FlyinGrunt

All of Nob Hill is south of I-40, as is UNM . . . am I missing something? Not that I don't get your point about the no-mans-land between Central and the airport.

Because then we could abandon this idiotic, childish idea that all officers at the O-3 level are the same, and should be compared as such. Captains are not generals, and nobody should give a fvck about SOS or the other "common discriminators." The very idea goes against the AF's own doctrine of CGOs getting in-depth knowledge and experience in their specialty.

Bashi, I see the part you're talking about, but if you read on you'll see the part about the 2011 phaseout. Whoever wrote (read: copy/paste/don't change) this didn't do a good job of attention to detail. I'm sure they'll fix the glitch after someone tries a little throwback thursday action. Not that I give 2 fvcks about the Shoe Clerk Vol 3, but I like all my sh1tstorms the be caused intentionally, not through misreading some reg.

Depends on what timeframe you're talking about for the W; for the past 2-3 years the time to upgrade is on par with the legacy timeline.

No. If you decline continuation, the twice-passed-over DOPMA rule trumps all, and you gotta get out NLT 6 months after the board's release date.

Re: AC-H/U/W/J: I sure wouldn't bet on it. Especially the J: unless I am mistaken, as of now you'll be getting a BQ Form 8 from Kirtland in the MC-J enroute to the AC-J. Def not the same airplane there.

Cannon doesn't help either.

Wow. And some people thought the NM shadiness ended with the Cannon debacle . . .

Yeah. Here comes stop loss after we double-tap dozens of more pilots between the 07/08/09 crunch. What do you think . . . in effect March 2018?

I'm gonna be lazy and not quote the reg (officer promotions, IIRC), but I already looked that up. If you don't answer within the 60 day window, MPF considers that a "decline" and starts the separation process.

You've got 60 days from Thursday to give them an answer. Why not let Big Blue squirm a bit waiting?

Public release is on Thursday at 1400Z. Some dudes are already getting told by their commanders

Why not toss out the whole T-6 side? That's exactly how we used to do it at Corpus. Put differently, your drop was based solely on your performance in the T-44/TC-12.

2. We named all kinds of stuff after Spirit 03 and Jockey 14 . . .

Our FTU is ok with it as well.

For anyone wanting a reg reference: AF 36-2501 7.7-7.8: 7.7. MPF Career Enhancement Element. 7.7.1. Prepares the continuation acceptance or declination statement to accompany the letter that notifies the officer of continuation. NOTE: Selective Continuation Program definitions are located at Attachment 1 for review. 7.7.2. Ensures commanders notify selected officers of continuation upon public release. 7.7.3. Ensures officers return signed continuation letter to MPF within 60-calendar days from public release date. 7.7.4. Forwards a copy of declination statement to MPF Relocations Element to initiate separations/ retirement processing. 7.7.5. Returns all acceptance/declination statements (original only) to HQ AFPC/DPPPO, signed or unsigned. Annotates circumstances of unsigned statements, i.e., ―member failed to return letter.‖ NOTE: Involuntary separation actions will be initiated by HQ AFPC on officers who fail to sign the statement within 60 days from public release. 7.7.6. (For overseas locations only) Ensures MPF Relocations Element corrects the officer's date eligible to return from overseas (DEROS) after update of DOS from HQ AFPC/DPPPO. 7.8. Commanders. Notify officers, in writing, of selection for continuation and advise them to return acceptance statement or declination to the MPF within 60 calendar days of release date.

damn, how did I miss that? I was reading that reg this morning! Thanks though!

I'm hoping they screw up radically like last year and the results get massively delayed til Dec 10 or so. But that's my agenda, and I think most everyone else wants to know ASAP. I guess we'll see. Donuts/guineapig, thanks for the word.

May be looking at being twice passed over for Major pretty soon. If they offer you continuation, how soon do you owe them an answer about taking it? I have some other plans in the works and I'd like to hold off until I have all the facts, if you know what I mean.

So we're officially dropping the AC-J now. Holy crap

I'll echo that to deaddebate: Props, man. It's hard to get solid coverage of where a bill/proposal is in the MSM, at least in terms of progress and chances for successful passage, but you do a great job posting on here about such things.

Also, Snaplock: most who know me know that were I the WG/CC, the support squadrons' duty day would look a lot different. I'm of the Robin Olds school: "If I can send a man to fly combat 24 hours a day, he can get paid 24 hours a day!" 1. I would eliminate all internal training between 0730-1630. ("closed for training") 2. I would mandate at least min manning during all squadron functions. Hell, I might forbid squadron functions 0730-1630. 3. While this might be negotiable, I would mandate some manning from about 0300-2300, with full manning during duty hours. MX dudes are working as long as we are, and they have a right to be supported too. And so do I after flying during a night week. 4. Good cop: in AFSOC, this isn't an issue, but I would force-feed the interfly to the support types and ops types alike. Get these folks seeing what they're supporting, and morale goes up - every time. I've seen it time and time again, across AFSCs - show them, and tell them, about what you do and how their help makes your life easier, and you get the results you want. 5. Bad cop: don't like the increased duty hours? I seriously don't care. Chang, I'm taking a page from your playbook: I can train a new CP in an AFSOC C-130 in an average of 2 years. I can train a new 3-level finance troop in 2 weeks. Guess who I care more about retaining? Especially since you A1 types continue to insist that supplying an endless stream of 3 levels and 25 hour copilots replaces the combat tested Pro Sups, IPs, WOs and others we're hemorrhaging . . .

SOF truth: Humans over hardware. FHP: AFSOC is doing FAR better than most in the CAF/MAF, but I still have most copilots telling me they fly between 1-2 times A MONTH. And that's after not getting to fly an actual airplane at all at LRAFB. Chang, et al: our proficiency level is terrifying. I'm with Brabus - the "real" IPs, WOs, etc are struggling as much as they can, but there's only so many hours in a day, after HAF and Congress-mandated programs and training. Your chief villain is the lack of support manning, bc the comparative advantage is massive in terms of man hours. I am an AFSOC pilot, and therefore I can do anyone and everyone's jobs (please note the satire, folks) - but my time is spent more productively flying and instructing. Any Fortune 500 company knows this. If you're claiming to fight for us, time to man the F up and speak truth to power. Tell the Congresscritters how useless their latest mandated training, or tell HAF that having 6 separate mandated training syllabi for SAPR is only trivializing the gravity of the issue and wasting precious combat training time. I will speak some heresy: most additional duties are best done - by us. DOT, DOV, DOK - duh. Most are better when we are in charge, albeit with non-aviator SMEs helping. Do you think some finance troop knows what gear to buy for the next deployment? (this is huge in AFSOC.) I've motivated dudes in office drudgery by reminding them that 80% of what we do . . . is for us. It's not a piece of paper, it's a mission, a person, a career, an asset that we have to develop for the future. That having been said, give me more people, more FHP, and more jets. We can fix a lot, but only if They That Are So High stop telling Congress that all is well. P.S. Yeah, I just drank a bunch of whiskey

We had a guy 5APZ get it for O-4 this last one. His line number was 4, I believe.

No, I should have been more specific. It's not -the- FTU, but the 551st SOS is -an- FTU for the -9. We're done with the -1; don't know if Holloman is as well. What can I say, I try not to absorb any more drone knowledge than I have to . . . I'm worried that it's contagious. (I keed, I keed . . . well, mostly.) What I was really getting at is that as much as we bitch about it, the nature of student controllers and students in a number of wildly different MDSs (and some that probably should still be students in the others - we've got 6 or 7, depending on how you count!), combined with being in BFE, is probably exactly the kind of environment you described, Clark.