jazzdude

I stayed in a pit pad for a couple months, then moved to an extended stay hotel for 2 months. Pit pad was okay until they rented out a fifth room, making it too crowded. I then moved to the Hawthorne Suites, which came in under the on base rate and had hot breakfast everyday and no fighting for a bathroom in the morning.

I'd rather just see either the bonus or flight pay go up, and not be indexed to the economy. Times are good now, but there's no guarantee how long that'll last.

So what are they going to use for industry standard compensation? Include regional pay scales? ACMI pay scales? Pt 135? Different pays for crew qual? I can just see it now- your (AMC pilot) pay is similar to Atlas Air, but you have a tax advantage with tax free months/BAH, and per diem, and a retirement plan, and medical, and you both pretty much do on demand cargo to pretty much the same places, soooo...

Someone's got to do it (FAIP), and I don't care what their reasoning is if they are volunteering as long as their qualified. I'd rather see volunteers fill the positions because maybe they'll be happy with their assignment, and that should make for better quality work. Plus, there's no professional trainer pilot track anymore, so they'll get their operational time in eventually. Maybe they want to check the boxes early so when they hit the line they can focus on the mission. Or not. Who cares? Choosing to FAIP to build time for the airlines is no worse than the MWS guy wanting to teach UPT T-1 to build multi instructor/PIC time. Same thing, different timing. Weird how guys (at least from what I've seen in the MAF) generally don't want to go fly the T-6, but will jump on a T-1. It's also no different than an Airmen enlisting for a 4 year commitment to get college paid for, or someone going through ROTC to pay for their college, or a doctor going through USUHS to pay for med school and intending to only serve their initial commitment and then go into private practice. They are no less patriotic then someone who signs up to go to war: they are all serving their country, and as long as they are doing their jobs, who cares what their reasoning behind serving is? It's the idealist "everyone should have joined because we're at war and they should want to go to war" that eventually leads to "here's your crappy deployment, it's necessary because we're at war, you volunteered for this when you took your oath, blah blah blah service before self." Plus, who can blame the students for thinking ahead to the airlines when their IPs, their role models for what it means to be military aviators, are openly discussing airline hiring, how they got abused in their operational units, and can't wait to hit their commitment to punch? Edit to add: I will concede that I don't consider it a no-breaker to FAIP to build time for the airlines, at least for what I wanted to accomplish with my military service.

Who cares? If you joined to build time for the airlines, more power to you. Just do your job while you're in, and be the best military aviator you can be until it's time to punch, whether it's 10 years, 20 years, or more. As for wanting to stay in AETC to dodge deployments, I don't really see a line for people looking to volunteer for deployments. Maybe if there weren't so many worthless deployments out there, people wouldn't try so hard to avoid deployments. For every dude that tries to hide it in AETC, there's probably a dude that would rather stay out in an ops assignment. That's a win-win-win: the AF keeps 2 guys on the books filling positions that need to be filled, and each guy is happy with their assignment. And maybe, just maybe, if they're happy with what they are doing, maybe they'll stay in past their commitment, improving retention. Letting each of those guys do what they want is better than forcing the guy who wants to stay in ops to AETC and vice versa. But no, let's go with one size fits all for everyone's careers, and everyone should have the same goals and desires as me, and those that don't aren't mission hackers. Because that's worked so well in the past.

Still an option after FAIPing...

No, they send guys from C-17 to MC-12 to T-6, or RPA to C-17 to UPT. But if there's one career field that needs better operator continuity, cyber is probably it.

When I did my civilian PPL, it (engine failure patterns) was introduced pretty early. Something about a) handling a possible emergency during solo, and b ) being aware of what's around me and building situational awareness. Same things once I got to Navy-land and their "I've got your PCL" at differing times in the profile (area, transitioning to an OLF, or at differing points in the pattern at the OLF). No pausing time in Navy EPs... Then again, no ejection seat in those aircraft, so you didn't really have a choice-fly a good ELP or die trying. Edit to add: this is the only phase where we teach fundamentals of flying. Stalls, spins, unusual attitude recoveries, descent planning when your jet turns into a glider and you don't have an ejection seat or parachutes. You don't get any of that on the heavy side after T-6s. So if we don't teach it there, then where do we teach it?

It's okay. At least their augmenting pilot will be a 200hr copilot. I'm sure they'll be fine in the seat together while the going AC takes a nap at cruise...

So basically like navy UPT? Assigned a class for admin purposes, but practically you were a class of 1 when it came to scheduling? Gotta get rid of formal brief, stand-up EPs would be interesting to get a group for (are the group's based on last event completed?), and formal release wouldn't make sense either. Not to mention that track select and assignments get weird: "You did great, but no 38s this week, sorry, needs of the AF..."

Joke's on you, parachutes removed for fuel savings...

Do you have a source document (that's not a personal logbook) proving the correct times? If you do, it's a pretty easy process assuming your HARM office is willing to help. If you're already out, it might be harder to find a HARM that is willing to do it quickly. If you don't have a source document, our can show that the originals have an error (as in times don't add up), you won't be able to change it. I was able to correct 60 hours that we're missing from when I was a copilot- same thing as you, new flyer that hadn't been told how to do a proper records review, and didn't discover the error until making my logbook for the airlines.

Can you ride that motorcycle home without a helmet or safety equipment? Or without taking a motorcycle safety course on a recurring basis despite being licensed by a state? Even if your personal risk acceptance level says you're okay riding without a helmet or additional training? No, because the AF has set a level of risk it's willing to accept. Keeping with the motorcycle analogy, the T-6 OBOGS fix is the AF essentially saying "ride with this cracked helmet, it should be good enough and we, AETC HQ, accept responsibility for the increased risk. The chances of you falling off your bike and needing the helmet to protect your nugget is slim anyways, so get out there and ride. If you don't want to ride under those conditions, you'll be labelled a non-team-player and there will be negative repercussions on your career. "

Hypoxia is not a minor issue, especially when it's due to fumes and not just low oxygen context. Throw in the fact that since the problem isn't fully identified, the proposed fixes might not even solve the problem. Is the problem solely contained in the OBOGS system, or is all the bleed air contaminated, including the bleed air used for cockpit/cabin air? That's the question that has me worried for my buds still flying the T-6. Similar concerns out in the civilian sector too wrt bleed air systems: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-08/airline-workers-warn-of-dangerous-fumes-onboard

Apples to oranges comparison there. Those guys have very little need to go above 10k. Their airplanes are built to do their stuff low, and their experience levels require less of a safety pad altitude-wise. Even then, to work the airshow circuit, they are getting vetted multiple times by the FAA in order to lower their min altitude for aerobatics. UPT airspace puts you up above 10k regularly for area work. Plus spins aren't authorized below 10k in the T-6. That's a pretty common event in contact. There also wouldn't be much room to do aerobatics in the MOAs, our extended trail, so that stuff would need to be pared down, especially since you're available MOAs got cut in half. You can make an argument for breathing cabin air, but that's also being pulled off the engine. And they don't know what's causing the problem. With that, you could just leave seat pins installed and leave the mask hanging, and breathe ambient air. But then ejection becomes a slow process. Hopefully Stan doesn't do anything stupid or you take a bird/have an engine failure on the final turn. Having that mask up protects your face from CFS. Then again, it's not like getting blasted in the face (so to speak) by molten plastic is that bad-not like burns on the face are life threatening or anything. There is increased risk doing all of this, and the can is getting kicked down the road. Meanwhile, the line IP sees all their safety mitigations being taken away (you don't need external CFS so someone can pull you out; your seat sequencer probably works now; I know you're tired, but we need to increase production so we're doing weekend ops). These IPs see that their safety nets being eroded, and this just add to the laundry list of problems they see with AF, pushing them to punch out of the AF after their commitment (at least that ejection handle still works, for now...) Let's bring back the mighty Turbomentor! No OBOGS, do everything below 10k, open that cockpit window in flight to fight smoke/fumes, no ejection seat to maintain-just tuck and roll, and beta. I don't know what I'd do if I was still flying the T-6. The biggest problem I see is that they don't have a root cause for the issue, and are just putting a bandaid on the problem in order to solve their production problem (which in turn, is their bandaid for solving the retention problem).

Pretty sure that's the whole point of stop loss...

Other way around for the bonus: AF wanted more, congress authorized less. Flight pay: congress authorized more, AF gave less than authorized.

40% + Tricare for making it to 20 under BRS still might make enough people reconsider getting out at 17 years. On the other hand, BRS might convince more people to get out at the end of their UPT commitment because they can take their matched TSP with them, making this discussion a moot point.

I think that's probably why they're proposing to delay IPZ for fly only track: IPZ @16 years, 1 ABZ @ 17years. By delaying the board, fly-only majors don't get passed over until later. They're making the bet that people won't bail at 17.5 years when retirement is just one assignment away. You can't be passed over twice if you never go to the promotion board...

Let's cut funding/programs, as long as my program doesn't get cut.

Vance was similar, base open Monday through Friday, 0.1 hr hop over to KWDG Friday afternoon, and fly sorties out at KWDG over the weekend. MOAs & MTRs available on the weekend as well.

Actually funding the war and overseas contingencies by raising taxes, whether individual, corporate, or both. This avoids the problems with mandatory service or a draft, while making everyone have some ownership of what our country is doing overseas (through their pocketbook). Don't like paying more taxes? Well, better start writing your congressman or senator and let them know that you don't believe what we are doing is worth the cost. What if the president exercises his power to do short term engagements? Well, he'd better start talking to congress to fund the long term sustainment of the fight. Added benefit, if OCO funding wasn't bottomless, maybe we won't have stupid deployments updating PowerPoints and making coffee.

Follow up question, how is a 365 an ITDY (Indeterminate length TDY) when the tour length is known (365 days)? Pretty sure there's a system in place for that...It's a remote, short tour, PCS.

AF was authorized to give the dfas amounts, but chose not to.

AETC guidance memo closes down SOS during the shutdown