Liquid

Thoughts and prayers for the fallen, their families and friends.

Great discussion going on here. Let me add an alternative perspective. They said it wasn't possible to arm RQ-1 with Hellfires. Fortunately others in USG disagreed. They said you shouldn't arm UAVs and employ lethal fires without a fighter pilot in the seat that understood CAS and fires, so only fighter pilots should fly UAVs. They said only pilots had the airmanship required to fly UAVs. They said unless you went to pilot training and learned about airspace, radio calls and instruments, you couldn't and shouldn't fly UAVs. They said a fighter pilot was too valuable to fly UAVs, that it was easy, and only the worst pilots should fly them. They picked the pilots they didn't want in their squadrons to go to UAVs. They decided that we should fly RPAs from remote locations, despite the fact you could fly remote split operations from anywhere in the world, including in major metropolitan areas where families would be happy to live. They realized there was nothing unmanned about these UAVs and changed the name to Remotely Piloted Aircraft. They killed UCAV development because they think a pilot must be in the seat, even when the pilot is the limiting factor in the aircraft. They think the next generation bomber should be manned. They decided the only way to keep pilots flying RPAs relevant was to create a companion aircraft program so RPA pilots could fly real aircraft and stay in touch with real flying, but this was not feasible because flying RPAs is not an easy part time job and there is no time. They thought it would be ok assure pilots they would go fly RPAs, then return to the cockpit, with no intention of changing the manning or accessions to actually honor that promise. They told us that 18Xs could not fly RPAs. They told us it would take years to figure out how to train non-pilots how to fly RPAs. They told us nobody would volunteer to fly RPAs. They told us the bonus for RPA pilots should be less than the bonus for real pilots. They decided that RPAs were easy and marginalized the employment of lethal weapons in combat. They actually think the RPA pilot guides the AGM-114 or GBU-49/12 to the target. They denigrated the RPA mission and those who conducted the mission, regardless of how much the joint force and civilian leadership value RPAs. They think enlisted airmen cannot fly RPAs, despite direct evidence of outstanding Army enlisted and warrant officer performance. They did not think auto takeoff and landing was a valuable capability worthy of investment, and preferred to crash aircraft during takeoffs and landings due to pilot error and insufficient training at a staggering rate, while the Army successfully employs auto takeoff and landing with a near perfect mishap prevention rate. They decided that the phrase "permissive ISR" would be used to discredit RPAs by pushing the narrative that they were not able to operate in denied airspace, while avoiding the same conversation with mobility, tankers, C2, and satellites. They forgot that we may have missions when manned aircraft will not be allowed to fly and that RPAs may be the only access we have to non-permissive environments. They developed the phrase "Pred Porn" to delegitimize the FMV value to Ground Force Commanders, Joint Force Commanders and Senior Civilian Leaders. They do not understand how RPAs integrate multi-source intelligence to accomplish national level objectives. They decided "Combat Time" for RPAs employing lethal fires in close proximity to friendly forces was not combat, but orbiting a combat support aircraft near a combat zone, with no threat of enemy fire or additional danger, was worthy of "Combat Time". They decided combat support aircrew were eligible for Air Medals, while in no immediate danger from enemy threats, while RPA crews conducting actual combat missions were only eligible for Aerial Achievement Medals. They failed to recognize that there may be situations where manned aircraft may be denied access to airspace, not only because of the threat, but because of political considerations and the risk of being shot down in denied area. They think a pilot who practices killing people but never performs this skill in combat is more of a warrior than those who actually kill people. They decided to not fund RPAs, after reducing the number of CAPs in the first few years, they planned to go to zero CAPs so they could commit the money to other priorities. They decided to keep the RPA crew ratio below a sustainable level, crushing OPSTEMPO, morale and sustainability. They let RPA crewmembers separate early to meet short term manpower reduction goals, before their commitment was up, even from squadrons where the pilot and sensors were undermanned in that unit. They decided to not invest in RPA technology, stating and I no shit quote "every dollar we spend on MQ-9s is a dollar we can't spend on F-35". They are telling us they can't fix the current RPA crew shortage. They are telling us they don't know how to improve morale. They are telling us RPAs are not important to our nation's defense. They think pilots with no RPA experience are qualified to command RPA squadrons, groups and wings. They use the phrase CT/COIN to marginalize the current fight and emphasize the importance of near peer competitor threats. And they will continue to recommend we stop flying RPAs so we can invest in more important weapon systems and more important missions. When will we stop letting them make these bad decisions and give this bad advice? When have they lost enough trust and confidence of our joint partners and civilian leaders? When will we realize that "they" are actually the problem and that we should not value their recommended solutions? It is time to get ISR out of ACC, to let ACC focus on what they value and what they are the best in the world at, and most importantly, stop ing up RPAs.

Long shot. If it does well during combat validation (it should) perhaps the Navy or AF will pick up a few. Not a lot of service support so far. CENTCOM is championing it now. Navy pilots, will support SOF in IZ.

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/combat-dragon-ii-demonstrates-ov-10g-bronco-capabilities/. Combat Dragon II will be killing ISIL in IZ by this summer.

Who called the Airman in? His/her supervisor? Commander? The General?

Your friend is an ass. If he had legitimate complaints about the service he received from finance, he did not address them in his fake apology. If he took leave enroute from a deployment, they need to know where he took the leave and how he got home. Finance doesn't make this shit up, they follow laws and DoD policies. He says he forgot which cities he flew through on leave. If this is true, he is a moron. Vouchers are a pain, welcome to the federal government. Nobody said we were good at paperwork. There are plenty of legitimate criticisms about how centralizing DFAS at Ellsworth and manning the center with contractors hired into a poorly written contract was a horrible way to save money and manpower. And there are plenty of instances where a lack of focus on quality customer service, failures of leadership and incompetence have caused undue delays on vouchers. But bitching that it is unfair to expect you to document how you returned from a deployment is ridiculous. The only message he sent was that he is a tool and not fit to lead anyone, handle weapons or solve problems.

Many senior leaders value the wrong things. We overvalue entertainment, image, compliance and control. We undervalue combat, results, creativity and trust.

Tonight we honored a fallen soldier during a ramp ceremony at BAF. As his team unloaded the flag draped casket from the HMMWV and walked him up the C-17 ramp, five soldiers from the 10th Mountain Band played Amazing Grace and another somber and respectful song. Soldiers in the 10th Mountain Band carry weapons, can pull guard duty and are capable of killing the enemy. They also have unique musical skills and equipment to honor the dead and comfort the grieving in combat. Their primary purpose is combat and ceremonial duties while entertaining is a collateral duty. Our Air Force bands primarily entertain and should be cut to the level where they only support ceremonial events in the DC area. We can contract the entertainment if we decide we can afford entertainment for a fraction of the cost. Cutting our AF bands (not including TIB) by 75% would save $180M in personnel and O&M costs over the FYDP. Cutting AF bands and eliminating their AFSCs are easy decisions that should have been made years ago.

Karl, I hear you. I don't see the exodus in my world yet, but I know it is out there and it will hurt. People are tired and they are sick of the bullshit. The culture of compliance, risk aversion (Korea alcohol ban), infatuation with glorifying support missions and ridiculous move towards complete centralized control are crushing us. There is no end to the deployments, ops tempo or chickenshit priorities, and the airlines are hiring and our skills are in high demand in many industries. Retention is a problem we need to get on now, and listening to those who are disgusted and separating is important. Now, I'm deployed again and life is good. Mission focus, no bullshit, killing the enemy, protecting the friendlies and the innocent. It is why I joined. Protecting what makes our AF great is why I'll continue to serve until asked to leave. If I knew how to put one of those beer mugs at the end I would do that here ___.

Animal, getting a useless, box checking master's degree is a personal choice. You shouldn't use the wide latitude the AF tuition assistance program gives you to get a master's degree in a subject that you care about, from a university that you choose, in a place and time that fits your needs, to bash the program for being a waste of time. If you want to use a program that teaches you nothing, takes little time and still meets the minimum standard required to qualify as an advanced academic degree (busywork, as you call it), that is your choice. A master's in business, military studies, international relations, history or government will help you be a better senior AF officer. The last thing people should want is commanders and boards discriminating the quality and location of your AAD for promotion to O-6. Setting the minimum standard relatively low for a subjective requirement prevents alma mater discrimination and bullshit assessments about how hard you worked to get your degree, or how often you were published, like we see in the academic world. Hard work, success and competency are important at promotion boards, but an assessment of the ability to succeed in the next grade is also required. This assessment is subjective because it is predictive. We use stratifications and push lines to explain this assessment. Businesses don't promote merely based on hard work and success at current job. They may pay more to those with experience and a good record (like we do with pay increases in the same grade every two years), but they don't promote to upper management without considering whether they have the skills to succeed at upper management. Agree, we should be discriminating and selective about who gets promoted and I would argue that we are. But I also think the senior leaders need to be the people who determine how to discriminate and select, not the CGOs. What CGOs value at the time may not be what makes them successful at FGO responsibilities. The best critiques we can make are to point out how our system needs to be improved and how we selected the wrong leaders should be based on the specific leader's shortcomings and leadership failures. When morale is low, unit performance is below standards, resources are wasted, and the mission is not being accomplished, there is an obvious failure of leadership (possibly at many levels) that must be corrected. I think AF senior leadership is trying to correct that rotten core of leadership in the missile community. We should reassess what we got wrong at promotion boards and command screening boards that predicted these officers would succeed when they clearly did not. A useful way for senior leaders to evaluate the performance of their subordinate commanders is to read the anonymous but honest opinions of that commander's subordinates and peers. Unit climate assessments, IG/congressional complaints, face to face feedback, informal feedback (including social media) can all give indications of leadership failures. 360 feedback should be implemented immediately for all commanders. I'm not sure why we are so reluctant to do this. Commanders and senior leaders should be held to higher, more stringent standards and their leadership abilities should be more formally evaluated.

Karl, don't be so dramatic. Nobody forces anybody to check boxes or get AAD/PME done. And we don't make pariahs out of someone who just wants to fly. They just don't tend to get promoted. I had plenty of passed over, continued Capts, Majors and Lt Cols in my units who were outstanding pilots, navs, and officers. They volunteered to deploy multiple times, worked long hours, and were incredible mentors for the young flyers. Some did not want to be promoted and did not do those things that clearly made them competitive amongst their peers. Some accepted continuation, some retired, some separated when the time was right for them. Many regretted not getting the things done (PME/AAD) to be competitive and mentored young officers to just do it. If you only want to fly the line like a Lt or Capt, and don't want to broaden your experiences and skills with education and non-flying jobs, why would you expect to be promoted into ranks and positions of different responsibility and authority that require joint PME, education and staff experience? Granted, as a passed over officer, wanting to fly for the rest of your career, you may be separated to make room (flying time) for younger Lts and Capts. There are no guarantees for flying positions in the service, we all know that. Force structure, funding, requirements, retention and force management policies all change. If you are not suited for advancement or promotion, for whatever reason, the service should consider whether it is best for the service for you to stay, or go. When airlines are hiring and retention is low, continued officers can usually stay as long as they want to. When there are more young pilots then we have flying time to sustain, continued officers will normally be separated (the 157). By law, 100% promotion is not permitted for FGOs. Unless retention is severely low, people will get passed over. No hard feelings, just the law or the reality of resource constraints. Some people over-inflate their own value to the service when the reality is their mediocre record of performance, limited experience and low potential to perform at the higher grades make them less valuable than other officers being considered. In my experience, the promotion board to Maj and Lt Col usually gets it right and promotes the most deserving. I've studied the records of those above and below the line, and I've compared many records to my assessment of their job performance and promotion potential. I've personally counseled dozens of passed over officers about what was weak in their record and explained why they were not competitive. YMMV, and sometimes we tend to value the wrong things (AAD at Major being go-no-go) but I think it is a decent system that usually gets it right. CSAF is fixing some shortcomings now. It is a good thing we are letting people separate who actually want to separate, even with ADSCs, since we need to reduce the force. The airlines and ARC will be better off with this talented hiring pool. For the sake of the AF's future, they should not pollute too many young minds on their way out. We need talented and dedicated active duty officers of all ranks to fly our aircraft and fight our wars.

I hope the trend continues as well. Like most, I did SOS in-correspondence before going in residence because it was locally "mandatory" to do so. Our wing told us we would not be competitive (won't go) unless you did correspondence first. Looks like we have fixed the "local" abuse of our time and effort by not allowing people to enroll unless eligible, good news. Hopefully we have done the same with IDE/SDE, not allowing selects to enroll. I don't think we have closed the gap that requires candidates to demonstrate the worthiness of being selected for in-residence unless they complete it by correspondence. I went to IDE and SDE in residence (as a select both times), and refused to do them in correspondence, but had to endure excessive "mentoring" from my commanders about how I was hurting my career and school location, by not being competitive. I showed them a copy of the A1 practice bleeding memo and reminded them that following a policy that actually made sense would probably not hurt my career. I knew the guidance, understood the unwritten expectations, accepted the risk and made an informed decision that both protected my time and served the AF. Changing the official guidance to reduce the risk of local abuse is the answer, and it looks like CSAF is well on his way to making that happen.

Dirk, your wing is either giving incomplete guidance or you are incorrectly describing the actual wing guidance on PME status. PME status is still important. Doing PME in-correspondence is not required if completed in-residence or designated as a select, but having grade appropriate PME accomplished is something the board members will use as a critical discriminator. CSAF said "We expect officers to complete the level of DE appropriate for each grade as they meet promotion boards for the next highest rank; SOS for Major, IDE for Lt Col, SDE for Col." Your description of the wing's guidance is good for AAD, but incomplete and possibly misleading for PME status.