Wing Sweep

Hell no! I know I look like a pedaphile with a stache. Like a fat chick though, I need positive reaffirmation that it looks good. It's good for my esteem.

M2, You're right. No quibbling and no excuses. Also copy, no fake beer for you. The flattop is currently in effect. In my squadron we believe that 15 pieces of flair is the minimum. We don't like the minimum. We like to express ourselves more than the minimum, so we kept the flattops and started mustaches early. If you're not cheating, you're not trying. Right?

It's kind of like sticking it (sts) to the man... Even if you are the man and you're sticking it (sts) to yourself. Seriously though, I grow it because my wife hates me having one back home. It's the only time I can grow the old stache without someone asking me everyday me to shave. It's quite the opposite raction out here. I'm told to keep growing it and that it is a solid look! Nothing like peer pressure from co-workers.

Yeah, yeah, I screwed up and posted it twice. Need mod help for that. Now that I've received a virtual-REMFing by Spoo (though very justified), can the mods please remove or place this thread somewhere else as you deem necessary? Sorry for the extra work. UTFSF? WTFO.

I think this is a good topic top start. Share your horror stories, or better yet, copy and paste emails from dudes REMFing you. Here's a copy of an email a fellow pilot in my squadron received. It will be posted on the white board shortly to be ridiculed for days. This thread should be interesting. Here's the first... Capt, Just a note to clarify our discussion on Feb 18 at the OPS town DFAC. I addressed you and pointed out that your mustache was not incompliance of 36-2903 you stated that “I must have let it get bushy” and seem embarrassed and offended that I engaged you on this matter. To my dismay you returned to the DFAC on the 19th mustache unchanged. I did not reengage you at this time because of your attitude the night before. Please resolve this issue at your earliest convenience, so we can put this issue behind us. From 36-2903: page 14 line 6 Mustache Will not: extend downward beyond the lip line of the upper lip or extend sideways beyond a vertical line drawn upward from both corners of the mouth. Your mustache was past the outside of your lip, and must not extend past the outside of your mouth to be in compliance. With pride in serving. Dale

I'm a prior 1A271. During UPT I wore my enlisted wings. Since UPT, I've only been wearing pilot wings. The two exceptions to this are service and mess dress uniforms, on which I wear both sets.

Best topic I've seen here ever! Halfway to 20 yrs, and I'm one of the lucky few who has been given mentoring throughout my career (with very few exceptions). Background: E for 6.5 yrs, O for 3.5 yrs so far. As an airman, my supervisor (SSgt) took time to ask me what my goals were and how I planned to accomplish them. He had three big pushes (sts): family, primary AFSC, and off-duty education. He wouldn't let me enroll in off-duty classes until CDCs were complete, which I recommend to all airmen. Focus on CDCs and get good at your job first, then work on you educational goals. For those who had no plans, I saw him sit them down and figure out a plan. He was all about his troops succeeding. As an NCO, I was given leadership opportunities because I asked for those opportunities. No SNCO or officer in his right mind should say no to an NCO who does the same. Give NCOs (I include Senior Airmen) a chance to learn, gain experience, and get better at supervising. This is the experience building time for them, and where they build foundations for future leadership. I liken it to being a dad for the first time. They have been taught and have a genereal idea of what they are supposed to do, but haven't done it yet. They need practice. Those who see being an NCO as a place of higher power usually don't succeed. Those who see it an opportunity to serve and lead their subordinates, do very well. The biggest factors for my success as an NCO, outside of supervising, was to continue my off-duty education and stay in the books (i.e. I knew my job extremely well). Had I stayed on the E side, I'd be moving up very nicely in my career; however, I decided to go to the dark side and trade stripes for bars. 1st half of UPT (T-34s w/ Navy) I received constant advice from IPs. I felt like an officer and was treated like one by IPs. Being treated like a grown up allowed for easy communication between students and IPs. I can't speak to the T-6 side of things in AF UPT, so I'll leave it to those who know and have experienced it. 2nd half of UPT (T-38s w/ USAF), I was treated like a two year old, never told how I was progressing compared to my peers, and felt more like I was going though a high-speed kindergarten where, oh by the way, I also learned to fly a jet. I tried to create opportunities for my supervisor to mentor me, but it usually always returned to the same old story of being told not to suck (sts) so I didn't get bombers. Sheesh, what a narrow view of the big picture! The only redeeming parts of 38s were the friends I made, flying a kick ass little plane, and getting wings after it was over! Some will say that's all I should have expected from UPT, but I think the AF (T-38 side of UPT) could learn a lot about how to treat and mentor new studs from the Navy and I'll leave it at that. In my current MWS, I have a kick ass Flt/CC that sets us up for success. He knows about our personal lives, tries to fly with us, talks to our flight at least once a month, does real performance feedbacks, and makes himself available for anything that we need to talk to him about. He has talked to me over many beers about what my goals are and what I should pursue for my next assignment based on those goals. He asks other Flt/CC about my situation and tells me what they think, so it's not just one sided mentoring I think the biggest point is to create your own opportunites for mentorship. If you're not getting what you need from your supervisor, ask. If you ask and show concern for your own career, supervisors will help you. If they don't, talk to your supervisor's supervisor. I've done this before and that's why I've only had a crappy supervisor once for a few short months rather than a whole tour. Make things happen within the bounds of your CoC. If you have a good supervisor, all mentoring will happen naturally, but it sounds like a lot of people don't have that luxury. If you have a crappy supervisor, try to help him become better by creating opportunities for him to mentor you. If that doesn't work, let his supervisor know what you need. I'm spent.

Do you need to be a current IP in your airframe to apply for this? Is it much along the same lines of USAF UPT (i.e. contact, instrument, formation, low level)?

We have an ejection checklist that goes beyond the boldface. It's called a controlled ejection checklist. Regardless of how many engines we lose, if there's compunding problems which will prevent us from making it to a runway, then we run that checklist. Otherwise, our main focus is on getting the jet back on a runway safely. If there's only one seat in your pit, that only leaves one option as to who is wasting oxygen and draining SA.

No assumptions. You have a good engine until proven otherwise. If I lose the last one, then yes, eject. My jet will fly on one engine, though not a recommended technique.

It depends: If I lose one, keep the other three in max AB. If I lose two, keep the other two in max AB. If I lose three, dump fuel and keep the one in max AB. If I lose four, turn toward an unpopulated area and "EJECTION HANDLE-PULL" Seriously.

Are there IP's at Sheppard that instruct T-38s that were prior bomber guys or are they only allowed to instruct in T-6s? Thanks.

Are the T-38s at Holloman going to the boneyard now that the Raptor's in town? Anybody with details (not rumors) please share. Thanks.

We received the briefing last week concerning this OPSEC topic and the man sang like a canary! Dudes on that forum were asking him stuff no general/military aviation enthusiast would be asking. Not only would he answer the questions, he would give some background and elaborate. One guy said he needed the info for his mid-term report. Probably University of Beijing! I'm willing to bet the USAF is pretty confident the "non-classified" info he so generously elaborated on added a lot more pieces to the puzzle that the "University of Beijing" student was looking for. If it wasn't so, do you think we'd be hearing about this? Blu 4, IMO it isn't bad form to call him out. Drag him through the mud is a matter of perspective. Deifne drag him through the mud. Bottom line is, he's a leader and should know better. He certainly was setting the high standard and example of what NOT to do. When you see the briefing, you'll understand what I mean. Seriously, you will literally shake your cranium in disgust and become very angry!

So in conclusion (and after serious deviations from the topic at hand), the answer is no. Bone's will not be tracked out of Toners. Honestly, I don't know where and why people started this rumor. Obviously, someone heard this in UPT from a friend of a friend of a friend of an IP that doesn't exist. Hey lets start another rumor... Britney Spears is pregnant again!

By those standards a lot of LMs should have 100+ AMs! If that's the best bullets they had for a one flight AM citation, they should have saved the ink and told him, "Great job Load, get your 12 hours of crew rest and we'll do it again tomorrow," like the rest of us LMs did. What would they award him, had they actually been shot at, let alone survived it. I truly hope this is not the standard in that community. I've seen some of my buddy LMs get AMs for a single mission in AFSOC, but the above mentioned was probably the easiest and safest part of their mission. I know some old craniums at the VFW and they would have a heart attack if they even knew what was written of in this thread! As far as helping out the E's in your crew, I understand the predicament. The problem lies in the EPR system which has been inflated to basically make 95% of dudes getting firewall 5s. I'm no longer in the E side, but do some of you E-flyers know if anything is being done to fix the broken EPR system? I know when I had EPR's written I'd be pissed because I worked my ass off, while the average Joes got firewall 5s too because they did a decent job, didn't get a DUI or punch someone out. That's BS. Average workers should get average ratings and outstanding workers should get the 5s they deserve. That way Os don't feel the pressure of having to hook up their Es to give them an advantage that they may not deserve to get that next stripe. I wonder if this happens in every war after a few years or are we just that willing to give medals out for anything now more than past conflicts (Vietnam, WW1, WW2, Korea)?

I agree it won't help you with military formation flying. UPT is so different from civilian flying that the real benefit will just be increased experience in the air and airmanship. Take the opportunity to perfect you flying skills. Fly 30, 45, 60 degree bank turns without losing altitude. Practice descending/climbing constant speed turns. Practice instrument approaches, holding, DME arcs. Take the opportunity if you have it, and add a few more drops of water into your experience bucket. Best of luck to you.

For those interested, here's a little more info on the COIN aircraft. I'll volunteer for this gig anyday. https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFMC/ASC/FA861.../SynopsisR.html

I guess time will tell.

Max, I've been told by two friends in the 319th they're staying at HRT. Gone 40-50% of the time. Buffs can carry extra crewmembers to get requirements checked off. Other fighters/bombers on the hit list can't. Therefore, Buffs won't get hit as bad as other communities (or so we were told by our Wing King). On a separate but related story, we were told in our FTU class today to fill out our T-ODPs. We were initially told (Day 1 at FTU 3 months ago) to worry about it when we got to our operational squadrons, but they've changed their minds as of today (things that may you go hmmm...). The word today was, "Unless you want to be at the top of the UAV hit list, we need your T-ODPs, stat!"

Ten year old kid talking to his buddy, standing in front of static Buff: "Dude, these planes only get flown from museums to airshows. They're like 50 years old and for their 50th birthday day all got a new gray paint job."

Vance 07-04 T-38s (AD) 1 - F-15E 1 - F-16 1 - A-10 1 - B-52 1 - T-6

It's not more slack or already having earned something. They just expect you to study on your own time (i.e. act like the officer that you are). I'd say about 1/4 to 1/3 of guys get 38s out there. Just depends on timing, much like at an AF UPT base. It's true that P'cola studs are behind the power curve in 38s, for a little while. After the contact phase, it's an even playing field. Advantages are being exposed to joint training, being treated like an adult, no 12 hour days (I can count my 12 hour days in one hand while I was there), and appreciation for air conditioning at AF bases. If you want more specifics than this, PM me. [ 21. December 2006, 18:05: Message edited by: g2s ]

Vance T-38s Pretty freaking sweet drop! Active: A-10 F-15E F-16 T-38 B-1 (me) ANG A-10 AFRC F-16 BTW, I'd like info on Ellsworth and the surrounding communities. I'd also like info on the schoolhouse at Dyess. Please PM me with any good info you may have. Thanks.

They have a pretty nice rec room where you can play playstation/X-Box, watch movies, play ping pong or just chill with your buds. Once a month they have the equivelant of a flea market where you can buy watches, rugs, movies, sunglasses, etc.. Most are imitations of nice brands like Folex (fake Rolex), ###### (fake Tag watches), or Foakleys. You get the drift... They also have tournaments like Texas hold'em, bingo, etc... Steak and Lobster on Fidays. Not bad for Haji steak and the lobsters good. Great breakfast ommelets. Ice cream always available! Linda is right in learning some Arabic. It helps to know a little of the lingo if you're going off base. The mall downtown is pretty swanky so dress to impress the local hotties you're not allowed to hook up with. There's a small town called Fajaheel (or something like that) where they sell a lot of nice gold jewelry, colognes and perfumes. It was off limits on and off for a while. Don't know about now. Bring a one meg thumb drive so you can download a shiite load of music from the common drive to your personal lap top. I also agree and second the point of having the opportunity to sharpen your knowledge (AFIs, TOs, tactics stuff). One last thing. If you play musical instruments, the chapel has them available for people to hang out and jam some tunes when there aren't services going on. Hope this helps.