Smokin

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.

Except for the fact that there are AGRs resigning to go to the airlines. Seen it multiple times in the last year.

I don't think they give you the actual 214 until you've separated. Mine was not a retirement, but was available online the next day.

Shouldn't the title of this thread be "AI beats simulated fighter pilot in simulated air combat"?

I understand you may be talking about another aspect of the article, but Northern Syria is not high threat CAS. Yes, it is higher threat than Iraq or Afghanistan after the initial invasion, but I don't think our (all allied air) losses over Syria are considerably different than our peacetime training losses. I also completely agree that true 'high-threat' CAS is an absurd concept. Ground forces have grown over-reliant on CAS on call anytime they get in a real firefight. In a high-threat war, anyone on or near the front is going to be a TIC. Even if you ignore the threat, physical airspace alone is practically prohibitive to CAS. A standard CAS overhead wheel would encompass an entire division's airspace for 5027. The best machine ever made to kill enemy tanks is not the A-10; it's the Abrams. With few exceptions, airpower in a high-threat war is better used further downrange and will save more lives in the long run.

Nice work putting the jet into an empty field (assuming it was controlled). My worst fear of flying fighters is putting an explosive pilotless glider into someone's occupied house (a crowd at an airshow/graduation would be even worse).

General Chang simply serves for love of country and service before self, so he doesn't need BAH. He just sleeps in his office. His lights are even powered by his sense of self-worth, so saves the government money there too.

It is our future and our lives which is why people are upset. Rather than contemptuously dismissing what pilots are saying about their career fields, maybe you should listen and take to heart what the people who are the closest to the issue have to say.

Have you tried using a sinus rinse? Life changing as a pilot. Doing a sinus rinse every day really helps cut down on sinus issues as it flushes out most the allergens and junk that can lead to a sinus block when you don't have a cold.

Some units I interviewed with said that the gentlemen's agreement is two years as an ART before going part-time. If you went part time before that two years, they'd try to put you in a TR/DSG position, but no guarantee. The airline hiring is going to eventually make the guard/reserve reevaluate the ART position entirely.

Sounds like there are a lot of miserly squadron commanders. A better question would be 'of everyone on this forum, how many have been officially recalled for a no-kidding non-exercise, non-training scenario where a specific leave distance was a factor?' I can only think of two instances where I've heard of this over my decade in fighters. And even then, neither were really that much of a surprise. Maybe more common in other airframes, but perhaps commanders should look at opening it up a bit rather than tightening the restrictions.

Fighter squadron commander in USAFE defined it as 6.5 hrs drive or if you were taking a train more than 3 hrs (ability for a buddy to come pick you up and make it back due to the frequent train strikes) or flying anywhere. But that was prior to the new leave reg edition.

If the time is completely taken up by necessary TDY classes, unlikely you won't get any time off. But any break in classes or showing up early you can go pick up your car. Picking up your car is a normal duty day, not permissive, not leave. You don't get per diem, but when you file your PCS travel voucher, they'll pay you round trip mileage from your duty station to the nearest port. From a TDY station, you'll probably get the lesser of round trip TDY to port or PCS base to port.

Depends on the overseas location on if they can stay. The AF can't tell your family where they can stay, but the host country can pull their visas when you leave. I had this exact situation from Italy and staying was not an option because Italy would not allow their visas to be extended after I left. They can then pick a designated location to move to. Key highlights for your plans, you get PTDY (can't remember if travel allowance is covered or not) to move them and get them settled into the designated location. Also, if your departure from your OCONUS base and your arrival at your remote allows less than 10 days of leave in CONUS, you get Continuous Overseas Tours travel allowed. Meaning, if you can work your dates to only have 8 days of leave in CONUS between your tours, the AF will pay for your ticket round trip from your remote to your home of record (I think your HOR, might be the designated location, check the JTR). Depending on your remote tour, this could save you $1K in travel costs for your midtour. If your travel between your current base and your remote base does not take you through CONUS, the COT travel should be automatic. Double check your orders when you get them, the travel authorization should be listed in the remarks. Edit to add - this data is based on memory from my experience with the older JFTR, not sure what the new JTR changes, so make sure you look it up. I guarantee the guy making your orders won't volunteer this info.

Pay may not be the only issue, but it never hurts. For me it was a large combination of factors, for some (like dudes stuck in preds) its a single issue. Pay is also one of the easier problems to solve from a bureaucracy standpoint. I doubt many here who are coming up on their decision could honestly say that pay was not a consideration. Maybe not the single consideration, but at least a consideration.

I know far more guys who have been hired than guys who are still waiting for a call.

Luke held a press conference a little bit ago, Taiwanese pilot flying a BFM sortie. No indications of a parachute or beacon.

I'd like to believe that's true, but anyone who has such a lack of mission focus as to volunteer for that train wreck probably won't truly excel at much we actually expect of them.

A recreational activity.

Turkey had repeatedly talked to Russia about their bombing of that area. The Russians are bombing the Turkey (and rest of the West) supported FSA. Reference my post a month ago about Russia being more concerned with keeping Assad in power than defeating ISIS. Two things surprise me about this. The first is that the ISIS claimed bombing of the Russian airliner didn't significantly alter Putin's objectives in Syria. The second is that the Turks had the balls to stand up to Russia bombing the Turkman groups in Syria. At least someone is doing it. A little sad and unexpected that the Western initiative in Syria is now being led by Turkey.

The available ones during each VML have always shown up on the fighter porch page, at least for Vipers anyway.