JS

I think you have to click on "My Account" on the top, and it brings you to a different looking section. From there, there should be a "Email Us" section in the upper right that eventually brings you to a web-based form that you can submit to them. You could also choose the "request other documents" on the bottom left. I was told to put something like this in the email: I want a letter of certification through ARPC to attach to my VA application. Confirmation # XXXXX (or SSN if you already have an established account), dates submitted XX XXX XX and office that is handling your request.

Got a reply back from the VA website that clears it all up as far as how much entitlement you will be charged for flight training: "The charge to entitlement for flight training under the revisions to the Post 9/11 GI Bill are still being determined. We will post the final determination on our web site as soon as a decision has been made. Please check www.gibill.va.gov frequently as updates are being posted as soon as they become available. Thank you for contacting the Department of Veterans Affairs. pjh/2609 Muskogee RPO" Also, I just got off the phone with the flight school that I am going to do mine through, and they said there is a catch that might not be too good. Apparently, in order to use the 9/11 GI Bill, you have to "complete" the entire flight training course per FAA standards (non college degree program). The FAA standard for the ATP is 25 hours. If you "withdraw" from the course, you apparently won't get reimbursed. In other words, if you don't log 25 flight hours of Part 141 school flying time (which is about 21 more than most schools really have you do), then you might not be reimbursed. He is trying to figure out a workaround or exception for guys with military time or something. I will be using the old GI Bill for the ATP just so I not only get paid but so it doesn't eat into several months of my kids 9/11 GI Bill.

Just to clarify, here is what I emailed the GI Bill Help people on the VA's website: "Hello, I have never used GI Bill benefits, and was wondering if I can use the GI Bill-SR, and then use/transfer my full post-9/11 GI bill at a later date. My specific situation is as follows: I am a drilling reservist. I would like to use VA benefits to pay for my ATP flight training certificate (approximately $2500 total cost). I also would like to transfer as much of my post 9/11 GI Bill to my dependents as possible. If allowed, I would like to use the Montgomery GI Bill-Selected Reserve to pay for the flight training (60% rule applies, I assume, so I would plan on receiving approximately $1500 for that) now. At a later date, I would then like to transfer the full amount of my post-9/11 GI Bill to my dependents. I guess my question is this - can I use $1500 of the GI Bill-SR without dipping into the 36 months of my post-9/11 GI Bill, since I will be transferring that to my dependents? Thank you." And this was their response: "Yes, you may certainly do so. The least confusing way of doing things would be to simply apply for the Selective Reserve MGIB first and use it for your intended purpose. When done, then use the DoD site to initiate your transfer of benefits to your dependents. As long as you do not exceed 12 months worth of entitlement under the Selective Reserve MGIB, then yes, there would still be a full 36 months left for transferring. Thank you for contacting the VA. GS/2767 Muskogee RPO"

The post 9/11 GI Bill definitely pays for flight training. Depending on how many months I will be charged if I use it for my ATP, I am considering using the old GI bill (with the old 60% cost limitation, of course) to ensure I don't dip into my 36 months of post-9/11 that I want to transfer to the kids. I emailed the VA to make sure that I could use the old Montgomery GI bill while maintaining the post 9/11 for the kids, and they said "yes," as long as I did not exceed 12 months of the old one (apparently you can receive up to 48 months of combined benefits between the two programs). So my plan right now is to have the VA pay for 60% of the ATP using the old Montgomery GI Bill, which would not cost me more than 12 months of benefits the old school way. This way I know for sure that I will have all 36 months of post 9/11 to transfer. The only downside is that I will wind up paying $1200 or so for the rating. If anyone has success doing it with the post 9/11 and it only costing 1 month of benefit, please let me know.

I am in the process of doing it right now. My understanding is that there are two parts to the puzzle - each takes about a month for the paperwork to go through: 1) Fill out an application for VA benefits, called a VONAPP, I believe. There is an online form for it. I don't think you need to be exact with the cost and dates of the program you are looking for - just best guesses. I think I just put the dates of my last full 5 month activation on the question about years of service (and attached that DD-214 as well.) 2) Contact ARPC through VPCGR for a certification letter. I was told that this letter will have your total points/active duty days and will clearly state that you are eligible for XX% of the post-9/11 GI bill based on XXX number of active duty days. I think they send a copy of this to the VA as well. From there, I think you just get with the school or whatever and try to get them to file the paperwork for you. I am hearing that you might have to front the money and then file to get reimbursed as opposed to the old way of the VA paying the school directly. I am still in the process of waiting for the paperwork from both the VA and ARPC, so I will let you know if the process is any different from what I described above.

I emailed someone at the ESGR a while back, and he got back to me stating that there is no protection for spouses jobs when the member goes TDY somewhere like UPT.

The course announcement requires you to be an IP or "very close to IP upgrade." As long as you are identified as being in the queue to upgrade, I am sure the training office can get you a slot.

A 2011 update from AIS. Everything from the last post is still good with a few additions. The class is still at the FAA MMAC complex (gated area) at an Air Force detachment-type building. Rental car is mandatory - not optional or recommended - because there is no way on the base with any kind of shuttle or anything from the hotels. Hotels - about half of the guys stayed on Meridian Avenue. The Fairfield and Embassy were very nice. Courtyard was a bit older. The good thing about Meridian is that it takes 17 minutes from my hotel door closing until I was in my seat at AIS. That allowed me to go home for lunch almost every day. The other half of the guys stayed downtown at the Hampton or Sheraton, I think. The problem was that it added about 10 minutes on each end of the trip, which made it nearly impossible to do lunch at the hotel. The plus side is that they were right there near the bars in downtown Bricktown (there were also a few pubs on Meridian by the cluster of hotels). Either part of town was good to stay in - just personal preference with regards to being near downtown or near work/airport. The class - it hasn't changed much from the previous posts. There were modules on all the basic topics - circling, departures, RNAV, weather, TERPS, Spacial D, Oceanic, Approaches, Airspace, Jepps, etc. Pretty good stuff. We also flew the FAA spacial D trainer, which was pretty neat. Instead of flying the Airbus sim as in the past, they now have a large MS Flight Simulator mockup that runs like some sort of learjet. You had two, one-hour sims where you flew some of the crazy approaches and a Jepp that was flown by the mishap crew of one of the case studies. On the final day of class, each group of 5 students gave a 20-30 minute presentation on a topic of their choice; our groups presented on CRM, airborne weather, and self-contained approaches (can't remember what the other two groups did). Free time - there was definitely plenty of it. On Tuesday/Thursday of the second week, the one hour sim was the only thing on the schedule, so you had almost two full week days off in addition to the weekend off. On the last day, we were done by 1130 or so (they say not to book until 6PM, which I did, then I could not catch an earlier flight because they all sold out the night prior. If I could do it again, I would have booked a 3PM flight out and then caught the later one in the rare event that we got stuck there that long). A bunch of the guys in my class decided to use their free time studying for some of the FAA written tests since the knowledge was sort of fresh. Someone found out that the Tinker Education office offers the FAA written tests for free, instead of paying $150 each through Lasergrade, or whatever. A bunch of guys took the MCI (military competence instructor) to convert their IP status to civilian CFI (Sheppard Air's website has the details - have to see the FSDO with your test score and a Form 8 saying you are an IP). Other guys studied for their ATP written over the weekend and took that after their sim. To each his own. A few more things on free time - the OK City Bombing memorial is a must see. Powerful, very powerful. Also, the Infantry Museum was a lot better than I thought. I wound up spending the better part of a Saturday there. They must have had 2000 different guns in there from every era of American military history as well as dozens of static tanks, artillery, helicopters, etc. Finally, I spent an hour visiting the state capitol. It is apparently one of the nicest capitols to visit. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be - plus the free guided tour was very cool. Overall, the class was good. Low-stress, and I learned a bunch and networked with some pretty good dudes. The one thing I would change academically was perhaps not spend 3 full briefings on RNP/RNAV. It was good to see, but half of us don't do RNAV approaches and most of the material in those briefings didn't apply to us.

I was a civilian working on my instrument rating. Ironically, the Friday before 9/11 I had started my initial search for a Guard/Reserve unit because I loved flying and wanted to serve. I remember sitting in my apartment that morning trying to use my private pilot knowledge and figure out how a plane could crash like that in good weather - then the second plane hit. After that, I started making all the frantic phone calls to my friends and my family members who worked in downtown Manhattan. The rest of the story is still too difficult to relive - even ten years later. Some wounds are just so deep that I don't think they will ever heal. God be with all those who died that day - we will never forget.

Yeah, definitely let the Stan Eval shop know who is boss. And don't ever forget Rule #1 when it comes to check rides: when in doubt, always argue with your evaluator - especially when you know you are right.

What an freaking idiot. Oh, well - survival of the fittest. Speaking of which,here is a Fox News video with a phone call to an AF Hurricane Hunter (C-130J). Note the orientation of the air intakes of the engines at :22 sec into the video. They must be pulling a Maverick maneuver and flying inverted. Or, more likely, they show video of a P-3 while talking to a Hurricane Hunter C-130 guy. Never talk to the media - even if you are a Hurricane Hunter. Edit: spelling

Agreed, there are a lot of good insurance calculators out there, and many of them tell me that I need about twice what SGLI covers. Plus some back of the envelope calculations for a mid-30 year old with kids: Mortgage - $200K 2 Kids college - $200K (at least) $40K/year for the wife until the kids leave - $600K That's all in today's dollars, of course. Your life insurance payment would gain interest, but the cost of college and cost of living would go up, etc. and maybe cancel each other out. A lot of the online calculators do a much better job of explaining it and crunching the numbers with interest rates, etc. AAFMAA is what I decided on as well. The only problem is that the term does not go out as far as USAA or some other companies. In other words, it is a little cheaper because they won't cover you when you start to reach the years where there is a decent chance you might croak (age 49 is the age where I think AAFMAA's premiums go up dramatically and the benefit declines a lot, which is fine, because I will be at less financial risk at that age - hopefully - with the kids gone and the house paid for, etc)

Like most complicated financial products out there, I am sure these products fit certain peoples needs and financial situations, but in general, I have found term to be a better deal (see above post of mine, and the one above it). Lots of people fall for the sales pitch that whole life insurance has "cash value," or that you get back the premiums you pay, or whatever. I think you will find that if you purchased a $30/month term policy, and invested the other $470/month in some sort of retirement account or mutual fund, you would also accrue "cash value" and (most likely) get back an amount much greater than your initial investment. I am just not sure why people think that buying an overly expensive insurance policy that is disguised as a poor investment (compared to traditional investment vehicles) is such a good idea. The one way to really tell if whole life insurance is a good financial move is to look at how badly the insurance sales people want you to buy it, or to ask one of those sales men what type of commission they get by selling whole life as opposed to term. High commissions mean that more of what you pay goes toward things other than insuring your life or building wealth, which is the point of term insurance and mutual funds, respectively. More proof that you are probably over insured and paying too much. Why would you pay into a program to cover you to an age that you have a 0.754% chance of reaching? Most basic life insurance strategies put you at the most financial risk when you first have kids and a lot of new or future debt (mortgage, future college costs, living expenses for wife and kids for the next 20-30 years). The same strategies generally say that when you are in retirement, you have much less to lose, financially. Why death won't be a good thing, what risks is the insurance policy covering against? The paid mortgage? The grown kids? The wife who is collecting social security already?

Minor point, but FP = Flight Pilot in the Herc and C-17 world, not first pilot. I have seen a lot of guys mistakenly think that we use airline terminology and that FP stands for first pilot.

When referring to him, I bet his friends say "he is good peoples." Cool story.

It is absolutely f-ing amazing how different things can seem when the entire context is laid out. I know that several on this board have reiterated the maxim of "don't ever talk to the fucking media," for this very reason, but I would also add that you have to be super careful when reading the fucking media too. The fact that this one quote (mis-quote, actually) was called out and the entire contextual paragraph was pointed out is great. Just think about that example every time you read an article and say or think "why would someone do/say that - bad on them." Chances are, there is a lot more to the story. Thanks for posting the entire response.

Holy fuck. That shit is unbelievable. I am talking about the combat shower being extended from 3 minutes all the way out to 5 minutes. What a waste of good Iraqi water.

A lot of our guys are getting their MBA from Oklahoma - might be worth a tad more on the outside, but will probably require a little more work.

Rainman, I think there is a major difference between CAF and MAF operations that you are not taking into account, and also a major difference between when you and Clearedhot were opening up the war in 2001/2003 versus the sustainment operation it is today. Like someone on this board once said - you knew it is no longer a real war when services and the Chiefs/SGMGs started showing up. Back to my point. In the MAF world out in the desert, very rarely is the "combat" a life or death situation supporting the kids on the ground. More often than not, we are flying around planes that are 50% full, with dudes going home for R&R, or moving backlogged cargo into theater - old tires, generators, spare parts, etc. Every once in a while, we bring stuff that you can assume will have a relatively immediate, tangible impact on the mission - ammo, food, and water. I was also once told by a CC in the desert that "you will know it when you see it" with regards to a no-shit life or death scenario mission that must be accomplished. In four deployments, I have seen 3 or 4 such missions. The rest of the time, we are literally fighting dogshit weather, 0% illumination in mountainous terrain, and all kinds of threats just to bring in a palette of toilet paper (have done it first hand) or a palette that one of our loads marked on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd time we brought the exact same palette into and out of the same LZ. Leaning forward and taking more risks in the name of this sustainment war, in my MAF airframe, is all good - until something goes wrong and the bosses have a reason to hang you. Then you see guys getting Q-3s (back to one of the main topics of this thread) given to them for pushing the envelope too hard to get a 3/4 empty plane into an LZ to bring 12 dudes out on R&R. Don't get me wrong, I love this plane and this mission, but 95% of the time, it can wait another day. That's my point. I am not talking about training "harder" on TTPs or anything like that. My guys know their shit just fine. I am talking about AFI and min-equipment limitations. I have seen the Herk sitting on an LZ, with engines running, with an MEL clean kill. The crew could accept the risk of the faulty equipment and get the palette of unused cement (seen it) back to the MOB without batting an eye - until something goes wrong, or the plane tells on us for flying with a MEL required item that is not functional. That's where Champ's concept comes in about how much is your boss really going to back you when you are knowingly violating a black and white AFI? Another example is all of the IFR/VFR rules we train for at home. Again, not life or death/guy on the ground needs us-type calculated risks. We are talking about getting an empty plane back from shithole/mountainous terrain airport to other shithole airport in Afghanistan. Is an H-model Herk really going to make 400'/NM on three engines? Or is the 45 minutes straight of flying in the soup "VFR" through mountains really legal? Those are the types of extra risks I see being taken in the name of combat all the time in the desert. Again, it all fine and dandy until something goes wrong and the boss asks 'why the fuck did you take that risk just to move 5 contractors when they could have taken the next scheduled airlift Herk out of there a few hours later, or the next day? That's what I think this thread is about - leadership defining and backing the crews up in an environment of increased calculated risks. I see guys getting lulled into thinking that they can take increased risks only to get burned when something goes wrong. Unfortunately, I have seen leadership turn their back on dudes way too many times in those situations.

You don't have to be on a checkride to get a Q-3. Nor does an evaluator or your commander even have to be in the same time zone as you for you to get a Q-3.

That's a great f-ing question. We have had that discussion several times while over in the desert. I try to tell my guys, "look, this 'war' is not going to be won by that extra airlift or refueling mission - pushing the envelope to imaginary wartime limits while putting us all at greater risk is just not worth it here." Of course, trying to operate in the CENTCOM environment in a propeller=-driven plane while complying with all of the millions of rules and regulations (IFR/VFR rules, climb gradients, degraded equipment, etc) is next to impossible. The environment forces guys to get in a "wartime" mindset of taking risks because we blow off smaller stuff in the name of combat all the time. But in general, I agree with you, the regs/rules are designed to allow higher-ups the authority to allow us to take on greater risks. One of the problems is that the rules were written with so much "cover-your-ass" legalese from back in the states, that nobody wants to be the one who authorizes a slightly higher level of wartime risk, because God-forbid something gets damaged or someone gets killed in a war. That, and it doesn't help matters when the waiver authority, such as the DIRMOBFOR, and his advisors in the ivory tower are not from your airframe and have little clue how you employ your aircraft. I can't tell if your post is cynical or not, but do you feel that the training rules work and that guys playing the "this is war" card are wrong when they do things differently over there? Or are you saying that stateside training needs to be de-pussified to match the additional risks that are being taken on a regular basis in the CENTOM deployed environments?

Are we up to "D" in this list, or "4?" Perhaps "iv" would be next in the series.

Sorry for not clariflying, but the context of "good dude" was supposed to mean solid pilot. But like others have mentioned, douches will slip through the cracks quite often. I am only saying that they need to be contstrained by the community, instead of encouraged by the community by virtue of how many Q3s are given out for nit-picky shit. Thanks, man - up until this point, I really didn't know that.

No, I don't think you are that stupid in the U-2 community, but I am looking at the bigger picture (reference above posts about the importance of the big picture) of all flying jobs across the board; I only bring up U2's and TPS because it was referenced earlier in the thread. I am also thinking about all of the commercial flying jobs (cargo and passengers), corporate flying jobs, special flying jobs like DIA, NASA, NOAA, FAA, ICE, etc., as well as guys interviewing with other guard/reserve units. In some of those situations, I could see the interviewer possibly not having the breadth of perspective that you guys apparently do in your hiring process. I have seen first hand several times, and heard several first hand stories, of there being a hiring "board" of one or two dudes (guard/reserve interviews, corporate aviation, etc) who probably don't have the same luxury of having guys from different airframes at their disposal to give their interpretations of how different communities work. Probably not that big of a deal with larger airlines, etc. But it just seems that there should be some more standardization across different communities in the USAF flying world with regards to Q-3s.

Yeah, some of my examples were from the back of the plane. Again, I have seen many a good dude, very-well qualified, several of whom I have flown with in combat and will fly with again in combat, get Q-3s for honest, stupid-shit mistakes in the back of the plane. I could be wrong, but I sense that a lot of the fighter guys on this thread seem to think that if you are good from a big-picture standpoint, in other words, you can fly the plane day in and day out, that you should not have your permanent record marred by honest mistakes in your daily flights. Q-3s and downgrades should be reserved to be part of the process to get guys who are incapable of safely operating the aircraft long term. Agreed, but the sad thing is that I have seen several guys get sat down with Q-other than 1's during contingency operations for loading mistakes or similar infractions. It seems that on one hand, we are instilling a "this is war - make it happen" mindset, until something goes wrong, then it changes to "this is not war, it is a cover your ass contingency, and you should have been more conservative while operating in the so-called 'war' zone." So, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you have a bunch of tanker/mobility guys competing for a U-2 or TPS slot, each with a few Q-3s on their record for busting altitude by 200 feet (seen it), briefing the wrong circling mins (seen it), and a flap overspeed (seen it), they probably won't be as competitive for such jobs compared to guys in a community that is generally speaking, more "big picture." So doesn't that mean that perhaps some good dudes are being excluded from the pool of qualified applicants simply because of how their community views the Q-2/Q-3? Something doesn't sound right about that to me.