Hacker

The big problem is that each side thinks they're right, and refuses to go learn what the issues are for the other side. I'm a former MX officer turned pilot, and I've heard metric shit-tons of ignorant, biased bullshit about the other side equally from both sides. Nobody has the high ground here -- both ops and maintenance are equally guilty of idiotic focuses on what matters to them and ignorance about what matters to the other side. Ops and maintenance are a co-dependent relationship. Before chucking spears, go walk a mile in their PT gear and figure out what matters to them, and then try and make that important to you, too. Without that understanding, both sides will continue to chuck spears from behind their well-defended biased positions, and we'll be in the same gridlock we've been in since the Army Air Corps. BTW, MX working for Ops at the squadron level is NOT the end-all panacea that many think it is. If it were up to me, there would still be a DCM O-6 who ran maintenance, was experienced as a maintainer, and could bash it out with the OG/CC at the weekly ops/mx meeting.

How dare you! He's been his squadron's Chief Pilot! Yet more evidence of why it was probably a mistake to take "Fighter" off of that patch.

In a fighter squadron the Chief of Stan/Eval isn't necessarily the most skilled or tactically proficient pilot, no. That position is called the Weapons Officer...and in many fighter squadrons, that Weapons Officer would have to duel with the DO or the CC over who the most skilled and tactically proficient one is (because that DO or CC might just be an experienced patchwearer, too). Although it's a funny joke, the idea that someone is "not a good instructor, so make 'em an evaluator" is rarely what happens in reality (again, speaking based on experiences in the fighter world).

Do you guys in the heavy community really equate your squadron Chief of Stan/Eval as your squadron's "chief pilot"? If a guy claimed something like that in a fighter squadron, he'd be laughed out the door. Not throwing stones at you, personally, just wondering if that's a thing in the heavy world, as obviously there are significant cultural differences between us.

I love the logic of 2 incidents in 16 years indicating some kind of fault in the culture. The author clearly doesn't have any concept of military incident rates from any time outside of recent history. The USAF operates safer and tighter now than at any point in the history of aviation.

For folks who don't have a background in ISR or CAS, and know they're headed to an MC-12, you need to start getting familiar with the JP 3.09-3 and the JFIRE. It's all fine and well to be pragmatic and say, "you can study all that at MQT", but the reality is that in order to even understand how to apply MC-12 CONOPS and tactics, one has to first understand the larger backdrop in which the airplane operates. Those documents and more are unclassified and available on the MC-12 CoP for download. It's NEVER too early to begin to try and understand that, especially for someone who doesn't have practical experience in that area from their primary MWS.

This is a significant difficulty when: - Manning comes from a wide range of platforms and a wide range of experience, many of which have no core knowledge of CAS, ISR, or the related disciplines, and - Personnel are only in the platform for a very short, temporary tour, which makes a VERY steep learning curve for the crews and a challenge to maintain corporate knowledge in the organization.

There is supposedly some Kyrgyzstan stuff in the leaked documents, so that wouldn't surprise me. What a coup if there was something in there about it.

Actually, the old T-38 TOLD was simply not valid...that was the problem with it.

Just out of curiosity, which other single-seat multiengine jets do you have experience with? Comparatively, the T-38C PMP TOLD is a friggin' nightmare next to what they'll need to know in real gray jets further down the line.

That was your bros out at TPS that came up with that gem.

I actually think the C model is pretty nice. It certainly slaughters the basic navigational abilities of the Strike Eagle, although everything about it is dumbed down and simplified for use in the training environment. It's pretty nice to be able to simply go GPS-direct to any ICAO point, as well as have 3 different bearing pointers going to three different NAVAIDs. It makes the ol "Widowmaker" out at Roswell so much easier without that TACAN-to-ILS-DME switch.

I can only hope that if I someday ever fuck up to the tune of $87 mil, that my punishment is also flavored in Admonishment.

I love it. This isn't the place to get into that argument, you say, but now lets' discuss it some more. The point is, the Raptors have some valid reasons for wanting to have 38s on hand to use as adversaries, and they're perfectly aware what limitations a T-38 brings to that training. I think they're pretty well set in the "Mike Tyson" department, not to worry.

38s are cheaper to operate and maintain, and present a smaller radar, RF, and visual signature than a Viper.

I'm pretty well aware what pork means with respect to political decisionmaking, 'broseph'...I'm still trying to figure out what it has to do with standing up a T-38 adversary unit at Tyndall. The implication was that it was a pork project, and my statement is that it's clearly not -- it is a decision that was defined by operational need, and impacts more than just one single base or Representative district.

How is that pork barrel? It saves a crapload of time/gas/maintenance on Raptors acting as their own adversaries, plus it solves a number of problems with Raptors fighting each other.

Doesn't matter -- T-6 MASS scores do work into the final class standings, and thus into awards.

Anyone have favorite locations to get cuffs and waistbands on their jacket replaced (outside of Pop's)?

And, of course, when all else fails, drop the sexual harassment/discrimination/etc charge.

I think the core issue here is a widespread problem of expectation (and entitlement) management on the part of the rank-and-file. In other words, people feel like they're entitled to a lot more than Big Blue ever 'promised' or even implied. It's been nearly 20 years since the era of banked pilots, RIFd officers, etc, from the early 90s drawdown period. We should ALL be well aware that such measures can be taken, and that we will have virtually no recourse if it happens. Wanna talk about getting shafted? Hundreds of those guys got fucked Long Dong Silver-style and for most of them it came out of nowhere. We don't have that luxury of ignorance and can't be the wide-eyed doe when the shot seemingly comes out of nowhere, because we SHOULD all know what the possibilities are. I agree that it would suck to get some of the bad deals I've read about here, heard about at the bar, and seen around the AF. But, let's face it -- there are LOTS of people who get 'screwed' all the time. If it hasn't happened to you at some point in your career, chances are it will. If you make it all the way to retirement and haven't gotten the shaft by Big Blue at some point, consider yourself lucky because you're in the vast minority. Bottom line, bros, getting screwed by Blue is simply part of the job description. Embrace it, or you'll end up living a pretty unhappy couple of years in the service.

That does suck. Reading the above (and from a fighter guy's perspective) I'm surprised at what's happened with respect to your job/assignment progression. In the fighter community, a 1st assignment dude who made IP would have a pretty high strat, regardless of being deployed a ton or not. Naturally, I have no idea about how it works in the heavy circles -- obviously things are different (and apparently for the worse, IMHO). Don't get me wrong, you appear to have gotten a pretty shitty deal (it would have been nice to know all that to get some perspective on your previous rants), but you shacked it in your 2nd to last sentence -- Blue doesn't owe any of us jack shit (good or bad). And, you're right...when your ADSC is up, you should punch with pride and not let anyone give you the slightest bit of lip about it.

I think you need to go actually read the terms of the "contract" before making such a statement/argument.

He's got a little bit of a strange theoretical implementation plan. This whole idea supposes that there is some kind of excess time and manpower in the F-15E world that could be filled by the addition of OA-X. In my experience, F-15E squadrons, just like every other squadron, struggle to fill the flying lines that they have while maintaining their queep at the same time. Guys are all ready flying their asses off -- it wasn't unusual on my latest tour to see guys tag 1,000 hours on their FIRST FLYING TOUR because of all the deployment flying. That was completely unheard of during my first spin through the F-15E community. In short, there's not some lack of flying that's plaguing the community that could be filled by OA-X. On top of that, aircrew qualification and proficiency would be a nightmare. It is tough enough to stay somewhat "proficient" in all of the various missions and weapons we all ready have, especially given the current spinup-deployment-reconstitution-upgrades cycle. Again, the author supposes the creation of two separate classes of crews...I think he'd find that there all ready is such a division, and those lesser qualified crews are called "attached" and filling those OSS, Group, and Wing jobs while staying BMC in the squadron instead of CMR. To add a completely different aircraft, and all of it's missions and weapons, into the mix will dilute the capabilities of both aircraft.

So, you were a FAIP and then you were assigned to UAvs?