Hacker

That's what my entire post was discussing -- what your options are going forward. At this point, there aren't many that are going to get you back in the saddle with your current organization (e.g. the AF Reserves, apparently). Other services aren't going to be interested in you flying with this kind of baggage, regardless. I know guys who have been cleared by their FEBs, yet grounded by 4-star leadership anyway, and could not get hired by guard/reserve units at all, much less in an aviation job. The decision to convene an FEB is an administrative process, and one in which you don't have any "right" of recourse, so the idea that there's "prejudicial material" involved makes no difference. The IG and the BCMR will answer that argument by saying, "it was within the Commander's authority to make the decision he did," and that will be the end of it, unfortunately. If you want to fight it with the IG or the BCMR, go for it...but be prepared to get no satisfaction, and get on with moving on in your professional career and life.

Honestly, the time to get civilian legal help was before the FEB, not after. There's very little you can do now if the FEB has already taken place, and you're now just waiting for the 4-star to sign off on the Board's recommendation. There are a few options going forward...but WARNING: none of them are likely going to change the outcome of you being grounded. You essentially have to wait for your FEB to be ruled on by the 4-star, and then try and overturn the results. Option 1: Ask for an appeal: If there is evidence or testimony that wasn't presented to the FEB that should have been considered, you can ask the 4-star to overturn his/her ruling. There is not an official process to appeal an FEB inside USAF channels, but there's nothing preventing you from trying if you believe you have a legitimate argument (and not just a hail-mary). Option 2: DoD IG Complaint: If there was some sort of improper action taken by AF leadership in the FEB process (for example, Unlawful Command Influence), you can report it to the DoD IG, who can investigate if they see some illegal actions. Option 3: Board of Correction of Military Records: The BCMR has a wide variety of things they can do if you file with them to correct a mistake or injustice to your records. If you believe a documented injustice has occurred, then the BCMR can do everything including removing the FEB from your records and reinstating you to the position you were removed from. This is a long, slow process and not likely to change anything. Most BCMR appeals I've seen change nothing, but there are very rare wins here at the "USAF Supreme Court". All of these options will cost you considerable money for a civilian attorney to work on, and have very minimal chance of changing anything.

It doesn't really matter which -- the penis is a concept that is a social construct: https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/conceptual-penis/23311886.2017.1330439.pdf

Just to be technically correct, they were aileron rolls.

From my perspective as a career fighter/trainer guy in the AF, and now having flown at both the regionals and the majors...could not disagree more. Herding airliners around the sky, from both an airmanship/decisionmaking/judgment/thinking perspective and a stick-and-rudder perspective, is "vastly" easier than 90% of the tasks I had to perform even as a wingman in the Strike Eagle. The military flying required greater "headwork" and flying skills on an acute basis, task-for-task and hour-for-hour. There are a good number of airline pilots that I work with now who would not last a day doing what I did for a career in the AF -- and I now, sadly, have to include myself in that description. My skills have atrophied even in a couple years of droning in the flight levels and babysitting the FMS. Even the most challenging situations I've run up against -- maintenance issues, challenging weather, dealing with unruly pax -- don't require the skill and proficiency I had even a handful of years ago when I was turning-and-burning for a living.

Watching the implosion of CNN sure is amusing. Talk about an utter lack of self-awareness on their part.

Are people rally surprised anymore when we see that the system is set up to protect the system and Commanders within it, rather than ensure actual justice for the individual servicemember? Seems to me we see this same fact presented over and over every time a new case like this pops up, and act shocked each time as if we didn't know.

I have lots of things to bitch about after a 20 year career in Big Blue. But...as I posted over on the Airwarriors forum recently, getting commissioned and earning the privilege to fly military aircraft for a career was hands down the best decision I've ever made in my life. There are things that I, in retrospect, wish I'd done slightly differently here and there, but overall it was a spectacular adventure and an entirely worthwhile experience. It was also incredibly formative in terms of my character as an American, a husband, a father, etc.Don't have a bit of worry that you'll regret the decision to follow in our footsteps.

The FAA recognizes military instructors performing instruction in a military program to military students while flying public-use aircraft certified on DoD Airworthiness Certificates. Trouble is found when diverging from this set of factors (e.g. the questions above about WSOs/Navs trying to log pilot time in military aircraft with their FAA certificates).

Incorrect. Yes, you can/may log the time as dual received. The FAA sees you as a student in a formal military flying training program, and it sees the instructor as providing dual instruction as part of that training program. It sees both of you as operating in accordance with the giant LOA that the FAA has with the DoD, and generally provides equivalence to the qualifications of the instructor, the material being taught, and the experience you gain as a student. Bottom line: you can legally log dual in just about anything so long as a qualified instructor is teaching it. What's questionable is if that dual time satisfies dual experience requirements for any particular FAA rating...which it probably doesn't.

There is also a former Tomcat RIO who is currently a FedEx Captain. He got much of his time by buying/owning a light twin while he was stationed out at Miramar and CFI'ing and prepping separating front-seaters for ATP checkrides! Regarding the T-6 time as a UCT stud, I say 100% valid to log both as dual received and total time.

I say bring it on. It is a different enough battlespace to warrant its own specialist force. What would Billy Mitchell do?

Yes, you are totally correct, and I should have been substantially clearer about what I meant in that sentence. Because Art 15s are Administrative punishment, they do not have the presumption of innocence or the same standards of administration or burden of proof as a civilian court. A GCM does as you say.

It isn't that simple. Going to a C-M, even if you are 100% certain of being totally innocent, is a very risky endeavor. A C-M doesn't have the same standard of conduct that a civilian court does. In a C-M, charges can be added, changed, or modified at any time during the proceedings, so basically once you open the door up, anything and everything that is discovered during testimony is in play. You can enter a C-M charged with one thing, and exit convicted of something else entirely depending on what came up during evidence and testimony. Remember that the UCMJ does not include a presumption of innocence, and depending on the charges, has different standards of evidence and conviction than what we're used to in the civilian world. Plus, a conviction at a C-M is a federal conviction, while an Art 15 isn't anything at all in the outside world. Add all that up with the witch-hunt environment which we know exists in the USAF with respect to some topics (like sexual assault, particularly), and that is the makings of a potentially very bad situation for someone accused and being offered an Art 15. During my career, I had the "opportunity" to pay a large chunk of money to two different, very well known and talented former SJAs (and now high profile civilian attorneys) and they both heavily, heavily suggested taking the Art 15 rather than risking a Court-Martial.

I like to be intellectually lazy and frame every problem in terms of race as well as decide that racism is the only possible root cause.

That is a late 80s/early 90s patch.

I took the MBTI when I was in ROTC, and turns out I'm STFU.

Correlation vs causation: what is it? Note for the OP: Civilian attorneys are better than most ADCs no matter what race, gender, or any other immutable characteristic unrelated to our character.

An "Afghani" is a unit of monetary currency in Afghanistan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_afghani A tornado in Afghanistan would be called an "Afghan Tornado".

Really? In the age of Google? https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/ and https://militarypay.defense.gov/Pay/Retirement/COLA/

The "way too many variables" argument cuts both ways. "The spreadsheet" also doesn't include a single furlough, merger, or bankruptcy...which are not exactly unheard of in the airline industry, especially since most of us will spend 20+ years flying for an airline after we leave the military. The numbers themselves have always only been a single datapoint to be considered in a larger context of other life, financial, and career factors.

Military pensions are increased annually based directly on the CPI (e.g. the actual inflation rate). This is part of what makes it a very valuable asset, especially compared to (what are left of) corporate pensions, most of which are fixed payments which lose value in inflation every year.

Yes, T-38 students do both things successfully daily, and have for the last 50 years.

In WWII the RAF did not consider shooting down the V-1s as typical aerial kills. Instead, they had their own separate list of victories, and even had "V1 Aces".

Just another indicator of how self-indoctrinated AF leadership is; pilots are saying LOUD AND CLEAR precisely what is wrong with the AF that is making them leave, and the Generals are intentionally choosing not to tackle any of those things to help fix retention. Maybe if we start poisoning the well for their job prospects on the outside, we'll keep them in. YGBSM. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Generals.