Rmarsh

What would be selling out be? Re-cat to 18x from 11x? I get it, I really do, a follow-on to a cockpit is the best case scenario for those in RPA's that still have that option, but what about the meantime, "###### it, I really don't want to be here"? I've been in an a community where I flew twice a month and wanted more, and I've spent 40 hours a week in the box and wanted less, but I guess I don't see how you can set yourself up for those greener pastures by saying "a cockpit or I'm out"...

If Big Blue's only concern was caring for the wishes of cadets, there would be 10,000 fighter slots, and we wouldn't have a Mission Support Group. Getting the last assignment on a dream sheet is unfortunate, but it has to go to someone, and sitting in a fetal position outside the O-club on drop night is missing the forrest trough the trees. Driving the goat bus at Tinker or flying preds at Cannon is still better than sitting behind the customer service window at Hickam...

Well the AF has already made the fix in my opinion by standing up the 18X training pipeline. Lt's in UPT no longer need fear the reaper on drop night, you go through the RPA undergrad program knowing full well what happens at the end. And these kids aren't butt-hurt, they're eager, trust me. You act as though every new 2Lt is a fragile baby bird who needs coddling, lest we crush his lifelong dream of killing MiGs...

I just bought a '14 Tundra, and have previously owned an '05 GMC Sierra and an '07 Tundra. I love it, but I also bought it because the 4x4 with some extras is almost 15 grand less than a similarly loaded Silverado Z-71. They really aren't in the same class, but for the money, I wouldn't have bought anything else.

I think it's relevant, if there are 3 O-5's in the SQ, everyone knows the deal, everyone knows where they fit, but the rest, are they being prepped for command or just put out to pasture? Who knows, and I can see why so many would get out.

It will be interesting to see where the loyalties lie when the Gulf/Arab states start to weigh in... In my experience the Saudis are primarily interested in maintaining the Status Quo but who knows when a Caliphate is on the table. And then there is Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Lebenon...

Good grief, this is all what I'm railing on about, the Air Force never owed anyone a trophy or an F-16 or an assignment to Germany... Oh no, a guy dropped reapers in front of a room full of his friends... Pretty sure by that point in UPT you've overcome the fear of public humiliation. What about the guy that got services out of commissioning? Give a shit about him? I certainly don't, and neither do you...And I've seen both sides of the fence and there's the ones who bitch and those who couldn't be happier, it's all perspective. There are plenty of guys who can't wait to get into that shipping container and pickle off a couple AGM-114's, I mean, that may be the best part about Clovis...

So have I, I'm not just saying "suck it up", with no perspective on the subject.

Yep, and now look what happened in Oklahoma, a recently converted Muslim man chopped off a coworkers head. The media is calling it a case of "workplace violence", but I'm fairly sure that he didn't remove his colleague's head because she didn't fill out her TPS reports correctly. And 2 years ago when I lived there the Oklahoma State Legislature passed an anti-sharia bill in response to the cases in the United Kingdom... The libtards were up in arms about how "culturally insensitive" and pointless it was, and now here we are, a Muslim Oklahoman cut off a woman's head in the name of Islam. And people still think it's a religion of peace?

^ This. This thread is the dumping ground for gripes against RPA assignments and I get that, it's valid. Every community has it's things, the viper guys bitched when they were in Clovis and breathed a sigh of relief when the BRAC gave it to AFSOC. Guys at Creech live In North Vegas and don't like the commute, guys from the Midwest don't like Hickam because they get island fever, guys that got C-17's don't like Charleston because they wanted an Eagle.... Either the juice is worth the squeeze, or it isn't.

Nice, I stand corrected... Love me some Oklahoma, enjoy OKC when you get the chance

Airlines, Customs and Border Patrol, whatever... We'll still be here

Well as one of them I can certainly relate...I agree with you and maybe I wasn't as clear as I could have been. I only meant to say that as a former manned pilot- turned-RPA-pilot, everyone that I work with now is just as willing and eager to do their best working 24/7 at home as I and many others worked 24/7 deployed, only now we aren't, we get to drink booze and bang it out when we get home. Again I agree, morale matters and the toll on RPA crews is as obvious to me as anyone else, but I was only comparing our community to the flying Air Force at large. All involved give very much in the flying game.

These are first world problems, pilot problems. Nobody asks the FSS troops if they get any respect, because nobody cares. RPA crews do their jobs just like everyone else, and 'giving a damn' about them isn't really important...Herk guys don't get too ruffled when people call them 'trash haulers', and the -22 guys don't get too bothered when people call them 'Air show queens', do they? Same thing here.

Chris was a fellow Tough 20 Troll at USAFA. Sad day for the Air Force. Here's a toast.

"I said its not like I HAVE a pressure cooker!" "you said 'pressure cooker' on an airplane..." "pressure press press press-a pressure cooker!"

I'm surprised Fox News hasn't said it yet (and maybe I missed someone else saying it in the previous 14 pages) but it looks a lot like Vietnam- "...We are only going to conduct a limited engagement, but we aren't going to start an all-out war..." "Here's an airstrike Asad! Surrender yet?" "Ok then, here's ANOTHER airstrike!" "Surrender yet?"

I get that, but switching RPA pilots from Officers to Enlisted just to save some salary money seems like nickel & diming to me, But I'm not a finance officer. I supose they could buy another expensive toy or two with the savings.

I get your point, but *allegedly* they made ABM's rated officers so they would have more legal culpability after the blackhawk shoot-down in 1994, after the families of the fallen erroneously sued the wacker pilots. Honestly, this argument seems like a good case of "If it isn't broke, don't fix it". I don't think they (Big Blue) have a good reason to change the system, and I have no doubt that there are many enlisted folks who could control RPA's just fine and spend a career doing it ala army WO's, but why would they bother to create that whole new paradigm? *edited for clarity

The 18X vs. 11 argument is a double edged sword, and I agree its a mixed bag for the prior aviators. For those outside the RPA world, its important to keep in mind that the prior MWS guys bring the airmanship to the table, and in some cases real-world experience in the same mission set. But often they have trouble with flying an airplane using a system that doesn't fly like an airplane. General Atomics didn't build the consoles to be used by flyers, they built them so that they would make sense to engineers. So for a dumb yoke monkey like me, its not very intuative and does not act the way I expect it to, but at least I have the SA that a couple thousand manned hours and multiple deployments has given me. Is one better than the other? I don't know the answer to that. At the schoolhouse, this is considered to be a hook-able offense, and for good reason. There are rides in the syllabus that address this issue directly, and stack deconfliction is an emphasis item in several phases of training. I guess the lesson doesn't stick for some.

Thanks, I really do appreciate it. I look at Clovis the same way I looked at Del Rio- the town isn't the best by any stretch, but if you're there with good bros and you are blessed with a woman who can at least deal with a less than ideal situation for the time being, everything is going to work out fine. I'm sure Disco_Nav963 (BLUE KNIGHTS!) would chime in and say that getting stationed in a "crappy" place isn't the end of the world if its an improvement in the career aspect, which for the two of us, for example, is.

I'm on my way to Cannon in a couple weeks and after reading this whole thread the overarching opinion I had until the last 2 pages was that there was a lot of bitching going on by people who had either spent their whole careers at Hurby or by people who had never been there. I've never been a C-17 pilot and I'm new to AFSOC so I can't say that I've had posh assignments to coastal cities or OCONUS bases, but I've been around long enough to have been stationed in places where people bitch just the same. Finally in the last couple pages some sense started to come out instead of just "Clovis sucks, it smells like shit and the houses are too expensive" (paraphrasing). If people want to get out after their commitment, fine, I get it, I thank them for their service, but it sounds to me like Clovis/Cannon makes a convenient scapegoat. And I just bought a house there for less than the appraised value, and frankly I'm pretty excited about the whole PCS.

Whatever's happening down there, it sounds like a real shame because hot southern...cooking... should be enough for a single LT to be more than happy with a first assignment...

If you notice, thats a NATO wacker, those guys are even bigger clowns than ours are. Until you get creeched... I can def. see the argument for picking on location for your first tour, because of the previously mentioned lack of control on your second one. Putting that second PCS to Hickam on a pedestal seems pretty silly if/when they send you to preds or back to Columbus/Enid/Del Rio...

All things considered, this is stil true. I heard someone say recently that hand-flying is becoming a lost art, and that's a total cop-out. It may not be the best approach or landing, but you shouldn't need a "glide path" to tell if you are in a dangerous position on a VMC day with a healthy jet. Edit to add: Obviously this appears to be a clear case of pilot error, but shit happens in this business, condolences to the victims.