to the one you filled out in UPT and submit it to your commander. Unlike UPT, this is 100% commanders ranking. While your daily flying performance may play into this, your UPT performance holds no weight.

From the AFPC website, Short Tour Criteria: A. TDY Overseas(OS) starting on or after 11 Sep 2001 B. TDY a minimum of 181 consecutive days C. TDY location is designated by DOD as a hostile fire or imminent danger pay area as outlined in the DOD Financial Management Regulation Volume 7a, Chapter 10, Figure 10-1, designated hostile fire or imminent danger pay area. Sounds like you should be eligible. For any further clarification there are contact numbers at the AFPC link above. EDIT: Are you asking whether you're eligible for short tour credit, or eligible for the ribbon? If you are eligible for a short tour (which it sounds like you are), then you should automatically be eligible for the short tour ribbon. Again, the AFPC dudes should know this. [ 29. January 2005, 15:52: Message edited by: Toro ]

Speaking as a former FAIP, I think a dude who finishes first or second in his class and gets FAIPed against his wishes loses out. Guys who finish top in their class have the most potential to go on to bigger and better things. When I got to my first Ops Squadron, I saw my former students getting upgraded to flight lead and instructor while I was a wingman. Guys who went through pilot training with me were leaving for weapons school. While being a FAIP and subsequently going to Weapons School or Test Pilot School is not impossible, it's tough to do with the how fast you need to upgrade. Most guys don't upgrade to instructor on their first tour, and it's not likely you'll get picked up for WIC as a major (which you'll be close to as a FAIP finishing his first Ops tour). You can upgrade faster in the F-15C and E. The regs say that FAIPs can start 2-ship flight lead upgrade with 200 hours vice the 300 hours required for everybody else. Any subsequent upgrades depend on your performance. As far as your career, it hinders your potential to go to Weapons School like I talked about. Most flying squadron commanders and above are patch wearers, so it could affect your career if you want to be a leader. Good deal. I would argue that FAIPs can potentially be a little better than Ops guys. All they've ever flown is trainers - they tend to know the regs and procedures better because they don't have any negative transfer from previous aircraft