ViperStud

Has anyone attempted to push MPLP leave (21 days of daddy leave) past the kiddo’s first birthday and, if so, what was the approval/waiver authority? COVID shifts are preventing me from using it since the CC & DO are on opposing shifts and need to be there. Leadership supports trying to push back the window, but (as if on purpose) the MPLP has precisely zero guidance for ETPs or waivers. According to the memo, posted at the beginning of the leave reg, if you don’t take it by the kid’s first birthday it vanishes. ETA: finance already gave me blank stares so I’m waiting on a more in-depth answer than “Uhhh, I don’t know” from the FSS. I figure the bros may be more helpful.

4-year thread revival! This was over 15 years ago and I was a student so I didn’t have total insight into what happened, so there is that. From what I recall it basically came down to risk management, decision making and SA. His next-to-last flight, he ended up beak-to-beak at Gila Bend doing an SFO the wrong direction. His last flight he landed super-fast and passed the preceding aircraft on the runway. Dude, just go around. He also spent basically all of A-A phase in CAP due to something in TR we never knew about. I’ve seen more dudes wash out for basics - formation and landings so bad they’re dangerous in later stages of the course. It’s ultimately due to poor cross-check and misprioritization. Now that I’m on the dealing end of those decisions, I will say it sucks. Nothing about this job is as much of a downer as telling someone they’re done and the dream is over, even when you know you’re doing it for the right reasons.

This. It’s been 15 years since my first ride in the Viper and I’ve done precisely one form approach for non-training reasons...and we split to land. Practice form approaches if you think it’s valuable, but I can’t think of a solid reason to practice the landings in a modern fighter. Even if you really shit the bed with fuel planning to a socked-in field with zero divert options, I’m pretty sure most of us would make it happen even if we’ve never done one. This same discussion is happening on the OFP Facebook page with dudes pitching in their “form land war stories” (barf). What do they all have in common? F-4s and Thuds. Get over it, dinosaurs.

Using the back gate at DM makes Oro Valley manageable. My wife commuted for two years until she moved to a job off-base. Vail is nice, but it’s remote. Schools are comparable to OV, but Vail has little else around it. OV has the benefit of much more to do and it’s a hell of a lot closer to Phoenix if you’re heading up that way every once in a while. Anywhere with access to I-10 has a pretty straight shot to DM back gate Concur that most people don’t live in Tucson proper. Schools in TUSD have a bad reputation. Areas by U of A have decent homes with a lot to do, but you get a lot less for your money. That and schools drive people to eat the commutes and live in OV, Vail and Sabino Canyon. I know a decent amount of people in Marana and the Foothills as well - longer drive but they think it’s worth it.

If anyone is in AZ and interested in the service information, PM me your email and I will forward. A viewing is planned for Sun night and the funeral is Monday morning in the Tucson area.

UPT is undermanned. CAF is undermanned, at least with experience. I hear ROK Viper squadrons have mostly wingmen; IPs and FLs fly daily. FTUs are undermanned, people are bailing and we’re making IPs out of people we shouldn’t - small note, the 500hr requirement to enter the Viper IPUG just got changed to 400hrs in the new Vol1. Turns out we don’t have an “experience” problem if we simply redefine what it is to be experienced. I’m 100% in concurrence that we need to nuke any and all PowerPoint/coffee-ranger taskings. I worked a pounder gig and did all the paperwork to turn it into a non-rated position with my CC’s approval - only for him to get cold feet at the end, IMHO because he was staring down a CDI and didn’t want to rock the boat. I was frustrated beyond belief. That being said, deploying is what we do as military peeps. Every person on a BS profile, protected for IDE/SDE/exec, golden boy or in an AETC safe space essentially ups the OPSTEMPO for the bros not in such a position. Think about that for a sec. Your “little corner” of the AF that’s protected from deployments? GMAFB, we’ve all had our instances of the best laid plans getting turned upside down. It’s the nature of AD - we deploy. Want real protection/stability? Punch and join the AFRES or ANG.

Tricare for life is my main concern, but it’s not a binary decision. Stay in - you’ve got it Get out and end up in an AFRES or ANG AGR billet (easy to do these days) - same as being on AD: same pension, same health coverage. Another status in AFRES or ANG: tricare at age 60, other coverage (depending on your job) in the meantime. Many technicians on BCBS swear by it. All the part-timers I know love Tricare Reserve Select - it’s like tricare with a small (compared to ACA) monthly premium. Bottom line - unless you’re considering a clean cut, separating with zero ties to AFRES or ANG, you’ll likely have that Tricare in one way or another. Educate yourself on all of this. Fear of the unknown is what keeps a lot of fence-sitters on AD.

Is there still a rated (albeit a pounder gig) position at Eskan? That place is cush. I was downtown or going to steak night at the embassy every other day. Hardship mid-tour TDY to Jeddah was rough.

Story/link?

National news outlets won’t GAF unless it’s a story they can a spin into something. IG complaint is the way forward. I had a finance problem with my frau’s GS pay; DFAS, Finance and CPO were pointing fingers at each other for a year. I filed an IG complaint naming them all and it was settled in about a month. The day I filed the complaint, the CPTS “CC” called me (had been trying to get him involved for months, the Lt lied to me and told me he was already on it), hinting that I hit the nuke button too soon since he just got briefed on the situation. I told him essentially GFYS, not withdrawing the complaint. It worked. TLDR - IG complaint steps on some toes, but it gets the job done when the “system” isn’t working. I avoided the IG like the plague for the first 15 years of my career, but they are very effective. Even before I filed the complaint, having him make a few calls got right to CC level without having to fight through the minions.

No disagreement from me Bashi. I’m simply saying the large reduction in actual flying is affecting all stages of the pipeline. I left Luke back in the day with almost 100 hours and no TGP qual. Now, we give them TGP, NVG, introduce more weapons (PW3, 39, 54, etc) and kick them out the door with about 69 hours. Flying has been cut everywhere and the basic airmanship at all levels of training suffers as a result? Different backgrounds of IPs are far less important than the reduction of flying. There’s no doubt 11Fs have some basics like Form and FM down as second nature, and 11Ms do not. Unfortunately there just aren’t enough 11Fs to go around. I was teaching at Luke when the BRAC & POM 10 shit went down - closing FTU squadrons all over. We joked about how 11Fs would be screwed in 6-9 years. I’ve heard our F-16 manning in the 07 year group is something like 17 peeps due to the FTU backup of ‘09-‘12, with 08 and 09 only marginally better. It’s weird what happens when you screw with pipelines and drop hardly any vipers for a few years. Who could have seen it coming? We all did, but the crap leadership didn’t care about that nearly as much as pinning on their next star. Edit to add: good on IPs for sending kids that deserve it to CRs, but that’s pointless if there’s a 99% chance of reinstatement. Even if it’s the WG/CC’s call to not wash people out, he’s still part of UPT as a whole...which is graduating a degraded product.

You’re clueless. This is precisely what is NOT happening. I left white jet world 5 years ago and kids at CRs were regularly getting reinstated. Ones who should be washed out are simply given more training and the can is kicked down the road. In order to washout, they’re just not falling short of MIF. They’re falling short of safe. Above safe but below MIF - congrats, here are your wings. At follow-on training, we don’t have time to re-teach them basics like cross check and tac form. There’s simply not enough room in the syllabus. If they can multitask, employ, stay visual and be OK at form, they’ll pass. Still, the skillset we’re seeing now is below where it has been in the past. My unit is Guard - we’re not under the “graduate them” mandate of AD and we are washing kids out. The last one had no business even making it to FTU. He created dangerous situations every other flight. I reached back to some bros at IFF and they reluctantly admitted he was a problem child and there was debate on washing him out. They also admit that if they washed out everyone they would have 10 years ago, the grad rates would be abysmal due to what they’re getting. If you thing UPT is holding the line and follow-on training is where the ball is getting dropped, you live in a dream world.

Still doesn’t mean everyone can teach it all equally. Plenty of 11M guys can figure it out, and there are some 11F/B shitbag IPs. Always have been. Overall though, the trend holds true. What did we do before the T-1? Gave kids about an extra hundred hours and actually washed out the shitty ones. Don’t do either anymore because...numbers. IFF isn’t the nut-cutter it used to be, either. The whole pipeline is fvcked because of poor personnel management for over a decade. These are all just symptoms of an illness.

Different qualification? No. Different aptitude to teach guys going to fighters? Yes. I know, hurt feelings and all...but the feedback I got after leaving that world was overwhelmingly that the 135 and C-17 peeps just didn’t have the same skillset in tactical, LL, FM and getting kids ready for IFF. It’s not an insult, it’s a recognition of reality.

This. Playing the STRD game is a thing when you’re an old Capt or young Maj. I’ve seen multiple 365s handed out to dudes over 18 years despite recent STRD rehacks.

Blast from the past. They’re already doing it, though. Plenty of bros over 15 years are hacking their line numbers and finishing up - orders, AGRs (plenty opening up now) and VLPAD. AF might as well get some more of those dudes back on AD or they’ll just finish up their 20 elsewhere.

Honest question - has anyone seen this happen? I’ve seen plenty of guys wash out of fighters and go to B-1, C-17, C-130, etc. Has anyone seen someone wash out of a crew aircraft FTU and simply go to a different crew aircraft?

Honestly doesn’t matter. Back to the question at hand - lots of rated dudes have been grounded for medical reasons and they’ve had to serve their 10. Buddy of mine got grounded for migraines, recategorized to PA and still served out his UPT ADSC. Once you have your wings, you owe the time. If they won’t negate an ADSC for a medical event, why would they do it for a guy who fvcked it away in FTU academics? Kaputt, that may seem harsh but I’m just being blunt. Embrace something outside of flying and try to excel at it; that’ll be the foundation of your new career. Pursue any path you can to get out ASAP, but you’re likely in til 2026.

+1 to what HeloDude and Hoss said. Significant details are being left out. A - washed out during slackademics, WTFO?!? B - non-concurrence for a washout that allegedly had nothing to do with safety of flight or stick/rudder skills. I’ve seen non-concurrence only once; there were significant mitigating factors and it was a BS personal vendetta. There’s more to this story.

Problem is that the initial PTN trainees were heavily screened, accepting something like 10/200 - only the best candidates. Let’s see what happens when the average stud goes through the program before we talk about it cranking out a better product. IFF, as originally intended, is dead. The writing on the wall is that, should PTN go full-scale, IFF goes away. The washout rate is way down and we at the FTUs have had to drop the hammer where they have failed. We’ve washed out several punks over the past few years that simply didn’t belong in a fighter FTU. We called back to the 435th about the last one and got a canned “he met the course requirements” answer. IFF is simply under the thumb of AD leadership and their “graduate more” mandate. Rant sw - off

Thanks for the offer. There is one surplus store I’ll checknout. I’ll PM you if I’m SOL. Already found one set they the bro network. Need to track down a second set and one for the hat

The problem is my closest base doesn’t stock any of it and my old bags have Capt rank. The uniform sales dude told me no one carries them anymore, but I’m thinking he’s full of it and it’s just this location.

Time is the single most important variable to most of us young-ish types. We just got a nice jump with locality and retention bonus on the tech side...but still have 22 open tech jobs and AGRs filling as soon as they open. I’m “ahead” dollar-for-dollar as an O-5 AGR on the bonus, but the real thing I care about is that every day is a point toward 7300. If I could make another 25k annually as a tech, I wouldn’t do it. There’s no end to the tech game and the intangibles, especially medical if something goes wrong, are significant Not a whole lot of dudes under 50 want to keep flying for Uncle Sam until they’re almost 60. We want to close out our 20 and move on to a better QOL and put the “What’s wrong with the AF” stuff in the rear-view mirror.

Looking for 3 sets, but beggars can't be choosers.

Truer words have never been spoken. It’s amazing the crap we’ll put up with when we think we are doing it for the right reasons. It’ll be painful in the short-term, but if you learn from it and really think about what’s important for you in the future, you will end up far happier than you ever thought possible.