brabus

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.

I've heard the opposite in that IFF is a hollow version of its former self and rarely washes people out (i.e. flicks the booger to FTU). But I heard that from FTU bros, so potentially some bias. Either way it doesn't matter...work hard and don't be a millennial whiner, then you'll be fine.

What would potentially change from my (customer) POV? If the rescue bros will get better support from AFSOC, then do it. I think AFSOCs mindset on some things would benefit them over staying in ACC. But that's just an outsiders perspective, I could be way off.

Compared to 5-6 years ago it is. At least they're doing flow throughs now and have pretty much shit canned slide/scram. But you're right, as in any community, it can depend on the squadron. I still give the hornet guys props for driving the community in the right direction.

In general they've come a long ways in the last 5 years. A lot of the old E6 guys are gone and there's a lot more Hornet influence in the community. The HVAA mindset is nearing death.

What BFM said. I usually don't worry about it. If the differential is substantial, I will call delta and try to get a govt rate that way (50% success rate). The couple times I used CTO was because the differential was more than I was willing to suck up, but again, that has only been a factor a few times out of many TDYs (of which I almost always do LICWO).

Has anyone cracked the code with AMEX on getting SCRA as an ART? Got it AMEX, I'm not AD anymore (thank God), but I still wear a uniform to work every day as a military officer. Nothing has changed as far as they should be concerned...but apparently it's completely different.

CTO is not allowed to book leisure travel, so when you do LICWO, you are cleared hot to self procure airfare. However, you will only be reimbursed up to government constructed cost of your TDY trip. So, go on delta.com, purchase whatever you want, upload your delta receipt to DTS, AO approves, finance reimburses up to city pair amount. It really is that easy. I've used CTO for probably 1-2 TDYs out of my last 15, no shit.

It's already part of the ARC. Though there is not an entire ARC squadron with their own jets (at least I think the 38s are AD iron), but plenty of ARC guys work in an AD squadron. I agree though, it's a mission that could work well in the ARC, especially for guys who are older, still want to fly something fast, but don't have the desire to keep up with all the requirements demanded by an F-X. Great for a part timer especially.

Very possible you get TS initially and they let it lapse after 5 years. Regardless, the lack of it won't stop you from UPT or I imagine RTU either (based on only a secret required at the ops unit)

No. But you'll need to get the investigation done at some point as TS will likely come up at some point in the near term once you are at your ops squadron...depending on aircraft/mission of course.

The only real value of a 2 seat would be if we bought the same aircraft for UPT and ADAIR. It would probably be more than needed for UPT equipment-wise, but at least there'd be a common aircraft for MX, logisitics, etc.

Nothing here or elsewhere on the internet will be more than wild speculation; recommend leave it to those other guys and not here. Let's focus on the man and the family he left behind. Nickel on the grass for Doc. If you desire to help, check out the you caring link at the top in HU&W's post.

Make Ontario a TDY location in DTS. Example: Home Base = Depart 13 sep TDY Location 1 = Edwards (assuming you fly into Ontario, but go to Edwards that day), arrive 13 sep, depart 19 sep TDY Location 2 = Ontario, arrive 19 Sep, depart 20 Sep (early flight out the 20th). Home Base = Arrive 20 Sep Problem solved since per diem is tied to TDY location. Never had a problem once using this method.

As a general statement you'll have approximately 2 years of full time flying after UPT and RTU for seasoning. So that's about 3.5-4 years of full time work before you MIGHT have to go part time/have a civilian job. During that time you're GENERALLY flying ~8-10/mo homestation as a fighter guy. Some squadrons more than others, but it all goes in waves depending on maintenance and other external factors. You'll fly more when deployed. And yes you can deploy with other squadrons if they need the help. If your goal is to stay flying full time, well, nobody can tell you at ANY unit what the resources climate will be in 4 years. Absolutely you could be "forced" to part time at the end of seasoning (and more like 5 sorties/mo as a fighter part timer), but there could also be AGRs for all my friends...it's all speculation at this point. If you want to fly, then jump in and go for whatever flying mission appeals the most to you..let your future self figure the rest out in 4-5 years, seriously.

Have you talked to an AD recruiter and got that ball rolling? It'd be a big mistake not too.

I'm fairly sure I've read on here about guys changing the "3" to a "0" on the ADSC paperwork, signing it, and turning it in to AFPC. And not a word was said. Or maybe the scotch just made that up, but either way worth a shot. What's the worst that could happen, they say you have to re-sign with "3" in the blank spot?