Danny Noonin

Interesting choice of words to use while making that statement.

You've seen guys with no ATP get hired at majors?

Good post

Dude, stop being such a douchebag. Before this year, the airlines had not hired much since about '08. That's pure fact, jack. That's also exactly what the dude said and yet you label him as some sort of koolaid drinker for saying it. Get a grip.

And because it's unmanned, it will be affordable as well.

"365s" didn't exist until she was a colonel. That is a recent phenomenon (GWOT) and most of her career predates that. In the olden days we used to do 90 day AEFs or one year remotes. There weren't very many remotes at all let alone for ABMs.

Can you guys not even read a bio? Career scholar? She's a WIC grad, former WIC instructor ABM. She has only 900 hours because not all ABM assignments are airborne ones. But clearly you all knew that. She's been a weapons school division cc (sq/cc equivalent), OG, and wing/cc (twice). Oh, and she was deputy CFACC too. So yeah. No relevant experience at all. She's very well regarded by tactically-minded people and did a great job as ACC/CV. And on top of all that she knows how to spell "theater" like an American. Most people with SA are good with this choice.

Excellent advice.

Well shit, I must have made it up. I was hired at a legacy too. I didn't have a type so not a factor for me personally, but dudes in my interview group did and they were asked about it. Fact, not urban legend. Many dudes I know who interviewed at other airlines were asked as well. Also fact. But that was then, this is now. I haven't heard of anything like that recently and for the reasons I listed before I think other carriers' concerns about SWA are no longer a factor.

It's not urban legend. Guys in the mid-2000s who had 737 types were routinely asked about why they had them in interviews with other companies. And not in a "tell me about all of this great experience and training you got with your 737 type rating" kind of way. SWA was growing fast and the "place to be" at the time. As a result, other carriers were losing tons of guys to SWA soon after they hired them (guys took other jobs waiting for SWA to call), so yes the type was a bit of a warning flag to other companies. At the time, the Higher Power type rating course was about $7-8k while a min run ATP was about $2-3k. Post 9-11 GI Bill was not yet in existence, so it wasn't something done on a whim. There's no real way to know the specific impacts on granting interviews or hiring decisions because companies would never admit it publicly. But anecdotally, guys at the time who had the type had a more difficult time getting called by the other companies hiring. The hiring market is drastically different today though. Just the fact that SWA is hiring guys without them is telling. 8 years ago when industry hiring was slim, it was almost impossible to get an interview there without it, even though they didn't technically "require" it until before training. Now, as the other carriers have gotten better contracts, are doing well financially, and have lots of retirements in the nearer-term (i.e. Much quicker predicted seniority rise vs SWA), other companies are not worried today about losing guys to SWA since the upside is arguably much better elsewhere.

True, except for selling leave means you worked on those days you would have been on terminal, so you got basic pay+BAH+BAS+tricare for those same days PLUS you get paid up to 60 days base pay ON TOP of that. If it's a purely financial decision, selling back will get you far more money unless you will be able to start a new job on terminal and double dip.

You know dude, for someone who said this isn't an argument yet has quibbled non stop about every one of my posts, you sure seem to take a lot of personal shots. Notice I haven't taken any at you. Stay classy Bendy.

I'm saying that you cannot define a top tier strat simply by the pool (e.g. captains vs CGOs) because it's more complicated than that. The factors that complicate it are too numerous to fit into a nice little "tier 1, tier 2, etc" rule set, so I'm saying that you have to look at each case individually to see what strat our of what pool will communicate the message you are trying to communicate, whatever "tier" that may be. Does that make sense? You seem to have suggested that the gray area left by an "it depends" situation is bad. I'm saying it's not. It allows freedom and flexibility to communicate a variety of messages by accounting for a variety of variables. By purporting to provide a bit of mentoring on the process using an oversimplified rule set, I think that Champ could unintentionally mislead some young pups who would latch on to a black and white list like that and perpetuate a myth. So I chimed in. Valid. I didn't mean to come across like that. You'll notice by the time stamps I edited it away before you even posted.

I'm not even sure if we're having the same conversation anymore. I think we are mostly in agreement, but I'm in violent disagreement with this quote. "It depends" is not a shitty answer. It's the right and best answer and it's actually quite helpful if you really understand it. Champ laid out his wisdom on tiers of stratifications. I pointed out that, while his decision tree might work sometimes, there are a million individual situations where it would not. Each case is separate, and the exceptions are not limited to lieutenants getting CGO starts or majors getting FGO strats. "Padding the denominator" as he put it, is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends both on what the denominator is and what the respective numerator would be in each pool. I can tell several different stories with the same person. A guy who is #2/4 captains might be a super strong swimmer in a pool of all-stars or he might be a clown in a pool of 4 clowns and there are just 2 guys with floppier shoes. So I can adjust the overall picture accordingly by changing the pool to tell the story I"m trying to tell. #2/4 captains does not read strong, even thought the guy in question might be great. #2/10 CGOs reads pretty strong. See what I mean? It does depend on the total picture of each individual circumstance and therefore trying to mentor guys by saying there is a (mostly) black and white tier structure within numerical strats like Champ did is a disservice. There are subtleties and nuances that can be used to make a guy seem stronger or less strong on paper to match what his performance is in reality. So "it depends" is the right answer and for guys who are trying to learn how to do this well, guys should understand that. I'm out

Maybe. It depends. If I take my shittiest officer and say something negative about him, by reg that becomes a referral report. You understand that, right? The dude may not warrant a referral report. He may be below average in reality, but doesn't deserve a career killing OPR that prevents him from even making major. If everyone is doing it, I'm not "inflating" his chances for promotion by doing it too. I'm keeping things consistent and making his chances for promotion fair relative to the pool.

It depends on what the actual numbers are, Champ. You said: I'm telling you that's an over generalization, far too formulaic, and often times bullshit. I can give you a million examples of when a CGO or FGO strat would be better than a captain or even a Lt Col strat, so it does not at all bump someone down into another "tier" to use the other one. It depends on the number. does it water down the denominator? Yeah, sometimes. But sometimes I need a bigger denominator to actually make the point I'm trying to make. Does #1 of 2 captains sound better than #1 of 8 CGOs? No. But according to your rules, that means I'm giving him a second tier strat and should stick with the first one. Bullshit. See what I mean? It. Fucking. Depends. Fair enough, but here's what you originally posted: So your specific example had a "major" strat being better than an FGO strat for a major. Just sayin'.

Yeah, get past the literal words. If you read an OPR that said "average officer" would you really interpret that to mean the guy was an average officer? i.e. doing just fine, middle of the road, promote on time? Fuck no. You'd read that the guy was an oxygen stealer. Now go with "slightly below average officer". That guy still makes O-5 if taken literally. But that's not how anyone actually reads that line. Make sense? So if you want to be the guy to take a moral stance when rating someone and say that you are only going to write down literally what you think of your dudes performance, then you're an asshole. Because that's not how anyone else is doing it, so you just fucked someone over. I've had this discussion with many a "core values" crusader who stomped their feet about integrity. You can do that with yourself if you want, but when you are messing with the careers of someone else, you play the game. And the game--as ludicrous as it is--is that you concentrate on communicating the correct message to a board or to outside readers. If you communicate literally, you will NOT be sending the message you intend to send. So focus all your "integrity first" energy into sending the correct message about a person, not using words literally. I think its ridiculous too. But that's the system right now and I can't fucking change it. Can you? So there are ways to write using just words--not numerical strats--that communicate clearly whether a guy who is not in the top 20% is still a strong swimmer or average or no so much. Its not that difficult.

Wrong. It definitely matters who is a 30%-ish guy vs a 50%-ish guy vs a 70%-ish guy. While you may not give them a numerical start, you can pretty easily communicate about what level the guy is at with words. Why does it matter beyond 20%? Well, until our recent budget fiascos, the top 35% of a year group went to IDE in res. That's one reason. Another one is that the 30% guy--if he sticks around--will likely be an O-6 some day, while the 70% guy will not. Don't believe me? Look at the O-6 promotion statistics, project forward to this mythical captain or major's O-6 board, then remove all the guys who stratted above that 30% guy who got out at 12 or retired at 20 from consideration. He makes it easily. The 50% guy is on track to eventually make O-5 and the 70% guy is probably on the bubble. While no, Bendy, I do not expect that without a numerical strat a board could put 10 guys in perfect rank order based solely on words, but they could definitely group them pretty accurately into 30-ish%, 50-ish% and 70-ish% piles. Which is a stratification.

I don't agree with you. That may be what someone told you, but it's a vast over generalization and misleads young guys trying to learn. The real answer--as always--is "it depends". Most of it depends on the pool size. Would you rather be #1/2 captains or #1/6 CGOs? I know which one I'd pick. Also, you're way off when it comes to majors. A major getting an FGO strat--which includes Lt Cols in the pool--could be a very good thing depending on how the numbers compared. Would you rather be #1/3 majors or #2/10 FGOs? Literally it's top 33% of rank peers compared to top 20% of a pool which includes more senior folks. So in this case, I'd take the #2 over the #1 without question. It's way better. But the real fallacy of what you wrote is that if there is no strat, it's all fluff. Not at all true. That's the kind of myth that makes for terrible OPR writers because they don't understand the bigger picture. Generally you strat the top 20%. Promotion rates are way beyond that, right? So there is a way to write such that you try to communicate the differential between the 30th percentile guy and the 70th percentile guy. Using phrases like "Top tier" may be one of those ways. It's really pretty easy to make that differentiation even when using all positive words. You have to get past the literal words on the paper and look for the message being sent. They are not the same thing.

Was his name Chang?

Fucking stop it. This guy can't win. For years dudes have bitched about all of the little paper cut stuff in the AF...including this sign, t-shirts, patches, masters, PME. Well guess what? We have a CSAF who is actually fixing a lot of those irritants. And every time he fixes one, someone like you bitches "well, he shoulda done X, Y, or Z instead." Do you think he cancelled an afternoon of meetings about force shaping to hammer in the sign himself? Or do you think he may simply have mentioned it to someone and it got fixed? Everything isn't an either-or! For fucks sake. The man is trying. Some things are easy fixes. Some are complicated beyond measure. If you can't get behind him, sts, who will you follow?

Sorry, there can only be one of me.

Bad assumption on your part, unfortunately. Some of the HAF JA types are not exactly the finest legal minds in the nation. And the laws that got in the way were not likely major, long-standing laws, but rather one-line snippets hidden deep within the 14 NDAA somewhere. But I fully agree--no excuse for A1 to have not understood the authorization and restrictions in advance. Total shit show.

No, FTU throughput is still an issue. If it wasn't, we'd have about half a dozen other active associations right now but we couldn't produce enough fighter pilots to man both the associations and the RegAF ops squadrons. Yes, you could theoretically crank it up, but much easier said than done and the impact is severe. FTUs are maxed out right now. To crank it up, I'd need to raid ops squadrons of IPs (they don't have enough now and stealing them drastically reduces my absorption capacity for MQT, FLUG, etc.) or IP-ready guys (again, not enough, plus I reduce my experience in the squadrons and buy an enormous IP upgrade training bill in terms of sorties). Then I need to add mx to produce more sorties....by raiding ops squadrons that are 80% mx manned and who don't have enough to produce RAP sorties now so it becomes a readiness nightmare. Then I need to add jets because I still can't squeeze enough UTE out of the jets they have no matter how much mx I throw at it. Which means I have to--you guessed it--steal from the ops squadrons and they have DOC statements to meet and RAP requirements. So yes, it could be theoretically done but the costs/impact are far reaching and create bigger problems than the one problem it only very partially solves.

There are only two real things that could help (not solve) the projected ~1,100 11F shortage. (For perspective, that's about ~1,100 short out of <4,000 actual 11F billets, so it's significant) 1). Retain current 11Fs. Thus the targeted bonus and all the attention in this regard. 2). Increase absorbtion capacity. We aren't standing up new fighter squadrons or FTUs, so the only way to do this is via TFI active associations with guard or reserve squadrons (formerly TFAP). Sounds easy, just send a couple young RegAF fighter pilots to each ARC squadron. But unfortunately, it's a bit more complicated than it seems because they don't have the full time maintenance to generate enough sorties to support additive RegAF bodies (with a higher RegAF RAP requirement). And the RegAF maintenance community is ~80% manned so it's pretty painful to have to cough up that many mx bodies to go and support...it requires roughly 10 maintainers per pilot. But expect to see this kind of thing slowly increasing over the next couple years (as FTU production and mx can support) until virtually every ARC fighter squadron has a small RegAF det associated.