busdriver

Does this account for the difference in O&M costs wrt a Osprey vs a Hawk? Does the AF plan to buy CV's for rescue or MV's? As I understand it (I've certainly been wrong before) the AF currently buys MV's for AFSOC then SOCOM pays to make them CV's. Am I off base? I disagree that AFSOC doesn't have a dog in the fight, they want more CV-22s and this might get that but maybe I'm just cynical. This isn't about money, it's about iron. It could certainly work out well for the mission, but would require a change in joint doctrine. Keeping things "separate" doesn't benefit anyone. Joint PR doctrine is certainly fucked up, if we're going this route let's shake up the boat and fix things. As for CSAR, if you can't shoot back and you're going to rely on an F-35 to do your shooting for you.... don't bother with a contested objective. As far as your points about who has OPCON/TACON and where you live and eat, I've been on just about every end of that and it always seems to work itself out, no argument.

We've worked hard to change that, but some of the weapons officers are assholes thing has come about because guys don't like hearing they're fucked up. I definitely remember the WO=Asshole years, but I know for a fact that the everyone gets a ribbon mentality is still alive and well in our community. Until I hooked my first check ride then got my dick kicked in doing AC upgrade at Nellis, I was a shining example of that attitude. Sorry a bit off topic, I think splitting out the career fields as far as promotion numbers would probably be a good thing. How many XXXX Majors/LtCol does the AF need in the next cycle? Well, let those dudes compete amongst themselves and promote accordingly.

If Sikorsky can nail this with their Raider prototype they stand ready to rape the competition. I really hope they do well, I would love a Blackhawk sized X2.

I'm old, it's official. I no longer need a map or a clock to navigate around the NTTR, Pilotage rules the roost.

Here's a toast....

Dude, he has a PhD in Sociology with a thesis directly related to religion. I'm guessing his study had a lot to do with religion. He may not be a "religious scholar" but if you don't think as a sociology type he can't be a scholar of religion.... I don't know what to say. EDIT: He may well be a pompous ass, I haven't really read any of his shit, but do you have a problem with anything he's actually said, or you gonna stick to character assassination?

Perfect example of a tactics work around to a dumb ass design.

Dear Gen Chang, you have an opportunity hear to teach us knuckle dragging retards about your world. Don't waste that opportunity with chest beating, you'll lose and your point will be lost. Finance Guy is a moderator on a board full of said idiot pilots, why do you think that is? Please, don't leave, adjust your attitude and actually take this opportunity to teach. It's pretty fucking clear we don't understand A1 at all, so help us out brother, fill in those blanks as best you can.

dmeg, really off topic, PM inbound. In this case, BZ to SSgt Zachery.

PJs do not get JTAC qualified currently, some have been to JFO school. Internal to Rescue we train to use CCA format as well as simple bearing and range to work together to affect a rescue while suppressing/destroying threats. It's up to the actual shooter to ensure all deconfliction/coordination has been accomplished. So while not actually controlling strikes, they're fully trained to tell the overhead players where they see enemy positions.

This will take awhile to take off, but it really has the potential to be a great program. Unfortunately our current system only investigates things after something bad rather than the near miss. Contact AF Safety Center at Kirtland, they can get a sanitized version released assuming the person you talk to isn't one of the Privilege=TS morons which is likely.

As a guy who's been to safety school; that is retard safety wieners thinking too highly of themselves and maintaining their fiefdom.

Liquid, I don't think AAD should be a factor at all unless the AF paid said individual to go full time. I say that because presumably that individual got a degree in something useful to the AF, and that time spent away means they're not in their primary career field and not able to get leadership opportunity there. Otherwise the system encourages the easiest BS degree possible. The AF should be sending smart dudes/dudettes to real universities to get quality degrees in things that benefit the AF. I know we send some, but if our goal is creating worldly, broadly educated future leaders, that should be the vehicle not non-sense online degrees. PME: I think getting rid of ASBC was a bad call, SOS should have died instead. Everything taught in SOS was better placed in ASBC or at the commissioning source. The replacement for SOS should be something like the Army has: based on occupational specialty but with the opportunity to cross the streams. In other words I as an aviation dude could attend an Intel focused SDE, except in this new system I would require dudes to attend a course outside of their specialty. It would be an early exposure to other AF specialties, that would setup IDE that is focused on the Joint-Operational level of integration. Ideally there would be no correspondence at all for this level.

It can work, look what happened when a non-patch got command of the F-4 WIC and changed the foundation of the way the AF trains. If CR Anderegg is to be believed the AF method of building blocks and crawl-walk-run came from post Vietnam bitches. It can happen, but you can't forget where you came from, and you have to put the mission first. I don't like where the AF promotion system is at right now, but I guess I'm an optimist and I think that it can still be fixed. I don't think anyone can argue that advanced education is a good thing, so let's get rid of the box-checking AAD and make a new category that acknowledges all kinds of advanced education (TPS, WIC, AFIT, Various real degree programs, etc). Diversity is good right? So let's reward diversity of advanced education.

https://www.dover.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123353661 Federal clean air act blah blah blah, federal facility.

From the acting SecAF: SOCOM is really convinced they can do it better for less, ACC is really convinced SOCOM is full of it (ie numbers are off) and it's the wrong fit for the mission. Both were told to go back and do some deeper analysis, he expects a decision in the next month or so, affecting the FY15 budget. Also: No shocker, he expects sequestration to continue. New Tanker, Next Gen Bomber and JSF are the protected babies. Any cuts to the JSF at this point risk putting it on the death spiral of increasing costs and partner pullouts, therefore legacy airframes will suffer to support the JSF. Specifically mentioned the A-10 and F-15. Tap danced around manpower cuts, but this was particularly telling: "Guidance is to build a force that is sustainable" along with a lot of talk about not having a hollow force, take that how you will. He talked a lot about a ten to twenty year outlook, and how the methods we used to react to sequestration in FY13 and will use in FY14 are not what will be used in FY15 and beyond, he really hated the furlough of our civilians and "they" don't want to do it again for risk of making it a permanent tool. He said that the AF has made significant strides in telling our story and explaining readiness on the Hill. Specifically that readiness is not about whats going on now but if something like Syria pops up and what that would mean, to the point that other services are being asked to use the AF model to quantify readiness. Whatever that means. Overall, he talked for a very short period of time and answered a lot of questions, when he got a weird low level question from a young enlisted troop he admitted when he didn't know and said he'd get back to them with a comment to his note taker person. Whether he actually follows through, who knows. In all, he seemed like he actually was engaged and doing the best he can, but until the budget builders get any clear guidance they're trying to build as many COAs as possible to plan for whatever congress shits out.

The premise is that you send your best dudes to the "higher level" staffs, you wouldn't push a retard to the joint staff where he'd embarrass himself and the entire service. There are problems with this, sure (ie MAJCOM isn't the top, but if you put a ding dong in A8 you get crappy upgrades to your MDS, or AFCENT long range plans doesn't look as good as HAF, but that dude has a larger impact on the force in the short term, etc, etc) As to just rating #/N FGO, while it sounds more clear cut than what we do now, it still doesn't account for organizational strength. Top third at the 57th wing is not the same as top third at another wing The boards have something like 60-90 seconds to look at a record, they don't have time to look at anything subjectively. So the lower level commanders have to do that and somehow translate that subjective evaluation into a number of some kind, if they don't and only push the box checks forward that's when we run into trouble.

MAJCOM is a backwards step from a joint billet in addition to the damning with faint praise?

The fact that the USAF had a failure as recent as 1999 tells me that this shit isn't routine or easy. Keep up the good work space nerds, seriously.

GC, I get the impression you're a personnel type. If I'm right, you probably don't have the interaction experience with Ops types at the squadron level. We tend to argue, throw spears and generally say that everyone is fucked up but me. It's just the way it is, the constant fight over who is right demands we bring facts to the fight to prove ourselves. It's a good thing, but it makes us look like assholes to the outsider. The other part of this culture is that we can argue incessantly and damn near start a fist fight over it, then roll to the bar and share a beer.

No it isn't. One involves consenting adults the other does not, why is that so hard to understand? I'll try one last time, if my thing is to tie up my chick, I'll seek out a chick that likes to be tied up, that's consent. If another dudes thing is little boys, that's rape. I can accept the first, never would I accept the second. This is a bit of a tangent, but there should be no financial benefits to being married, the government should tax individuals end of story. As to adoption, if you seriously believe a child would be better off not being adopted and staying in the system than being adopted by a stable gay couple (ignoring the sperm bank option for the lesbians, which fucks up your argument) I don't know what to say to you. Let me ask you this: Say a Muslim (insert any group who's morals you disagree with) couple wants to adopt, should the government also restrict them from adopting? What if the only tenant of Christianity (in your view) that a gay couple breaks is sodomy, otherwise they are model Christians, this is such a big sin that they need to be lumped in with pedophiles? Seriously?

I don't think the government should be involved with saying who can marry who, but I seriously doubt any of the polygamist "societies" within the US are female positive.

You do yourself no favors using this argument. Homosexuals have sex with consenting adults of the same gender. Pedophiles abuse children who are not old enough to consent. See the difference? I should be able to do basically anything I want, that's called Liberty and until my actions infringe another person's Life/Liberty/Property the government can fuck off. ( Yes, I realize this is a hard core Libertarian view point and fully recognize it is utterly out of the realm of possibility in current American politics. )

Attached dudes not flying is primarily a leadership issue. That and a too much queep issue.

GC, Per your numbers would the AF be able to save enough money with an early retirement option for those passed over to O-5 or would it require too many cuts to keep the force structure at the "right" levels?