Danny Noonin

harumph!

Speaking for the reserves...RAP is 6 per month plus a sim for me. Just like heavy squadrons...that's the min. You can fly as much as you can weasel yourself on the schedule...that depends on how many days you have available. Could be a ton, could be the min. I think guard fighters are the same. I believe that's a lot more sorties than the heavy dudes are required to fly for mins. That really translates into about 8 days a month when SOF/Top 3/Queep get thrown in. This is for the "experienced" column. Not sure how it works for reserve babies since we don't have any in the associate world. Disclaimer...I'm in an associate squadron, so I fly attached to a regular active duty squadron. I believe your typical guard/reserve fighter squadron deals with part timers a little better...i.e. more surges/double turns/etc. to get the sorties in fewer days. As far as keeping proficient...yeah, it's tough. But getting a min of 6 sorties per month compared to a normal active duty month isn't a killer as long as you are getting good sorties. I showed up in this sq as an IP/SEFE, so it's not like I've had to do any upgrades or anything. That would be difficult at best for continuity reasons...my part time guard bros tell me that it can be very tough to get in the upgrade line depening on how often they are able to be around. Overall for me, it's been a tough year...F-15 grounding plus a couple long (6 week) layoffs for my day job. Just when I feel back on the step, I get another layoff. Once I get back in the groove for a while (next month hopefully), I think it will be better.

What you talkin bout Willis? THERE IS NOTHING ILLEGAL ABOUT MAKING A RADIO CALL INVERTED. It's not dangerous. It's not reckless. For fuks sake! If he can't control his airplane to the point that he oversped it, than his IPs can give him crap for that. But how on earth can you give him crap for a radio call? And no, dude...it's not "same, same" as a line of duty determination for medical bills (which, by the way, applies to ALL military personnel, not just ground personnel). Get a grip. We don't (and, for that matter, can't) fine people in the military if they screw up (without it being a crime).

No idea if it's true or not, but... Are UPT studs now fair game to get roasted by the peanut gallery for checking into the airspace inverted (by the way, nothing illegal about that)....that's been a USAF UPT student tradition for thousands of years! YGTBSM

Ummm...you're right, that was a real stretch of an assumption about a dude who calls himself "shoeclerk"

Dude, if you want to bust someone's balls, bust 'em based on what he actually said. The dude said: "More than two aircraft in the pattern at an AF base seems to be an overload every time." Your response had nothing to do with what he said. So to bust someone's balls because he said "from my experience" on a subject in which you admittedly have NO experience (tower control or AF pattern) is a bit absurd. And don't even give me that crap about comparing tactical flying/getting shot at to your stress level at your air conditioned chair. I'm sure you're stressed and I don't at all belittle the stress level of FAA ATC, but it's a whole different level of stress when your own pink ass can be counted among the dead if shit goes south. And you keep thinking you "fly" my airplane if that makes you feel better. I'll continue to know that you saying "cleared direct Lendy, Lendy 5 arrival" still means I'm the one actually flying. No offense brother. Cheers.

I believe DP for O-5 is only 10%. Not positive, though.

I'll tell you which ones I treasure from when I was a Tweet FAIP...the ones with PORN ALL OVER THE BACK OF THEM. This isn't a contest where we try to make the most creative art project. This is USAF tradition.

Is there a new tradition or something? Don't you just give him a dollar bill with porn all over the back and a bottle of booze like we've done for thousands of years?

Yeah, but the fact is that you knew someone personally who knew someone in finance who could get the job done for you...almost like it was a favor. Good on you for building that relationship that led to that favor, but not everyone knows someone personally in finance or with connections in finance...that's not how it should have to be in order to work. I'm all for treating people well and I feel like I do that better than most (except maybe on this forum). The absolute wrong thing to do is to walk into finance or the MPF or anywhere else and bow up and expect to be bowed down to. Treat people respectfully to start and ask nicely and you are far more likely to get someone on the other end that is willing to help you. No one here is advocating being an asshole to support folks. They are saying the exact opposite. Everyone is saying that they try and try and all they get is the runaround. In the end, they reach frustration level delta because of non-responsive attitudes and eventually lose it. I say again, I used to work in finance. I know how it works over there. I know what it's like to be on that end. I know what happens when someone walks in all pissed off at A1C Snuffy who was not personally at fault for their predicament (doesn't work out well). I know what happens when someone walks in and talks nicely/respectfully, too. Unfortunately, that isn't always the ticket. Nor is it even usually the ticket. I shouldn't have to feel like I'm bothering them over there when I have a problem or ask a question. Sometimes that's exactly how I feel. That's the point of this whole thread.

Dude stop it. You are getting defensive and not listening to the points being made, which are valid. Do you know everything about how CE works and who does what over there? They certainly affect you if you work inside a building. What flight would you call in CE if your roof leaked? What if you wanted to do a self help project? You've got that desk's phone number memorized, right? How bout the Comm Sq? You clearly understand how everything works over there, right? After all, you've got a computer and a phone. Of course you don't know how everything works over there. You don't need to. You can pick up the phone and call over there and get pointed in the right direction if you need help. And brother, you seem to have forgotten what your job is. You essentially said "Ops doesn't affect the rest of the AF"...you couldn't be more wrong. FINANCE ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE OF OPS. The whole friggin' Air Force only exists because of ops. Your job is to support ops and all the other people who support ops. It is your job to understand your customers and their needs. It is not your customers job to memorize how the nuts and bolts of your system work. I'll repeat 2 points for you since you apparently missed them: 1) How on earth can you argue with a straight face that it's IMPORTANT for me to remember who inputs something like time of service into a computer? Seriously dude. How is that important for me? It's not info that I would use on a daily, monthly, or even annual basis. In fact, I've been around for well over a decade now and never once needed that fact. So tell me, how is that IMPORTANT for me to remember? 2) When you keep blaming your customers for all the problems, you need an attitude adjustment. Don't forget who supports who.

true

Listen dude. I never said you should know how to do personnel's job. I made a comment about your ridiculous comment (above) that you expect everyone to be familiar with how things work over there. That comment was absurd and if you think about it for a while, you'll probably figure that one out. I simply said that if people show up asking you to fix something that is really a personnel issue, then send them over there politely and without a lecture. Better yet, pick up the friggin phone and call your buddy over in the MPF and say "hey I'm sending someone over who's having a problem with X, can you help them out?" Instead, folks just get the "not my job" reaction with some attitude and are left out in the cold trying to figure shit out on their own. That's why there is an entire thread on why folks hate finance. I know exactly how thankless a job it can be where you're at. And I know exactly how people bitch at finance for things that you have no control over. Don't even start with me on any of that shit. But you gotta understand that no one cares about the nuts and bolts of anything that happens in the mission support group until something goes wrong with their personal stuff. When it does go wrong, they will have questions. The deserve to be pointed in the right direction and have their questions answered without being told they should know that shit already. And when you start blaming all the problems on your customers, maybe you need to reassess your attitude. Who supports who?

Dude you are missing the point. I don't have brain cells to remember anything about anyone else's job that I don't NEED to know. The reason I know I don't need to know it is because YOU know it and I should be able to ask you or anyone in your office to point me in the right direction if I can't figure it out on my own. I know plenty about my pay and entitlements, but how on earth can you argue that it's actually important for me to know who inputs what into a computer? Should I honestly waste brain space learning that personnel handles years of service input on the off friggin chance I need to have that done so I can save you having to answer the question? Seriously, dude, should I? Why can't I just ASK SOMEONE if that time ever comes? And if I ask, why can't I get a straight answer without getting the runaround or a lecture on how I should already know it? Nope, didn't work in mil pay, but what's the difference? You act as though this should all be common knowledge. I'm telling you that as a finance guy I didn't know that, so why on earth would I know that as a pilot?

Negative. It's not my job to know your job. If someone asks a question, it's your job to point them in the right direction if you know where that is, not to tell them they should know the answer. You don't know anything about my job, so don't tell me I should know yours or anyone else's. I usually have to hunt and peck around to find the right person. Just answer the question without the condesending attitude. By the way, I didn't know who input years of service AND I USED TO WORK IN FINANCE.

Don't forget communists and french people. Or are they one and the same?

Godspeed Gyro. You are sorely missed. Him, Him...

Masked or unmasked, it won't really matter. The AF isn't "requiring" masters for majors. The reason the promotion percentage is always around 95 is that they NEED that many majors. They will still need them, masters or not. Somehow, I'm thinking that for the 5% that don't make the cut, a masters wouldn't help anyway.

This is horrible advice. Horrible. UPT is a competition. It starts on day 1. The more queepy stuff you can know before you get there, the more you can focus on "chairflying" and other important stuff. Whoever told you that "you'll have plenty of time to know that stuff once you get there" does not remember what it's like. That is absolute horseshit. There will not be enough hours in the day. UPT, especially at first, is a firehose. Don't study the Dash 1 yet...you won't understand it, so you won't remember it and you won't be able to sort past the chaff because you don't know what is important. You can get to that later. Definitely (not probably) know the ops limits/boldface. Cold. Backwards and forwards. EXACTLY how it appears on the sheet, i.e. perfect spelling, perfect punctuation, etc. Then get on that T-6 driver site and look for something like "need to know numbers"...not sure what it's called on that site exactly, but look around and you'll find it. It will be several pages of numbers and a description of them. Learn all of those numbers. You don't need to know what they mean yet, but if you simply memorize them, it will make life much easier for you. Once it gets explained to you in systems class, you will now understand it...but more importantly you'll REMEMBER it, because you already knew the number and now know what it means. I HIGHLY recommend you take all the ops limits, boldface, and all the need to know numbers and put them on 3x5 index cards. This will take you forever. Doesn't matter. You've got nothing but time right now. You will start learning as you write. The question on one side, the answer on the other. Then grab a small, manageable stack of them every day and throw them in your pocket as you run off to your casual status job. When you find yourself bored and doing nothing (and I guarantee you will), flip through them. If you spend 5 or 10 minutes a day learning all of that stuff on casual status when you are doing nothing, you will know it all by the end and be WAY AHEAD when you get to UPT. I honest to God can still quote a couple of my flash cards from when I made them in 1995. If your goal is simply to graduate UPT, then fine...show up not knowing anything. You'll probably graduate. If you actually want to fly something in particular, then realize it's a competition. While your buds are spending their first month of academics going home and cramming to learn info that you have learned at a very medium pace over your 6 months of casual, you can spend your time chairflying, learning pattern ops, radio calls, etc. EVERY SINGLE THING YOU DO COUNTS at UPT. I've seen dudes not get what they want by the slimmest of margins. One dude I taught who didn't get a T-38 missed the cut by 3 questions on an EPQ (weekly test). 3 questions out of probably a thousand. It matters dude. Every little bit matters. Why should you listen to me and not these other dudes? I've been a UPT IP, I've been an RTU IP, I've been a CAF IP. I have given this same advice to all the casual dudes who have worked in my squadrons. Out of the dudes who listened, 2 ended up being my students in Eagles, and third one is in my operational squadron now. The dudes who didn't care are all flying stuff they didn't want to. Yes, plenty of dudes do just fine and get what they want without doing this act...and no, this won't guarantee you your choice of assignments, but it speaks to your "give a shit" factor. I don't care what you want to fly...fighters, tankers, helicopters...doesn't matter. This advice holds true. Because I guarantee there will be assignments on the board on your assignment night that you DON'T want. Your job is to be in position to get the assignment that you DO want, whatever that is. No assigment is a gimme, depending on what everyone else in your class wants. Like I said, it starts on day one. No need to have a heart attack over it now, but I think you'll find that you can find 5 minutes a day every day (or at least most days) when you are on casual status without stressing yourself out. Just five or ten friggin minutes. That adds up. And I assure you that you will still find more than enough time for beer and chicks and relaxing before UPT kicks off.

No dude. Wings are not enough. You are still a student, so you are getting treated like a student, wings or not. You ARE still a dumbass. You have wings, but you don't know much of anything about employing your new MWS whether you think so or not. If you do not recognize that you are currently a dumbass, you will never stop being one. Next you will be in MQT, so you will be treated like a dude who is not MR and hasn't done anything yet. Next you will be a wingman or a co-pilot, so you will be treated like a wingman or a co-pilot who knows some stuff, but has a long way to go. And you are not in charge, so never think that you are. Then comes flight lead, IP, SEFE, maybe weapons officer. The staircase is steep. There is always another step. Until you EARN respect, you won't get treated like a member of "the club," whatever that is. The reason this job is fun is because it is challenging. Step up to the challenge and grow some thick skin. You will end up being a bro when you earn that right, but you will never stop getting shit on when you fck up. Right now, you fck up a lot. If you don't recognize that, you need to re-assess your attitude. Eventually, you will be smarter and more experienced and fck up less. Then you will get shit on less. If you cannot take shit, you will never make it in this job. The trick is to realize that it isn't personal. Dudes are just trying to make you better. If you take it personally or need a hug after a debrief, go join a sorority. But the day we stop shitting on each other when we fck up, is the day that we have given up and accepted mediocrity.