NKAWTG

Maybe the Air Force realized it can't solve the retention issue. Retention is a factor of Ops tempo and civilian opportunity. In a good economy, people will leave. In a bad one, people will stay. Ops commitments have stayed fairly consistent since the early 90s, but we've decided to do it with far fewer people. They won't go away anytime soon. So if the only factors that matter for retention are outside your control, then you need to focus on the inflow, not the outflow. Open another training base. Accelerate the T-38 follow on. Put the safety controls in for a force of mostly young guys, and few old ones. One thing I don't get is the fighter community struggles at meeting RAP and upgrading folks right now. If 1000 fighter pilots magically appeared in the next 5 years, what cockpit would you put them in, and where would you get the flying hours.

The target audience for this over reaction is not the US military, but the local Okinawan government. It's an appeasement to show we're doing something. It just sucks because leadership has to to couch it in terms of responsible drinking, etc, and can't come out and state the real reason for it.

They have managed to get over 300 pilots to sign up for 22 or 24 years aviation service bonus. That should make up the difference for the low take rate of pilots expiring on their pilot training commitment.

Yes, already happening. Seeing a fair amount of non command track O-5s headed to MAF bases. Timing really is everything.

AMC's command track program is crossflow, which is switching from airlift to tanker, or tanker to airlift. Your CGO of the year types are typically the ones selected for that, and winning that type of award has little to do with tactical credibility in the MAF, On the flip side, the tanker patches have the credibility, but the MAF has never valued them as command material. Because of a fairly heinous deployment legacy, the tanker WIC spent a decade having more class slots than applicants. As a generalization, tanker patches don't have records that compete with the crossflow guys. You can spend an entire 10 year commitment never meeting a patch wearing commander. But more than likely, your commander, and his commander, will be airlift guys. And obviously, the path to command is flying a different MAF airframe. So early on, you realize the critical path toward senior leadership is min running toward IP, becoming an exec, and off to another airplane. Follow that with school and staff, and then find yourself in command of a squadron where the senior Captains have way more experience than the guys leading them.

I think the Air Force may have checkmated you there Duck. You fall into the category of should be promoted but don't want to be. I doubt the Wg/CC is handicapped by AFPC, but the direction might be that a DNP needs to be backed up by the record. The way the system should work now is the Sq/CC documents the performance of the substandard O-3, recommends a DNP to the senior rater, and they need to make the call and send the DNP to the board. Hard to do now since the "continue to challenge" push lines won't be enough to deny promotion like years past.

This is a completely pragmatic move, and totally unlike the air force I grew up with. When they removed the school selects, and let the wings duke it out, the majority of work the promotion boards did is OBE. It really wasn't worth the time to decide the 5-7% of the year group that gets passed over. We've gone from the implied masters requirement among all the checkboxes to the ability to fog a mirror. Times are a changing.

John's was an egregious example of AMC leadership, but he is the rule, and not the exception. I love ASAP as a concept. We are so busy on the tanker/airlift side of the house, we lack the time to reflect and hanger fly. ASAP could provide some institutional lessons learned, but I have no faith in AMC senior leaders. The choice is CYA or share what you've learned with a risk of adverse actions. I'm not convinced the risk is negligible.

This is just a culture thing within the MAF. If you bend metal, everyone associated with the flight gets a Q3, irregardless of the facts or if you could have prevented it. This is same command that tries to track down aircrew for ASAP reports when self reporting a breach of flight discipline, or court martials a pilot for an off DZ drop. Non AMC MAF units like LTS can make smarter decisions, but rarely do since the leadership is drawn from AMC.

Risk level high. Early 2001, but haven't done a short tour yet. More than half my deployments have a awaiting MPF verification tag next to them, and I haven't cracked the code on how to make them move my STRD.

Got a myPers email saying I'm eligible for the bonus now. Looking into it as a prior bonus taker, I'd get the 11M rate per year for two years past my 20 years. I assume the 365 is implied. While it is awfully sweet of them to think of me, I don't believe I'll give up a year with my family and 2 years of seniority for 30k a year. Although if they give me a no 365 clause, and airline of choice afterward, I'd be tempted.

There is a safety report on it if you do some digging. Worst pilot judgement I've read about in a crew aircraft. People closer to the story can verify, but I believe the copilot and boom operator were really new, like less than a year in the aircraft new.

While there is some merit to being the best of what's left, I doubt it will be any less competitive. You're in the line of the AF category, which includes a majority of the support personnel. You shouldn't see a change in absolute numbers or quality of records for them since the economy isn't luring them away at the same rate as pilots. With 4 year commitments, by the time they reach the O-4/O-5 boards, they've had a couple chances to leave, RIF, etc. Whatever is left out of that pool is going to be competitive. Pilot side, your path is already set by the time you hit your 10 year commitment. When the chosen ones bail at 10 years, the overall chances of the pilot pool decrease, since the system doesn't accept late bloomers. Short of specific board directions to promote more pilots, the current crop of O-6s will look for the things that got themselves promoted. You'll continue to see support personnel promoted at a higher rate than pilots, and your promotion board members lamenting the fact that pilot records aren't as strong as they used to be.

That's the HPO list. The on ramps are DGs from the Academy, pilot training, SOS, MAJCOM awards and school selects from Major's list. Problem is, if you don't hit one of those milestones, you probably won't make the super secret list, and they only remove people after the Major's board. There isn't a process to ID late bloomers, so you'd better off with #1 for Delta, and Palace Front now! push lines.

This The report issued on bonus take rates only breaks it down into bonus takers / total eligible. If they continue it to match previous years, then the 1 year bonus takers will fix the glitch.

So here's the math Early bonus taker 2017 25k x 5 yrs = 125k or 25k per year FY 2017 bonus taker 30k x 5 yrs = 150k or 30k per year Early bonus taker 2017 renegotiate 30k x 5 yrs + 1 yr = 150k or 25k per year The early bonus takers will need to add 1 more year of commitment to get the same dollar amount. If they had timed the market better, they would have gotten a better deal. The fact the extra year is entirely within Big Blue's discrimination to adjust is the sticking point. They could have added 1 minute to 1 month of extra commitment using the same justification as they did for adding 1 year.

My reading saw a couple of nuggets 1. If you signed the early bonus last year, you can upgrade to the new dollar amount by adding an extra year of commitment. It doesn't say one way or the other if that extra year comes with a bonus payment. I would assume it does, but it doesn't explicitly say that. 2. If you already signed a bonus, you're under that contract, no way to upgrade. Options are nice, but I can't see this convincing a fence sitter to stay. All the other promises about manning, 365s, pairing additional duties back, etc, need to be kept for a couple of years to build the trust back.

Senior leaders can strat people any way they want to, but an outside the top 15 to 20% strat with a number is way to tell the board that he has alot of good people and would normally received a strat with the normal bell curve of people. For everyone one else, it doesn't matter if you are 16/100 or 97/100. Big blue could care less what you do as long as it has enough bodies to fill the taskings. They just won't tell you that your record no longer has O-6 potential. You're on your own to figure that part out.

This is a no kidding common sense solution to the reimbursement problem. Pay the member what they are owed, and make it a commander's issue to figure out if regs were broken without a good enough reason. It shouldn't be some Amn's authority to deny someone thousands of dollars because they didn't like the way they booked the room. If they really want the pound of flesh, the commander can give an article 15, and doc pay far less than what finance is trying to take away.

That 10% is usually a Sq set policy. It should be well within the DO's ability to approve above that for Christmas, and just put people on local leave on notice that when the sh*t hits the fan, you will get recalled. Or make the wing exec fly. Either one can work, and more likely than not, people will get their leave.

I'd tweak the way our PME and promotion systems rely so heavily on each other. Eliminate SOS to start with. The networking opportunities will be missed; the education certainly won't. And it eliminates the DG easy button for commanders ranking their people. Also, stratify everyone. Make it public. Force commanders to make decisions they have to justify both up and down the chain. Cut IDE in half, and open it up to 40% or more. Have it coincide the O-4 board and give people a choice. Opt for a technical track and know you'd max out at O-4/O-5 and won't need to worry about school or command. Or aim for the command track with the ability to jump back to the technical one when it doesn't work out.

Just a feeling on my part, but I believe the natural retention rate is around 45% when you have normal economic conditions and airline hiring. That it was above 60% for the past 15 years is the anomaly, not the low retention now. Unless you're adding another zero on to the bonus, whatever they come up with won't move the needle more than a percent or two. Maybe HAF should start figuring out what they can and can't do with 45% retention, and plan accordingly.

The ATP requirement to fly for 30k a year for a regional is a legitimate problem for industry. While it puts separating military pilots at the front of que for the majors, it breaks the entry level pipeline on the civilian side. Entry level wages need to go way up to provide a ROI for the years spent slumming as a CFI, or the 100k + needed to get the flight time. Legitimate problem, but where does the Air Force have a dog in this fight? Big Blue has it's own pipeline, thousands of people wanting entry level positions, and job security independent of the economy at large. Not to say you have job security, because hiring and firing are bureaucratic decisions, not rational ones. As much "effort" as the military puts into retention, the single overriding factor is the economy. If you can get equivalent or better compensation/QoL out the military, then you leave. If we can't, then we stay. Doubling a bonus won't move the needle nearly as much as 9/11 or the great recession.

Anyone know which congressman seems to to think military personnel are scamming the housing allowance? This feels like it is in the same vein as cutting benefits for dual military spouses. End game of this new change appears to be the DOD pays the same amount in housing costs, but military members have less in their paychecks after taxes. Lose/lose all the way around.

I wonder if my retirement pay calculation will include the housing "compensation." May make those last 3 years in DC suck a tiny bit less.