Karl Hungus

As of very recently, that's exactly what DoD is hoping for/planning on. FAA is saying "not this time, not a chance, try us". We'll see how that works out.

The ones who came to my community after their UPT-D tour tended to suck. Significantly behind their peers in overall airmanship, SA, etc, and way behind in terms of upgrades vice others in their year group. Not all, of course, but it was a noticeable trend.

I said Budda's plan would be a massive improvement. I don't believe the AF would be able to pull it off without f-ing it up, though.

How many of those are involuntary, relative to AD? How many are to Tampa? My point was that even if the AF "fixes the glitch" when it comes to these worthless deployments, it's still competing with the guard/reserve and the civilian sector for 11x talent. I don't know about you, but there's lots of folks who would much rather sit reserve on the MD-88 in NYC and/or be a guard/reserve bum than do Budda's "deploy from home" concept on AD. Basically, just like the bonus... it wouldn't be enough to change people's minds.

It would certainly be a massive improvement. Then again, going to the guard/reserve and not doing a 180/365 day "deployment" at all sounds even better.

Did you already take the bonus? It seems to be targeted at those who haven't taken/ won't take the bonus. The AF floats a few trial balloons in it- increase the bonus to $35/yr pre-tax (only corrects for inflation since late 90s), 15 year UPT ADSCs where 8 are on AD and 7 in the ARC (because we all know the AF won't screw that one up), and (the most interesting) shorter bonus contracts, potentially down to one year. I can see lots of people waiting til the last minute and signing a one year bonus ADSC. The worst the AF could do is send you on a 180 deployment. You could still 7 day/ 3 day opt a PCS, 365, etc. That doesn't really help management though, so who knows what they're thinking. Haven't heard from Liquid in a while...

I'd hope people realize that a potential $35k bonus simply corrects the current $25k bonus for 15+ years of inflation. I doubt it would meaningfully change the dynamic- those who take the bonus now or at $35k are still those who were going to stay anyway. Based on what folks talk about in my community, I'd say the bonus would have to be approaching $50k to get people who were headed out the door to change their minds. As for the 8 years AD/7 years ARC UPT ADSC... would be interesting to see how that would work. Is AD going to force ARC units to hire people? Does the ARC get a say? What if the ARC doesn't operate whatever you flew on AD, or if you want to change an airframe... who pays for the new qual? Sounds like the brainchild of some AD staffer that doesn't understand how the ARC works, which isn't surprising.

Lots of those types have planned accordingly and will continue to do so by going to the ARC to make O-5.

Having the ability to tell the AF to go F themselves is a really powerful tool, isn't it?

Leading is hard. Hence, we have managers.

How's the commute to your mom's basement? Do you "loose" anything down there?

Um, okay. Not sure why the hostility- got nothing but respect for the U-2 community.

This is the first AMS Robot email regarding U-2 hiring I've seen in my career (about a decade). Are you guys having trouble getting applications?

And you know this from your experience as an airline pilot? Or from your experience trolling this site (and also APC under "gilligan13") as a weird mil-aviation fanboy? The only thing missing from your post Scoobs was a reference to how much happier people are over at "Air Warriors". Step up your game!

Say someone had 2.5 years of ADSC remaining and a pending PCS to a new airframe. So a 2 year ADSC for the CONUS-CONUS PCS and a 3 year ADSC for the training. Will AFPC not PCS you to a job that you've already 7-day opted from (the training, in this case)?

You spend a lot of time on both Air Force and Navy forums. I doubt any AF pilot spends as much time as you reading about another service. Since you obviously aren't a pilot, are you some military aviation fanboy or something? Dunno why I even ask, as we all know you won't respond.

There's a reason so many guard/reserve pilots work for the airlines. Few civilian jobs are as compatible with guard/reserve pilot requirements. Your civilian employer can't legally fire you for performing military duty, nor can they legally not hire you only because you're in the military. But that doesn't mean they can't think of a multitude of other reasons to not hire you, and thus avoid an ugly legal battle. The ones I know who balance a guard/reserve pilot job and a non-flying civilian job do so by living within driving distance to both. To be honest, where you get your MBA will be very important to your post-grad job prospects. Those types of schools aren't exactly near most guard/reserve bases, and tuition assistance (and the GI Bill, unless the school participates in the Yellow Ribbon program) certainly won't help much in affording them. The real world doesn't give a shit about a bullshit online MBA from TUI, ERAU, Oklahoma State, etc. That's ok if that matches your career goals, but those types of degrees aren't going to match up well with the Whartons, Harvards, Columbias, Stanfords, etc. That's just reality. Good luck- you've already made the best decision you could by avoiding active duty in the first place.

Ultimately, it's one big jobs program. That's it and that's all.

Apparently you can't opt out and stay active duty. You can delay going to IDE in residence as a select, but eventually you have to go- hence the 7 day opt that drives a separation date. I'm guessing plenty of them continue in the ARC.

Rumors going around that at least one MAJCOM/CC sent out a TMT tasker to vaious Wings demanding to know why so many IDE-selects were 7 day opting from IDE, as well as WIC grads 7 day opting in general. So perhaps there aren't as many people "fighting" to go as some might think.

So in conclusion, you're a statist.

I've heard rumors of Altus (C-17 and KC-135) IPs being able to get to PIT (to be an IP, not a student) without doing a UPT IP assignment, based on the fact that Altus falls under AETC. Seems dumb that KC-10 IPs, with the FTU being in-house, would be ineligible for the same, but then again this is the Air Force we're talking about.

Then again, that's assuming the 9/11 GI Bill is still around in 15-20 years for myself/spouse/kids to use.

Interesting. The $25k/year bonus (a joke at $18k/year after taxes) hasn't increased since the late 90s, and would need to be around $36k/year in 2014 dollars to match inflation. Monthly flight pay at $840 in 1999 would be around $1200 today. $650 would be about $925. As has been discussed ad nauseum, the bonus isn't really a retention tool, given that very few people use it to influence their decision to stay- the people taking the bonus were going to stay anyway, so might as well get paid more money. But if you (translation: A1, because we know you're just some dipshit O-4 working some miserable job at the Pentagon) were actually willing to quadruple the bonus and monthly flight pays, I think you would actually see them as the retention tools they were designed to be. Everyone has a price, and for an extra $72k/year after taxes, I think a lot of people would be willing to forgo a seniority number at Delta and deal with the never ending stupidity of active duty. You might be surprised- I think it'll take something close to that over these next few years. We'll see.

I never said one AFSC was "stealing" promotion opportunities away from another. I never said that deployments should be used to determine promotion. I said that the fact that we treat all AFSCs as equal, and compare them to each other for promotion, is ridiculous, and we need to let each AFSC determine what matters on their own. Having to sanitize your OPRs because some O-6 from another career field might not understand them, or because they don't translate well when you compare yourself to a polar opposite career field, is dumb. It's dumb for the security forces guy who doesn't have bullets about dropping bombs when he's got a 1:1 dwell time to some shithole in Afghanistan. It's dumb for the PA chick who doesn't even have the chance to deploy, but has been interfacing with O-10s since she was a 2Lt. And it's dumb for the 11F who wasn't fully mission qualified until he was almost an O-3. Again... if one particular community, such as security forces, values deployments, then let them use that as a discriminator for promotion... within their community. You're not promoting a security forces O-3 to take over a flying squadron as an O-4. Just like you're not promoting a 12B O-3 to take over a security forces squadron as an O-4... and if we are, we're already fucked. If there aren't enough security forces O-5s, then change what matters for promotion within the security forces community- or throw more money at them. Everyone has a price. Career captains? Perhaps that's a good thing. But you'll have to provide them an increased QOL or pay to keep them. Good luck.