viper154

I would say f it (the promotion) Focus on flying, they aren’t kicking out passed over pilots anytime soon. Get the upgrade and continue crushing checkrides. Get all that A code time you can for your ATP mins. Do what you got to do to make yourself competitive for the airlines. Depending on the timing you might need to take a regional gig for a year or two. Start networking now for guard/reserve gigs. If you have trouble getting a flying gig you can easily get a non flying job or a staff gig that gets ya that tricare. My buddy got a staff gig, only goes in a couple times a year, only does it for the tricare. If staying on AD is more your gig take the bonus when you are eligible.

It’s still a “flying assignment” So yes, reference all the 11s that in the past were sent to drones. I did 3 years in drones, about 3 years ago when I made my escape back to manned flying the 18x community was trying to get rid of most the 11s and get them back in manned aircraft. I did see Randolph T-6s on our Wings white jet allocations to fill for the Winter 22 VML. Not sure if they were to teach PIT or at the RPA training squadron.

AFSOC over the last 5 years has slowly turned into AMC lite. Talking with my AMC bros I question if AFSOC is actually worse now, maybe not on the checkride front, but just about everything else I’ve seen 4 Q3s the last couple years in my corner, 2 deserved clean kills, 2 were BS punishment. I have seen a couple bone headed things happen that weren’t deliberate negligence, in which the crew made good decisions after to get down safely, they fessed up immediacy and it went way of the public humiliation Friday brief (in my opinion as it should have) so that gives me hope.

I would trade the M9 for a 1911 all day every day.

Winter on Fire on Netflix, been on my watch list for awhile, in depth look at the revolution that occurred in 2014 ousting the former puppet government. Pretty graphic, protesters marching and getting violently beaten by the puppet governments goons, eventually turned into goons sniping protesters. Some good insight into why these people are fighting so hard, and will most likely continue to do so as long as the Russians are in their boarders. It’s also a great example of why the second amendment is so important.

I would have to imagine if the Russians somehow pull this off the insurgency is going to be much more bloody than Afghanistan. The Ukrainian people have shown they want no part of Russia, and have the backing of pretty much all the Western world. Motivated goat farmers living in mud huts ousted two of the worlds superpowers with basic weapons, IEDs, a limited supply of stingers, and the will/patience to continue to resist. Ukraine people have higher levels of education, advanced weapons, and vast support from the west. A puppet government would fall and I don’t see the police/military protecting a puppet government. My opinion, biased by our western media and the twitter videos coming out of Ukraine, the only way to get the people to comply and stop an insurgency would be mass imprisonment and most likely a genocide. If Putin withdraws he’s done, if he continues it will only get more bloody, and everyone is walking a fine line trying to avoid WWIII, it’s a loose/loose/loose situation.

The drones being used in Ukraine compared to something like the -9. I appeared to jump to gun a little bit and while quickly reading your post I think I miss understood your point. On paper a comparison to the -1 seems fair somewhat fair. Compared to the -9 it’s rather inferior. Without going into to much detail, I would argue something like -9 wouldn’t be the tool for this job. Something smaller, less costly, and with a easier logistic foot print (much like what the Ukrainian military has) is much better suited. In this war, you want to be mobile with a small foot print, not logistically challenging (fuel, parts, mx, etc) and simple infrastructure (runway requirements, data links, mobile command box) As with any fixed wing asset, you are going to trade payload, range, and loiter abilities.

No.

I think he miscalculated Ukraine's motivation of its people, and especially it’s president. I’m guessing he figured after a day or two of fighting the president would flee, government collapse, and everyone just give up. Russia has lots of armor in storage to replace its losses. While their Air Force has decent numbers on paper their FMC status is questionable at best. (I have no behind the scenes knowledge, just open source I have seen in the past) They degraded the Ukraine Air Force in the opening rounds, and Russian aircraft continued to fall from the skies via SAMs and Stingers. With a partially conscript army it’s easier to replace a couple thousand bodies than several hundred aircraft. Might as well save the jets in case this escalates and he needs to defend the boarders, and go old school, sacrifice the bodies, use artillery and long range missiles.

China has deep pockets in Hollywood, I believe something like 40% of all movie funding in Hollywood can be sourced back to China. They had a bunch of the patches changed/altered on Mavs jacket for Top Gun 2 if they ever release it.

How much time per month are you spending in the scheduling software working the system, does it take some time to make this advantageous or is this a simple 20-30 minutes sipping a cold one or two? apologies for the ignorance, I am just getting to the point it’s time to start exploring post AF options, and my scheduling back ground involves pucks/white boards and hoping pex won’t crash.

I once attended a pre deployment brief he put on for a squadron going out the door. Figured it was going to be the standard “go get ‘em, be safe, and the country thanks you for service” type deal. Boy was I wrong. Story was basically he swapped out another deployed SQ CC back in the early 2000s right before the holidays, GO1 was in effect. Line dogs asked him if he was going to fly in booze for Christmas like the previous CC did the year before. He said no, started a CDI, and got the previous CC who was his “buddy” a Art 15. (I think, I don’t 100% remember the punishment) He concludes the story with his buddy ended up getting out and has had a successful airline career after the incident. it was the strangest pre deployment pep talk I’ve ever heard, and told me everything I need to know about my employment choices when my time is up.

I don’t know the details but my unit got a couple of casual LTs from a UPT base to help out around squadron for 6-9 months while they wait to start UPT. It’s a long shot but if there is a Air Force base that’s somewhat close to your family (at least close enough to drive to them on the weekends) you might be able to sell a alternative duty location/or get into that casual Lt program.

Couple tanker dudes have cross flowed to AFSOC the last couple of years if that’s your cup of tea. It’s a double edged sword though.

It will make for a hell of a story at a airline interview with job offer at the end.

Is this a result of the new syllabus or the change in IFS going from a screening program to a training program? Or both

I cut my car insurance in half with Gieco, they also gave me the best rate I could find for my boat. Home owners I had to go local, all big companies wanted almost double what local companies were quoting. (Hurricane prone area). I still use USAA for banking, although my wife uses Navy Federal for her business and personal account, no complaints this far.

Ha! The government doesn’t force you to to buy a gun, force you to get a drivers license, force you vote, or force you to immigrate here. And for fucks sake, you tried to argue that immigration is right!! Article one, section 8, US Constitution gives the authority of immigration law to Congress!! I see why they keep you in the back of jet. I also see why you got passed over the first time, makes perfect sense now.

Completely irrelevant to any point. Nice attempt at deflection though. If you would like to have a productive conversation about vaccines, in particular the covid vaccine, and the governments role in that, I am happy to have a healthy debate. If you want to deflect any productive conversation into a keyboard warrior pissing match, I’m not interested. Based on all your previous responses to other people, I’m guessing you will be choosing the later route. I encourage you to take a step back and attempt constructive conversation instead of deflecting any post that differs from your opinion. Edit to add-Immigration isn’t a right btw, Constitution specifically grants Congress the power to make immigration law.

I think revisiting the Constitution and Bill of Rights is worth a look. I’m no constitutional lawyer but it seems our government was founded on protecting citizens from the government. To your examples vs a vaccine, driving is a privilege not a right. (Or at least that is what the government aka the people have decided). To retain that privilege certain requirements must be met. As far as requiring the general public to get a experimental vaccine (forcing someone to put a foreign substance in their body) that has no long term health data, and possible long term health side effects, I would say fundamentally goes against “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” which can be found in our Declaration of Independence. As far as the military is concerned, once you sign the paperwork you are kind of fucked. They can order you to die in combat, they can order you to get a vaccine.

Sweet, no pointless deployments to 3rd world self imploding shitholes, sounds good to me. *To be clear, that’s sarcastic, I would guess that would get you on the non deployable list and kicked out or something.

It was his first pass, I was actually surprised , he had a decent amount of time left on his commitment.

I know guy that passed over last year, submitted a palace chase app, got hired by a guard unit, and was out of AD pretty quickly.

I was equally as shocked. It was 4 or 5 years ago, things were a little calmer in the firearms market. I believe the ATF wait time page was 9-10 months at the time. Like I said, the store had some sort of extenuating circumstance with changing their license or something, but their were several us that were picking up our cans at the same time all equally shocked/happy.

I enjoy mine. I think it was a worth while investment. I used silencer shop and their app/kiosk set up, made the paperwork a super simple for a dummy like me. i also used their pre canned trust (pun intended) I just needed something simple so it worked out well. I also got lucky, something about my local dealer needing to change their FFL license or something (I don't remember the details) but I was expecting a 9-12 month wait, I was shocked when I got a phone call after 3 months my tax stamp was in and I could pick up my can. I guess they needed all pending transactions off their old license and were able to expedite all their paperwork.