Dupe

I ran base ops for a while at OAKN. NAC was constantly the problem child. They'd show up hours early and turn the ramp into an impossible Tetris jet puzzle. Maybe they'd run hours behind on their load and force the next 747 in line to hold for a few hours unplanned. At times, they'd leave company-owned ground equipment strewn about the ramp causing further issues. Needless to say, relations were often strained between airfield management and NAC. I hope some frantic airfield management team trying to hustle NAC along wasn't a factor... ...Godspeed. This aviation thing is dangerous. I've learned that a few times in my career now.

Yeah...this is slightly different than the standard "TDY for a formal course" type question that's come up in the thread already. I've read the rest of the thread and the JFTR. Once I am at my new base and the TLE entitlement spelled out in the JFTR expires (only 10 days...used on either side for CONUS to CONUS) expires, it seems to me that the JFTR doesn't apply any more with my travel being complete and I'm purely within the realm of AF finance/services rules. My reading of 34-246 doesn't clear up the issue either.

I'm PCSing shortly, and TLF space isn't available for my entire 30 day period of TLF request. Lodging, of course, wants to break up my stay into three reservation periods where only one would be non-avalible. I'm all for saving money, but that means packaging up my family post-PCS two more times than is really needed. Anybody deal with this before?

I've even heard of the losing MAJCOM stepping to AFPC and not releasing a guy to the test community once he's been selected. As a side note, rated TPS grads have our own AFPC functional vice the MDS-specific guy you had on the porch before.

My personal view is that AFMC should not even broach the thought of TAFCS waivers. The timeline is way too short for guys anything beyond the 10 year mark. After selection, you've got to get through a year of TPS, serve a couple years as a line test pilot and go to school before your command years. If you're at the 10 year point when you come in the door to AFMC, there just isn't enough time to fit all that in. We've had guys go to school/staff, then come back to AFMC as Test Sq/CCs after only a year's experience in test....that's a huge foul to the community. I wish we could just have an "Active duty line test pilot untill you retire" track, but that's as likely to happen as bringing warrant officers back to the AF. We do have a few Reservist and GS test pilot positions within AFMC, but you generally have to be an active duty tester to even be considered for those.

Like Huggy, I have an addiction. I like knowing how airplanes are built and how they work. Getting to know exactly how my platform works has been awesome. Being able to talk to the system experts after nearly each sortie is a great experience...I know so much more about radars, threat sensors, and weapons than I did when I was in the CAF. Fighting with various program offices or trying to convince some in the systems development community to "stop building what you've already built" has been a challenge.

Don't go to TPS because you want to be an astronaut. Don't go because you think a year of flying a wide variety of aircraft sounds fun to you. Go because you want to be part of how the Air Force aquires and tests new systems. Some of that testing is amazingly awesome. Much of it is god awful boring. Sometimes you wish you didn't know how the sausage is really made. In the end, going to TPS for the wrong reasons will set you up for many years of unhappiness in the future. My time in DT has been good so far, but part of me would give anything to push accross student gap at Red Flag or hear a real 9-line from a JTAC complete with 7.62 fire in the background again.

I think that's where some of the grief is: the realization that even the very best our Air Force has to offer may not be able to right the ship.

Sadly, there's much less duplication than you probably think. The problem is that AF systems aren't really comparable to cars...or even civil aircraft for that matter. Sure, some of the support is duplicated. Shockingly, at the buying parts from a contractor level...it can be MDS-dependent and there are very real and very large revolving costs for each airframe type. Additionally, aircraft cost vs time has a bathtub function to it. Say you BRAC a C-130H2 squadron to the boneyard and replace them with the same number of C-130Js. Even if flying hours and fuel burn was the same, you would expect the J to cost less because of the reduced depot costs: the J would live in the trough of the tub while the H2 is on the exponential increase near the end of its life. You absolutely should include some part of the infrastructure costs when looking at operational costs. Just looking at the variable costs gives a completely inaccurate picture (ala JS's Hawker example) As an example, in my Test Wing, we commonly get requests to go fly developmental test fighters in support of things like the Patriot or E-2C programs. Per Federal law, those programs can only reimburse us for fuel cost and TDY funds. They're always pissed when we reject the offers outright.

I would tell the same VFW crowd that a MDS that has only 15 total aircraft had better have a national-asset level of capability to justify the entire infrastructure that exists to support it. Heck, we have more B-2s than that. It takes much much more than 1K of gas to fly this airplane for an hour: it takes the continued existence of a program office, a depot, and a MICAP supply system. At the tail end of an airframe's life, there also needs to be increased spending combating fatigue, contracts let to replace OEM parts, and the study of how many airframes that need to go to AMARC to keep the rest flying. All that crap needs to be funded every year that the airframe remains in the inventory. The C-130E did great work for America, but she's now the old mare in the barn.

There's some legitimacy to it. Guys on the line don't understand the massive costs of back shops, phase inspections, and all the depot infrastructure. It illustrates why things like the C-27J program need to die quickly.

The thing is that the standard is upfront and obvious. We can argue all day about "Is this a good standard?" As a WG/CC, how many airmen exited the service under his pen due to failing the same standard? What should you do with an organizational leader who doesn't pass the bar we set for everyone? He's got to go. Bending the standard for an O-6 is absolutely the wrong path to go down. Hopefully, this starts a higher AF-level discussion on what our PT test is really trying to measure. I personally think the waist measurement is one of the better tests, as you can't just punch it out with two weeks worth of work: it takes actually living healthy to pass. Sure... body composition, pinch tests, or BMI may be better tools, and maybe the standard needs some updating. That said, we've set the standard a few years ago now: leaders absolutely should be expected to both enforce them and live up to them.

There's always the ACSC On Line Masters Program.... have fun with that.

Doesn't matter for snot. In fact, the commercial exam that you took before and the mil-comp exam you'll take are different tests in the eyes of the FAA (even if one is really a subset of the other).

Raping navs is pretty much the one acceptable form of discrimination left....

I think the yesteryear's requirements for both medical insurance and education were less. I'm not a huge fan of the ACA because it doesn't address cost-control at all and it fundamentally doesn't change the structure of American medical insurance as big employer-provided health maintenance program. The one thing it does do is remove the cycle of a catastrophic injury/illness causing unemployment, leading to loss of coverage, and eventually non-treatment for the injury illness. I don't think medical insurance should be provided by employers as it weighs down the smaller employers unneccessarily, there's minimal long term care as employers will constantly change, and it doesn't solve the problem of how to provide medical coverage for retirees. I'm open to more personal systems or a more national system. The system we have still isn't working for most Americans. Once upon a time in America, you could drop out of high school, get a blue-collar job, work hard, and support your family. Technology has advanced so far now that even a high-school education isn't enough to enter or stay in the middle class. We definately need to make technical and college education available to those who want to work hard to take advantage of it. The question becomes "who pays for that?" There should be a more nuanced discussion of which forms of aid are "help up" vs "hand out" in this country. I'm in favor of less hand outs and more help-ups. By creating more opportunities, we can increase productivity and wealth. Estate tax as a tax on estate transfer....which is really income to someone else. Besides, there's a $5.25M exemption which exludes the vast majority of American estates anyway. On top of that it's personal wealth. If the deceased had a corporation where future family members were established as co-owners of that corporation, then any assets the corporation had don't get caught in the estate tax. It's not like the Fords or the Disneys have taken substantial estate-tax hits on total family wealth each time a successor passed. To me, Norway, Switzerland and Finland are very sustainable. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and New Zeland aren't far behind. Our ideas of free market and capitalism haven't lasted 100 years either. Remember, we tried unrestrained capitalism in this country between about the 1870s and the 1920s, and we didn't like how it tasted. I believe we shouldn't be a nation that squashes the middle class to propel the ultra rich to greater heights, but we've managed to accomplish that over the last 30 years. Russia and China have managed to accomplish the same feat since the end of the Cold War. Some company we're in. We can do better. We need and deserve a debate in this country that's more advanced than "Stop socialism!"

The problem with the free markets is that some prospective consumers are priced out of the market. Are you seriously saying that we should price some people out of medical care or post-secondary education? Dude...that's scary. Brother...that door was opened with the 16th Ammendment. What makes the super-wealthy so special? The majority of Americans get taxed. Hell, they even get taxed at a higher effective tax rate than the super wealthy. We've had a progressive tax system since the start of income taxation. The national argument is over how progressive the system should be...not that it should be progressive. Thankfully, we tax income and not wealth in this nation....it seems that idea is often mis-represented. I fear that choices and options are disappearing for many in the middle class...that's the fundamental problem. What happens if the road-block isn't the result of a bad decision? What if a dependent gets catastrophically ill? What about a work-place injury? Natural disaster? The sad thing is that increasing numbers of the middle class are financially pressed against the wall. I'm not at all conviced that the Democrats have the best plan for America, but I squarely believe the GOP doesn't understand the problems of middle-class Americans. It's really hard to sell the message that social security, medicare, jobs programs, and education programs need to be cut while defending the ultra rich and maintaining our desire to have a defense establishment that spends more than the top ten other nations combined. Instead, they raise the image that most recieving some form of government aid are lazy, drug-addicted baby-makers. That's just not the case, and Americans are smarter than that...I think the GOP will get trounced in two years for extreme lack of vision.

I like your vision. I worry that it's not at all close to American reality. The problem becomes when a path paved by hard work makes success impossible. To me, the problems of the "disadvantaged" are real and important, but the squeezing of the middle class is much more concerning. I feel we've gotten to a point in America where hard work doesn't easily translate into success. When hard-working Americans are bankrupted by cancer, or when costs of higher education for children are increasing faster than wage increases for the parents...those are signs that we have real problems. Go survey some folks who have "worked hard to achieve their own version of success." Most doctors I've met wouldn't recommend medical practice to their children as they feel the efforts and sacrifices they made in med school and residency aren't worth the long hours and insurance pain they have now. Have you talked to a major airline pilot? Ask him how he feels about being furloughed, having his pension stripped away and making less in real dollars than he did in 1990. I feel like middle-class America is swimming really hard only to be drifting backwards, which is why I don't understand defending those with absolutely staggering wealth.

I very much agree. Are you arguing that there are currently equal opportunities for everyone in America?

Ok...buffoonery on my part.

Except that we are very very far from equal wealth: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM

Good point and true statement. This house will be a rental shortly, and I'll be rolling most of the profits back into covering the principal.

I'm in the middle of closing with NBOKC. 3.25 % with $3K lender credit. I bring nothing to the table, and my payments drop by $250/mo. There's never a free lunch: I had 26 years remaining on my original note; this is now a 30 year note (though the total amount paid is substantially less).

Really? Maybe it's me...I find the Bush Administration's (and to be fair...the Clinton Administration's) disregard of due process, habeas corpus, and the treaties that we've signed and ratified to be quite worrying. Is it the same as bombing Cambodia? Maybe not....but our executive branch should not have the unchecked power to commit kidnapping and be an agent of torture on a global scale. It's definately more important to the American public discourse than the timing of the discovery for the Clinton's failed real estate deal. Hell, we once went to war with a superpower because they were kidnapping our citizens.

Pretty much every sitting President since FDR, regardless of party, seems to have attempted expanded executive power in one arena or another. Examples from both sides include Truman nationalizing the steel industry, Nixon's invasion of Cambodia, Iran Contra, Clinton's perverse idea of "Executive Privilage" during the Whitewater investigation, and the torture and extraordinary rendition of detainees during the Bush administration. If anything, I don't think there has been a gross violation of executive power by Obama yet. Doesn't mean it won't happen...a President's second term is where most of these shenanigans occur. I do find it interesting that Senator Obama ran on a premise of "open government" in 2008. Now, I don't think President Obama believes in executive openness nearly as much.