Smokin

For what its worth, realize that the biggest benefits to having these cards come simply by having them. For day to day spending, other than a bonus category, the USAA 2.5% cash back card is pretty much impossible to beat. I have the better part of a dozen credit cards at a given time and the USAA is my go-to as I haven't found anything else to beat 2.5%.

I keep hearing guys say, "it's not about the money" but that's a load of bull. It may not ALL be about the money, but at some point, money talks. The AF should find solutions to most of the laundry list of reasons guys get out, but that is going to take years. Make the bonus jaw-dropping and you'll keep enough guys in to buy time to figure out how to fix the rest. I'd bet most of the guys getting hired by the majors right now are doing it for two reasons, money and work schedule. If the AF could figure out either (or both ideally), the exodus would be far more manageable.

It has been released, emailed to me so not sure where it is posted. Looks fairly similar to last year in terms of amounts and contract years. Dollar amounts went up $5K in most cases but added a few different tiers from what I remember from last years. No re-upping to the new amount if you're already under contract.

This line of logic on behalf of the airlines is bull. Compare a list of guys on long term mil-leave to guys on long term medical leave and tell me that the military leave is what is really breaking their system. Last I heard from a Delta pilot, the ratio of long term sick leave to long term mil leave was in the ballpark of 10:1. The airlines may complain about guys 'abusing' USERRA, but United sure didn't seem too heartbroken about using bankruptcy court to kill fixed pensions they should still be paying out today. If the shoe were on the other foot, the company would use every power the law gave them to maximize their profit. Why is it somehow wrong when employees do the same thing?

Except discrimination laws... This entire meeting baffles my mind. I don't see how either side can legally influence the other to do anything. If the Air Force leaders somehow convince the airlines to stop military hiring, that is illegal discrimination. If the Air Force stops giving long term orders to guard/reserve guys employed by the airlines, that is also discrimination. The only thing is the airlines could do is hire a representative number of military guys to better represent the total applicant pool. But even that would only slow the hiring of military pilots temporarily. The one thing this does accomplish is prove to guys looking to get out that big Air Force is not looking out for them and instead is actively trying to remove post-military employment opportunities.

I agree that you need to elevate this very high very fast. A congressman (is he still around here?) who cares about actually helping troops needs to look into BS like this. At least you never actually got paid twice. Had you been paid twice, you would have had the taxes withheld, then the DFAS debt would have been the full pre-tax amount. Talk about a nice little kick in the junk. Not only does that cause additional work to fix someone else's mistake, you literally have to pay for it too. And if they don't get the correct amount on your W-2, or they catch it after taxes are filed, too bad. I got double paid for a day when I switched types of guard orders. Didn't notice it at the time because it was a single day and they had already messed up multiple other things on my pay. DFAS, or someone, caught it in April the following year and almost sent my debt to a collections agency because I was only notified by mail and was TDY at the time. Not a huge amount of money, but insulting that I had to pay taxes and interest on someone else's mistake.

This is clearly a partisan hit piece. The "ethics lawyer" "supported Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton" If his support of Clinton was strong enough to be mentioned in an article, his "ethics" view is probably tainted. Oh the irony. "...Flynn violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. That clause prohibits retired military personnel from accepting a foreign-source payment without prior permission." Except the actual Constitution says "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." He retired from the military, left the DIA in 2014, and was paid by a Russian owned news agency to make a speech in 2015. I would be interested how anyone can make the mental leap that a military retiree, regardless of rank is "holding any office of profit or trust". Would be interesting to see the same scrutiny applied to senior Democratic officials (*cough* Clinton) who are basically in the same 'retired' status after serving a single day in Congress. Based on this line of logic, no retired military pilot can fly for a foreign owned airline or even work for a company that is partially owned by a government. The Pandora's box this opens would be absurd.

The guys who signed as early eligible, or whatever the exact term was, should be able to update to the new amount from what I remember of the wording. If you were not that early eligible, I think you're stuck unless they change the verbiage in the new one.

Has any current pilot here looked at allergy shots or know a pilot who got allergy shots? Just curious as to how difficult the waiver would be. Seems to me that it would be better to make pilots relatively immune to their allergy rather than treat with meds. I don't have a day to day problem, but when the pollen flares up it would be nice to have my immune system conditioned to ignore it.

If that doesn't work, make it readily apparent to him that a 1 bedroom TLF isn't enough. Baby crying? Take him to the lobby. Kids going crazy for being pent up? I think the lobby would make a great playground. As soon as the manager takes a break, put the baby to sleep in his office and tell him that you consider the hallway to be an "suitable" office for him.

Except that the two pilot (or one pilot and one FA during a piss break) system in the US is designed to prevent a Germanwings style incident. I'd be interested if NASA did this on their own or if any legacy carriers actually want this. Technically possible and commercially desirable are two completely different things.

Why do we keep talking about 120 day deployments? When I signed up, 90 days was the normal AEF and I'm not that old. Transportation to/from deployment costs a whole lot less than replacing people who get out. Even the spin up argument doesn't make sense with more numerous but shorter deployments. If I'm in Afghanistan 3 months out of every 15, how much spin-up do I really need? And 3 months is far more tolerable to my family. Every additional month is like a year to a little kid who can't remember what Daddy looks like other than on a computer screen.

A voluntary recall could get some guys back for an assignment if the AF did it right. If a dude who is just finishing probation at an airline got an offer of his choice of bases, it could work out. Wouldn't mess up his career at an airline unless he overstayed his 5 years mil leave. If they offered in writing a 3 year assignment with only a 3 year ADSC to a fighter squadron in Europe with no individual non-vol TDYs (only deploy when the squadron deploys), they'd get some guys for sure and the gaining squadrons would be better for it. Imagine how much better of a squadron it could be if the SQ/DO or SQ/CC honestly didn't give a single thought to his career after that job? Problem is, the AF will just pork it away and has show itself to not be trustworthy as an organization.

M9 qualification doesn't mean much. My second time taking the M9 class, the instructor had the empty weapons sitting with the chamber open on the tables in front of us. Half an hour into the class, he instructed everyone to check that the chamber was empty, release the slide, aim it at him, and pull the trigger repeatedly. I thought it was a trap and never closed the slide only to watch dumbfounded as everyone else in the class blindly followed his instructions. I completely expected him to flip his shit and kick everyone out, but to my surprise, he walked around critiquing holds and such. Good to hear some base commanders are actually allowing CC. I fully expect that until the DOD makes it mandatory, most base commanders will pay lip service saying that the plan is 'under review' and such only to never do anything.

The article mentioned the two squadrons as a temporary plus up to fix our fighter pilot shortage. I doubt that they would then send foreign students there. As far as I know, all the foreign students go to Tucson. They're experienced in that specific aspect of instruction. I have never taught a foreign student, so don't feel qualified to make a judgement on it. But the classes that were solo from start to finish at Luke had no significant issues. The only downside that I noticed was it took longer for IPs to catch poor techniques happening within the cockpit. Can't really debrief radar mech from another aircraft until you get to the debrief. I'm guessing your class starts mid to late Sep and you'll do academics exclusively while the class you're replacing is finishing up. You won't hit the flight line for a little while as you'll start with academics and sims just like UPT. The new class is usually just starting in the squadron when the old class is graduating if the timeline is working out.

You need to make B-course IPs from somewhere. Just because Holloman is already a B-course doesn't mean they have two extra squadrons of IPs sitting around doing nothing. FYI, the 6 month B-course has been underway for years and the C-model only syllabus was a success for everyone except AETC who saw it as too big of a risk to continue once the D-models started coming back. This was despite the fact that there were zero additional issues with the C-model only students and I think they actually did better. As a whole, their pre-solo emergency sims were noticeably better than previous or later classes. I attribute it to the fact that they knew that if they couldn't hack it, there wouldn't be an IP in the back to save the day. Makes perfect sense to me that a single seat fighter should only be flown single seat from day one.

Won't change a thing. Base commanders/managers are going to see allowing concealed carry on base as a high-risk/no reward scenario that will jeopardize their careers. When previous Chief of Staff was asked about concealed carry at a base visit following the sea port shootings in CA, he spouted off the standard BS answer of 'how will law enforcement know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy when they arrive?' Easy sir, the bad guy will be the dead dude laying on the pavement and the good guy will be the guy standing over him with a holstered firearm asking the cops what took them so long to get there. Instead, we'll just have more of the same training about hiding under your desk and only confronting the bad guy when the barrel is on your temple.

Luke was the main Viper FTU, but other locations have existed for some time including Tuscon, Kelly, and Holloman which started up about two years ago. Luke is in the long process of drawing down the F-16s there. Once a base/state gets a shiny new penny like the F-35, they couldn't care less about a 4th gen fighter, despite the fact that the F-16 has, and will be for some time, one of the primary workhorses downrange. At the end of the first year of the F-35s being at Luke, you wouldn't even know there were still F-16s there if you only looked at the base media, WG/CC calls, etc. In the base paper's end of year review, there were nearly 40 pages of F-35 pictures and literally a single F-16 picture. And that was with basically one super squadron of F-35s and 4 full squadrons of F-16s. On the bright side, I don't think I ever saw the WG/CC in our squadron. Even the OG/CC was only there a couple times a year. Sometimes its nice to be the ignored kid in the family.

It's official, two more squadrons to the middle of a desert for an undetermined amount of time. Best part of the article: “In choosing to relocate these F-16 squadrons to Holloman Air Force Base, the Air Force has made a decision that will enormously benefit our national security, our service-members and their families, and New Mexico’s economy,” Udall (NM Senator) said in a press release. Wait, here's a more accurate version: “In choosing to relocate these F-16 squadrons to Holloman Air Force Base, the Air Force has made a decision that will enormously benefit our national security, our service-members and their families, and New Mexico’s economy," Good thing we have plenty of fighter pilots, it only took almost a dozen guys 7-day opting orders from Luke to Holloman before some guys didn't/couldn't 7-day it. Mind blowing the senator has the balls to say that this decision will enormously benefit our members and families. President Eisenhower was slightly off target when he said we should fear the military-industrial complex. Political meddling into what should be military affairs causes far worse consequences for our country.

I lived between the mountains and the south gate. Most are smaller yards (most are around .2 acre lots), but if you're willing to move into an older house, there are lots of options a little over 1/4 acre. Nice area, short commute, good schools, and still quick access to the mountains. Exactly 30 minutes from my door to the ski lift. Even if you live in Morgan, you're not going to be walking distance to the lift or trails, so much less time than that didn't make much difference to me. That being said, if I moved back, I would primarily look in east Layton (east and SE of the south gate) and maybe some in Morgan.

Go to a 3 day cycle and squadrons will treat the debrief like the msn planning (i.e. sending one or two reps). Try enforcing flying once in three days to a traditional guard/reserve buba who wouldn't get his RAP even if he went the full two weeks and see how that works out.

Get rid of half the white force, especially the "wing commander". He generates a bunch of useless PIA queep like the day before MSN/CC brief. Also, he has way too much power. How is it that some random O-6 can sit a squadron because they didn't show up for a practice brief when the MSN/CC cleared them off? 100% true story. Stop letting a dozen guys speak at the end of the brief and debrief. I got it, you have birds on your shoulders or you went to WIC when I was in elementary school, good for you, now sit down and stop talking. Info-aggressors - complete waste of manpower. If the bad guys are attending our briefings, the war is over anyway. Stop with the absurd scenarios. I get that if we train to harder missions than we'll execute in wartime, we stand a better chance of everyone coming home. But launching F-16 blk 40 units to do DCA against the hordes of Su's with better ECM pods than we have is absurd. In combat, we'd have FR busted like a big dog, retrograde as fast as possible, and let the patriots target them.

The normal release has been early to mid-spring, so I wouldn't hold your breath. Whatever max amount the budget gets approved for will tell you most of what you want to know, but any up front numbers and duration won't be reliable until the actual AF release. I'd guess late March.

PM sent, not comfortable airing which might be considered dirty laundry on a public forum.

Just for expectation management, many fighter squadrons are seeing as many as a dozen current and qualified applicants for every opening and even more guys who are non-current. The exodus is well under way and the guard/reserve is going to be hard pressed to able to accept even a portion of the influx of guys leaving AD. When a handful of current instructor pilots are applying, hiring a guy the same age and rank (bigger deal in many units than you'd think) who basically is only 13 months timeline-wise ahead of their off the street applicants would be a tough justification. As matmacwc said, you'll really need to focus on some of the units that have a tougher time keeping guys. Even then, it would be pretty long odds of getting picked up, so I'd have more realistic backup options available.