flyusaf83

I do worry about this. I don't see separate boards helping the situation. Really, the AF just needs to promote all pilots, unless an individual has royally F'ed something up. Young CGOs in my community are seeing non-operators outperforming 11X/12X types. It's just another reason to get out ASAP. Dudes don't trust the AF to reward them for their choice to stay.

The 15 year retirement for pilots won't happen, for one reason. The shoes would lose their minds. There would be mass whining. The Air Force is committed to treating to valuing us all the same, which is why folks are leaving where they are valued more.

What bothers me the most about having aircrew guard our own jets is that it's a clear admission that the policy of guarding jets with weapons is unnecessary. If it were necessary, you wouldn't ask someone with no combat or police training to do it. You would have SF do it. But do we change the policy? Nope. We just add another additional duty for aircrew, because that's the type of easy and gutless call that Air Force leaders make.

Nice to see a GO that at least somewhat gets it. Now let's find one that not only targets how we do orders, but goes after SAPR, fire extinguisher training, LGBTQ awareness training, endless commanders calls, UA monitor duty, etc. Here is a new one at my base. We have to have a cop with an M-4 at the jet whenever we have a static display for some asinine reason. Well, our SF now say they don't have the manning for that. The solution? Send aircrew through M-4 training and have us guard our own jets as an additional duty. I shit you not.

So why just one line? Just do a DP/P/DNP.

I like this idea, but that would mean the board would have to have more time to sift through records... or they'll likely miss stuff in the clutter of OPRs.

At my base, aircrew are now required to operate the high lift trucks instead of AFE. That means I have to get pilots and navs to take a course on how to drive the stupid truck, and then have them take it on as an additional duty. It means when I have a TDY departing or arriving on weekend, someone has to come in just to drive the damn truck. Also, I had to assign a young copilot to watch other chicks piss in cups for a solid week, 0700-1600. I get sitting SOF (kind of). I get sitting Sup. But what in the bloody hell are we doing? Aside from the insanity of having a pilot, who has millions of dollars invested in their training, not fly in order to drive a truck or watch people urinate... this kind of crap just kills morale. My Lt copilots are all jaded. How can you blame them? It's about unmet expectations. They worked and sacrificed more than their peers to become military pilots. Then we have them do things an E-1 should be doing. The Air Force is insane. What they are doing with additional duties is like having a neurosurgeon do less surgeries so he can help the janitors (who get paid the same as the neurosurgeons).

Can you guys educate me? I'm an 09 guy, which means my board is at the end of this year. I'm sure we will all start pinning on after the 08 guys finish pinning on. Any ideas on when that will be?

E-3 (pilot perspective) 1. Ops Tempo/Deployment -- Very stable. 4 months deployed, 12 months home. A lot of guys don't go on every rotation, so you very well may have a couple years or more home. 2. Lifestyle/ Family Stability -- Probably the most family friendly you will find in the AF. Deployments are predictable and spread out. You typically take off and land at the same location. Some TDYs to make flying interesting, but not a ton of them. 3. Community morale -- Here's the difficult thing about E-3s. As pilots, we are the red-headed stepchildren of the red-headed stepchildren. AWACS gets the shaft from ACC. The aircraft upgrades go to the mission systems in the back. Flight deck on the E-3 is very old school. Oh and we are a tenant wing of Material Command here at KTIK, which means our sqdn facilities are embarrassingly awful. Like third world bad. We also get the shaft in our community as well in terms of things like strats, school, jobs etc. The community revolves around the 13Bs. Most of our leadership is made up of 13Bs, which can be painful for pilots/navs. A lot of them are good dudes, but it's real awkward when a brand new CP know more about aviation than the Wg/CC. 4. Advancements & Future of the airframe -- E-3s are very bottom heavy right now. Too many CPs, about the right amount of ACs, and not enough IPs. Because of this, it's tough for CPs to upgrade. Lots of mouths to feed in the squadrons. 5. Preferred PCS locations -- Another positive of the E-3. Most guys start at KTIK. OKC isn't a bad place, but not too exciting. From there, if you stay in E-3s, it's Kadena, Elmo, or GK (NATO). All good options.

I usually despise internet trolls. However, after some reflection, I applaud GC. I think he was a constant reminder of the problem, and gave us all insight into the reality we face in our communities. I think everyone has seen leadership spit out ridiculous policy and logic many times. GC's diatribe was incredibly accurate and sadly believable. The thing about this forum and the internet is that it gives posters the feeling of anonymity so we can all vent our true feelings about the institutional problems of the AF. Things we complain about to the bros in the sqdn, but at least somewhat sanitize for leadership. Then we have this DB come in here and sound EXACTLY like some twisted combo of every commanders call/AFN commercial/SAPR brief/CBT/etc. we are all forced to endure. It gave us a chance to come down hard (sts) on that mentality. I'm sure there are many leaders in the AF much like the caricature that GC created here. The only hope this AF has is for enough bros jump on the grenade by doing all the BS it takes to gain influence, rank, and position in the AF without becoming a GC. Then maybe things will change. Not likely I know, because most of the good leaders are pulling chocks as early as they can. The AF needs high ranking dudes who don't give two shits about their rank, and are willing to put their necks out there. GC was a constant reminder on here of the toxic leaders the AF values. I hope we can stand up to these types in our communities and save the AF.

You would think so. One day in 2014, around the middle of my FAIP tour, I logged into my email and had some email from someone in Djibouti congratulating me on my assignment and offering to help answer any questions I had. I had no clue what was going on. I figured the email was a mistake. I asked my Sq/CC about it, and he hadn't heard a thing. He did some digging. Turns out the base IDRC found out about my 179 a month earlier and forgot to tell me or my leadership about it. I found out via email from someone I didn't know, a month late. I had to rush to get all the training done to go, which took more time from my family. My local leadership had no role in assigning me the deployment. Hell, they didn't even get notified, since the shoe clerks in the IDRC screwed up. It came from AFPC, since I met their magical formula for the gig.

Or a whole $3k increase for 11Rs. Yeah that extra $250/mo (before taxes) is really gonna keep us from bailing to Delta.

So personnelists are the real heroes of the AF sitting in their cubicles from 0900-1530, with a 2 hour lunch break. Never thinking of working over the weekend, never showing at 0300 or leaving work at 2359, never doing anything dangerous at work besides clear paper jams. Never going through rigorous formal training programs. Oh and if stop loss is a thing, you think it's the victims that need to remember their core values? You mean the people who would be lied to? How about the AF shows their excellence and avoids this debacle. how about the AF shows their service before self, and takes care of its veterans instead of manipulating federal law to stop them from finding civilian jobs when they leave. How about he AF shows their intergrity and takes stop loss off the table since it is blatantly dishonest. I doubt Chang is real with the asinine garbage he says... then I listen to commanders calls, and I think he might be a real thing.

I love hearing how much Air Force leadership wants to take care their people in one breath. Then in the next one, they go to the airlines and threaten them to not hire us, go to the FAA and get them to change regulations so we are less competitive with civilian pilots for jobs, and talk about stop loss. Then they talk to us about how important integrity is.

What kind of ADSC does that encur?

So the AF is pursuing gimmicky and unworkable solutions instead of actually finding solutions for the actual problems. How shocking. Nobody in AF leadership is brave enough or in touch enough to address the institutional problems that are plaguing the AF. Endless queep. 365s. The PC culture. Shoe clerk-centric policies. Getting chiefed for having your hands in your jacket pockets when being forced to do a FOD walk at 0700L, 7 hours after my flight landed, when it's 10 F outside (recently happened to me). I could go on. The thing that bothers me the most is I don't see AF leadership acknowledging these problems, let alone trying to fix them.

Not quite true. Dudes who didn't fly the 38 in UPT, but later qualed in a 38 in a U-2 or B-2 tour are eligible to fly 38s as a UPT IP.

Same goes for 11Rs. Most folks I know are already planning on getting out. The fact that we are getting a pathetic $3k ACP increase while others are getting a slightly less pathetic $9-10k sure isn't going to help. I don't really care if Congress is to blame or the AF. Most likely, both.

Any current Vance IPs care to add some context?

Sorry dude, but this is asinine. You are excusing awful leadership by essentially saying that it's not that hard for the hundreds of affected people to work around the issue. That's a freaking cop-out. Here's the thing... I don't even drink. However, I respect the place that things like squadron bars and beer lights have in our culture. When I was a UPT Flt/CC, my favorite part of the week was turning the beer light on on Friday afternoons, and all the IPs and studs sitting around drinking a couple, talking trash on each other, and sharing lessons learned. It sickens me that that isn't an option now. Yeah, we can probably get creative... but just why in hell should I have to? I never had a stud or IP in my flight get out of control or attempt to drink and drive after a beer-light Friday. But guess what? If that would have happened, I would have been there and been able to intervene. This new policy would have made that harder if the event would have been off base somewhere where I have less ability to control the situation. Leadership, especially at the O-6 level, should exist to creatively finding ways to make the job easier and better for the folks hacking the mish. Not adding barriers and challenges. I get that some individuals probably screwed up. Ok, deal with them. Harshly if it's deserved. But you don't deal with it by dumping a policy like this on the hundreds of people who don't deserve it. Unless you want to alienate yourself, as a leader, and create distrust between you and your people. And then he has the audacity to give the only blanket waiver to the freaking O-6 promotion party? Are you kidding me? You couldn't put yourself on an island quicker if you tried. This was handled in the worst way possible and reflects poorly on how the AF chooses and grooms leadership. Maybe at one point this OG/CC was a solid guy. But something has obviously changed, if that is so. And I see that happening all the time as guys move past a certain level. It's a shame. The AF excels at turning good officers and pilots into pompous, arrogant, aloof douchebags.

This policy will accomplish three things.... 1. Destroy morale. 2. Destroy leadership's credibility. 3. Force people to drink off-base where there are no built-in DDs and zero shits given about drinking "responsibly" as they would on-base.

I also like that the only "waiver" being offered with no caveats is the O-6 promotion. I guess all the dudes promoting to O-2 to O-5 aren't important. Or can't be trusted.

I gotta say, very cool of the Colonel to give his approval for civilian family members permission to drink alcohol (responsibly). Didn't know they needed his permission, but what a nice gesture.

I'm curious... how much would the bonus have to be to keep you in, assuming the institutional problems of the AF don't get any better? For me, in my current community, it would have to be in the neighborhood of $75k/yr for 8 yrs and half of that as a lump sum. That could change. However, I have a suspicion that if the AF wants to simply throw money at this problem, they'll have to really open the checkbook.