flyusaf83

I don’t get this at all. If they’re going to review every candidate, then why get rid of the PRF, especially since they got rid of the PRFs after they were already written? I assume they are now sifting through stacks of OPRs to second guess all the commanders’ decisions... What in the bloody hell.

I use the clock method to determine XW component. Just picture a clock with tick-marks at the quarter hours... 15 min(1/4 of clock) 30 min (1/2 of clock), and 45 min (3/4 of clock). If winds are 15* off runway hdg, you take 1/4 of the wind speed as your XW component. 30* off is 1/2 the wind speed as your XW component. 45* off is 3/4 the wind speed as your XW component. Anything above 60*, take the full wind speed as your XW component. Interpolate as needed to get more exact. For example if winds are right at 60 off, I take the full minus 2. If winds are 70 off, I take the full minus 1. Using this technique, I’ve never been more than 2 knots off estimating the XW component, and it takes about 2 seconds to calculate.

I disagree with this analysis, based on my anecdotal experience. I see saltiness creeping into the perspective of newly minted copilots in my community. They get into the squadrons and are stunned by how little flying matters in flying squadrons. They are disappointed in being shackled with additional duties. I’d say half of our pilots are firmly in the GTFO pool before they finish the first 5 years of their ten year ADSC. Of the half that do stay blue into the mid-level Captain stage.. this is when they get shackled with flight commander or shop chief level add’l duties. They also start getting hit with non-flying 179s. They are still 2-4 years from their UPT ADSCs, but firmly join the crowded GTFO pool. I’d say 8/10 pilots in my community are there by year 8 of their commitment. Around the senior Capt or junior Maj level, you’re down to the the shiny pennies who would rather masturbate to their OPR strats than fly. And some guys who are awful pilots and won’t get airline jobs. These are the few who stay in.

My community is similar... we have roughly twice as many CGO 11Rs than CGO 12Rs. However, we have almost no 11Rs above the ADO level of management. Lots of 12Rs at the squadron and group levels.

Completely invalid and caustic attitude. You don’t justify unnecessary risk by saying “Well, some people choose to do dangerous shit anyways. So this should be fine.” You sound like leaders trying to tell everyone to overlook their shitty leadership by saying “well, Marines in Nam’ had it harder than you guys, so don’t complain”. It’s lazy and it’s no excuse for crappy decision-making or leadership. No, you don’t love flying more than pilots without unsafe attitudes. As a pilot, you should have enough maturity and judgment to override your enjoyment of flying, when presented with undue risk.

Wow... a single tear is falling down my cheek. Not a single 11R last year took the devil’s money (long term bonus).

Pay isn’t in AETC’s wheelhouse, sure. But retention absolutely should be. Your lack of accountability for them shows how leadership has gotten away with being so toxic. Commanders at every level should be held accountable for how their actions affect pilot retention. Maybe if commanders were actually being held accountable for how they treat their people, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But that’s not how leadership works in the AF... you get rewarded for taking care of your boss, not your people. In fact I’ve been told by management that excessive pilot morale is bad optics because it makes non-pilots feel bad about themselves. Until leaders like that, in AETC and elsewhere, are shitcanned, retention will continue to plummet. As far as your point that this half-ass plan doesn’t mean that other AF leaders aren’t focused on retention, I call bullshit. Show me. Show me the AFs plan to retain us. AF leaders, above AETC’s level, are not focusing on retention at all. So when they come out with all these measures to improve the non-problem of production, they deserve every ounce of shame and ridicule they get.

Cool. Can you point me to the AF slides that detail how they plan on improving retention (pay and QoL)? I’m all for a multipronged solution, but the AF is only working one side of the problem, and it happens to be the side that isn’t an actual problem (production). So pardon us when we don’t trust AF management to fix the self-induced problem they can’t even admit to, let alone fix.

Nah, it’s totally Congress’ fault that I spend 40 hours a week on OPRs, awards, decs, making trackers, making trackers to track the trackers, making slides, staff meetings, responding to every single made-up tasker invented by some level of leadership, CBTs, SAPR training, commanders calls, FOD walks to make Mx troops feel validated, planning parties, attending parties, planning retirement and promotion ceremonies, forced attendance at awards ceremonies, mandatory PT sessions, forced mentorship sessions all tailored at building the next Chief of Staff which nobody wants to be, getting non-vol’d to watch other dudes dicks as they piss into cups, sitting Sup, sitting SOF, and any other 60-90 completely valid tasks. Oh , plus the 15 hours a week that I actually devote to flying related stuff. It’s kind of like a hobby of mine. But this is all due to Congress and funding. Nobody would think that any of this crap is self-induced. I trust my overlords to fix the problem they created, and cannot identify.

So about that push for 1,600 new pilots a year...

Is it just me, or is there no plan in those slides to improve retention? Seems like they have given up.

11Rs are manning UPT bills very heavily in the spring and summer VML.

This is all effing stupid. The AF would save millions by doing a few simple things to retain people. 1. $100k/yr bonus 2. No 365s 3. 4-5 year assignments 4. Hire civilians to manage 95% of queep in each squadron These “solutions” the AF are pursuing are terribly expensive, and will cost much more than retaining your experienced and trained pilots. Plus, what could go wrong with an AF full of inexperienced pilots with nobody there to mentor them?

I don’t care about the rank, I care about the pay. Make me a Capt to 20 for all I care, and let me just fly the line. But you better give me a fat bonus. Much more than the beans they’re currently offering.

The devil would be in the details... - What is a “flying-related”deployment? Is working at the Deid CAOC or the Al-Dhafra safety office “flying-related”? Or are talking about actual flying deployments? - What would the flying track 0-5 promotion rate be? Would passed over O-4s be guaranteed continuation?

It’s not science fiction.

What’s that word that management always uses as an excuse to decrease morale? Like when my squadron was told not to go TDY to fun places because it looks bad for us to have a good time on the road? Oh yeah. Optics. It goes both ways AF. I’m the midst of a pilot retention crisis, not paying everything that Congress authorizes you too? Bad optics.

I was there as a stud in 2010. Based on what I saw, QoL and ops were pretty good compared to AF UPT, but that was a long time ago now. I’m glad to hear it’s still a thing.

I understood from my functional that this is no longer a thing, AF IPs at Whiting.

You guys advocating for this are crazy IMO. I get it... you all feel the general public and the politicians are ignorant of the realities of wars and entanglements. That’s true, and is a valid point. Yet it is not a reason to bring back the draft. If you look at history, it proves the opposite. The less freedom the military has, the more they get screwed over. Did having more vets in Congress stop us from sending tens of thousands to die in Korea and Vietnam, via the draft? Nope. In fact, when the AVF was proposed by at first a minority in Congress in the 1960s, the majority of vets in Congress and the Generals fought against it. The draft was necessary for national security was the main argument. Having an AVF would mean better pay and QoL, which they did not want to do. That would make the military a mercenary force, General Westmoreland said. The generals liked the steady flow of new troops. Pay was garbage. QoL was crap and not a concern. Because who cares? 90% of troops were in and then out of “service” every two years anyway. No need to keep them happy. Retention didn’t matter. You were just a number. It was today’s problems 100x. Incidentally, I think the idea of the AVF should be expanded more, because management still uses long ADSCs to get away with crappy pay and QoL. It’s better then the draft days, but still a joke. We need folks to be true volunteers every day of their military service, not just on day one. But you think pay and QoL suck now? Talk to a drafted Vietnam vet. This is a shitty idea that should be immediately shitcanned with prejudice. You guys need to think with your heads, and stop worrying that the world doesn’t understand you. Grow a pair. Stop thinking like a whiny entitled millennial. We are military officers and aviators. I don’t want a bunch of a pussies being forced into the service, just so I can be understood. F that. I want to be professional and elite. I don’t want a bunch of SJW screwing up the military even more than they have. Think with your heads guys, and put down the crack pipes.

My worry is that the AF will label this experiment as a success no matter what. I can’t see how having dudes sit around and play fancy video games is going to do a better job of teaching them to fly airplanes than flying airplanes. But, this could prove a way for the AF to increase “pilot” production faster than UPT can, and then we can fill vacant cockpits with hordes of video gamers with wings on their chests. The slides at AFPC will certainly be more green. What could possibly go wrong?

I just heard a rumor that the Majors board results won’t come out until March. How does it take 4 months to release results of a board that didn’t include PRFs and will only look at cases of candidates with negative indicators?

It makes sense, they should be targeting senior captains and junior majors who are in the decision making part of their 10 yr UPT ADSCs. IMO, it’s too little, too late. Most have already made their decisions and this kind of money isn’t going to change much.

I saw the DFAS pdf, which had the updated table on it. Is there something more official than that? I’d say I’d have a hard time believing they put an incorrect flight pay table on their military pay pdf, but it is DoD finance...

So is this new table starting CY2018? I wonder why they increased it from just a couple months ago.