Snuggie

I spoke to Airmen's Certifications at the FAA in OKC today about this. As long as you are not in the US (due to a OCONUS assignment or deployment) when your written test expires you are covered by SFAR 100-2. I was very specific in telling them that I'm stationed overseas not deployed overseas and they said I would be covered. All the examiner would need to see is a copy of CED or PCS orders showing I was overseas when my written expired. I am still going to stick her name in note with my written test so when I get push back in 2017 I can call her back.

I was a UPT-D guy the last time they did this. I had a month between UPT graduation and my first training course. I went TDY en route to Randolph for the RPA basics course. A month of classroom work trying to teach the basics of the CAF. Then I went to the school house while it was still at Creech. They won't need SERE which might make moving to their training that much quicker. Depending on how quickly they can get CMRed they could be flying missions in theater within a few weeks of arriving at their squadron. I was flying my first combat mission before most of my UPT friends finished their initial training. The nuts and bolts of the training course are floating around in the various RPA threads. My info is 5 years old now but please make sure to not treat the RPA guys like leper when the assignment drops. It was amazing to see how people were afraid to talk about it like it was some sort of communicable disease they would catch. But unlike our go around it doesn't sound like the AF is going to make any promises of a follow on assignment afterwards so any of your guys who do put a RPA down on their dream sheet should be ready to do it for their ADSC. Edit- spelling is hard

For those of you who need another way to show your stach solidarity my squadron is selling stache pencil tab patches and we have some extras. $10 for the patch+ whatever shipping would be to get to your location. Proceeds goes to charity. PM me for more details. stach patch.pdf

Speaking of the Interview it's now on Netflix.

I apologize if this question was answered earlier. Anyways, we signed a housing contract last Friday. Ramstein FMO can't deliver our temporary furniture until October 6th. We've decided to sleep on our air mattress at our new house and move out of our off base TLF. Mostly so our dogs would stop annoying the neighbors. So my question is am I still entitled per diem/TLA money until they can deliver the furniture? I know if we stayed in the TLF we would be until the day they deliver the furniture. But we are now no longer paying for the apartment. I'm more concerned about the AF taking half of my pay check two months from now because I did something wrong then maximizing my per diem. I plan on going to finance Monday but I want to have an idea of what the answer is before I go. Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

I didn't mind it but my wife hated it. Even with her education it was hard for her to find a professional job. And when she did find one the pay was significantly below the national average for her position. Combine that with the crime rate, drunk tourist on the strip, and the traffic she was very happy when we moved.

I'm impressed. I especially liked the one where the used various President's Academy graduation speeches. I hope to see more ads like this and fewer NASCAR sponsorships.

So do the airlines. Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

I'm in!

I was a UPT-D guy who deployed twice while at Creech. Depending on your squadron you either won't deploy at all or once in a tour. I had a lot of fun of mine and did feel that I had a greater appreciation for the whole process when I returned. Agreed. I was CMR'ed for 3 days when I was told I was deploying the first time. And I also agree that the prereq was a little much. MCE and LRE flying are two different skill sets.

Question for the baseops masses since its currently getting passed up AFPC as we speak: I'm an 11U going through C-130J training and I will finish sometime in August-September time frame. 11Us in my year group don't qualify for the RIF but the 11Ms do. The latest PDSM makes me believe that the date that the AF determined who qualifies for the FY15 RIF happened in May so I wouldn't qualify for this round. With the current information that AFPC has put out is that a good assumption?

I know of at least 3 other 2008 11Ms who got approved for VSP. Two are -135 guys and one is a C-17 (I think). I can't tell you their ADSCs, I'm just passing along what I've seen on Facebook.

I'm happy for everybody in my year group that gotten approved so far because that lessens my chance of getting RIF'ed in the fall. Keep the good news coming! Posted from the NEW Baseops.net App!

I got the "hey we need your info because you are up for the RIF" email right before my checkride. That was exciting. What I don't get is the # of 2008 11Ms that need to go didn't seem to change from FY14 to FY15. Either nobody applied for VSP or they denied everybody because of their ADSCs. Can't wait to see how this plays out in October.

My friend just got word that his VSP approval yesterday. 31S (SF) 2008 year group ADSC- less than a year for a PCS. He was going to get out soon anyways so at least now he gets a nice chunk of money on his way out the door.

3! One would think that they would have learned that lesson back at their commissioning source. I also enjoyed the video, lots of good advice for leaders of all levels. I'm going to read his book when I have time between my "please promote me to Major" master's classes.

I know the new smart watches (Pebble and Samsung Galaxy Watches) are a no go. I'll make sure to ask my security manager before I bring the Tactix into a SCIF.

Both times I took the rotator it landed late at BWI, one was 30 hours and the other 5 hours late. And I've seen lots of people coming back wear the multicam on their follow on flight but not the bag.

Sorry for taking so long to respond (I'm in the middle of a PCS so I got distracted). I have used it for the last month while flying and have liked it. Probably one of my favorite features is that you can customize the display. You can have the time show in a few different ways, along with the date and additional information. When I first got the watch it showed the sunrise and sunset times on the home screen. I was able to put Zulu time on it instead, which works better for me. Garmin says you can read it with NVGs on but I haven't tested that out yet. From my experience the battery life is about a month per charge, and it fully charges in less than 8 hours. As for it's ability to wear it in a SCIF I'm not sure. The watch can receive information wirelessly but from what I understand its only GPS receivers, heart rate monitors and the like. It also comes with a USB cord to charge it that you can connect to a computer but I don't think you can pull any information from it.

I think you'll be fine. In my old RPA squadron we had a number of people who were born overseas or had other SF86 issues. I would expect for you to lose your UK passport and renounce your UK citizenship at some point in the process. My bet is that they will put you through training, even without having your complete TS. You might have to sit around a few months after your done at the FTU until you can start flying missions though. I would bring this up to your squadron commander, they should be able to push the application through the process quicker then you alone. Hope that helps. Edit: spelling is hard

Speaking of ETAR, what is their ops tempo right now for a new copilot? I'm scheduled to go there after the school house this summer.

Mrs. Snuggie apparently heard my desires (or she followed the Amazon link I sent her) and I got a Garmin Tactix watch for Christmas. I like it so far but I want to fly with it a few times before I pass my final judgement to the BO community.

I've been considering that watch since I saw an ad for it. I also was looking at this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FK0F172/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=15USZ9I2PZVKC&coliid=I31XJHWH4Q2R2P. I don't see myself using some of the features of the pilot centric watch and this would be another good option. Anybody have experiences with Garmin watches?

If I was going to knock over an ancient boulder then put it on YouTube I would probably make sure I didn't just apply for disability due to a 4 year old car crash. https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/us/utah-boulder-boy-scouts/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

This isn't possible, but we have had the "nice to have" vs. "mandatory" discussion. So we should be down to only needing one specialist, and a somewhat common one at that. TMFan- Thanks for all of the advice. We have just started down this road and it's a very confusing process.