brabus

To be clear, they all love that demographic. Most fighter dudes aren’t going to get past low 2k-s in a standard career unless they’ve hit the revolving deployment door timing like a boss (or not like a boss, depending on how you look at it). Guys at the 12 year/jump shit point are ~1.5k, and they’re getting snatched up left and right. Met several Navy dudes who were lower than that. It’s a buyers market, regardless of what company you’re talking about.

Haven’t heard that here. But finance has fucked up several dude’s flight pay, so we got that going for us.

I have several friends who were hired by Delta, AA, UAL with < 2k TT (~1.6k avg fighter time) in the recent past. Seems like those numbers are fairly typical for fighter guys who are going earlier than the standard 20 year retired guy. A few of those guys were called before their 20+ year fighter bros were.

Binary.

There’s some pretty good comments in the article. Bottom line, general consensus is she’s a 1 and he’s a total pussy.

Again, no issues with beards, turbans, etc. The point on these specific items is why not make beards allowed across the board; where is the detraction from the mission if a non-Sikh has a beard? This seems like an easy, “fuck it, let’s roll this out across the board” as opposed to, “let’s grant this to a specific group only, everyone else must maintain the ‘standards’!” Copy Shabbat and war, then just apply it to non-deployed ops...you cant tell me it wouldn’t be a big issue for units if a specific religion was granted no shifts, sorties, etc. fri night to sat night. Point is not to say this particular beard/turban move is wrong, but it could have gone in a better direction, and overall, blanket giving specific groups of people whatever they want in the name of religion or other identity can have negative consequences on the force and mission.

Great post. I don’t disagree, nor have any issue with beards, cranium covers, etc., but I also don’t see a problem with everyone being able to have a beard if they choose to. It’s a fine line separating sensible allowances for specific reasons and being (at least perceived) to cater to an individual or demographic while implying everyone else can go fuck themselves. The latter can erode cohesion, culture, morale, etc., which absolutely does negatively affect the mission. Sometimes the right answer is to help the individual, and other times they have to be told no because it truly is for the greater good of the unit. To circle back to my example, should the AF allow every Jewish member to never work from fri sundown to sat sundown, including while deployed? Imagine the implications if that was to occur...all of the sudden everyone is Jewish because the hell if any of us like working weekends. Second and third order effects are a real thing...

Seventh Day Adventist and Jews shouldn’t work on saturdays because it’s a day of rest. How many of those people are working on saturdays because that’s what they signed up for and see it as something bigger than themselves, and in a part, bigger than their religion? I bet the answer is a lot. But you don’t see them complaining or asking to take every sat off. Shack.

Wow, that’s crazy! Though I still think your average AD pilot (who doesn’t have a significantly compelling reason) won’t have a chance in hell of getting that much off UPT. Managing expectations...

Anything near 2 years is likely PC off a PCS or additional school ADSC. No chance in hell thats off a UPT ADSC. The letter could help sway the O-6s at SAF/PC, but it’s not required as far as I know.

There’s a lot of USERRA-exempt orders to be had on deployments, staff, school in res, etc. Prepare yourself to have to take a 3 year staff job in DC/Langley, because you’re not likely to make up 3 years with just collecting USERRA-exempts deployments (and why would you want to?) There’s WOM of consideration for making all CC orders exempt, but not an actual thing right now. My opinion without knowing your exact situation: get your line number and see how the AF cards fall, but don’t prioritize the AF over the line number.

The guard has the same bonus. Just putting that out there for anyone who’s AD leadership has told them the AD bonus is a reason to not go guard.

Tell your LNO what you want to do, why you need to do it this way, and then ask that they work with the 340th to ensure all of your dependents are on your TDY-enroute orders. If Kelly doesn’t have a suitable TLF, they will give you a non-A. Maybe JTR defines “suitable,” but I think it’s something like BR for you/wife, BR for kids (under 10 can share room or something like that), allows pets if you have them, etc. With non-A, you get $127/day for lodging in San Antonio (I looked it up). For arguments sake, even if you didn’t have a non-A, you can still choose to refuse a lodging room and the AF has to reimburse you Kelly’s lodging rate, which is probably $70/day. So that’s the bare min you would get.

TDY enroute with dependents on your orders is the best option. Talk to your UPT SQ/CC and you’ll also have to work it through MPF. It will likely take CC interaction with MPF to make it happen, as MPF’s standard answer will be no. If you only have a matter of days between the two courses, that sounds like a solid reason to go this route. If that all works, the AF will have to provide you lodging that covers your whole family. If no TLFs available, its on you to find something off base. Ha e you looked into long term air bnb in the local area?

Not with PIC time (at least for a while until CA upgrade). He’s turbine PIC 100% of the time in fighters, and most (all?) majors apply some amount of correction factor to mil time (but none for civ time). He should be at 1500 TT/800+ turbine PIC in 5 years if all he does is fly full time fighters. With the way retirements/hiring is going, he’ll likely be pretty damn competitive at that point.

Shack. You (OP), will be a limfac to your sq, likely a long term one, if you punch to DSG 2 years after FTU. As a fighter pilot, you owe it to the team and yourself to gain more experience before going part time...I assume you don’t want to be the below average dude in the sq that’s on “secret probation, LOX, etc.” that makes dudes sigh when they see you’re in the formation. The right amount of full time years depends on the individual’s natural ability, work ethic, deployment/flag level TDY opportunities, etc. As a general ROT, I recommend you get through 4FLUG before seeking out the airlines. All that said, I get orders/tech job are not a guarantee after seasoning, but you should do your damndest to make those happen. I know it’s hard seeing a bunch of the older dudes going to the airlines and talking about how great it is, but my rec is be patient, put some hard effort into the next 5 years as a fighter pilot, and then I bet you have enough hours to get directly hired to a major, all while skipping the regionals. Final caveat: if you truly are SOL on a full time job post-seasoning (including stringing orders, temp tech, etc. together), then going to a regional that has a flow agreement with a major seems like the best option. Flows are ~50% of AALs hires, as an example.

I sold back 30 and took 60 days of terminal...I wish I’d taken 90 days of terminal. I’d take it all unless you have some really good reason to swear into the guard/reserve sooner.

Shack...and that’s the point too many people don’t understand nowadays. See Guardian’s post above - nailed it.

Do we know that anything happened worthy of punishment beyond an ass chewing? You can play devils advocate all you want, but this statement lives right in line with guilty until proven innocent, squarely where OSI and the Air Force Times loves to live . Totally possible Fargo did some unsavory shit, but I’m also not going to shit on the man and color him a dirt bag solely because of an OSI investigation that dovetailed into character assassination disseminated by the Air Force tabloid, both groups of which have very little credibility in my opinion.

I agree it’s not a stretch, but let’s also consider how many dudes have been crucified with non-existent evidence or shaky circumstantial stuff at most. What about my wife?...well if she was the type who’s vindictive, petty, and/or so over reactionary, then she probably could have been the source of 69 CDIs over the years. But she’s mature enough to not rake someone over the coals for a drunken “inappropriate hug” or whatever other overreaction our PC society loves. She also has no problem dealing with someone being an idiot immediately instead of running off to tell stories to OSI, a CC, etc. Too many have forgotten how to first address issues as their level and instead go tattling to dad as the first step. My 4 yr old daughter has better conflict resolution skills then many in our society (and military) today.

Hard no.

“Say so” is all it takes nowadays.

Did he do things exactly as described in Air Force Times? You’re putting more faith in what that POS publication says vs. a fellow pilot who many will vouch for with first hand knowledge of the man. Shack, OSI standard. I was involved in an OSI investigation once and in a similar position as your ex-wife. They threatened me with punishment, getting me kicked out of UPT, etc. if I didn’t essentially roast someone/give them what they wanted to hear. I said nothing and life went on, the other individual didn’t get fucked over, and we all lived happily ever after...except for the bloodlust OSI agents who were pissed because they lost a chance to fuck someone over. They’re a bunch of coercive scumbags and I will always be extremely skeptical of anything OSI has “extracted” from someone.

We only got one new hire into UPT in FY20...there definitely is a shortage of ANG slots. Hopefully FY21 is better.

I haven’t seen Fargo in several years, but I’ve been around him for multiple years and have never seen him do anything out of the ordinary that a shitload of other people haven’t done. Yeah he’s done standard drunk fighter pilot shit that 95% of us have done, but not things as described by the Air Force rag. I know Fuge too and trust his judgement, but this still smells a whole lot like something blown out of proportion combined with guilty until proven innocent (and by the way, nobody is going to put any effort into trying to prove innocence). Fuge was probably handed something he had no real choice on, but fuck OSI for going to such great lengths to destroy people.