Hacker

Sorry, not Hoser, but I've seen plenty of FAIPs come through Blue jets. I know of plenty examples of FAIPs that have gone through the pipeline in the last 5 years that have done well. The point of this thread is not that FAIPs are doomed to mediocrity, but that FAIPs aren't really any different than any other pipeline produced pilot. They're just on a slightly different timeline for the first 10 years of their flying career. IMHO, part of the problem that Hoser mentioned about guys going to crappy assignments after their first ops tour has nothing to do with them being FAIPs. That's indicative of the really strange state of the fighter force currently. Reference the earlier discussions about fighter guys being unable to get TX courses from non-operational tours. It's because of BRAC, and USAF downsizing, and the rise in prominence of the UAV sect, and a half dozen other factors that are tearing apart the "traditional" fighter career of the last 10 years.

I don't understand why some people have this weird itch to be FAIPs. I still can't fathom why someone would desire to become a USAF pilot, yet want to put off getting qualified in an MWS and going to do the real J-O-B. There are a couple decent things about being a FAIP -- the problem is that none of them are any better than the benefit of just going to a real MWS and being a MR pilot. Family life? Yup, it's nice to be at a non-deploying 730-1630 job in the CONUS. Someone all ready said it earlier -- remember that there's a career beyond your first assignment, and you may very well want that cushy AETC job in 3-4 years when your kids are older. Your back-to-back ops assignments, or worse, your ops-to-remote-to-staff, or any other combination that leaves an AETC tour out of the picture may not be as good as it sounds now. A bunch of flight hours early in your career? Whoop de doo. FAIPs that come through IFF and FTU are exactly the same as any other student. They don't get treated any differently and, for the most part, they don't perform any differently either. I think they upgraded to flight lead just as fast as anyone else did in my ops unit (translation: nobody in a fighter unit gives a crap about the 1 hour you had in a T-6 1,000 times over with a student). I hear that in the heavies you'll get a faster upgrade to AC, though -- and you'll still be years behind the guys who were in your UPT class. I was in a non-rated job for the first 3-4 years I was in the AF. Although I learned a lot there and I feel it not only helped me in UPT but also my development as an officer, I would never recommend that someone that wants to become a pilot go do a tour as a non-rated guy first. I feel the same way about FAIPing. If it happens to you, then fine...make the best of it and you may be able to turn that flight/instructional experience into some benefits later in your MR career. But why would you voluntarily stiff-arm getting to the meat of the reason you wanted to become a military pilot??

Here ya go! https://www.dynamictruth.com/ubb/ultimatebb...329.html#000000

Does anyone have SA on a similar rotator flight to Lakenheath or Mildenhall off the right coast?

Okay, I'll bite. There have been five. I still stand by my original assertion that non-fighter guys in the U-2 are NOT being sent to "line" fighter jobs AT ALL (the stinkbug is a special duty assignment and doesn't count - I'm talking about Vipers, Eagles, and Hogs). I suspect with these other guys, like "Stone", we're still talking about specific dudes who had high-level leaders specifically directing the "system" to get them to the stinkbug. Your guys from the 90s who went to the Viper do not count. Pre 1999 there was specifically a mechanism for heavy dudes to go transfer over to fighters (crossflow board). MORE importantly, the guys you're talking about from the mid-90s probably did UPT in the all-T-38 syllabus, so according to the leadership, they're still qualified to go over to a fighter. The issue since then has been essentially that anyone T-1 trained will not go to an active AF fighter billet. ANG units have a LOT more leeway, and they can send virtually anyone they want through the system, provided they go to the T-38 qual course at RND before IFF and FTU. You're still talking about 5 pilots in more than 6 years that have come out of the U-2 and gone to one specific, non-line fighter airframe (where, by the way, they're undermanned and non-vol'ing line fighter guys to). Not great odds for a T-1 trained bubba who has a burr under his saddle to go fly a pointy-nosed airplane. Better odds are to go find a fighter ANG unit that's hiring. How's my boy "Ping" doing out in his initial qual at Beale (he's a FAIP from Moody)? Any SA on training of new dudes? [ 01. June 2006, 04:53: Message edited by: Hacker ]

That is all pre-BRAC...with numerous F-16 units closing down, several F-15C units going away (or converting to Raptor), and the ANG absolutely taking it in the pooper. Again, it's the politics of $$. The "new student" FTU pipeline will not be shut off or slowed down, so with the same amount of new guys being produced each year and less cockpits for them to go to...where is the slack going to be made up? Answer: in the TX courses.

I have only seen *one* person do this. One. Uno. This was one guy, a Marine on an exchange, who went to an F-117 from the U-2 by order of a couple Generals. Post 1999 (when the crossflow boards closed) I've never seen a "line" USAF guy from a non-fighter background get sent to a "line" USAF fighter job via the U-2. Non-fighter guys who go to the U-2 have not been through IFF, so they would have to get an IFF slot out of programmed PFT. Plus, they'd have to get an FTU B-Course slot out of programmed PFT. All of that...not very likely to happen. With the number of F-15C and F-16C units closing thanks to BRAC, even previously rated fighter pilots in non-fighter jobs (ALFA, staff, schools)are having a tough time getting back to their fighters. Unless you have a General out there who is shepherding you around, I wouldn't count on it happening.

That was actually for the show "Heavy Metal" on the F-15 -- it was not just about that incident, but the history of the Eagle.

Tradition/superstiton going back to Vietnam (and maybe before, I dunno) that says if you're wearing a moustache during combat you're bulletproof.

So long as it doesn't have sewn-in creases on the legs and pocket pool side-zippers... Can't wait to see what other retarded "innovations" they've got in store.

Is that one of the responses in the e-mail chain? How do I recruit her for my squadron?

Dude...please do not ever make the mistake of putting FiFi in the same sentence as Zulu. FiFi has some legitimate accomplishments. Aside from not being captured while on the ground in Bosnia, I'm still searching for those "bigger and better" things for Zulu. Besides, if I were trying to show the great people that CAP has produced, I would certainly NOT use O'Grady as an example! [ 17. May 2006, 04:17: Message edited by: Hacker ]

For those of us stuck in AETC, what was the SOF's email?

Back to the uniforms.... Anyone else wanna go back to khakis/pinks-n-greens? So long as I don't have to fly in them!

UPT is a big part of the problem. I recently heard the SUPT T-38 program called a "Self-licking ice cream cone of mediocrity" because of the IP cadre made up of 50% FAIPs and a leadership team that is proud of how few students it washes out.

"Between this, and 'Death by Bunga Bunga', you'll choose Death" It's a reference to this old joke:

We need to merge this thread with the one on holding. <snicker>

Just ask one, he'll tell you.

You'd be surprised at how people perform when the real shooting starts. In my experience during Shock-N-Awe, the guys I expected to be the man sometimes weren't, and guys I suspected would be slugs sometimes surprised the hell out of me as real life-taker/heart-breaker killing machines. I don't know that there's any way possible to predict how someone is going to do in no-sh*t combat. Maybe Moody Suter had it right with the "if you survive your first 10 missions" idea, but I don't think that's an accurate predictor for who will be sharp and who will not.

I don't know of anyone who feels confident going against a "100 to 1" ratio of a "Wall of Flankers." Plus, the Chinese aren't exactly idiots when it comes to tactics. Let's just say they're not a Soviet Client State anymore, mmmmkaaay? You always have to assume your enemy is the top stick in his flight, assume that he is the WIC grad. The first time you assume any less, you're about to get an ass whipping.

Any time post-graduation you can go to the local FAA FSDO and take a military equivelency test. You bring them your AFORMS printout and flight orders, take the test, and you get the Comm/Multi/Inst ticket. At Columbus there was a company that came in and arranged the whole deal, to include a prep course for the test. Cost $200 or some such, and took one day. That was near graduation time.

It's actually a pretty unbelievable one. Or maybe not, if you know the AF. During the 3rd week of OIF or so, there was a major airborne gas crisis. Basically, the USAF didn't have enough tankers or time slots on the boom to service all the jets going into the container. The solution was to run USAF jets into Al Jaber for a pre-strike hot-pit refuel. The idea was okay, but the implementation was shat. Under the original plan, F-15Es would take off from OTBH with just full internal gas but nothing in the CFTs or externals -- by the time we flew up the NAG to AJ, the gross weight of the jet would be good enough to land and take a full onload at the Jaber pits. Unfortunately, POL at OTBH never got the message...so we took off every time with a full gas load (about 33K vs about 13K). In order to get to a suitable landing weight by the time we finished the 40 minute flight up to AJ, we had to basically dump the entire way up there once we got to altitude. So, the photo is on a jet on the Ocean Parkway dumping to get to landing weight at Jaber. Total f*cking waste. But I'm sure it made sense to some bean counter somewhere. I couldn't help but think of the irony of the petrol that we were putting right back in the Arabian Gulf unused. Hey, forcemac, how about shrinking the size of that huge f*cking picture in that first post, eh? [ 18. April 2006, 04:03: Message edited by: Hacker ]

Not a problem! Just don't ever call me "bra" again.

From AFI 11-214: "5.2.8. Separation of Aircraft: Minimum range during operations between fighter aircraft during Air-to-Air training is 500 feet or MAJCOM and service minimum, whichever is greater. If a violation of minimum range appears imminent or has occurred, each aircraft will perform a “KNOCK-IT-OFF/ TERMINATE”."