flyusaf83

If this has been discussed, I must have missed it. Looks like Big Blue is looking at static close-out dates for OPRs just like the EPR change, according to AFPC commander Lt Gen Grosso. Also, she said that OPRs are inflated and that needs to be fixed. I completely agree, but it’s not a numbers thing since we don’t have the “firewall 5” problem on our OPRs like EPRs. The inflation is in how we write bullets like everyone is a rock star. I’m not sure how that gets fixed without getting rid of bullets... which would be awesome. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2017/12/23/new-in-2018-officer-promotion-overhaul-on-the-way/

From Gen Robinson’s bio: She has “more than 900” hours in the E-3 and the E-8. I’m an E-3 pilot. For an ABM, 900 hours is about 2 years of flying the line in the E-3. She has been in the AF for 35 years. She also has zero air medals and zero combat hours. I know 1Lt ABMs with a more impressive flying resume than that. Lots of staff, school, and command though. She was put on this path long ago, before she flew much. Makes you wonder about how we develop our senior managers. https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/108119/general-lori-j-robinson/

Who’s the entitled one in this thread? Probably the one posting too-long-to-read whining diatribes about F-ing fairness. Grow up. Merry Christmas, by the way.

None of which are A codes.

$100k a year? Haha, you’re not going to get any takers. That’s a pay cut from O-4 pay. The market would force the AF to pay at least $200k to get more than a couple guys to do take that job. Again, a much simpler solution is for the AF to get its shit together and retain people.

At what point is the AF going to handle its real problems instead of these cheesy, out-of-touch, made to create bullets, asinine pet projects?

I’m wondering if I just hurt or helped my future self, when I’ll be applying for an airline gig in 3 years. I’m a T-6 FAIP, where I picked up 1,250 hours, with about 1,100 IP hours. I’m just finishing up an E-3 assignment, where I’ll end up with around 1,100 hours, with about 700 PIC hours. I just got a RIP to be a PIT IP. I’m really excited about the assignment, but I’m not sure how it’ll affect the quality of my resume. I’ll end up with around 3,300 total time (including UPT and some civilian time), but only around 1,200 multi-engine (700 multi PIC). The good news is around 2,000 of my time will be IP. Is that a competitive experience level now? What about in 3 years? TIA.

I’d rather see the AF firing commanders fired for being empty flight-suit, gutless, self-promulgating, incompetent douches in addition to cases like this. But then who would be left?

We probably need pics of this Senior Airman to make a judgment on the matter.

It was done in this thread a few years ago, but I’ll put in a plug for “Bleeding Talent” by Tim Kane. Kane is a USAFA grad, was in intel officer for a few years, and then a successful entrepreneur. His ideas for revamping how the military handles things like assignments, promotions, and evaluations are very interesting. He basically wants to put market forces in how the military handles people, which he argues would result in less bleeding of talent in the officer ranks.

Is Vance the only base with grounded T6s?

Good lord, the AF is desperate. This in no way will help production (more likely to hurt it - more washouts) and will result in worse retention. And that’s just the numbers side of it, not even touching the host of problems posed by enlisted ACs. Who in God’s name is steering this ship?

Since when did we have a problem with the pool of candidates? We don’t have a production problem. It’s a retention problem. Enlisted would be less retainable than officers. Its not as if we are having problems stocking the UPT pipeline.

The AF is putting all of its efforts into “fixing” non-problems, while doing absolutely nothing to fix the actual problems. The actual problems: crappy QoL, excessive queep, useless non-flying 179/365 deployments, an asinine performance and promotion system, PC culture replacing aviation culture, and non-competitive pay. The AF has made only token efforts, at best, to address any of this issues that are crippling the AF. The fake problem: UPT. We don’t need a UPT overhaul. We don’t need a watered down UPT. Of course UPT could use some tinkering and updating, but you don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Pilot training, IMO, is one of the few things we are getting right. So of course the AF’s “solution” is to make UPT a cluster-F and destroy the best undergrad flight program in the world, all so they can churn out hordes of chickshits to replace their best pilots. These kind of changes will only hurt retention even more and the AF will continue to hemorrhage its experienced pilots while replacing them with masses of off-brand fake pilots who will get people killed.

Looks like they went the absolute cheapest way possible with this. According to the law, the services could offer CP anytime between 8-12 YOS, and it would be 2.5-13x base pay. It also said the services could use it to incentivize certain stressed career fields. And of course our innovative leaders, in the midst of a rentention crisis, elected to offer the minimum 2.5x multiplier at the longest 12 YOS time, for every single career field in the AF. I get not offering it at 8 YOS for pilots, since it would run concurrently and add only a few months to your ADSC. However, $18k is not going to make a difference at all in a pilot’s decision making. It would have wise to offer pilots closer to 13x at the 12 YOS mark. Another swing and a miss from management.

The problem is they haven’t tried retention yet. If I have to read another stupid article about the AF offering a “massive” bonus increase, I’m gonna die. They keep touting that $455k bonus without saying that it’s over 13 freaking years, when you’ll be working for half of your base pay for the last 5 years of that contract... yeah, what a deal. Push the bonus up to $100k/yr if you care about retention, AF. Because we all know all of the QoL initiatives are complete bullshit and will not happen.

Dang...

No, we actually didn’t. One of our guys killed a dude on his own. “We” didn’t have “our guys” do jack shit. Please, for the love of God, don’t ever be a commander of anything. I cannot stand narcissistic leadership that convinces itself that it must solve all problems with asinine micromanagement and mass punishment. Your mentality of “having to do something” causes one to make irrational and emotional decisions that do much more harm than good. Real leaders are much more thoughtful and intelligent than this. This type of leadership has much more to do with the pilot retention crisis than any other single factor. Incidents like these happen when you have 100k people in your organization. You don’t punish the 99.999% when 0.001% screw up. Unless you’re a dumbass. Then go right ahead, this Lt Gen will probably just secured his fourth star for this brave stand.

I’m not saying you’re wrong about Liquid because I don’t know him, but the attitude he showed with those posts was the same kind of toxic BS that is driving people out in droves. Maybe he is a “good dude”, but I sure wouldn’t want him as my boss. There are a lot of “good dudes” that the AF absolutely ruins by convincing them to do what it takes to be part of the management club. That’s when they stop living in reality and say and do shit that drives us crazy (N/N checkrides for talking about airlines). I hear the crap that leaders say, and I just say to myself that I will never be able to do that with a straight face. But these “good dudes” sold their souls to the devil and actually believe the shit that comes out of their mouths. It’s like they have no idea how we see right through the bullshit. And just what in the hell is with the AF’s irrational fear of the airlines? So many managers don’t want to acknowledge the airlines, or come up with some bullshit to tell us about why it would be such a bad idea to be an airline pilot. They imply we aren’t patriotic if we we discuss being an airline pilot. I think they’d rather me talk about joining ISIS. Instead of ripping on or ignoring the airlines, freaking show me some positive change. Show me just why in the hell should I stay in the AF.

Does that 43.8% number include the 1-2 year bonus takers? My feeling is that many of the 1-2 year takers are already in non-UPT ADSC commitments, so they took the free money. If so, that number is even worse than it appears.

Yeah I don’t really care about being anonymous. I mean, my home station ICAO is listed in my profile... 552 ACW, OG/CC, Tinker AFB, OK. Col Richard Land. He said what he said in front of all the officers in the group. He’s not hiding how he feels.

That’s great and all that they genuinely care, but whatever changes they think they are making aren’t making it down to the squadron level. Until Big AF starts actually holding commanders accountable for making their communities better, nothing will happen. We recently had an OG call in which the OG/CC had a container where people could drop anonymous questions that he could answer for them in his speech. There was only one question. The note quoted the Chief of Staff’s memo that said the AF needs to get rid of additional duties, then noted that additional duties have been increased recently in our group rather than decreased, and asked why this community isn’t following the Chief of Staff’s guidance. The OG responded by giving a lecture about how we are all officers first, and we should be happy to help out by doing any additional duties that we are assigned. And if this pilot has a problem with that, they can let him know, and he will PCS him elsewhere. Until caustic leaders like this are fired from their jobs, nothing will change.

“The Air Force’s pilot shortage largely stems from a massive hiring wave in the commercial airline industry, which sees the military as fertile recruiting ground. In an attempt to stay competitive, the Air Force has recently upped its monthly flight pay and offered massive retention bonuses of up to $455,000. The Air Force is also trying to improve pilots’ job satisfaction. But it hasn’t been enough.” What a bunch of propaganda. First of all... $35k/yr to 24 YOS is not a “massive bonus”, when you consider that for four of those years you’re working for half pay and losing massive amounts of money by losing 4 years of airline pay/seniority. Secondly, the AF is trying to improve our job satisfaction? Haha, right. The only thing I’ve seen is them talking about doing that, while doing everything they can to keep screwing us over. Has anyone here actually seen the AF actually do a thing to make our jobs better?

So is this a voluntary or forced recall? If it’s voluntary, I don’t see how they’ll get more than a few guys. If it’s non-vols... I don’t think I want to be in a flying unit with dudes who are forced to be there. There are so many problems with that.

This. I get tired of hearing that phrase to describe the same old bad leadership. I don’t care if someone was a “good dude” before they get to the DO level. Let’s see how they are when they have something to lose. Let’s see if they’ll fight up or fight down, once they start becoming part of that Big Blue Club (BBC). For most leaders, once they start deepthroating, they become addicted to BBC.