ClearedHot

What "retirement benefits" come with the rank Lt Col? It has zero impact on your retirement pay which is a straight line calculation of the average of your top three years of pay. The only impact is on your blue ID card where it says rank. I remember a philosophical discussion last year among a few bros who pinned on O-6 but wanted to bail before wearing it for three years, one wanted to retire as an O-6 because he perceived a post-AF career advantage, the others were going to the airlines. I told them the only real impact of retiring as a Lt Col was you couldn't call protocol to get a DV room on base or park in the reserved parking at the Commissary/BX...which ironically at Hurlburt has now been converted to "E-3 and below parking" to complete the pussification of the Air Force. I pinned on O-6 at 19.5 years and stayed until 26, looking back I wish I had punched at 20. Answer question #1 and do the math, do NOT be afraid of the next chapter.

As usual Beerman has some sage advice, you really have to answer question #1 before wasting any brain bytes on the other stuff. I would suggest you ask yourself where you want to be in ten years and work backwards from there. If your end state is an airline job then mathematically and economically you would be best served to retire as soon as possible, line numbers are everything at the airlines and getting the the airlines a two years sooner could make a HUGE difference in quality of life. It makes me sick to my stomach to hear you doubt you'll make Lt Col because you don't have any mentorship, the system is completely broken when the average bro feels like this. Given the growing shortage of AF pilots, I would think most will make Lt Col, it appears the pilot exodus is accelerating at all levels. I just heard the promotion opportunity to O-6 on the next board has been raised to 55%. Given other indicators I think other promotion rates will increase as well. In a perfect world, where are in you in ten years?

Tracking and came to the same conclusion...The supplemental packages for my family cost more than the entire Tricare prime fee. We are lucky to live near two major regional military hospitals so unless I am missing something it doesn't make sense to purchase the supplemental.

Anyone have particular experience (good/bad) with the Tricare supplemental packages? I've looked at the MOAA and VFW plans but not sure which way to go. We are staying Prime for now while I get a bulging disc fixed and my wife has a torn rotator cuff repaired...after that we are thinking of going standard. Any feedback/examples appreciated.

Flyby Shack.

Shack, we have little control...it is sickening how high some of the most basic and mundane decisions are pushed just to CYA. For a service that has the tenet "Centralized Control, Decentralized Execution." the service takes great pride in throwing that out the window at every opportunity. My first real clash with the system occurred when I was a squadron commander. I was given the AFPC commanders hotline which was a direct number a G series commander could call to work real people issues. The officer side was fairly straight forward in that I knew the lanes I could work to impact a person's career and assignment options. The enlisted side was a complete abomination. Long story short, I was manned at 63% on the enlisted side and I had a guy who had been in the unit for two years and had some family issues (his dad was terminally ill),...suddenly they wanted to move him to the AOC and replace him with a line Instructor from the critically manned ops unit. I found out the ops unit was going to get a long-term DNIF guy coming back from overseas. I talked to the other two squadron commanders and we all agreed, let the ops guy keep the much needed instructor, let me keep my guy who was doing three critical jobs outside his own (and I could manage his schedule to take leave to be with his dad), and send the DNIF guy to the AOC...makes sense right...not to the "E-9s" at AFPC. I got a few days of push back and finally called the head E-9 functional to explain the situation and ask for some common sense. His reply..."Sirrrrrr, the Air Force Enlisted Assignment process is far to big for you to take a personal interest in someone." I lost it...Why the FUCK am I a Commander if I can't take an interest in my people! I elevated it all the way through the Wing/CC and I LOST. We are broken...LEAVE while you can.

The Air Force does NOT care about you, they care about increased health care costs as it impacts the bottomline. The way the seniors spew the core values is ohhh sooo Ironic given the lasted indicators. Internal memos calling to relax standards at Fighter RTUs...relax PT standards...what next...drug standards. The way we manage people is absolutely laughable.

I knew him well and bought into his BS when he was a Colonel. He gave some great speeches when he was the Commandant of the Weapons School and acted as if he genuinely cared, turns out it was nothing but empty words. Get out...as soon as you can...seriously, run for the door while you still have an option, it is only going to get worse.

Further proof of how broken the Air Force is... https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/960240/general-officer-announcement Try to destroy people based on a text....have it overturned and STILL make GO. Baba Rand continues to disappoint.

The setups are far to canned...Move the Red Air Tanker...nothing like a fist fight all the way west just to have Red literally roll inverted off the boom and call a kill on you 30 seconds later.

I would not.

MULTIPLE studies, papers, proposals with great merit considered and CRUSHED by senior leadership over the past 12 years. The math is OVERWHELMINGLY in favor of a lite attack platform that would provide more CAS capability, help with absorption, help season and solve a host of other problems, but the all jet 5th gen mafia ran a genocide operation to kill any serious consideration. I was personally threatened (career wise), insulted, chastised and nearly banished on several occasions by VERY senior USAF officers. The truly sickening part, we could have had a highly suitable aircraft in the field YEARS ago for pennies on the dollar.

I have a good bud who flew Vipers in the ANG THEN went to med School. He loved doing both but eventually had to quit flying, he is a surgeon and it requires huge commitment...he is CONSTANTLY complaining about the costs of things like malpractice insurance so the numbers for 30+ airline career, especially in the current environment, made be better on the flying side.

I was accepted and passed on med school to go to UPT...broke my mom's heart in doing so. Looking back after 26 years, if I had it to do over again, you SNAPs would be calling me Dr CH...actually you wouldn't be calling me as I would ignoring all of you and concentrating on the boob job I was going to do in the morning.

1. Not designed for high aspect BFM,,,and while not meant to be a replacement for the A-10 it is faster. 2. I actually agree with two cockpits, as noted not just a replacement for the A-10 and FMS considerations come to mind that make two cockpits a necessity. 3. Sort of...again not meant for air to air but other sensors (GMTI and a few other toys), will greatly add to SA for CAS. 4. Design work in progress to ad air refueling. 5. True, but then neither does the AT-6 you prefer...pods are a solution for both but strongly prefer an internal gun. 6. Not true...threat warning piece an easy add and being worked, ECM is the bigger show-stopper in my opinion, but that too is being looked at.

I disagree somewhat, perhaps based on my experience in the AT-6 and the shortcomings I noted. You don't have to be an expert flying the Scorpion to notice the benefit of an extra engine, the speed, or the placement of a a wing that does not block downward visibility. That being said, there could be other faults that I don't know out of ignorance...regardless still worthy of a basic discussion.

Curious why you would pick the AT-6....not hating on the AT-6, in fact I've flown it and did an assessment, lots of good, some bad, tremendous potential. I have not flown the Scorpion, Yet...but I would note some advantages just looking at it compared to the AT-6 and A-29, two engines, wing placement, speed.

Did mine with Seth Lake and Mike Jones in Little Rock (Searcy) early July. Started with Seth and studied the Aztec for two weeks prior. At the end of our first flight a Tachometer cable broke and it was going to be five days to get a new one. Seth arranged for me to fly with Mike Jones the next day and I checked the following. Minor drama the day of the check, on taxi back from the single engine landing I was just about to take the active when the airplane started shaking, had a flat nose tire. It took the maintenance guys almost three hours to fix it, but all worked out in the end. It sucked have to learn a new airplane for a check ride in 36 hours, but I passed...the debrief was, "well I've seen all I need to see."

Thanks folks, I still have two months of terminal leave. I think my eyes were glazed over when they covered that in ETAP.

For those who have recently retired, how long did it take to get your DD-214? I am still on terminal leave, but applied for my DD-214 several months ago and have heard or seen anything.

Look at that, democracy actually works...

Thunderbird crash in Co...He got out. Blue Angel Crash in Tenn...He did not get out.

I am old but when I was at ACSC (2003), one of the bros in my seminar had just come from an assignment on the Fighter Porch. He told me that in 2003 the 1990 year group had 17 X F-16 pilots left on active duty.

That is not gonna buff out...glad the crew is ok.

Choke yourself you sanctimonious prick. For the record, you are not as smart as you think you are, you have simply become a mindless part of the collective, endlessly spewing the same old PA verbiage. Here is the thing, I know the game, I’ve done all the in-res schools….ACSC, ASG, War College in DC…and I’ve sat behind the glass doors on the E-Ring as an exec and watched the buffoonery. Playing the $ money card overlooks a GLARING error, we did it to ourselves. The lack of vision from people like Buzz and Zatar is what got us here, for all too long we have been stuck in the endless Do Loop of “we can only have a fifth gen force” and we are paying the price for it in spades. 10 years ago a LOT of very smart people tried to tell them the $ crunch was coming and we could not afford a force of only F-22’s and F-35’s. Despite the fact that on the second night of OIF A-10’s were fighting inside the “Super MEZ”, the seniors insisted we double-down on fifth gen and now we cry when we have no $ to buy anything else. What do you expect when we are flying Raptors that cost $44,000 a flying hour and F-35’s that cost $36,000 a flying hour instead of a mixed high-low fleet that could have economically fought the fight we have been in for the 15 YEARS! Then as we piled ever more coal into the 5th gen steam engine that we couldn’t afford, we decided to cut people to pay the bill, and we took those people from the admin heart of the Squadrons (CSS), where they were needed most…Now, after purposely cutting people we suddenly come to the conclusion that the Air Force is On Verge of Manpower Collapse…freaking brilliant! Sadly, we had multiple chances to off-ramp this road to perdition and the Navy tried to show us the way like in 2006 when they broke the “no more 4th gen fighters for any service pact.” I was there the day the boss found out the Navy was getting 24 extra Super Hornets and I was in close trail as he barged into the N-8 office screaming explicatives at the CNO and his XP staff. The Navy response “well the Super Hornet is not a 4th gen airplane, it is a 4.5 gen airplane and we probably can’t afford all the F-35’s anyway.” Congress has been more than willing to gift us extra Vipers and Eagles every year, but we foolishly keep saying no and doubled down to the point we had to start closing fighter squadrons to pay the bills. The last ten years have seen a steady retreat from the TacAir redline, No lower than 2,300 fighters!…Ok No lower than 2,100 fighters! There was a huge gasp at 2,000, but we sliced right past that number faster than some late night yaki mandu through your system after a Friday night in Aragon Alley. As we started closing fighter squadrons we suddenly had fewer to fill AEF taskings so the bros and sisters on the end of the whip have to run even faster to make up for the shortage…starting to see the picture now? When it comes to your "retention tools" again, you don’t get it…what you call having bigger fish to fry than keeping pilots on the right side of the happy meter and using STOP LOSS as a retention tool is the PROOF that the entire thing is a scam. How can senior leaders profess to care about the force, mission first…people always, and say things like “Morale is pretty darn good” almost in the same breath they admit the Air Force is on the verge of a manpower collapse? This CSAF has made countless impassioned speeches about caring for people and “every Airman has a story”, but in the end as you admit the people are just numbers and their happiness doesn’t really matter. I get it that you will never make everyone happy and there will always be sport bitching, but this is something very different. This is the heart of your ability to be an Air Force, your professional pilot force telling you with their feet…”THINGS ARE Fed UP!” Only 38% of the pilot force took the bonus last year and the numbers look worse for this year…so I would submit you better make time to fix the happy meter. It is not about hating the messenger, it is about hating the smug asshat that parades around the room showing glee in his pronouncements from on high. You represent much of what is wrong with the current system.