di1630

JOINT TIME IS NOT REQUIRED TO BE A GOOD LEADER. NATO is a shitshow, and our services still are full of generals who would rather stamp their name on a pet project than kick our enemies asses. The best future Generals have already left for the airlines.

Lighten up there Francis, friendly joke. I have led the single seat, single jet-engine/tail lifestyle where I went running for high key when I hit a bird.

Highly doubt it would simply be an issue of running tanks dry. That being said (Causal factor) Mishap aircraft was a delicate single engine F-16 "lawn dart"

Chuck, quals....experience, school, only SOS in-Res, others by correspondence. Here's my point and example. I dg'd sos for essentially boozing and going to the gym for 5 weeks. It was a vacation. That meaningless DG essentially set me up for career bullets and perks I earned for nothing special. All I actually learned was why shoe clerks had their well deserved reputation. Going to SOS/ACSC you name it, to be a "leader" is like getting a 4-yr feminist literature degree and thinking you'll be competitive in the workforce. What does this PME education produce? I can't seem to distinguish any of the grads have a greater tactical or strategic viewpoint....nor leadership ability. The leaders the USAF needs do not need school to be USAF leaders.

All these schools, what a waste of time/resources to pull an operator away for a year. We have leadership that can't lead, procure, strategize, manage resources etc. I'd abolish every school we have as they are self-licking ice cream cones of mediocrity.

Sad that someone who finished #2 in his class in UPT feels like he "misprioritized" during UPT due to a pt test failure. This is what the USAF focuses on folks. And then wonders why the good people leave.

Just one more piece of BS tipping the scales. Problem is that the talent the USAF needs to retain is generally skilled/educated...and those people generally marry similar people. My wife has to work jobs at 1/3 the pay of what she'd get using her degree in an established career. Also, what about the loss of equity/stability we deal with moving every 2yrs and 8 mos? Sorry, I am generally a critic of lavish benefits but this is BS. Send the wrong message to young airman also about maximizing financial efficiency (roommate/living below means). Oh, I forgot, financial efficiency and the USAF are like oil and water.

If dudes haven't been in AETC and are thinking CAF attached, two different ball games. In AETC an attached guy could fly 2x sometimes 3x per day if they want. And if they don't, they finally have a reason not to get abused by the scheduler. Plus, having a wg level job in AETC gets you the same surf duty title with 69% less work than CAF when it comes promotion time.

Dude, I threw you a bit of a lifeline. I commend your positive attitude but you need to heed the advice to stfu and listen. Experienced guys are giving their gripes, don't discount them. I'm loving my USAF experience but I see dudes getting railed all around me so as someone who is happy, take it from me, there is a lot of truth being spoken here. Whether you dig it or not, you'll find out. But don't talk shit to experienced guys because whether you agree or not, you have Zero real insight. And don't ever ever EVER go spouting officer first at the pleasure of the president officer ship 101 outside ROTC or the shoe clerk 0900 PT session. I can't begin to tell you what a d-bag your post made you sound like. But keep up the great attitude. Best of luck.

Why crush a dude with a great attitude? I get that dudes are pissed and bitter but let him figure it out on his own. I did an assignment where two people before me didn't like it. Friends warned me off about it for both my career and family. For them it was no good. For my career aspirations and family life it was terrific. Ilovescotch....there's a fine line between being naive and uninformed. Keep the great attitude but heed the warnings on this forum.

You are right Chang! One of the things that kept me in was the stuff I can only do here. But doing PME in-res has near-ZERO impact on creating actual leaders. The good leaders in the USAF usually have been good leaders their whole life. Unfortunately the USAF thinks sending someone to Maxwell is a magic leadership ticket and had weak metrics for finding its real leaders. That's why people are jumping ship. The guys I would have followed into WW3 as a LT have jumped ship. Sadly, many of the guys I thought were risk adverse ass kissing d-bags with zero natural leadership talent went to school and are on their way to running things.

Why does anyone other than the careerists want to do school in-Res? Has the USAF brainwashing worked to make you think going to one of these schools will make you a better leader/further your career that much? For F's sake, pass. If you were on the fence about getting, being sent away for a year non-flying doing f-all should only push you more. "Yeah but it's great family life"....you can simply stop doing the BS at home station to do that as well.

Jeeezus, stop loss? What a mess us pilots have talked about for 6-9+ years. I just checked the 9 May acp update....most takers were 2015....hardly any signed up late. I have very little faith the fence-sitters are giving up $69 per day in lost bonus to hold out until last minute so I'm betting rates don't change a lot.

A long while ago before Kenny Powers even had wet dreams about being a FAIP there was a BFM shootout with 15E's, C's, 16's and hogs. You didn't know what you were fighting til the merge, heaters and guns only. Hogs took 2nd place behind c models. There's something to be said about a 2k turn radius, hi turn rate and 480 flares. Not to mention a gun that has you in a wez when you think it's outside max range.

If NATO needed to fight, they'd have a hard time getting fighters there because they'd need to deconflict the their air show schedules first. Make no mistake. If the US didn't stop it, Putin could roll into Europe no problem.

Fearmycessna, don't listen to these naysayers. First off the USAF needs new F-15's. We simply are unable to keep up with the current air to air workload that modern ops demands of our resources. You probably haven't seen the latest dogfighting stats from the Middle East or heard some of the F-15C recent war stories but I urge you to seek them out. Fascinating stuff. You have correctly figured out that an important aspect of Air to Air is looks. That's why the F-14 was such a damn fine dog fighter. Turned on a dime with those wings swept back. So I'd like to see maybe a variable wing F-15 with canted tales. With a sick paint job, shark teeth on the front with skull and crossbones on the tails.

Instead of retiring, is it possible to leave AD to a guard/reserve unit?

My jet has no flight control check per checklist except for the efcs bit....but I sure as hell do one every time before I release brakes. "Flight controls free and correct" since my first flying lesson.

Dude, I hate to sound like a dick, but if staying in the viper and going to WIC was realistically in the cards for you, you probably would have stayed in the viper to have a look vs going to AETC. I only speak this nonsense because when I was in 38s we had a viper guy show up and he'd talk about how he should have gone to WIC, his great UPT and FLUG performance etc. only to get screwed by the VML and get stuck with all us sub-par CAF rejects because AFPC screwed up. You can imagine how well everyone liked him. Advice: go to AETC with a great attitude, kick ass, go back to the CAF and climb back on up. 3 yrs goes by quick, and with a good attitude, it can be a very fun and rewarding assignment.

Why is this so damn complicated to get it certified? I once refueled from an Italian 767 tanker with boom and drougue......WTF USAF? Stop being a shitshow, build the damn thing, we'll figure out how to get gas from it, it's not rocket science.

Ughh, who cares. You want real danger and death defying....go teach pilot training. I have more air medals than my grandfather because he got shot down on his 17th mission over Tokyo. All air medals these days are inflated....damn shame. Let the RPA guys have some recognition or take up real injustices where some fighter doing ISR at 20k over the Stan gets the same medal as the help guy getting shot at. Lots of injustices. You probably aren't as cool as your ribbon rack makes you think.

Incorrect, the AF is dumping a lot of effort into service life extension programs (SLEP) for 4th gen, because even "they" realize we need a lot of 4th gen around to supplement 5th gen because we'll never get to an all 5th gen force, at least in the next 30 years. We're doing it right now, and have been for months...in a shit hole country. The high end threat is real and is all over; you don't need to start WWIII with China or Russia to fly in more than AAA and IR threats. Sorry, I meant where the double digit SAMs will actually shoot you if they can in war with weapons free air defense posture. I am aware of what you are talking about....just not quite the scenario I am implying.

What if you were a previous faip/aetc ip > CAF> then back to PIT? Still 3 years?

Hey dude, your not gonna orbit inside a double digit SAM MEZ whether you are in a F-35, F-22 or B-2 etc. There is some real misperceptions about what stealth offers and how. The L.O. Is simply going to shrink the detection range (at certain aspect angles). Double digit SAMS have been around for going on 40 years. They didn't become a big talking point until they were needed to sell the F-35. 5th gen may get closer to and detect the Double digit SAM threat earlier but you can jam or hide from barrage fire. We are gaining "some" access to a radar threat envelope and ignoring the bigger more likely AAA/IR threat that denies access. I'm pretty sure though the new vision for future CAS is lobbing SDBs from 30 miles/40,000 ft at static targets. Sounds "pretty darn good".

Geezus, even if we had a fleet of cost effective coin aircraft, our inept leadership would send F-35s + every other asset anyways. Gotta prove they are worth it, send a message. Anyone know how much it costs per hour to use the F-22 as an ISR asset or send F-15C's across the pond? If the vipers, mud hens tankers etc weren't in Syria, they'd still be flying home station. Again, F-22s for hi end a/a, F-35s for -16 replacement to do a bit of everything when needed, hogs for hi-end CAS.