jazzdude

You realize that Poland and the EU set the entry requirements, not the US State department, right?

You've got it backwards. The fundamental problem here is the autonomy not only needs to be at a high level for an unmanned fighter to be useful, but also how it integrates with the manned systems needs to be figured out, to include how goal setting/communication, human/AI teaming, and to train the people managing the unmanned fighters. This is an area DoD and defense contractors have been bad at; human factors and human system integration many times becomes an afterthought, often because the requirement is "do human systems integration" without defining any real metrics for what "good" is. Asking a single seat fighter pilot to manage 1+ unmanned wingmen places a lot of new and different cognitive demands on that pilot, all on top of flying and employing their own jet. The more monitoring the AI needs, the better suited it is for having the "pilot" control it from the back of a tanker or AWACS so the human in the loop can focus on controlling/coordinating the actions of the unmanned fighter. Especially since you have the benefit of now having a person controlling the fighter out of harm's way. The more mission sets you add to the AI's capability set, the higher and harder your integration demands become. The LCS is used as a case study in human factors/human systems integration as an example of a failure. The ship was designed to operate with a minimal crew, with automation doing most of the heavy lifting. Manning the ship and training the crew became a nightmare. By reducing the manning, the crew that was left has to be system experts, not only in their specialty but in multiple specialties to provide some resiliency within the crew. This drove higher/longer training requirements in addition to needing a higher selection criteria for entering training. Throw in modular mission sets and you've increased your integration and training tail. It also created a retention problem, since their prime pool of sailors for the mission would be at the point of deciding to stay for a career or getting out of the Navy. However, going to LCS meant they wouldn't be doing "normal" NCO stuff (supervising junior sailors), and made them less competitive for further promotion.

It'd be worth reaching out to AFPC to ask about your situation. There's also a policy letter at AFPC that isn't published that affects short tour vs long tour credit. I had pieced together enough overseas time TDY from conus to warrant both per the AFI, but AFPC only awards one or the other if your short tour is based on the 300 days/18 months. I had to ask to take the "lesser" award of short tour credit instead of the long tour credit the policy defaulted to.

My parents are on TFL, and their primary/specialty care is at a large military hospital. Their primary has also been at that mil hospital for the last 20 years retired (elected Tricare prime in retirement).

AF is really picky about granting joint credit via experience, unless you're working on a partner nation HQ staff you probably won't get the joint credit approved (you have to apply for joint experience credit). Since you're collecting gate months, I'm guessing that's not the case. Plus, joint credit via experience doesn't even show up on your DQHB for the promotion board, only JDAL position time.

Small group tryout. Think test class to ensure the syllabus/courseware/training is good

I'll also add that it's not uncommon for people to pursue a PPL on their own dime before the AF, as it makes you more competitive to get picked up for a pilot slot. I know I did. So no, just like several people mentioned, becoming a military pilots isn't something that is handed to us on a silver platter. Throw in all the other stuff to make yourself a competitive candidate, and it's a serious investment. Plus, in return for "free" training, we are committing to a minimum of 11-12 years of military service, not to mention most pilots also go through the academy or ROTC which adds 2-4 years of additional time commitment.

T-6A dash-1 recommended it, though I've been out of that jet for a few years. Only time ejection was recommended for gear malfunctions was nose gear only extended. But the T-6 would be touching down much slower than a fighter, and probably would be around 50-60 knots before that wingtip starts dragging on the runway. Agreed, especially in training environments.

This should work, and it's the way to max perform your tsp. From what I understand it's all one big bucket. Basically the your limited to 20.5k for the sum of your Roth and traditional contributions. Once you hit that limit, you can only continue to contribute to your traditional tsp if you're in a combat zone that month, up to the 61k limit. That might just be a DFAS limitation, since TSP keeps tax free traditional contributions separate, so the should know that money can exceed the 20.5k limit. The other caveat is that if you're on the BRS, the gov contributions count towards that 60.5k limit as well.

I took a little over 2 years to complete UPT, between NAS Whiting Field (and sitting in various pools waiting to class up), a PCS to Vance, and a contractor strike at Vance that rolled several class back. All that after a year of casual as well... A long term DNIF could also push your UPT time to be fairly long

Agree with everything you've said, but to the OP's question, you're limited to $20.5k in the Roth TSP. If you're putting in anything past the $20.5k (Roth+traditional) towards the $61k limit it has to go in traditional. To max perform the contributions (tax wise), you'd want to max out your Roth contribution prior to deploying, then have the combat pay go into the traditional TSP.

That's not correct-any tax free money put in the traditional stays tax free when you withdraw it, though you do pay tax on any interest accrued

Would you agree that even a short of stint of military service is better than none? For a job that requires zero military experience? That is also a political appointment? The check on some rando being appointed is that the Senate has to confirm the USecAF. And her credentials were good enough for the Senate to confirm. Plus she's had a decent amount of time in DIA, so while not in the AF it's time within DOD. And secretaries, undersecretaries, and assistant secretaries all have staffs that support them in their decision making. All that to say, chucking spears at her decision making are valid. But her experience or lack thereof don't really matter because it's not a requirement for the job so long as the Senate confirms, and civilian control of the military means that many of the civilians in charge of the military won't have significant military service.

Well, that's one of the differences between the military and civilian sector... Rank don't mean crap after service...

It's hard to max out to the 61k limit, since your TSP contributions are limited to your pay, unless you have good timing with a deployment and/or a bonus. I was able to exceed the normal limit my last deployment (2019), though you need the tax free to be showing on your LES, as that seems to be the trigger that allows the extra traditional tsp contributions above the normal limit, and when the tax free goes away it stops your ability to add anything past the normal limit, even if you haven't hit the annual addition limit. I also think that if you maxed out at the normal contribution limit, it made it so you couldn't contribute above the limit on deployment (like you noted), though I can't find that on the tsp website anymore. I set up my contributions to be under the limit when I deployed with a two month buffer to get the tax free processed.

1800 RVR assuming you have the equipment operable to go below 2400 RVR I take it you've never been through Altus in the winter if you haven't done an IMC T&G in the C-17

Why? They are just wearing different hats at different times. Congress should represent our citizenry, and that includes those in uniform as reservists. Where would you draw the line? What if a congressman was in the Guard? Should reservists be barred from state government as well? Should executive branch also bar reservist from serving in a civilian capacity? For example, the was a former SECNAV who was also a Navy reservist O-5 at the same time and an active NFO on flight status. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lehman

If a service is "free" chances are the product they are selling is you (or your information). What about personal responsibility? People can choose to limit their use, or to just not use the service. Facebook doesn't *make* you keep reading or clicking on the links. Maybe the answer is better education on recognizing when you are being manipulated. First step of fighting being manipulated by propaganda is recognizing you are being fed propaganda. Of course the reasons social media companies do what they do is monetary, that's literally the capitalist system we have. They have no requirement to act in the best interests of society. Even laws aren't a hindrance if the punishment for breaking the law is just a fine, especially if the company can still reap a profit. But too often the cry from the right is that anything affecting their sources of money/power is socialism. And the left is guilty as well, usually slapping the label of fascism on anything that affect their sources of money/power. I take the problem as a different one. At some point, we lost sight of the fact that we're all Americans in this country and in it together, for better or for worse. We have allowed the political parties to sell a narrative that the other party is what is dividing the country and therefore the enemy. That's what is dividing the country, and social media just adds fuel to the fire. All that being said, what you propose is a worthwhile debate to be had in our country. But I don't expect Congress will take any real action for the benefit of the citizenry, just whatever benefits whichever party is in power

Most online discussion boards also rely on a similar revenue strategy as Facebook, the sale of ads to support the site. Another methods are affiliate links (website gets paid for referring traffic trip another site). Unless they have a benefactor doing it out of the goodness of their heart/love of the community, or charge subscription fees (paywalls). But server space, hosting software, tech support all cost money. Facebook (and Google) just happen to work on a bigger scale and have an in house advertising technical expertise, and do so with the goal of making a profit. And either way, the news agency still gets more traffic (and in turn, ad revenue) than if there was no links in social media (broader audience than just people who go to the news website). Should you have to pay CNN to post a link to a story on their page? Smaller websites may not have the expertise to monetize their site (even if the goal isn't to make money, but just to pay for hosting), and turn to Facebook or Google as a service to sell ads on their site in return for a cut of the ad revenue to support their site. That brings Facebook and Google to the far reaches of the internet, and they would be dumb not to use the data they have to sell more ads and make more money. Alternatively, they could just take a bigger cut off the ad sale from the website using their ad service. Privacy concerns also go much further than just social media in our society, so if we concerned about reselling personal data, we have to fix it in more than just social media platforms. Sure, we can see effects as individuals more readily on social media platforms when we see ads that follow us a the internet. But your ISP can watch and sell your internet usage habits, to include what you're viewing on the internet (as well as "free" VPNs), and prioritize traffic for companies that have deals with the ISP over those that don't. Credit card companies can sell spending data (hence all the cards for different companies that aren't banks). We used to have a degree of privacy because it was so labor intensive to collect data on individuals, but technology has made it easier to aggregate data, as well as search through the data. I think one thing we will have to come to grips with as a society is that now there's a longer memory for your statements and actions. Social media just offers a place to keep the past alive, and for significantly more people than in the past. So dumb things you said/did 10-20 years ago can be drug up in present day conversations, and we seem to be less willing to believe that people grow and opinions change.

I'm guessing this was when the AF said we couldn't be trusted to score PFTs and hired contractors to score. Only test I nearly failed because the contractor wanted locked elbows between each rep. To the OP, it might be worth checking to see if you're benefits actually transferred and that the ADSC is valid to begin with. There was a policy change in 2018 that said you couldn't transfer anymore once you hit 16 years of service. Since you're retirement eligible, the timing you transferred the benefit is important. Worst case is you serve out the ADSC only to find the VA denies your transfer eligibility on the back end...

The number used to be something like 65% take rate target. Haven't been anywhere near that for several years

I'd imagine it was a lot more manpower/personnel intensive. And the ability to compile and synthesize information was probably more limited, which affects the quality of decisions made by commanders.

Could we fight a war without PowerPoint and email? Only half joking...

Data point of 1: when I went to NAMI to do my initial flight physical with the Navy as an AF student pilot at Whiting Field, I was told by the flight doc "Unfortunately, your career as a naval aviator ends here because you don't meet Navy vision standards. Fortunately for you, you're in the AF and they already approved your vision waiver. Have fun flying." At the time navy standard was ~20/40 vision with no waivers, vs AF's ~20/70 with waivers available.

Agree with just about everything you said, except for car tax. Fairly certain you owe tax on the car sales as a capital gain, unless you sold it for a loss. The $600 transaction monitoring is ridiculous. But it's cheaper to go after the poor/middle class since they probably don't have access to a good lawyer to defend themselves. (But it's there a net gain for the government? Are the funds recovered by IRS enough to offset the cost of the monitoring/legal costs to pursue small violations?) Don't forget that carrying large sums of cash is also considered suspicious, and what constitutes a "large sum" is whatever the police (or TSA if flying) feels like that day. And that threshold seems to go down if you're not a white male who's dressed well, because then it's "possible drug money" and at risk for being seized