YoungnDumb

This thread has been extremely amusing. I'll throw my 2 cents in. Listen to what is being said here. Some of it you may agree with, some of it you may disagree with. But understand there is a lot of years of experience floating around on these forums. Grow some thicker skin and never miss an opportunity to STFU, whether it's here or in the squadron bar. You'd be surprised at the amount of good will you garner from just listening and not highlighting yourself. If you are going to rebut anything (and this goes for this forum and in life/your future flying career) be humble about it. Being an arrogant little $hit will get you no where, so work on your approach. Now when it comes to travelling, buy a vehicle and cruise the country. Hell if I could do it all over again I would have left 2-3 weeks early and gone camping all around the US on my to UPT. CA-MS is an awesome trip if done right. Take your time, avoid free ways and go see America, it's a big country with lots of amazing places and people in it. You can't take money to the grave, but you can enjoy the hell out of life while you're young. Also, good luck trying to pick up any girl, anywhere with some lame beater you got off the lemon lot.

No one single story really stands out (least wise none that are truly funny). I just want some peace and quiet, or to get through 1 meal this year without listening to how so and so was rude to so and so or so and so's baby threw a toy at so and so's baby, and god forbid one of them didn't volunteer for something.

All I want this year is for there to be 0 drama in the spouses groups. Ya I know it's a pipe dream, but a guy can dream right?

-93$ at Vance for an O-3...whelp, merry christmas, time to get another scotch.

Who cares about actual abilities to hack the mission? So long as manning looks good on the weekly slideshow, everything else is secondary

Think they'll have enlisted FAIP's? I'm mostly joking...

I love how they keep mentioning the T-X and accelerating its aquisition, but yet the AF keeps kicking that can down the road due to lack of funding

Stupid question, what does P4 mean? Saw it referenced numerous times.

Random question related to drops. How much do they take into account what a student is good at? Like for instance if you have someone who is super good at EWO stuff but wants Strikes, how does that play out? And if it does matter does it trump class ranking?

I'll throw my 2 cents in. I've been to Rucker and seen how their civilians implement and by and large it seems pretty well managed/run given that the civilians only teach contact (transition I think they call it) and instruments then the green suiters teach all the other stuff. I could see something similar working in T-6's. The big thing I worry about is if the AF made it all civilian. At that point you turn it into the same shit show that sim land is, the majority of the sim IP's are way out of touch, spend most of the time talking about the Tweet or having 'nam flashbacks in the middle of a sim, and care more about how accurate your instrument cockpit check was than actually teaching a kid how to fly instruments. At many points during my tour as an IP did I have to re-explain basic instrument things to a student because the sim IP was focused on crap that hasn't mattered since the 60's. I mean hell I told a sim IP I used the GPS to go direct for 300+ miles in the -38 and you would have thought the world was ending because I used the GPS and not ground based NAVAIDs.

Damn that's a long ways out to put in a dream sheet. I think we did ours ~2 weeks out. Anyways, what was the final order?

As I stated before, they won't be allowed to fail. If any of them get close I can see some O-6+ stepping in and intervening so they can say their program didn't fail.

Do my best to get everything. The way scoring works is based off of standard deviations and Z-scores. Now please bear in mind I am not a math major so I may confuse some terms. In essence the MASS (some black magi formula) finds the standard deviation of a class and creates a bell curve. From that bell curve it assigns scores based on how far above/below the center of the curve you are. Now How it determines the point value of each persons score is unknown to me (meaning 75 pts is not the "max", it varies class to class and I have no clue why). So for example, a class whose average score is 96 may have a person with a score of 99% get the highest points (call it 69) and the lowest score of 93% will get the lowest at 30. Everyone else gets something in the middle based on their distance from the center of the bell curve. Same process applies to daily rides and check ride scores. U/F/G/E grades. So individual grades, i.e. how well was a landing or specific maneuver, are graded based on CTS (course training standard) which is found in the syllabus. It defines ranges and parameters that a student must meet in order to receive a G (good). A pattern for example is to be flown -0/+10 kts or airspeed. If the student does this they get a G, if they do really well they get an E, if assistance is required they get a F, if unsafe/unable it's a U. Overall grades however are up to IP discretion. Therefore if your IP thinks that for where you are in the program that you did really well then you might get graded an E. If you suck, enjoy your taco salad (U). What this means is you can have a grade sheet of mostly U's (say it's your second ride) but you seem to be picking things up and are pretty sharp, then your IP may give you an overall E. Yes individual grades have points associated with them (1-5 if I recall correctly, 1 being a NG and 5 being an E). They all get compiled at the end and run through the MASS. Just like your academics it's based off of standard deviations and Z-scores. Only difference is that there is no penalty for attempting/not attempting a maneuver as it averages out your gradesheets. For example, you do a pattern only where 20 items are graded. Those 20 items are worth up to 100 total points (20*5=100). You average out to mostly Fairs (3 pts) for a grand total of 60 points or 60% of available points. Your bro goes out and does MOA work and has 40 items graded, but averages a Fair rating for most of them earning 120/200 points, also 60%. So in the end it's really points earned/points attempted, then run through the computer (black magic). At UPT (Vance, Laughlin, Columbus), Phase 1 and 2 scores affect your Track Select. Phase 3 is separate. At Sheppard (I think) they all factor into the overall drop. Flt/CC's have a 20% say in someones final score. It's referred to as Flt/CC ranking and is a way for them to help out someone who has been a solid bro and maybe bump someone down who has been a jack wagon. So yes, working hard and being a bro does help you out, your IP's WILL notice. As for experience, like all good answers it depends. Ive taught a kid who had 4700hrs when he showed up and he made UPT his b**ch, but he was super humble and a great kid, everyone loved flying with him. Had another student with 1300hrs who everyone hated. And when IP's sit down they do take experience into account. But in all honesty once people hit instruments it evens out, and if someone has a lot of experience, formation evens them out. I wouldn't worry if you have some high time guy in your class. They will not be the reason you don't get what you want, you and your attitude will make/break you. The last question, I don't know. That's more of a phase 3 question (I taught T-6's). Hope this helps. In the end enjoy UPT man, getting all wrapped around tiny shit like the MASS and individual grades will just take your focus off flying. Relax and have fun, it was one of the worst/best years of my life. You will have some amazing experiences and some serious bad days, don't lose sight of the prize, it's all worth it.

Because some O-6 had a meeting with a good idea fairy

ShavedDogsAss nailed it. If you really want fighters, list them first, FAIP second, then everything else (would recommend B-1's then AFSOC). In the end man it's your choice. You mentioned wanting to rain hate, go A-10, F-15E, F-16 or some variation of that. If that's what you really want then go for it. I'll speak to the FAIP thing as well. I just finished up my FAIP tour and am headed off to the Viper (f*ck yea). Like you all I ever wanted to do was fly fighters. So when it came dreamsheet time it wasn't a question of what I wanted, it was where to put it. Basically my list went fighters (including ADAIR), -38 FAIP, -6 FAIP, B-1, AFSOC, everything else. Ended up getting FAIP'ed and loved it. Did it get old doing TP Stalls for the 6900th time? Absolutely. Did volunteering and doing all sorts of queepy stupid crap suck? Yup. But it kept the dream alive, and in the end I finally got what I wanted. Some FAIPs don't get what they wanted. Good friend of mine didn't. Unfortunately it happens, but if being a fighter pilot is really what you want, then having a second shot at it should be right up there on your list. If being a fighter pilot is secondary to raining hate, then put FAIP lower on the list and put bombers/AFSOC higher.

Yup.

Had another one yesterday. Also, they're flying weekends with "volunteers" now.

Wonder if the E's will get out of all the queep and just be allowed to fly?

They won't let anyone wash out, too high vis, and god knows we wouldn't anyone to admit the AF made a mistake or hurt someones OPR.

8 years? Umm...it's a 4 year school...(joking). Look up photos of the early classes and you;ll seem them sporting nav wings. Also, if you talk to them tey;ll talk about flight training as cadets. RTB nailed it, if flying was important they would make time for it. I'm assuming nothing has changed since I left, there are several ways the Academy could get free up time for cadets to go fly, they just won't because all hail Green Dot.

100% Agree. Didn't it start out that way? If I recall correctly the first few classes all graduated as rated Navs and then went from there. But if we go and try to make the Air Force actually about flying we'll hurt someones feelings.

We DO have a production problem. Quite literally we do not have enough instructors to keep up with the demand. Perfect example, back at Vance they kept upping the amount of students per class until the system broke. In the end a cap of ~27 was set as it was a manageable size to get finished in the allotted time. Furthermore look at the massive FUBAR with the F-16 pipeline over the last year or so. So yes, we do have a production problem, we can't keep up with the demand. And concerning the expansion of candidates, using the Academy as an example, the last few years they had left over pilot slots because a bunch of Academy kids didn't want to be pilots. I can't speak for the ROTC side or OTS. And I agree that it is also a retention problem, but separate discussion.

Only benefit I can see is that it opens it to a larger pool of candidates as it won't require a degree/being an officer so therefore they can snag some kid straight out of high school. I 100% agree with your comment concerning pay. If officers won't stay, enlisted sure as shit won't, we don't pay them enough as it is, I can''t imagine them sticking around too long once they get wings.

Well, damn, another case of me not being able to read.

Since you brought up evidence, where's yours?