Magellan

At what manning level? I have lived shift work at the 6-7 person per CAP for 2 years with occasional spikes to 8 per CAP(the other two years of ops). You CANNOT sustain that for a career. Oh by the way guys on wing, group, sq, and OSS staff that don't have their hind end in an ops cell, a briefing room or GCS for 6-7 hours a night don't count. Until A-1 realizes that support staff are just that, and mans the combat requirement AND the support requirement you will continue to have RPA manning problems because of burn out. The best things to EVER happen in the RPA community was when the TAMI guys got sent back to Fighters and the UPT direct guys went to manned aircraft. I am sure A-1 was pissed as hell at what this did to their spreadsheets, but HOPE that guys could get back to what they signed up to do made life a hell of a lot better for everyone involved. Right now though the 11M types on loan to the RPA community are getting screwed and they are pissed. If you don't send them back to manned aircraft you will see 80% get out as soon as their commitment is up. And if you stop loss them I would be wearing a bullet proof vest to work every day if I were a sq/cc or higher. You can only push people so far before they breakdown and the Air Force is playing a very dangerous game.

Fewer and fewer young people want to be pilots let alone military pilots. Sorry to break it to you, but Top Gun has run out of gas as a recruiting tool. And anyone smart enough to fire up Google can read this forum. So just keep educating them. I have been around young people interested in flying, and countless times heard them be told to not fly for the military because, "they are smart enough to make enough money that they can just fly for fun." Then to have retired military pilots tell them in the same conversation that "it isn't like it used to be." The best I can do after that is to keep a straight face and say nothing, because they are both telling that kid the truth. But what do I know I am not an A-1 genius that got us here. As far as the RPA stuff goes the Air Force is just jumping from one coat hanger abortion of an idea to the next to try and solve that manning problem. And right now the AF is paying General Atomics 250,000 - 400,000 a year per pilot to fly RPAs. Depending on if they deploy or not. That is the truth from the real world. Sorry Chang you may be right about Air Force personnel policy and what the general staff is doing, but that doesn't make you an expert on the rest of the stuff you are spouting off about.

Never lie around pilots. If we don't police ourselves who will. You may have just pulled a pin on a grenade. Exhibit A

No one will stay in the Gaurd or Reserve after 3-5 years of 8:1 manning. The only reason those ratios were ever able to occur on active duty was because you had guys getting sent into the community with 6-7 years of UPT ADSC OR too close to 20 years to quit. There is no quick or cheap fix to this problem. The development of the ISR industrial complex is proof of this. When you have entire missions launched, flown, recovered, supported, and maintained by Contractors to support military needs why would anyone stay in a blue/flightsuit for a career? They will get their quals, and hit the exit as fast as they can to cash in their value.

Issues with Enlisted RPA pilots in the Air Force This is probably one of the most relevant and thoughtful discussions on the topic as it relates to the Air Force.

The Air Force just needs to come to grips with the fact that our adversary's can develop sensors capable of detecting just about anything that has mass, emits electrons, reflects visible light, or has an IR signature faster than we can weaponize systems that are invisible to their sensors. A fighter aircraft based arms race may not be the best defense strategy for the pacific, but ACC and the people holding the purse strings will never accept that answer. Maybe just maybe we need to look at ways other than fighters to kick the door down before conducting full scale air operations. We overplayed the stealth card these last few decades and China and Russia are fully prepared to counter that threat so now we need a new ace up our sleeve.

Internet drink off GO!

This checks. Sorry dude.

Everything Liquid said is spot on. This man and his staffers should take the blame. Hawk Carlisle has been awesome and the first thing he did was go to CSAF, SecAF, and SecDef and sound the alarm. I agree an ISR command would be the way to go, but getting there from here is going to be damn near impossible in the short term. This is because there is no one qualified to lead it, and no bodies to staff it. You have maybe 2 guys with stars (Gjersten and Hecker) out there that somewhat get it, and 2 O-6's between Cliffie Cluff and Slider Cantwell who are both solid. The rest of the O-6 level leaders with the exception of Raygun Alves have mostly just been corporate yes men. AFSOC's RPA situation is even more broken than ACC's but ACC is the bigger of those two monsters since they run the school house and everything except the 3 SOS and 33 SOS. Both of which are the biggest retention drain on the community; just ask anyone who has been there. Their problem is they have continually brought in former 53 drivers into leadership positions, and they would rather run their people into the ground than tell their leadership the truth. OR they are just that ignorant that they don't understand what they are putting their line flyers through.

That is because the ones with good things to say (not that there are that many good things to say) have stayed in RPAs and fall into one of the following categories: FTU Instructor Flying the RQ-170 WIC Grad or currently a WUG TPS Grad or in the hunt to become one Plus there are some guys out there that have had the novelty of being back in manned aircraft wear off for one reason or another that are looking to head back to RPAs voluntarily in the very near future.

Suitcases of hundred dollar bills would probably be a good place to start...

Considering for a second how many people go to the Academy just so they could get a pilot shot. How crazy is it that you can get 18 year old kids to sign up for just about anything? And it isn't very likely after 4 years of indoctrination they will know any better at age 22 that a commitment locking them in until age 37 is a bad idea. Unless of course they do some research and stumble upon forums like these. I think this is funny when other gigs like the 18A job only have a 6 year ADSC. Especially when you consider the only thing keeping the wheels on the RPA wagon is utilizing UPT grads that were non-vol'd or wanted to get the hell out of their old community. But don't worry we have General Chang at A1 to make it all go smoothly!

Right now (Summer and Fall VML) operational test can't get any rated pilot bodies in the door, because we are considered a nice to fill and not a need to fill. The 53rd Wing falls behind ops squadrons and training squadrons to include FTU, UPT, IFF, PIT, etc. in the priority list for manning. That said the only guys that seem to be able to work their way in with any consistency are fast burner WIC types that are using it as a holding pattern between WIC instructor and IDE in residence. So while those opportunities do exist people need to realize they are VERY hard to get into, and everything is competitive.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/4176713618001/how-critical-are-drones-in-the-war-on-terror/?#sp=show-clips

15B 1 F-16 Pilot 1 F-15E Pilot 1 B-1 Pilot 2 C-17 Pilots 1 B-52 Pilot 1 F-15 WSO 1 MQ-1/9 Pilot 1 Marine Harrier Pilot 7 Active Duty FTE 1 Civilian FTE 17 Total Of note class size is shrinking and it appears to be on the pilot side if 15B and 16A are any indicators. RUMINT was TPS plussed up the student numbers a while back with the promise of increased instructors to follow, but they never got extra faculty so they had to scale back to not burn the faculty into the ground.

They have.... Follow that link and search for Creech AFB.

In my opinion his article doesn't reflect reality. Having been there and heard what Welsh had to say I think Tony Carr missed the mark, and he has lot all credibility with me. The spin on that blog article is sickening. I can only assume the rest of his articles are a similar mix of half truths pandering to upset people to make them more upset. Welsh was honest and told us he was going to fix what he could, but that he couldn't fix everything some people saw as a problem due to budget and man power constraints. As far as him saying "No help is on the way" that couldn't be farther from the truth. He is fighting for us all the way up to the Sec Def along with Gen. Carlisle which is a good start. When Hostage was running ACC he pretty much spit in the face of any RPA guy he could every chance he got i.e. his speech at the 2012 Nellis/Creech/NTTR Air Force Ball. The other thing that no one asked is what is being done at Cannon? Creech's quality of life is still infinitely better than the RPA guys at Cannon.

You also realize he is the only service chief in the last decade that has had to deal with sequestration, and his budget and man power being slashed while not expecting any reduction in bases, aircraft, or mission capability. He gave a speech today at Creech, and he cares but he doesn't have the resources to make everyone (or anyone) happy. He is straight forward, and willing to discuss anything. But he was also willing to put people in their place from a SSgt, to a Major, to the friggin wing commander (in front of his wing) when they asked questions about "why are we getting worked so hard" and he told them "everyone everywhere is getting worked hard...it isn't just here. So any bodies or resources I move are getting taken from somewhere else." That said, he also pointed out that he is robbing Peter to pay Paul to get us some help and that the COMACC will be working hand in hand with him. He has been given a heaping pile of manure and he is doing what he can to hand out palatable sh*t sandwiches, because that is all he has to offer. If you don't like it blame/contact your elected officials.

Spent a month there TDY in the last year. Town seems pretty legit compared to where most Air Force bases are located. Good food selection and all the amenities you could want shopping, airport, things to do outdoors, etc. You have the usual terrible southwest United States drivers to deal with (no kidding I drove past an accident scene in an intersection over half the times I left base). I think cost of living wise you can do pretty darn well on officers pay, but I am sure someone else that is stationed there can speak to it more intelligently. I am not to up on the school/housing situation if that is a major consideration. Oh and Moriarty is one of the biggest/best glider ports in the country with a really solid commercial glider outfit if that interests you at all.

I just hope that is enough.

Yes. The mission wouldn't happen without the reservists. They just stood up a reserve operations group (726th) at Creech in order to support this. TR's just do the standard reserve schedule, but pretty much have carte blanche to go on orders for a few days-months at a time whenever they want to. This is a great option for people who have their own side business or just want a part time job where they can set their own schedule.

That is the point...the increase doesn't cost the Air Force ANYTHING until that person is eligible to vote with their feet. This should come into play in about 6-9 months. Basically it will work out to $10,200 a year before taxes for guys to stick around after their 6 year commitment is up. The only "equity issue" I see is the really young UPT guys that will spend 3-4 years doing the same job for less than their peers, and getting bent out of shape about it. But I guess $40,000 difference in pay in exchange for a FAA commercial and instrument rating is probably a fair trade at the end of the day. If you want to see the worst deal in the RPA community sign up for one of those contractor gigs. The money may look good, but they make you earn every cent. The good deal lucrative RPA contracts are all drying up as a result of sequestration and ACC piling all it's money into the F-35.

Most likely Petraeus, Holder, and Lerner will all be on the pardon list as Obama leaves office. Just my guess.

Well your contribution options for taxable income are $5,000 into an IRA either Roth or Traditional (or a combination of the two as long as your IRA contributions don't exceed 5,000) and $17,5000 (2014) or $18,000 (2015) into a 401k in this case TSP. Here are some examples where a traditional investment makes more sense than a Roth. Example 1. - You are not planning on retiring from the military. This matters because it means that you won't have the military retirement setting a floor for your income tax rate in retirement, because a military pension will all be taxable income. - You already have a lot of ROTH investments so upon reaching retirement you will have access to some non-taxed income. - The math works out that by contributing a certain portion of your income into a traditional you qualify for additional tax breaks now. Earned income credit, child tax credit, deductions for student loans, etc. Basically it keeps your AGI below phase out limits for these items. -This also still leaves the door open for a ROTH conversion down the road as well. In this situation you have a lot of flexibility, but also a lot of complexity. When you retire you should have a sizable amount of money in both Roth and Traditional and you can effectively manage your tax bracket by choosing which to withdraw from. Additionally, if you really want to dive into it you could always live off the Roth tax free, and borrow from the balance of the traditional within IRS guidelines. This would prevent you from being taxed on the traditional while still being able to utilize the funds as a virtually interest free loan from yourself. Also, you could provide tax free gifts from your traditional IRA as well within IRS guidelines to avoid paying income tax on them as well while still being able to use/move the funds. The only gotcha is the required distributions at age 70 1/2 at which point in time your ability to control your income tax rate is no longer in play and your decision to contribute to a traditional may bite you in the ass if you have enough money in it. Hence why you may have wanted to exercise the ROTH conversion option previously mentioned. Example 2. -You are married and your spouse makes a lot of money, but you are still under the Roth contribution limit. -At some point in the future you suspect your spouses income level will drop significantly and remain that way until retirement. In this case you are in the situation to where your income level in retirement could very easily be lower than your current income level. Therefore it is to your advantage to avoid a tax rate of say 28% or higher on that portion of your income in order to pay a lower effective tax rate later on say 10-15%. That said I think (**my opinion**) using traditional contributions to earn tax breaks is at best a break even, or short term gain with a slightly reduced return in the long run in most cases. Short of doing the math based on A LOT of assumptions though I can't speak smartly to your exact situation.

The benefit of a tax break now is that it benefits you now, which can make the Traditional more attractive to some people. The Traditional vs Roth is a crystal ball question, and it all depends on which crystal ball you want to view your future through in terms of what is best for your specific situation. If you make a few reasonable assumptions. 1. Your income tax rate will be higher in retirement than it is right now. 2. You are possibly able to max your TSP contribution of $18,000 for 2015. Then ROTH TSP is infinitely better because $18,000 after taxes is a lot more money to be earning compound interest when you finally get it than $18,000 of before tax income from Traditional TSP. But that means you will have less money now, and you will be paying more taxes now. This is the reason the government doesn't let "high income" (129,000 single/191,000 married filing jointly) people use Roth Investments. It is meant as good deal for "low to medium income" people to encourage them to save for retirement. If you are going to contribute less than $18,000 to your TSP than it depends on your exact situation wether Traditional vs Roth is better for you, but I don't think you would ever be grossly wrong to bet on the Roth in the vast majority of situations.