hindsight2020

Nothing new. *Key players of the aircrew associated with the '07 BUFF bent spear got 2-BTZ. So yeah, that's about right..... * = ({})

who doesn't love some 7-party FUBAR'd proxy war this time of year? *cue Louis Armstrong What a Wonderful World tune*

I have no SA on who regAF cross flows these days and how. My comments dealt with the ARC. 100% chance of not getting whatever if you don't ask, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it as a plan A. The scope of my comment was just to highlight there is a conduit to cross flow dude a non-38 guy outside of UPT, rare as it may be.

yup, so-called D course at PIT. It's not just for non-T38 priors, TPS heavy bound guys and initial qual only topoffs (RPA support T38 drivers at Edwards) also get an spin up. It sucks a lot for the never 38 at UPT, unless that dude happened to have some A model time in some CTP program, at which point it's a distinction without difference. Cold turkey D-course to IFF? The struggle bus rate is high on that one. These days I consider that squarely in the personal favor/legacy case, for a unit to spend the money to send you to T-38 topoff and IFF to wingman as a senior Capt/junior Major. AFRC has deeper pockets so presumably it wouldn't be as noticeable on the money fund (school tours are central funded by the MAJCOM), though it would still fall in the PFA bucket. A guard unit would stand more to lose financially, considering the high washout rate of such a stunt. I will say though, today is probably the best time to pull that, as IFF is pretty hamburger helper these days with this whole pilot shortage canard. Back in 04- 07? Crush city.

As for Draken, no full-time gigs, they very much insist on part-time work (there's your sign). Pay day-rate is pretty paltry compared to corporate day rate in most turbine equipment. Retirement and healthcare benefits are effectively non-existent from a military or even airline benchmark. Essentially you're paid to play fighter pilot on a day rate basis in mil retirement (it's assumed nobody without a second income would agree to the rate) for a paycut. But there's a niche for those interested in that agreement. My source was mostly speaking about their Florida and SW operation. No SA on their OCONUS pay or work agreements. Good luck!

"Make do".... By proffering strategic heavy bombardment assets as the answer to that supposed deficit? Joseph on a donkey, that's equally as derelict and/or egregious imho. I know I know, everybody wants their turkey shoot commemorative t-shirt, but this goes beyond individual egos. Some of this CENTCOM shit borders on FWA.

We're conflating topics here gentlemen. AFRC white jet dude != AD white jet dude. Much to the grimacing of Active Duty, there is a difference, or at least there used to be one. Invol IA for the institutional reserves is a game changer, and one that the sycophants at the puzzle palace seem to be seriously underestimating. AFRC does 22% of UPT/IFF/PIT pull on 17% of the effective manning. AETC is already on the record stating they cannot meet current production, let alone the surge, without the AFRC piece. Even the pipe dream of some in AETC, the elimination of the Reserve Associate IP Program, is statistical vaporware in a regAF already 2000 flyers in the red at-large. Pulling this invol non-flying IA stunt will yield effective manning below 50% in the less desirable GSUs for the AFRC side, just like the Navy Reserve folks learned in the late 00s/early 10s, as @Buddy Spike already alluded to. The BL is that this will directly impact AETC's ability to come up with the pilot production surge HAF is clamoring for, especially in these new days of UPT-Next and other assorted faggotry. Regardless of the fact we all understand the AF has a retention problem and NOT a production one, the fact remains UPT is the flavor of the year for HAF, good bad or indifferent. This move will not help AETC. It would be ironic if they had any hand in suggesting this myopic COA to the HAF against their supporting MAJCOM (AFRC). I have not heard any supporting evidence that AETC had a hand in this, so I'll reserve judgement on that end. At the end of the day, and as far as I'm concerned, AFRC just showed their cards. There's no going back now. There's is no amount of dollars they could throw at me in this environment to sign a retention agreement of any kind in the AFRC or ANG. Maybe wiser heads will prevail, maybe not. But they are truly asleep at the wheel if they don't recognize the sheer attrition they're about to cause themselves by doubling down on this checkers-move decision that benefits neither AETC or AFRC, only CENTCOM. Biggest moral hazard I've seen in all my years in AFRC. This isn't bluffing, the Navy Res has all the data already. How the eff do you think we know? We hired their exodus!

Active duty "light"? Your gouge is dated homey. We str8 up AD now. Nothing sets us apart anymore. Individual staff/non-flying Invol Mobs in AFRC now, just like regAF. If you're looking for reasons to quit this tonedeaf rudderless ship, SOS ain't it. Invol staff deployments are probably the near rock right now, at least in my corner of the ARC. Welcome to the Navy Reserves. And a big '2' on @SocialD comment regarding full time workload in the ARC right now. This shit's full stop broken, the airlines keep siphoning people away, yet the O-7s keep getting green slides on the stand up. Good thing I got that ATP before the old rules expired; I may need to quit the military and swing bitch gear for rent money earlier than planned if this bullshit keeps up. This place has lost its damn mind.

Oh, this shit again? Jesus, how little memory this place has.... Yeah, this is just going to attract the unhirables period dot. No offense to the retirees who can't or won't do the airlines and wouldn't mind playing jet pilot for a paycut, this is statistically not going to carve up enough qualified volume to matter. I know I know, broad brush, but we went through this shit when they tried to ram the ART conversion at DLF. In the end they had to relent and give us the carve out to the policy. There were simply no takers of consequence. It's always been the same shit with ARTs, prototypical dudes who value getting any federal job as long as it's in this one town, or with townie-dependents, plus an unwillingness or, more often than not, outright inability to get hired at the airlines. And the toxicity that arises from ART leadership out of that demographic is a well established quantity amongst TR circles. None of this is new. The problem in this particular variation of this bad idea, is that from a straight GS perspective, it gets even worse because the payscale delta gets ridiculously worse from the AGR/AD benchmark. And we haven't even dealt with the survivor benefit issues when a civilian pulls military ejection handles vice ARC, vice AD. RegAF guys simply have no clue on these nuances. You guys think it's merely about living the simple life post-retirement and getting to fly a fun(ish) clapped out jet, but work dynamics are much more complicated than that. Don't be naive, the friction associated with doing the same job as the other guy for an almost 50K paycut does not go unnoticed. You can't keep AGRs and ARTs from each other's throats, and you think a non-SSR table -2181 series GS making flat GS-13 like a goddamn border patrol guy schmuck, is not gonna dagger at the ARC full-timers or AD green suiters over what he deems a fair level of participation in the organization for his paycut? And now you have an AD OPCON SQ/CC that has to tolerate the same level of title V scoff as they currently tolerate from the sim cadre leadership? Look, I get the schadenfreude for giving UPT IPs a paycut is strong on here, but the second tier effects of this proposal will make the UPT environment more toxic than it already is, by opening up the doors for these statistical-outliers to keep doing this job for a paycut in proverbial Del Rio. Extremely myopic. And I do know that the dynamics of places like Pensacola were not as rosy as described on here either. I know because we have a guy from there who double dipped as a green suiter and tan suiter, and is now at United when they finally gave him the finger about GS-13 as a T-1 pilot for the nav program down there. The level of toxicity was incredible at that outfit, and people left in droves. And that's in P-cola, CBM DLF and END have no chance of this gaining critical mass. The only proposition of this bad idea we had heard about on the ARC side "town hall" early this year that I think might have gained traction, was civilian contractor UPT at KAFW. Internationals only, all civilian run, fort worth in order to get these yahoos enough of an geographic incentive to do my job for 50K less, with that crappy FERS retirement, without the ART SSR pay even. The reality is that the people who could staff these billets as qualified (aka mil retires) are statistically insignificant. This isn't conjecture, we literally went through this exercise in 2013. The rest of the applicants will be the broken toys from the OPM/USAJOBS cesspool who mine that hiring system. Complete unqualified retards. We had anywhere from affirmative action web-footed african american lesbian secretary, to a no-shit ARMY tank driver with a PPL, to a female Affirm action UND graduate 23yo fresh CFI with no turbine experience.. all flagged as qualified for my job (when I was a T-6 IP). Let's stop wasting each others time. And it went nowhere when informed and rational heads prevailed. We just wasted hundreds of man hours repeating ourselves until it predictably went nowhere. And lost people to the airlines due to nothing more than lack of predictability in the midst of this terrible idea being proffered as a threat to their career prospects within the ARC. Stupid. The fact that this end should have been self-evident to the people in charge, was my only gripe over the entire god damn question. You guys keep tilting at them windmills though.

It's a bit of a distinction without difference if you lose your CJO over it, wouldn't you think? But no, not all your friends at the same time. Just one friend at a time, which is worse frankly imo. At any rate, if you're seriously interested in understanding what I'm talking about, google "institutional USAF reserves". It's pretty self-critiquing at that point, when you then start talking about navy reserve style invol mob IA within these special coded units. Got your attention right quick didn't it? Yeah dude, existing TRs as well. Everybody is vulnerable, this isn't the breakfast buffet. Would you commute to UPT to be vulnerable to 180 day (+41 = 221 freebie for transit) non-flying CENTCOM IAs as a TR airline guy, or even as an AGR with an AFI "deployed in-place" charter back when you signed on the line? Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question..... ETA: The Air Force has lost its fucking mind. I'm just describing the water at this point, I'm not really surprised by anything anymore.

Your gouge is dated I'm afraid. They just handed down non-flying, individual involuntary mobilizations as part of the conditions of employment. I'm not gonna derail the thread with all the implications this has for this specific and non-standard conglomerate of flying units, but suffice to say the impact of not turning this good idea fairy off will be as close a reason as regAF will get to stop loss in the next 12 months. They're about to break the UPT mission on national TV and they don't even know it. If this is still too cryptic for the gallery, get a map of the CONUS, mark undergraduate training locations, then have google draw the punchline in purple dick crayola for you. Or go ask an airline TR the nuances of double commuting because your frau won't get caught dead living in neither. And for the newhire types in the room and to keep it in tune with the spirit of the thread: Raise your hand if you're interested in playing russian roulette with that shiny new DL/UA/AA/SW CJO your wife gave you fellatio over last night, because you told her you're done missing all your small kid's life milestones on account of updating powerpoint slides for a living in absentia. Caveat fvcking emptor. Not a personal dig at you or anyone, but like my old CAF DO used to say: "the thing about SA is, if you don't have it, you won't miss it....". Game is chess, it ain't checkers. If people don't pay attention they'll find themselves right back on regAF asking WTF happened...

Don't you know, that doesn't matter these days. Fighters for everybody...until the Viper pipeline starts sucking hind teet again and the BUFF gotta get their tributes. Rinse and repeat. Timing and luck muchacho....

The Moody UPT re-activation is still in the vaporware stage.

The last line is legalese so Stanley doesn't default to disconnecting the mask hose at the CRU-60, as opposed to the airplane hose at the CRU-60. Big difference in outcome of course. But yeah, that's gonna be a lotta sit-downs during stand-up and procedural phase tests lol.

It doesn't appear this has percolated outside 22AF circles. We'll take it to PM if so inclined. I'm done talking about it here, plus it's thread drift.

I'll give ya a hint....Navy Reserves.

WRT to UPT production..... Not helping is the grenade they threw into the bunker two weeks ago on the AFRC side. Let's just say if it goes through, kiss Reserve manning at UPT bye bye. Someone apparently hit "send" too early up there in Robins and now they got a hell of a situation down here in the catacombs. RC is not exactly a captive audience, retention-wise. WTF were they thinking.... Big Blue senior management has officially lost all composure. They're grasping at the straws and it's making it worse everywhere. Frankly, I expect stop-loss at or before end FY18. If they're so willing to lose 100 dollars to save 2 pennies on the RC side, then that tells me they've all but thrown their arms up in the AC side. Stop loss has to be the only logical next step.

I've addressed that very point, albeit over at APC. It is understood that an enlisted with access to a job at proverbial Delta (a growing percentage of junior NCOs are attaining a bachelors degree, compared to generations past) at the end of their training commitment has much less incentive to stay than a commissioned officer as the income delta (pun very much intended) is indeed much larger than for the O. I've yet to see evidence there's a sweeping push for the 11X career field to be manned by enlisted.

Fraternization rules could use a lot of updating. Too much drama over nothing burgers in the military these days. Female participation in the military to the degree they do today, warrants more liberal frat policy. Of course, pretending every single male/female interaction out there is a casting couch power dynamic is the flavor du jour, so fat chance frat policy getting liberalized in this climate.

Sure....if the MIF is U (2+).

No kidding, especially considering it took him two shots! That guy owes money at the bar for almost missing that turkey twice.

We did. The T-100. That in no way means it will be the choice. Again, those of us who live in the land of what things are and understand the nuances of politcs, understand that the T-50 is all but on rails here, unless Boeing can dig up dirt on Lockmart and stall it out.

glad I'm not the only one who noticed...

Exactly my thoughts.

T-X compliant retrofit to the Cessna SuperCitation, I mean Airland Scorpion, is not even in the T-X running anymore. So it's My money is Lockmart gets the contract, though in an aggregate view I think the Leonardo DRS M-346 variant (T-100) offering is probably the most balanced option out there that meets the criteria. Current production, ground training systems as well, Israelis currently use it successfully to follow on into the F-35. I really don't know the reason Raytheon backed out of the partnership. Something tells me they probably knew something about LockMart that Leonardo chose to gamble with anyways.