aspec

"Growlers are not front-line aircraft for the first week of war, Hostage argues." He actually has a valid point, for highly contested scenarios. We definitely need more Growlers though. "But Hostage says, as do other senior Air Force and Marine officers, that an F-35 pilot who engages in a dogfight has probably made a mistake or has already broken through those IADS lanes and is facing a second wave of enemy aircraft." That, however, is a bad arguement. I've heard people use this statement to justify why fighter aircraft no longer need to be as maneuverable. PK miss... It would really be unfortunate if they decided not to put a gun on the F-35 in the highly likely event that a pilot finds him/herself at a merge... oh wait, they did (F-35B/C).

Maybe I misread the statement from Welsh (forwarded to me via email a few days ago titled "What We Value") but I thought it said a masters degree will not be included in the promotions board until O-6?

It's definitely a cultural change that won't happen overnight - certainly not when people aren't willing to change. I stopped working on my masters a year ago after finishing a few classes. I couldn't continue to waste time on something that has zero value other than filling a square for a bunch careerist on a promotion board to look at. I accepted the fact that it may hurt my "career" in terms of promotions and schools, but I also accepted the fact I'll be able to look back on my life knowing I spent that time otherwise wasted on enjoying life itself. So, I'm definitely riding this one out based on the mindset Gen. Welsh has of not wasting your time on a masters degree if it's simply to fill some ridiculous square for a promotion board. He's still encouraging folks to pursue higher education, but the results should be reflected in your job performance since ultimately that's what the masters degree should be for. I think most people in the operational community get it (well, even that is becoming questionable), but convincing the rest of the Air Force that we actually have a mission that we need to focus on is the challenge.

Why are people doing the SOS DL course?

Supposedly we are getting them back, or at least it was mentioned among the higher ups. It would definitely be a step in the right direction.

Sounds like a wonderful idea to me. Instead of people working two jobs in the squadron with flying being the tertiary job, it would be great to have flying being the primary job again. Plenty of non-worthless queep that people could use help with.

Nobody is putting down all non-rated officers. With all the free time you have to invest in community service and the CGOC, why not walk over to your nearest flying squadron and see if they need any help? I guarantee almost every squadron is severely min manned and would greatly appreciate your help. Not only are you directly contributing to our primary missions, you know, the whole "flying" thing, but you can still write yourself an amazing OPR bullet so you look better than your peers and get promoted.

Since extending SOS to 8 weeks wasn't bad enough, now it's mandatory to do SOS in-correspondence before we can attend in-residence? I'm really glad I did ASBC. But I'm sure our leadership knows what's best for us. Between the time spent [wasted] at ASBC, SOS in-correspondence, SOS in-residence and an extremely useful degree from AMU, I'm sure we will truly embody the Air Force warrior ethos and be much more effective and efficient at our jobs. I really hope Gen Welsh can refocus our priorities as a service. We are far too undermanned to be doing shit that makes absolutely no sense and is a complete waste of time. Every person I've asked has said SOS is pretty much worthless yet we're extending the program to meet the learning objectives (which should be covered in the commissioning program) of the failed/cancelled ASBC.

Roughly three to four months ago I started noticing a lower back pain. I don't know what exactly caused it, either flying or weight lifting but regardless, it wasn't anything unusual as I've had a sore lower back after working out before. It slowly got worse over the course of about one to two months and it seemed to become really aggravated after driving for two days during a PCS. At that point I had my flight doc check it out during in-processing and he said it's likely just the muscle that can take a while to heal. Over the next month or so it would feel better some days and worse on other days (wasn't flying during this period). Once I started flying there wasn't much change. It started getting a lot better until today (having not flown in about 12 days) while under G (6-7) I felt something weird in my lower back like the muscle slightly pulling (not painful at all) and sure enough, the pain is back and seems a little worse than before now. Has anyone experienced something similar to this? I've never had any issues with my lower back until this. The pain is not radiating to my legs or anything. When I'm standing up it's hardly noticeable but when I'm sitting down or trying to touch my toes from a standing position, the pain occurs. My main concern is this turning into a permanent problem. I'm thinking a chiropractor is in order but I'm interested to see if anyone has had a similar issue.

I think CGOs should be completely focused on their primary duty and strive to be the absolute best in their MDS. Additional duties should only be what is essential to keep the squadron running efficiently. I disagree with the notion that if you can't do CGO queep, then you will not succeed as a staff officer for a couple reasons. The first reason goes back to my first statement - CGOs should be focused on their primary duty. These are the folks that should be at their absolute peak in their ability to employ their MDS. Second, do we really believe how well a person can plan the squadron's Christmas party to be indicative of how well they will perform as a staff officer? Most of the queep I've seen is mindless work that requires little to no skill or thinking, just a significant amount of time (unless you believe Powerpoint to be a skill which I guess requires thinking if you're trying to make animations). How well a Mission Commander plans and executes an LFE holds far more weight than how well a person planned and executed a change of command. Personally, I would rather be in a service led by folks who were the best and brightest from each MDS rather than folks who got their masters before pinning on 1LT, PME in correspondance twice before going in residence, but just "got by" in their primary job. Why? Because I want the people making the higher level decisions to truly know what's best for our primary mission. Like you, I'm no where near the position to fix the system either. I have very little motivation to "play by the rules as they stand" because when the balloon goes up, I know that useless degree from AMU, time spent on queep, and PME that is 90% useless is not going to save me from the emerging threats in this world or more importantly, perhaps save someone else's life.

Spot on. Trying to figure out how to use DTS is an absolute nightmare. It is mind blowing we have dumped $500 million into this program and it's still terrible. In fact, every DOD program we have does a horrible job at being intuitive (GTIMS, ePex, JMPS, etc). Give me $1 million and I bet I could find a couple college graduates in the web development/programming field that could create a program that is significantly easier to use, and that's with me pocketing $900,000 of that. It has most of the functionality to get the job done, but the delivery is terrible. Most of the previous posts have already mentioned it but it needs a logical flow and when there are fields or options that might be confusing, maybe put a ? button next to the option/field that explains what it's for and some examples of how it's used. In all seriousness, what does finance do on a daily basis? I went into finance recently to in-process and they tell me, "oh sir, we can't in-process you here, you must do it on ePIPS". So I ask, "alright, well, what do you guys do here then?" and they reply, "well, if you have problems with ePIPS you can come in and we can help you." Fortunately, ePIPS is a little easier to use and I was almost able to complete the entire process without help.

Aerospace phys. just needs to accept the fact that trying to determine a persons g-tolerance with a weight lifting test is pointless and drop the FACT altogether. Replacing a worthless program with another worthless program doesn't fix anything. I'm sure someone will get promoted though.

Next CSAF, maybe? Article: A look at who could be your next chief

Did anyone ask why we're no longer allowed to wear black t-shirts and boots? I'm curious about the reasoning (bullshit) behind that change.

That article has been updated and now says it's a fake.