brabus

I hope your commander says no. And then the OG says no. And then the wg/cc crushes the balls of the ass hat who thought this made sense. Wait..that's the guard, or hopefully your leadership is part of the micro-minority that are actually leaders.

I get your point, but remember what a colossal fuck fest happened when Libya kicked off and a tanker general was in charge. Not a slight against tanker bros, but we all have our place. What would have happened had a cyber general been in charge? Either it would have been worse, or they would have had more sense/humility and stepped aside and let the CAF guys take the reigns. The latter being better, but still shows the inadequacy of placing the wrong experience in a position. That said, cyber is extremely important and a huge problem (and capability) for us. They should be their own force; the AF is holding on much like the Army held onto the air corps. Let the cyber experts run their domain without a pilot thinking they know better/think they can effectively make the calls...it goes both ways. We are the AIR Force as Matt pointed out, keep it that way and split off the domains to a separate service that while complimenting air, should not be under our services purview. Same with the Army, get their grubby fingers out of the cyber pot as well.

CRM is not limited to heavies - it fully exists in the fighter world, you're just working with guys in another jet (single seat world). Flight hours are less overall, but flight hours are also not "equal" either...1 hr in a C-17 is not a direct comparison to 1 hr in a F-16; there's a reason fighter guys are getting hired by airlines at the bare minimum requirements, so I wouldn't personally be extremely concerned with "total hours" if airlines are eventually your desire. The guard fighters GENERALLY do 2-3 month deployments, unlike AD's 6 month standard. QOL in good; the flying/mission is phenomenal - do you want to fly at 100' AGL and 50K in the same sortie, blow assholes up, shoot missiles, fly in all corners of the world, go on awesome TDYs, etc? It's a great lifetstyle, but not for all...it's competitive, can be more stressful (good and bad), etc. If you enjoyed sports in high school/college, the camaraderie and competition, then you'll probably like it. If you though those guys were assholes and don't feel comfortable with competition amongst your peers, or think being 33 yrs old and still studying for several hours on a day you're not flying is bullshit, then it may not be for you.

I think some of the tech he mentioned seems like it could certainly enhance training, but none of that will replace air time. I fully support finding ways to do things better and not sticking with the status quo because "that's how it's always been," but what HAF won't admit is you can't take this tech and replace air time, let alone cut UPT length by 50%. We're already in a shitpie with dangerous, non-mission capable FNGs, cutting 6 months out of the pipeline, regardless of new tech, will be disastrous. If HAF would admit this new tech will improve training (but won't replace air time, i.e. UPT stays 1 year), then I'd applaud them for doing something that makes sense.

I think smokin's post is spot on. Pick the mission that appeals to you, not what "seems" to be the current leader in the stacking bodies game, because the latter is very much time/luck based, could change at any moment, can even be squadron based and not MDS based, etc. I had a sq/cc who was a C-model dude, said when he was casual in an A-10 sq he naturally liked the idea of the Hawg, but at the time they weren't doing shit and everyone thought the next likely thing was shooting the Iraqi AF down, so he went after Eagles. Well, guess how that worked out in terms of going to war. Of course I think you should list all the fighters first based on my biased love for those missions, but I have worked closely with the gunships and U-28s, great communities that do awesome work. Certainly worth an immediate "second" to fighters on the dream sheet in your case

Step 1, single seat. Step 2, list fighters keeping step 1 in mind. Step 3, list AFSOC over big wing ISR, MAF, etc. Step 4, consider how bad you want fighters and if listing FAIP ahead of AFSOC is worth it for a second chance at fighters three-ish years from now. You will get biased answers no matter what because we all generally love what we do, even if for some it wasn't their first choice out of UPT. Nothing wrong with that, just be aware.

Flying an F-4 felt like driving a dualie that had been in a wreck. I cannot imagine taking that thing downtown; those guys had huge brass balls. One of the best 1.0s of my life.

That's what I had to do...she hooked me up with the inside track to 422.

On the contrary, I had 3x CFIs in my class, 2 of which were below average in phase 2 and struggled heavily. The other kicked ass. I don't think civilian ratings directly correlate to good UPT performance, but I'm sure they do help for some people, clearly not for all.

I understand di1630's point, and it has merit. That said, it's still important to be prepared for the other things that could flare up outside of our current conflicts, regardless of how many years it has been since X happened or what our opinions are of the probability the NoDAKs will cross the line this Friday night, 5 min before curfew starts ("which one of you is least drunk?") Would it be nice if guys knew more 9-level shit about bombs or were slightly better at X (i.e. the stuff we're doing right now)...sure it would, but until I see continuous, rampant fuckery downrange (not just isolated fuckups) or we're starting to lose the war due to aircrew inability to perform, I think we're doing alright with balancing current war with preparedness for potential threats that exceed ISIS, Taliban, etc. Last point, if you seriously think we are investing way too much effort/money into "other/possible war" stuff, you are woefully uninformed about what's out there. We'd be fools to not do what we're doing right now, at least in a general sense (there are million things that could be done better, but the big picture approach/understanding and prioritization of the threat is not necessarily wrong).

I believe you man; leadership is horribly failing at multiple levels. But that's old news...

Not a single line IP should say the word time line. That's for DOs/CCs to argue about, maybe. If the line IPs aren't holding the standard, we're all fucked. There's a bar, either hold people to it or go get some remedial training on being an IP.

to stuck. Crossed paths with him multiple times over the last 10 years...great dude. Rest easy buddy.

What we have right now is completely unsat, and the staff is kicking around ideas like cutting phase 3? Fuck you staff. I can't believe what were getting out of the FTU...not a spear at the bros teaching or the FNGs, but at those making the decisions that think this kind of shit is acceptable. I am truly concerned about dudes killing themselves, don't even get me started on combat capability. I've experienced what Jaded referenced; it's a trend across multiple squadrons, and will only stop when the ass clowns running this ship aground call a spade a spade and go back to valuing quality over quantity.

That website only shows me leaving AD, but no mention of the periods I've been on orders during my time in the guard so far. So, how do I either make that website reflect correctly, or do I just send AMEX a copy of orders?

Glock 43 with a good gun belt and a single mag carrier on the other side...I wear it for hours, in and out of the car, with no real comfort issues. I even forget it's there when driving, sitting at a restaurant, etc. A proper belt/holster set up will take care of the desire to throw your gun in the center console after 15 min. For times I don't have a belt on, a pocket .380 does the trick.

Trend item: dudes are afraid to divert, go around, or eject. First step is admitting we have a human factors problem...several years ago I randomly had a bro in the backseat during a sortie (he MND'd, decided back seat was better than queep); a standard shitty wx approach to mins with rain/wet runway and extreme canopy pooling - it was his, "we just passed the 5 board" that made me go around. I was fixated on trying to land and time distortion made me feel like we couldn't possibly be more than 1.5K to 2K down the 10K runway. No good divert and the next try he called my flare off the RALT. Only time in my life I was glad to be in a D-model. Point is, canopy pooling is a real bitch and we have a cultural problem to some extent regarding decisions to divert, go around, or eject. Now that I"m more experienced I feel like it's less of an issue personally (but not totally gone), but I see it fairly strong in the younger guys - it's a thing. Monday morning QB'ing is great and all, but it's better to acknowledge this issue and be proactive in teaching the less experienced to understand when to divert, go around, or eject and more importantly, make them truly feel such actions are the right thing and not looked down upon.

To lessen the impact described by crosswind, get out ASAP from AD. That means do not accept another assignment past your UPT ADSC, no matter how awesome it is. Your time to jump is ~11 years, do one more assignment and have 13 years in, you are far less marketable for reasons stated above (not unhirable by any means, just lowe chances/will have a tougher search). And whatever carrot AD waives to get you to do one more assignment is not worth missing out on the guard job you know you want IMO.

Mat's statement is key: everyone has to drink the koolaid. If that is accomplished, the PEX way works great. I've seen mostly PEX in my career, and when I've gone somewhere where guys were adamantly against PEX, it was clearly because they didn't understand it well enough and were unwilling to go through the learning pains. The end result is no less than 6-9 different excel products (of which not all ever seem to match), commitments and PFAs getting lost (causing scheduling conflicts), etc. Despite computer upgrade pain and the occasional crash, PEX is actually a pretty good system if executed well/correctly. But, puck boards and a GOOD excel product/commitment/currencies tracking system can be decently effective, but will always be monumentally more painful/time consuming for the schedulers. Unless you have civilian schedulers now, then WGAF, make them deal with the pain!

Based on a few anecdotal situations I know of, the 6 month line seems to be a fairly accurate statement for PC of the initial UPT ADSC. If you're asking for 6+ off another ADSC (GIB, PCS, etc.), that seems to be no issue. But, no guarantees either way.

Leave the TX address on your W4. Legal to do so while on MPA. When you come off MPA, you will have to change to LA if you go to an ART job, but can stay TX if you went AGR or other type of AD orders. I wouldn't worry about changing anything over the couple week period you mentioned.

Yes, but it can be unit dependent on whether you get that bonus.

Write the takeoff time and tail number on your hand, problem solved

My experience mirrored kelryn's. Neither recruiter or AFPC has any contact with SAF. They are in the dark as much as you are with "no way" to contact anyone in the PC office at SAF. The only way I had decent SA on my stuff was my CC knew a guy who knew a guy. If you don't have a bro network connection like that, you're pretty much fucked at having any idea when your stuff is going to run through SAF. Great system AF...

Yep, I'm sure that's exactly what it is. Thanks AF.