Lawman

The plus side, they could attach bonuses to shitty assignments/IA billets to offer something more for taking the crap deal. Give them something more than, "just do 2 years a crap location X and I'll put a note in here about how you helped us out for HRC to ignore on your next PCS cycle."

I'd be interested in seeing a side by side comparison on take home. Like some combination of years/rank base combined with the career field bonus and then a variable of performance.

This seriously makes me wonder. There was a fight going on with trying to start a new BRAC and the big justification being we own some thousands of unused buildings and storage areas and such. How much square footage of a foot print do the Air Forces UAV operations seriously eat? I can't imagine you guys would need anywhere near the amount of prepared airfield/hanger space as some of the conventional aviation assets. And if it's the case that a little airfield and a lot of parking lot for containers with the requisite buildings and office space are all you would need, how can we not find space for that somewhere that doesn't suck what little morale you have left. Honestly I'd be curious if you couldn't justify farming out the burden on to Reserve or big guard bases and just funneling some active duty money towards their facilities maintenance in return.

And that's just it, yeah it's a cultural hill to climb. But, it's not like it hasn't been demonstrated and is working somewhere else. It wasn't that long ago where you only let real full up pilots fly drones or better yet wanted pointy nose types to fly armed drones because some C-17 or AWACS guy firing ordnance was just so culturally not ok. Now you have specific career track drone pilots coming into this but your still trying to generate guys over a period of years to grow and meanwhile cutting into your force of no kidding jet pilots. That's like the braves pulling a center fielder an sending him down to the minors to fill up their farm teams roster. And I'm not saying that to insult drone guys as less of a pilot I'm saying the AF invested far more dollars in making CPT shmuckatelle an F-16 or C-5 pilot why does he need to be in a conex at Cannon for any other reason than the AF won't explore routes outside the flight trained officers only route. Enlisted guys with special training... Warrants... There are options outside of "use pilots to back fill drones." And I'm not saying it won't be without growing pains. The Navy tried aviation warrants for 60 squadrons because the progression of career got so narrow at the top they needed to lower the number of junior officers rather than give half of them the guillotine at year 11. It wasn't the concept of operation that killed the idea it was the few guys they sent through on the trial run stepped on their dicks and ruined it for everybody.

Except they are not equals. That Major doing the same job as say the 2Lt sitting next to him is getting more money isn't he? It's not because he is more drone pilot it's because he is more officer and more use to the AF. You get the same effect with warrants. We don't have command authority, we aren't investing staff courses of 6 months or more to breed them into commanders, none of us are going to pentagon positions. If you were asking some E5 to do the exact duties and responsibilities as some Cpt or Major then yes he would have a reason to bitch, but he won't be asked to do that so your point on equality for all is moot. What next line up all the airmen in your formation and decide whose job justifies higher base pay. "Hey Fred... All you do is paperwork so your base pay shouldn't equal Tom's." The other part of that is you don't need a population of officers only in drones. The only people that seem to think that is the Air Force. Involved in the process of employing them sure, but acting like your MQ-1 and our MQ-1 are so different is just trying to inflate egos. They are both slinging Hellfires and performing targeting. Differences is ours are being piloted by enlisted operators with an aviation officer overseeing the operations. Yours... Get washed an worked on by enlisted dudes but don't let them touch the thing if it's flying. You can't tell me somehow Army enlisted dudes can learn to fly a UAS and the AF guys can't.

You've also gotta factor that currently the drone market supply on the civil side is in it's initial growth. It's kinda like how airlines are taking massive waves of guys when only a few years ago dudes were bar tending waiting on a right seat. And it's still way easier to replace a guy that only took 12 months to produce and cost X number of dollars than to put a dude through an officer producing source and then full up flight school even if you do keep him twice as long. And nothing says your beholden to a 4 year ADSO or that it can't be adjusted like flight ADSO where it's tech complete and not initial entry. Point is so long as the AF is on the path that the only way to get drone operators is to steal rated full up pilots and torture them with a job they didn't join to do it's only making it harder on it's self.

Oh c'mon dude nobody is coming out of high school to fly airplanes or drones for 6 figure salaries. That's the thing lost here. The military by and large is the highest paying "feeder" into the civilian aviation world. Yes I could make 6 figures as a helo pilot for Erickson, but I've gotta get 2500 hours to even sit down at the interview. Drones and airlines are the same. 1500 hours to get looked at by a regional and make waiter money. Nobody is sitting on their ass out of highschool thinking "hmmm... 60k to be an airmen or I could go work for these contractor dudes and make 3x that." Everybody is screaming about drone pilot shortages. Well when your only source of restock is from 4 year degree commissioned officers who have to spend 2+ years in training to even show up to the job yeah your gonna have issues filling rapid losses. Your 2 years away from effecting any kind of change to man power on your current system because you want to pay as you said fair/competitive wages to what they would make on the outside. Except remember these are entry level guys the day they show up. Nobody on the outside will touch them until that adso is finished. The other option is something like the Army model. Realize that a lot of guys are sitting at 6-8 years and E6 going "no F'ing way I do this a day longer." But suddenly you make them warrants and give them a different job with x number years of adso and the next time they make that call they are so close to the pay check of the month club they think, "4 more years for a pension.... Ok start the suck." That's what the Army has been doing forever. And the coast guard does it to us with the DCA program. You've got enlisted guys crewing bombers and gunships, shouldn't they be paid more than some jack ass who sits 10-1600 m-thur closed Friday for training in CE? Of course, but you don't seem to have a problem filling those spots. Hell look at the Navy with nuke guys. That job pays 6 figures the day they leave the Navy with a graduate degree paid for by the Navy but dudes still stay for their 20 weird as that is.

Really dude? Welcome to the world outside the AF. We have close to 2200 pilots being paid 2/3 what their commission brethren make while flying more, doing menial duties like washing trucks, and receiving no aviation incentive bonus beyond flight pay. I present to you the aviation warrant officer corps. Yet we never have a problem filling slots. Hell we are firing 400 people in the next two years. 4 year adso for enlisted guys out of high school some 10 thousand dollar or such signing bonus and a what maybe 4 month tech school all while paying them enlisted pay/benefits, or a bunch of studs who take over a year or two to train not counting no flight stuff and cost over a million pulled out of UPT to go to drones when there is a fighter pilot shortage and draw major pay and bene's by the time they are allowed to leave.... Which one is costing more in the long run and from recruits from a more shallow pool? You guys act like your manning problem is predicated on one answer, "how do you keep captains and majors who have been given the blue dick and convince them into staying a little longer?" What you don't realize is there are thousands of guys who aren't trying to be fighter jocks that would love to do something besides just wrench on your birds or make up another tracker at personnel. The Army figured that out decades ago. It doesn't take college degrees or 4 years of eating with only one hand at the zoo to make somebody that can drive a drone from launch point Y to Orbit Z and steer a flir pod.

Hey I don't know why having an Online masters in Business Administration makes you a better tactical officer, but then again I don't see the, "big picture.".... I'm still trying to figure out why the AF thinks enlisted guys couldn't fly drones with supervision. Probably the same idiot that got rid of specialist ranks because "everybody is a leader" even if their are terrible at leadership but good at a tech trade.

Yes, but in order for the right hand to take advantage of what the left hand is holding the AF would have to bring back *gasp* Warrant Officers, and accept the fact that most of them don't have Bachelors degrees.

You laugh... We have about 400 former 58 pilots in the Army non selected for aircraft transitions. They are clinging to the dream they will get to go over to UAS and try and finish their 20 instead of getting the big green GFY for all their years of pulling the cart. Both my Squadrons new UAS warrants are former 58 pilots. Those guys are the lucky ones.

The Army is in no position to go throwing stones after the raw deal we are giving the 58 community.... I look at both pictures and just thank god I didn't go scouts on selection day. What we are doing to our own people with this rack stack secret OML nobody is allowed to talk about, and holding dudes in purgatory over follow on assignments while they fly their aircraft out to Davis-Montham and do rotations through Korea ... Absolutely disgusting.

I have the ability to control a grey eagle drone from the front seat but my ASE suite hasn't changed in the RF arena since 1991.... Lot of that going around.

Haing had HMD our whole life the difference in a subtle and recent change in technology is huge. The original IHADDS helmet on A-D apache are 90 grand a piece. Most of the money is the IR harness that he infrared SSDs use to track helmet position. Well now with the E model we get a totally magnetic system that until only recently (ie last 10 years) never existed in a usable state. Helmets are below 10 grand and the system it's self is cheaper and easier to maintain. JHMCS was looked at on the E upgrade but the mag system on the HGU-56 was cheaper. So I have no doubt the JSF helmet could be much cheaper if it wasn't for the fact a minor change takes 10 years in acquisitions.

The juice is not worth the squeeze on this one. For one ski jump ships are on a tonnage level significantly larger than the assault ships you would be modifying no to mention vessels like Varyag and Kuznetsov are capable of greater speed for operations allowing better wind over the deck. The other part of it is while the sea Flankers and Navalized Fulcrums along with the SU-25 have shown the ability to fly off a ski jump boat they do so without anywhere near the ordnance load and fuel their designs can use so it's like fighting with 60% of your combat power. Hornet is already at a TW deficient when compared to both those planes, I doubt it would be an improvement. The other issue is while the ski jump worked great for the invincible class ships made into Harrier Carriers for an assault ship it means giving up two parking spots on the deck if not more which is why we never incorporated it into our designs.

They do but they haven't ever operated jets off them... However it's the same boat the Spanish have, and they do plan to operate jets off of it. A lot of noise is being made that this isn't so much a cancellation as waiting for the Spanish to do the feasibility of getting it working off that boat before the Aussies bite in to it.

FAA can always get more restrictive. In this case I'd honestly support it. I've seen too much stupidity regarding MOAs and training routes. We in the U.S. enjoy many freedoms that general aviation pilots in other countries would only dream about (Night time VFR in Germany for example). We tend to go till there is a major issue that causes reaction much like how many countries have adopted prescribed procedures for operations at uncontrolled airports where we just passed out an advisory circular and called it good. That's the FAA saying fix the problem or we will fix it for you. Incidents like this in the future will eventually force rules to be made. Look at cities with bans on flying tours because of stupidity in the past. If the GA pilots (which having been one probably ought to be called amateur pilots just like radio operators) want to keep their freedoms of air navigation they best not try to but heads with mil and commercial ops. Both those entities have a lot more buying power as far as congressional and administrative action despite what AOPA thinks.

That article kinda forgets that the F-4 and the militaries shift to high fast bomber interceptors existed in an entirely different level of technological reliability. Seriously, they would have a point if we were strapping AIM-9B's we found in a warehouse somewhere to the F-35, but you start talking about HOBS capable helmet slaved missiles (God forbid somebody finally gets image seekers to work for cheap) and nobody is gonna want to dogfight anybody anymore. Yeah let's not forget the lessons of the past, but the F-4s dismal initial performance was not replicated after Vietnam, because we finally put money and time teaching the guys driving the thing to fight.

Unfortunately one of the first things tha came out with the 2 piece was a directive in every Brigade by every Bd CSM to ban removing tops. No different than the ultracool fire retardant shirts designed to be worn under body armor. We even had a command that went so far as to ban the wear of those in the company area, so you could only wear them from boarding the helo to mission complete and then had to change.... Gayness

3.75 for nothing down on a 300k 9 year old house. Probably could have been a touch lower but that's pretty much the average everybody that just PCSd with my unit and bought instead of rented.

Keep in mind the Marines never wanted a 5th Gen Harrier replacement. Harrier was supposed to be replaced by a 4.5 gen program similar to what the Navy did with the Super Hornet but got told to play with the other kids on JSF. And moose don't get stuck on 6 as a hard number. The whole point of a MEU is its modular and small footprint. There have been incidents in the past where the Marines have taken more Harriers and less Cobra etc to get lore legged CAS because the Cobra off the boat is severely limited with where the boat stages from if there is a surface to surface threat.

If you can get it in under 4 lbs I'd be very interested in a parts list. I wouldn't want to subject it to the wear and tear of beating the hell out of it daily on a deployment but it would make a good rifle for light use like driving around a ranch on a Polaris or something.

You didn't mention what your looking to bring this rifle in at fighting weight. You trying to build a speed rig for 3 gun or just an exercise in "what can I build?"

Put it at Wright Patt next to the F-22 that twerked it's self out of service doing the low pass.

I'm not sayin it doesn't make sense, I'm saying all the guard has been doing is fighting this every step of the way and getting their Congressional and Senatorial leadership neck deep into the issue to hijack and hold it off as much as possible (sound familiar?). I went to flight school with a few guard Apache guys and all they have on their Facebook status is sign this petition or Gob'ment trying to take away states right to defend ourselves, etc. The restructure has actually been hampered to crap by this with another round of studies ordered every year or reducing the rate of conversion so it saves no money and they can argue against it. Never mind that the Kiowa is going going gone... I imagine you would see exactly this if not worse if the Active side of the Air Force were to go "Alright hand over all the 15s/16s/10s etc... Your getting 130s, tankers, and UAS."