Blue

How much of "school" is actually helpful and relevant, and how much is simply a matter of sending folks to government run courses so that the government run courses have a reason to exist (i.e. the self-licking ice cream cone model)?

Recent Popular Mechanics article about the A-10 Depot line at Hill AFB being "brought back," since the Air Force has decided they were going to hang onto the Hogs a little longer. Didn't realize they had done anything to shut down the depot line in the first place. Sneaky move, Air Force. https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a23537/air-force-fires-up-depot-line-keep-a-10s-flying-indefinitely/ "They have re-geared up, we've turned on the depot line, we're building it back up in capacity and supply chain," AFMC chief Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski recently told Aviation Week. "Our command, anyway, is approaching this as another airplane that we are sustaining indefinitely." On a related note, someone pointed out the AMARC Experience site, which I've never seen before. An unofficial site documenting all things in the Boneyard, to include tracking what aircraft have recently arrived and what aircraft have recently left. There were a whole lot of A-10s (most of which originally arrived in the early 90s) that were listed under "Departures." Sixteen of them in Feb 2016 alone. When you click on the tail number, most of them have a destination of "To HVF West, Tucson AZ. Scrapped." https://www.amarcexperience.com/ui/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=244&Itemid=316 Have we really scrapped that many Hogs?

Tactical patients?

I thought that being able to go supersonic was one of the original requirements for the T-X?

I think Boeing is going to win, if only to keep their St Louis plant open.

All of the talk of increasing 11F production, just to make sure that 11F staff billets are filled, reminded me of this blog post from a couple years ago. I feel like the whole damn defense apparatus of the country is somewhere between "Bloat" and full-on "Failure/Implosion." https://www.oftwominds.com/blogdec10/lifecycle-bureaucracy12-10.html "Tip of the spear" military forces and readiness are left twisting in the wind while the thousands of senior officers in the Pentagon and Services jostle for promotions. At the point of implosion, there are more captains, colonels and generals than actual war-fighters. (There are plenty of barbers, cooks, waiters and assistants, though, to serve the senior officers.) Benefits for the survivors are left basically untouched while new hires are fired to preserve the budget for those with seniority. At some point, the mission of the bureaucracy is completely lost, and the citizens' patience with institutional incompetence and self-aggrandizement finally runs out.

I'm sure there are glaring limitations in those systems. Part of that is they're old -- CMWS/ATIRCM was fielded in the late 90's. There has been significant amount of work in the ECM realm since things like ATIRCM and CMWS were originally fielded. However, you never see anything about the A-10 taking advantage of any of these advances. Same thing here. DoD has poured a metric ton of cash and effort into developing Hostile Fire Indication (HFI), which is designed to give some level of protection against AAA and other unguided munitions. Google it, and you'll get hits from all of the big military contractors. Lots of talk of applications for USMC and Army helos and slow movers, no talk of applications for the A-10.

The survivability question is valid, but at the same time, has the Air Force done anything recently to give the A-10 better countermeasures? The other services have put a lot of effort into faster/better/cheaper ECM systems for low and slow aircraft (programs like JATAS and CIRCM). The A-10 (and the Air Force) always seem to be absent from these discussions.

Article published about seven years ago.......

This. The title you're looking for is "Veteran," or maybe "Former Air Force Captain." Also, you're running for political office in a district that's right down the road from Tinker AFB, an area where there are a whole bunch of military veterans, retirees, and civil servants. I gotta think that all of these potential voters are going to have the same kind of questions and critiques that are in this thread.

This.

A Facebook link..... https://www.facebook.com/adam.pugh.56 Also,

Went from ABM to ENJJPT, then washed out maybe? On a related note, is that some sort of goofy photoshop job? Why does the background look like huge blades of grass? Where is he sitting?

I'd think that, given the choice, a politician would pull for a manned unit vs. an RPA unit, just due to the number of jobs. I assume if you go from say, F-16's to Predators, you lose a hell of a lot of jobs (less maintainers, life support, etc).

Honestly, I think that's the only way it would ever happen. If some Governor or Congressman with enough clout wanted a manned mission back, then I could see it happening. I think the likelihood of it occurring are very low.

Big companies should have all of their personnel policies documented somewhere, including the policies on how to handle folks that are in the ANG. It would probably benefit you to go look on the HR website, poke around, and find what the regs are. If you're somewhere where they have a lot of folks in the Guard/Reserve (ie a defense contractor), then it should be no issue. If you're someplace where HR doesn't encounter this a lot, it would pay to get smart on their policies. Edit to add: To put it another way, Big HR is typically dumb. You have some level of protection from USERRA. Know HR's regs, know what USERRA says, and make sure no one screws you.

Had never heard of Snow Aviation. Google brought up some interesting info, one of many links below. So the guy basically wanted to sell C-130 upgrades as an alternative to buying the J, but seems like after ten+ years, they couldn't make it happen. Primarily due to the fact they were good engineers and lousy business people. https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/print-edition/2011/12/09/snow-aviation-owner-pledges-to-rise.html

Eh, I tend to agree with nsplayr. Big Blue will continue to burn hours on the 4th gen fighters, with no thought of trying to conserve them. They'll SLEP the hell out of them, and then point to the "rising maintenance costs" as all the more reason to buy the latest 5th gen wonder toy.

Also, I think when folks have done this before, they've rented the mansion, as opposed to buying it. Always heard it was kinda common amongst the CGO's at the Space and Missile Center at Los Angeles AFB.

Have you all talked to your banks about that? I tend to think getting 3 people on one mortgage for $1 mil+ would be easier said than done......

I'm a fan of Indeed as well. I think your friend will end up on Linkedin eventually, in one way or another. You can post a job there, as well as do some searching on profiles to see if you can find the skills and quals you're looking for. I believe you have to pay to use some of the search functionality, though. I've heard most recruiters work almost exclusively through Linkedin nowadays. I've known folks in the same position as your friend, who were having trouble finding candidates. Some times, it's the employer's fault. Sometimes they haven't done a good job with the job description: no keywords so it doesn't come up in searches, asking for someone with qualifications that are impossible to get (ie 10 years of experience on a technology that came out 5 years ago), etc. I've also seen job descriptions that want a bunch of quals, then say "B.S. degree with 0-1 year of experience." That screams "I want someone who is an expert, but want to pay him like an amateur." That never goes over well. And always, networking. It's cliche, but it's true. Where's the job at? Someone on here might know a guy, who knows a guy.

Deaddebate is the resident expert on these things, I'd defer to him. As far as what's disqualifying and what's waiverable, for peace of mind I'd always strive to see the regs. People make mistakes, just because you have a form saying "DQ'd for X," doesn't mean the person doing that form knew what he/she was talking about. That said, I'd venture it's more likely than not that they know what they're doing, but for peace of mind it's always good to be able to see all the regs yourself. I've never heard of "trained asset" being used in any case when talking about ROTC. That might be something new though. So, yeah. Try to make sure you understand exactly what chapter and verse of the AFI's DQ' you, and what chapter and verse of the AFI's (or other instructions/waiver guides/etc) say that it can't be waiverable. It's one thing for someone to say something, it's another thing to see it in black-and-white in a reg. I'm not a doc, but it would be helpful to read up on the condition, and make sure you understand how it's diagnosed. It's possible the MEPS folks made a mistake. If nothing else, I'm sure you'd like to get a better understanding of WTF that condition means for you personally (outside of the military). Are you going to be at higher risk of strokes, aneurysms, etc? Or is it something you can live with forever with no side effects? Or is there some treatment you should get?

Some thoughts. Offered for free, potentially worth what you paid for. I think Deaddebate mentioned in another thread that your condition was waiverable for commission. Not sure if you're right or he is, but you certainly want to clarify it. Ultimately, make sure you see the reg yourself, and understand it. I know that's stating the obvious, and you've probably done this already. I don't know much about ETP's. I looked into it briefly a long time ago. I don't think there is anything stopping you from doing it as a civilian, ex-cadet, or whatever you want to call it. That said, I think your chances of getting anything done will be much greater if you have someone who wears an Air Force uniform pushing things forward for you. You have a Senator involved? Can you expand on that? Does your det know you've got a member of Congress involved? Have you talked to your det about what would happen if you got your GPA up about 3.0? What kind of GPA are they looking for before they'll help? Or was that just an excuse to tell you no?

If a foreign nation wanted the F-23, they'd have to pony up the cash for the work needed to develop the YF-23 into a fully-capable F-23. I think you'll find that, in general, the YF-22 and YF-23 were very much prototypes, and pretty far from a fully-developed weapons system. It would be cost-prohibitive for just about anyone but the US.

Electronic warfare will always be a game of countermeasures, counter-countermeasures, counter-counter-measures, etc, ad nauseam. Anyone who thinks their shiny new F-35 automatically guarantees them 20 years of invisibility to the enemy is fooling themselves. The bad guy will buy/develop/steal better radar technology. IR detection technology will improve. Some new game-changing technology will come about where jets are detected from 100 miles away by the smell of the landing gear wheel bearing grease. And on and on. If I were the Israelis, I'd buy the F-15SE now, and start buying F-35's another 10 years from now, when the bugs have hopefully worked out. I gotta think the US would be all for this course of action too. Gotta keep those folks down at the F-15 production line in St Louis working!