brabus

Because the right guys are out there, it’s not a zero sum game. However, tough sell to pick a heavy guy over a fighter guy when you’re talking about the one TX you have to give. But timing matters a lot, and perhaps great dude heavy guy has zero competition for an available TX, thus he gets the job. Totally support MAF guy rushing, but go in eyes wide open - your chances are historically low (but not zero).

Brutally honest answer at the end of the day: while there are certainly great MAF guys who could do well in fighters, many probably wouldn’t be very value adding, especially later in their career (and that’s if they even make it through the pipeline). The basic flying stuff that translates to fighters is about 5% of the job. It’s the other 95% that’s the big hurdle. The young guy straight out of the pipeline from the start will generally provide more long term value. I’m sure that’ll piss some egos off, but reality hurts some times.

TX slots are not numerous, chances of success are pretty much 100% if your transitioning from another fighter (vs. coming from a non-fighter background), and if you do TX from a non-fighter, you’re starting over as the “young, inexperienced” guy…except you’re a Maj instead of a LT/young Capt. Those are the three big hurdles. Not impossible to get past, but it’s hard, even for the greatest bros out there.

Yes it has happened. Definitely much lower chances though if you’re coming from a non-fighter

The ATF is finally going to eForms supposedly by the end of the month. This means far easier filing and should result in much shorter wait times. If you’re thinking about buying an NFA item, Jan should be a good month to do it!

Ah, the old go off on an enraged strawman tirade move. I have no questions on which group you’re in.

False equivalency. The mil members in your example are concerned about their personal health and not trying to tell anyone else how to conduct their personal health decisions/force an opinion on others. The other side of the argument are trying to force their will on others. Different situations/approaches and not comparable…one side is filled with moral high ground pricks and the other just wants liberty for everyone.

You can throw on healthy adults to age 60-70 as well. Hopefully the courts keep smacking down these bullshit mandates. It’s over, get it if you want and be happy, but you can fuck right off on your high horse opinion of what somebody else should do.

You’re blindfolded and no touching, you have to pick door 1 or 2…totally worth the risk!

So much what lord rather said. I’m fairly in tune to local politics, and it is very promising to see how many liberals (not far left progressives, there’s a difference) are starting to finally wake up to this bullshit going too far. I’ve talked to several who self-described as progressive, but now they’re saying they can’t do it anymore. Those liberals won’t necessarily get on board with all the conservative polices you like, but they will have a conversation and are more open minded than given credit…just as the same applies to conservatives who are closer to the middle/lean in the libertarian direction. Locally, I’ve determined the GOP are all old people who staunchly cling to their viewpoints/fuck everyone else just as much as the progressive nut jobs…there’s no fundamentally big pic difference in the two groups as far as I’m concerned. Invite the other side of the middle fence to respectful conversation, bet you find out they’re actually pretty reasonable and good people. And hopefully they will find the same about you if they give honest conversation a chance.

The bullshit meter really pegs when many people on this board have done immense things for the sake of others (including strangers) at risk to their lives, their family’s wellbeing, etc…only to then be accused of being selfish and not caring about others. Our neighbors who haven’t been in the mil, but go out of their way to help everyone, including strangers, with every day life things, for no personal gain - they’re called selfish by the mob. The glove does not fit, go find a new excuse to act like a self righteous asshole.

The main point is unhealthy America is the primary reason we’ve experienced the amount of hospitalizations and deaths. Aside from Covid, unhealthy lifestyles are mostly PCFs in 5 of the top 10 causes of death in the US. This problem transcends Covid, and is the largest cause of strain on our healthcare system. Let’s fix that problem and stop fucking around with other things that primarily serve to line pockets and tamp down personal freedom. That’s the strategy we need to adopt. A good start would be pull funding from bullshit stuff and fund healthy eating options for low income/single parent families, develop a strategy to change America’s viewpoint on health, etc. But that’s hard, and it’s so much easier and convenient to bullshit the public and make tons of money/increase our power off their ignorance and willingness to listen to anything we say! Secondary point: One size fits all is usually not a good plan - absolutely not should healthy people be punished due to the poor choices of countless Americans. CDC: Almost half of America is obese, increased > 12% in the last 20 years, 45% of 60+ are obese, 20% of children are obese. DFP identified, now let’s get to work solving how it happened and what we can do to fix it.

CDC COVID data tracker - lots of off-shoots from there to get to data characterized in different ways. Also, totally agree that was weird, caught me by surprise as well. My guess is maybe people in that age group are more likely to say fuck the hospital and end up dying before they or someone else make the decision to go? Another factor could be they died from something else, but coroner found COVID and labeled as such on death certificate. Sorry, don’t have a good answer.

Let me rephrase: the death rate (averaged across all age groups and comorbidity amounts) from the day prior to EUA vs. today is a 0.16% change. That’s how much we’ve moved the needle in 11 months. Our 30 day rolling average is also in line with that number, which I suppose is a little more “Gee whiz” than the previous comparison. Your falter is continuing to ignore the health factor…people aren’t dying primarily because they’re unvax’d, they’re dying because they’re unhealthy or a weakened immune system due to advanced age, and unfortunately these unhealthy people also coincidentally have not taken the vax in many cases. I have always argued unhealthy people should probably get the vax, as they’re the ones who are most at risk…they need every little bit of help they can get. The main supporting data is the lack of significant vax progression in lowering death rates, old people are highly vax’d (they’re not making up the majority of the unvax’d hospitalized/dying), and 95% of those people in hospitals are 1+ comorbidity. Healthy people under 50 (like most of us and all of the mil) are hospitalizing at sub .5% and dying at sub .25% (doesn’t even account for the risk of getting COVID to begin with, which is < 100%) - this current problem is due to health and age by a wide margin. You can also throw in more minor data like the amount of vax’d infected/dying/hospitalized - e.g. vax not nearly as great as it was toted, and also people admitted to hospitals for non-COVID reasons (broken arm), then charted as covid patient because they tested positive (yet need no care for COVID directly because they’re mild to no symptoms) - what many people would call cooking the books. Bottom line, why don’t you look at ALL the data - it cannot be logically ignored that health and age are the leading issues and vax status is primarily a cherry picked talking point to elicit emotional response. When you buy into the MSM headline “97% of hospitalized cases are un-vax’d!” you’re playing right into their hope that you don’t point out almost all of those people are unhealthy (the largest demographic to skip the vax, but ironically the ones who actually need it) and some of them didn’t even go in for COVID to begin with. You’re also ignoring the multiple times in various places the vax’d made up a larger amount of hospitalizations/deaths than the unvax’d (over shorter time periods) - another blow to the belief that vaccines will stop all of this.

You’re going to piss off at least 1 of the 3, accept that, and don’t make that 1 your family. As long as you take that approach, you’ll be fine. If you’re lucky, you’ll have good leadership at both jobs and you may actually not piss off any of them, but that wouldn’t be my expectation, especially if one boss has never done the other job.

My experience has been 20-30 immediate contacts with COVID. But here’s the punchline: None went to the hospital (including the few 70+) and most were mild cases at best. Related…my neighbor’s brother in-law was killed in a motorcycle accident - autopsy revealed COVID, death certificate says COVID…I shit you not.

Data from CDC as of today… Risk of going to hospital: 65-75: 1.5% / 50-64: 1% / 18-49: 0.46% / 0-17: 0.075% Note: Includes all those with health problems; 95% of those numbers above have at least one comorbidity. So your chance of being hospitalized if you’re healthy is roughly 5% of your age group number above (averaged across all age groups, so it won’t be exactly 5, but close enough). Risk of death if you contract COVID: 65-75: 6.3% / 50-64: 1.9% / 18-49: 0.24% / 0-17: 0.01% Note: Includes all those with comorbidites, as well as all data starting Mar 20. Interesting numbers on the vaccines: Fully (partially) vax’d: 65+ 86.1% (99.4%) / 18+ 70.6% (81.6%) /12+ 68.9% (79.7%). Pretty high vaccination rates overall. Over the course of the last year, the vaccines have reduced the death rate by 0.16% (averaged over all age groups/total US population). My personal takeaways from the data: 1. If you’re under 65, your risk of hospitalization/death is minuscule; if you’re without comorbidities your risk is even more minuscule. There is certainly not zero risk (caveat for those who will try to misconstrue my words). 2. The vaccines have hardly moved the needle, despite what the MSM, gov reps, and Pharma say. Last 30 days death rate is only 0.16% less than the day prior to EUA. That is not to say vaccines have not accomplished anything, but rather they are significantly less impactful than what many want/believe them to be. 3. Your overall health and age appear to be the largest factors in how you react to COVID. The “pandemic of the unvax’d” is a total misnomer, as it’s really a “pandemic of the unhealthy (who also may have chosen not to get vax’d).” If we actually root cause this thing, we should be directing much of our misplaced effort towards creating a healthier America, not on emotionally-driven virtue signaling/attacking our neighbors about masks, vaccine mandates, etc.

Out of curiosity, what was that SQ/CC’s reasoning for not wanting guys to go to the U-2?

The best part of this is the AF doesn’t realize they’ve done these dudes a solid by enabling them to punch to the guard/airlines sooner than past counterparts. Genius.

That’s not a vax problem, that’s a bad policy problem. It also has not limited the military in accomplishing its mission writ large; even some GO at a recent HASC hearing stated the lack of vax has not affected deployability or mission execution.

I know several AA dudes who live in DFW/based there...their QOL and pay is awesome. If you are hard set on living in DFW area forever, then I'd switch to AA. If you can be cool with living in a major DAL base, then I'd move and stick with DAL. I also know a few guys who were +1 year at airline X and switched to live in base (including leaving DAL for AA, and vice versa); they are all very happy with the switch. But remember, there are tons of opinions out there, only you know how important it is to live in location X...and I would choose living in base over commuting every day (I'm fucked on that, but you don't have to be!)

What Helodude said…I’ve ran into several helo guys who are either in the regionals or came to mainline from the regionals. Anecdotally from a few of those guys, it doesn’t take you that long at a regional until you get called for the majors. That said, this applies to relatively current day, and it does not guarantee the same thing in 10-15 years (assuming we’re talking about guys who have yet to start UPT).

@Negatory I think people (like us two for example) actually agree on a lot of things, and we don’t agree on some things, and that’s OK/does not make one person a fill-in-the blank-name-calling. Positive discussion, collaboration, learning, growth, etc. can still occur if we (the “royal we”) simply acknowledge the italicized part. How do we help people release their death grip on identity/tribal politics and realize/live the italicized point above? One would think it’s simple, but it definitely is not. I don’t know how to move stalemates forward in my local community when people are so entrenched in their camp/completely unwilling to even hear the words above, let alone acknowledge their utility. It’s frustrating and continues the divide of “us vs them.”

@Negatory Sincerely, glad to see you make it to these conclusions. Now help spread the facts to those who are holding on too tight to the words of fill-in-the-blank figurehead/company with questionable motives.

One example of many: just recently a story in Canada went on a on about this “perfectly healthy 14 yr old” who died from COVID and how refusal to get the vaccine was the primary CF. Except enter stage left when his parents come out and say he was terminally ill with cancer, and it was at the point they were expecting/ready for him to pass; the death was of zero surprise to them. The autopsy revealed he happened to have COVID at the time, which played no significant factor in the death. Once again, the MSM makes up a story hardly rooted in truth while purposely suppressing critical info/perspective that would otherwise sink their emotional sale. So many people in the world have lost/never had critical thinking skills. At this point, every single thing you see on the news/social media should immediately be met with “probably complete bullshit/wildly leaving out countering facts” until you can validate with multiple sources (ideally non-profit/non-political ones).