FourFans

Never fly the A-model

Make sure your out-of-the-box thinking fits inside the box.

Your chances look good. The command bullets you've got and the "super P" push are foundational for the current promotion climate. What kind of command push did you get? "Ready for command now" or something to that degree is good. If it's something along the lines of "on track to command", that communicates that you're not ready yet in the eyes of that rater. My frame of reference is once passed over (about to be twice based on my current PRF) ops guy. WIC, Det/CC, good strats, but never sat gp/wg exec, didn't get good PRF strats nor command pushes for various opaque "command decision" reasons. I've been through the counseling. The command push and command potential is what seems to be the current flavor of the week for the promotion boards. From what I've been told and what I've seen, your super P and your demonstrated command capability should land you with about a 75% chance or greater. Note: If you haven't don't the primary mission of the USAF recently, that will not hurt you at all.

2

That link belongs over in the Emirates thread somehow.

Fund raiser for the families. https://www.gofundme.com/munizspousesforrican68 Shirt fundraiser through 9-Line https://www.ninelineapparel.com/shop-apparel/mens-t-shirt-156th-air-wing/

When the stack is only 15 deep against 20 requirements...yes it can. Also, watched AFPC get rid of 9 rated guys (my friend was #9, which is how I found out) by giving them AFPAK HANDS as their next PCS a few years ago. All 9 separated or retired instead of taking it. Rumor has it they finally pinned the rose on a guy that had already volunteered. Rumor also holds that the AFPC functionals are sometimes directed to use bad assignments like that as "force management tool". I have strong doubts about the truth behind those rumors, but finding them true wouldn't shock me either. "Integrity First"

This

Brother, I'm glad we've got guys like you. Keep at it and thanks for keeping it real. Appreciate your insight. Hope you can keep posting here at your next assignment.

My perspective is clearly different. Having witnessed the un-brainwashing of a couple T-38 guys who got banished to the dreaded C-130J (where they loved it and did great things in combat while getting shot at), I can only assume that T-38 guys still scoff at things like KC-x to Kadena or Travis (sweet locations), U-28 and C-130J (where they'll get more real world missions than any other airframes around), or anything that's not an F-22 or F-35. Got it. I was bi-polar on my track and drop-nights too. Cannon certainly isn't appealing, as with the Offutt assignments...but wow, perspective boys. There's a preponderance of good locations for the heavies, on top of the fact that the pilot shortage makes a heavy-fighter crossflow much more likely right now. I recall seeing T-38 drops that had a total of 1 ops fighter and dudes being stoked to be FAIPing and not stuck in Minot or Barksdale. Open the aperture. If you call it good, it becomes good. Call it bad, it becomes bad. It's all perspective.

Anyone know where to we can donate to help?

Those are some fantastic drops!

Dude. That sounds like a command challenge of the highest order. My heart goes out to you. Hang tough. For posterity, my post was not intentionally focused on, or from, an ops perspective. I guess the perspective comes through simply because of my background. I'm left with the question: Is anyone inside the 17D career field trying to make a culture of excellence? No doubt working with a gene pool as broad and deep (and quite shallow in some parts from what you say) is an overwhelming obstacle. But is anyone telling these kids they're worth the time invested? It sounds like you are and a select few others are, but is there a culture shift in progress in your favor? Because there should be. If there is anywhere we need to be building that culture from the ground up, it's in cyber and comm. The idea that "no one does this as well as we do" seems like it would need to be foundational for one of those squadrons. Unfortunately, is sounds like a lot of mismanagement and poor senior leadership instead of empowered leaders and peers who are waking these young knuckleheads up at 6 AM to run, not because they're warriors, but because discipline is critical, and contagious. Thanks for the course correction, I didn't realize the scope of the quality control challenges you guys are facing. Weaponized autism. Copy. Perspective adjusted.

I'm sure they'll get to it right after replacing the C-17 fleet.

I was a 2015 taker (5-year option, thankfully). Yes, this level of buffoonery is completely normal. Opaque this new clear.

I disagree. Just because someone doesn't know how to adult yet doesn't mean we should lower the bar. We keep the bar high, and teach that kid how to meet it. One the backside (FGOs and SNCOs), this plan requires that the "adults" are squared away. If you lower the bar for one, you lower it for all...which is what's happening across our force right now. Keep the bar high and swhack old guys that don't meet it in order to show the way for the young ones. The kids need the visual lesson. The senior people should know better. Teach through example, instruct with credibility, mentor with wisdom, never coddle.

Excellent word choice. Exact words the Allied Powers used during WWI to talk about everything happening in that sun-scorched armpit of the world just over 100 years ago. We're still suffering from the fallout of those events. If we screw this up, it'll make another 100 years of pain. Keep an eye on Israel and Saudi. If they act bi-laterally, it could set a whole new pace in that region.

That, right there, is where you went wrong.

Ride an elephant that's doing left turns for about 10 hours. That should give you a feel. I've heard air refueling is cool though.

From the T-6 OBOGS thread, ramping up production isn't going to happen until the OBOGS is fixed (even though it sounds like they'll just ignore it for the time being)...and retention is clearly not a goal judging by the Bonus thread...all with Iran, Syria, Russia and the rest of the world continuing to catch on fire, making American airpower an increasingly hot commodity over the next decade... Is anyone at the staff correlating these events and their impacts? Is anyone up there seeing this structural fire?

Lucky you, it'll be tax free. Do you have any experience running Wing Exercises? Al Udeid is waiting. Funny how they're sourcing the 365s and the Major's list just happens to come out as those sourcing emails are being sent.

Know the rules. Work hard. Don't be a douche. The rule-BFM tactic you're advocating violates the latter.

*picks up his active duty stone*

What I hear is a focus on numbers, not quality. I think Goldfein was about to get there, but was cut off. All of us should be concerned about the quality of the fighting force. We're too small to sacrifice having the sharpest sword. Right now we are hemorrhaging all our experience due to retention. We can fix the production, but all those kids are going to have to relearn knowledge that resided in the experienced pilots who got forced out by QOL. Some of those kids will die needlessly. In fact, it's already happening (reference multiple crashes in SW Asia). I am a good IP. I want to stay and make a difference. I would happily sit in an FTU and teach if I didn't have the constant threat of a 365. I refuse to give the big blue the reigns and sign up for more if they refuse to respect the talent that they have. If the only thing keeping me in (in the face of that 365 threat) is money, I'm out. Simply. Remove the 1500/750 hour requirement, and I think you'll simply see more young pilots who only got one ops tour punch ASAP. Retention will only get worse. All the talk about the airlines and production being the root causes belies the fact that the USAF "leaders" have given up on keeping quality pilots because the solutions are too hard (from a staff perspective) to implement. That comes from a staff who has drawn the same conclusion. The system promotes it's own, and the men and women in those staffs got there by self promoting. In short, they are not a part of the pool of individuals fearful of 365's and family hardship because they have already placed career above everything else...that's how they got where they are. So clearly it's the airline's fault, because that's a metric they can measure and fix WAY easier vs telling CENTCOM to sod off about having a 365 Chief of Wing Exercises. They're taking the easiest road instead of fixing the root cause: Senior leadership from O-6 and above are disconnected from the line executors of the main mission of the USAF. P.S. Go to any airline hiring site and dig in, you'll find that they have hundreds if not thousands of QUALIFIED candidates that are not getting called or are being rejected at the interview because the airlines cannot afford to sacrifice on quality. I don't see that changing, even if the 1500 hour rule gets rescinded, especially as the USAF continues to produce quality pilots for them. Congrats USAF, you want to make the crowd in Delta's waiting room bigger by adding younger civilian dudes. Well done. USAF experienced pilots will still often jump ahead. High quality experience counts.

...and foolishly short sighted. They'll just open the flood gates a little wider. Just because all the lifeboats are full doesn't mean I'm staying on the Titanic. On the other end of the pipeline, kids wanting to fly are closely watching how this all plays out. No one wants to join an organization that doesn't respect and care for its people. If it were me as a college student right now, I'd be figuring out how to get picked up with the Guard/Reserve folks while I pursue an airline career. Get your mil flying and chase the airlines too. Way more attractive than deploy, deploy, deploy, pass over, try and screw you on the way out.