hindsight2020

yup, I-410 in SAT on a Tuesday night during the amazon sort-incoming. Except they don't pick up the leftover shrapnel and debris in TX, and you get to share stories with the 20 other victims at the Discount Tire on Wednesday morning. 😄

#oof. 11Bs to Hawg bois:

...Or the 2014 Gulfstream takeoff crash at KBED. IOW, not the first nor the last time a pilot attempts to takeoff with the control lock engaged. It happens, and it's unfortunately usually the result of interrupting a flow, or distractions that lead to interruptions. You know, hooman stuff, as my despondent feline in the avatar would retort to (if he could). These things happen, and we are all capable of falling into such a trap. Is it inevitable? Of course not. We just have to continue to honor the memory of those no longer with us, take these written-in-blood ADM reminders in stride, and attempt our best at keeping our behavior in the cockpit consistent. Easier said than done, but that's the bar we gotta cross every day, good bad or indifferent. It sucks to be judged as a high-experience guy getting killed doing something most bystanders would tend to associate with errors reserved for the uninitiated. Nothing could be further from the truth wrt to that assessment of course; high time in jets doesn't really make us immune from porking operations in simpler aircraft. I certainly don't make such presumptions when I jump into my woefully underpowered and weather-incapable flying lawnmower, with loved ones on board no less. It doesn't care one bit about my usaf command wings nor the amount of times I didn't get killed the week before flying it, or the much more complex flying I do at work. May he rest in peace. The man had a great run and flew the pants out of most he got his hands on, as most of us would have too had we had his enviable career timing. A life well lived in my book. Tailwinds and following Seas.

Yup, described me to a T. In youth it was 2 then 1, now it's def 1 then 2. Career AFRC, not interested in airline "flying"/schedules/lifestyle. As to the AD question, I gave up *money in order to retain control of my life. (*quicker promotions in AD, plus the extra FYs it took me to get into AFRC as an off-the-street vs going AD the second I finished my undergrad, TVM etc). The ARC provided me the vocational control I was looking for, while doing the kind of flying I wanted to do, and still attain an AD retirement. We're very happy with the trade. No ragrets. To bring it back on topic, they tried to make us ART at the undesirable location I was at before my current one, and that went down as well as could be expected (read: DOA). They straight up asked me circa 2012ish what would it take for me to take an ART job in lieu of AGR in that location, and I told them: straight up an additional GS-12/13 check ON TOP of the ART GS-13 SSR tables, to compensate for a lost spousal career and the exigency to have to continue at the duty station all the way to MRA (age 57..in an ejection seat MDS no less) vs immediate AD 2.5% multiplier annuity at 20 AD YO. Sq leadership chuckled and nodded, as they knew the answer already and were merely being rhetorical. The conversion flopped. I've done the job in question, and I'd never do it for straight GS, especially without an AD retirement in my back pocket. The DOD is trying to save legacy costs (mainly retirement, VA and tricare for life), so I understand the motivation. Ultimately this is a FUPM dynamic. I'm not going to apologize for not being willing to do this job for civi-only GS (to include the deltas in healthcare, and retired pay). To wit, if the check of the month club was good enough for the @sshole GenXer who held this position before me, then it's good enough for me and mine too. FUPM. I do think B-scales create a tense work environment. The rift between ARTs and AGRs was bad enough in my first duty station, straight GS just makes it even worse. Airline folks know all about B-scales. BL, B-scales are just caustic in the long term and I rather work in places absent the dynamic.

If you mean better than the last guy, well that's a pretty low bar. I'll withhold judgement until the new edicts start rolling out. I wish him luck, he's inheriting a mess of toxic second-tier effects.

Apparently, yet again, "PC" related issues wrt a naming. Well, that was the over-the-hump moment, the firing I'm sure deals with a more at-large command climate ("Al Capone" twofer type of thing). Just another week in the island of misfit toys we collectively know as Team XL. I should have got short tour credit, or a campaign medal at least, for enduring 8 years of that place lol. Oh well. 😄 At least this time the shenanigans didn't occur in the presence of an O-8, but I'll digress on disturbing the corpses of the past....(not a great choice of words either, given the guilty party of that episode, committed suicide a couple months ago).

No, we're talking about 11B follow-on recipients. And you're missing the point (well, as they see it anyways). It's not meant to do anything for the lottery loser; not anything that they care about anyways (namely, get a fighter in the first place, ostensibly the reason they went 38s). It's meant as a management-of-expectations tool for the benefit of the gaining bomber command. I contend it's virtue signaling, the manning realities of a mismanaged functional command like AFPC will quickly make this effort moot. To wit, it's basically the AF equivalent of that spiel Bob Slydell told Lumberg when he explained why they preferred to fire people on a Friday. Clear as mud? P.S. sweet I got another Office space reference in, when talking USAF broken dreams.

I can tell ya the little birdie rumint stuff from 19th. This hair brained idea comes from you know who, the most famous instagram meme person on the AETC side himself. Shocker. At any rate, the RUMINT is this was done to walk the 11B recipients (who largely still view themselves as the losers of the lottery, good bad or indifferent) off the ledge of making career-chucking decisions. This as opposed to the end-game toxicity that usually befalls those who have been busting their hump for 3 years in UPT to end up getting sideswiped by rules #1 and #2 of military life. The gaining commands are basically complaining they can't get them copacetic in time, they need three years. Six months to two weeks from being gained is not cutting it goes the rumor grievance.

The Lord's work is best done by St. Javelin. AaaaAAaaAmmmeeeen. 😄 slava ukraini.

The retirement multiplier is the reason I stayed away as someone not interested in the airlines. The 4.4 bump and lack of tricare elegibility were the cherry on top. They really need to fix that mess of a program. Tons of people on less physically damaging jobs have better federal multipliers, and don't have to worry about meeting medical fitness on part A (TR portion). I was very thankful to have got a line into the AGR (title 10) lifeboat, and be able to move on from the duldrums of the Lost Decade, start a family and thrive. Agreed on the grooming value for airline aspiring young guys. Best paying " gig " job out there. I went the troughing route, but that worked out better for me as it kept me up to speed on active retirement points until jumping on the full time train.

Neither actually. Herbies, afsoc and helo bound will never fly the T-7. For the maf types (the plurality of AF pilot accessions) its T6 wings and straight to airline training (sim based initial qualification). There's plans for some half baked crm centric t1 sim only as a precursor to their heavy FTU. Beyond that, it's gonna be a significant bifurcation of qualitative training difference between the IBF product (aka navy strike pipeline, for our 11F/B), and everybody else.

Of course it's just a renumbering. The 99th won't be a T-1 squadron when that happens. One thing (T-1 crews follow-on) doesn't have anything to do with the other (99th standing up as a T-7 squadron with T-38 and CAF IP initial cadre). Yes, the 99th was selected specifically for the tuskegee airmen motif the airplane was named for in the first place. That too has been known since the beginning.

Now now, don't forget the AIM too, which is now referenced quite a bit in there.

can't help but be reminded of one our local area grifters 😄

Now Admiral makarov frigate alleged to be hit too. Ukranian countersea upping up the street cred and re writing doctrine books for everybody else as we speak lol. Anybody know the 5 day forecast for crimea? Would hate for that ACME cloud pop up "storm" to sink another otherwise "perfectly intact" russian flagship lol. *Scurries to the backyard for another rain dance session*

lulz

I'm sure 'tea time' at the Putin household is a nervous time for the tasters lol. "Would you like some polon--*cough* sugar with your coffee this morning, sire? " 😄

That's the risk you run vacationing in Thailand. oh but for the grace of god go I.... 😄

Well, that's two big expensive pieces of hardware now sitting in the bottom of the black sea, for Putin's little 72 hour field trip he had planned. When keepin' it real...goes wrong. *Gleefully whistles Randy Dandy Oh! under breath* 😆 Slava Ukraini.

That's just a Tuesday in the NGB.

If confirmed, then scratch one ruskie corvette. The Ukrainians' asymmetric prowess on display. That's no onesie twosie tank loss now, that's a big toy vladimir just got summarily das boot'd. 😄

All I know is, if that powerplant starts ionizing the night sky i can tell you this entire back and forth about sun tzu batata, 'venn diagram thy enemy' podcast fodder is gonna become moot right ricky tick, especially if the winds blow from the east. Ironically, the last time a Ukrainian powerplant ionized the night sky, it was belarus (nee SSR) that took it between the uprights the hardest That caesium-137 boy, is like a scorned baby mama...that -ish lingers on forever, she doesn't let go.

*organ crescendos* Aaaah-Aaaaah-aaahhh-Ahhhhh-mmmmmen. Slava Ukraini.

If the atmosphere at my former squadron circa 2013 during the L-Cal/L-UAL SLI is any indication of how these two pilot groups end up interacting with each other, #oof. It's not hyperbole to say not only were there a ton of people hiding out from both airlines via rank MLOA during the integration, in my squadron a few ended up almost in a literal fist fight during a MUTA. Scabwagon (a reference to the 78) was the nicest thing uttered during one of such exchanges. Even the Airtran acquisition (we had a few FATs in my squadron at the time as well) was relatively devoid of hostilities by comparison, at least anecdotally in my sqdn. Between that spectacle and the early education I got about how much my ability to put food on my table was affected by these airline kerfuffles as a non-airline guy, ultimately it galvanized my life/vocational decision to never find myself at any trough behind an airline pilot ever again. 11 years later and counting, past is prologue platitudes and all that jazz, in the words of my homeboy Ben-Hur.... 😄