yzl337

Wish I had land, but here in NW FL lucky enough to have a really nice range/training facility fairly close. Wish the membership was a bit cheaper but plenty of space for members and I can practice pretty much unbothered. Also have a small indoor range only a couple minutes from my house.

Just RQS

I'm old and grumpy, get off my lawn! Yes, my bad, I still can't get the new names to stick in my brain

SLAPP? Not sure if you guys renamed him

At the moment Ospreys only drop from Rucker, that said, the community is undergoing tremendous change right now, who knows what is possible. While its a super cool airframe, it is one I would avoid right now. There is so much uncertainty and so few flying hours to go around, I cannot imagine it will be a healthy place for the young pilot development until it stabilizes.

best part of the day, every day, bringing up that fact in every single forgen discussion. It's fine though, we'll ride this burning train off the cliff, then leadership will look around and ask again "where'd everyone go?"

not many, but they've never completely stopped, there were 1-2 a year during my recent time at Vance.

Wouldn't be the first platform utilizing the PT6 to have chip light and oil contamination issues, still not uncommon in the T-6, even years after the prop sleeve touchdown issues was solved.

my first year and half; I flew between 7-10 times a week, one cross country a month, sometimes two while I was in the squadron. Adding in Ops Sup and SOF duties, I cut that slightly, usually for 1 SOF shift and 1 Sup shift a week, sometimes more once I was running both programs. As an attached flyer up at the wing I generally flew 5-6 times week and only a handful of cross countries a year. Workday was generally 10 hours minimum, 12s were pretty common. Even with all the flying and work I never missed a parent teacher meeting/practice/or school assembly and was home by dinner most nights and weekends. I would do the job again in a heartbeat. It can be a bit of a merciless grind, but the T-6 is ridiculously fun to fly and teaching the students and mentoring FAIPS made for one of the most rewarding jobs I've ever had. I was feeling very similar after a decade of being on the road. The locations can be a bit of a challenge, particularly for family, job prospects and schools can be a challenge in those towns, but its workable IMO.

in no way shape or form would I expect to return to fighters after AFSOC, won't speak to MAF, but I know this has been discussed on the SOF side and there are no expectations of releasing folks once gained.

unless this is a local restriction, not entirely true, can be used in day vmc for approaches.

its busy, you're going to fly/tdy/deploy regularly. Once you join AFSOC its Hotel California, you can check out, but you'll never leave...do not expect outside opportunities save for weapons school, IDE, or command. New boss in the seat soon, don't expect much will change but hopefully the command will calm down a bit. The move to DM is coming, some hurdles still but it will open another PCS location CONUS that is not Cannon, so I guess that's good. Can't speak to HCs, but being a heavy driver in a fighter command, I wouldn't recommend, YMMV

There is 0% of this happening without a serious increase in the T-7 purchase. Unless we accept a massive cut in pilot production, the tails simply won't exist for our current or desired (1500/yr) levels of production. Replacing 500 -38s with ~350 T-7s, that math just won't math. T-6 direct, as much as I don't like it, is probably the way of the future for MAF/SOF pilots. The redbird sims they are using instead of the T-1s are not the answer without serious improvements, and the T-38 community has neither the IPs nor the airframes to absorb the increased student numbers. Reading over the feedback from some of the T-6 direct students already in the FTU pipelines, the product isn't appreciably different from what they were getting before. There are some adjustments that must be made from getting even greener UPT grads than before, but nothing that can't be overcome.

medical and educational needs do. I've got a kiddo who is EFMP so it was pretty easy, however I just phrased my application for the secretarial waiver as "familial and community support is available at X location but not Y location." Since Del Rio is remotely located with very little medical and educational support, you might be able to swing that. You may need to delve into some specifics though.

Please tell me 02-14 had some kind of epic friday patch that offset the kool-aid drinking nerdiness of that patch.

creatine is on flight med's no-no list, will it show up on blood work, unknown, but probably better to err on the side of caution.

You do not want to go active duty then. The majority of active UPT students will NOT fly fighters, it's as simple as that. In classes of 24-26 students, 5-7 at most will go -38s and most classes have at least a couple guard/reserve students who must track -38s. Your odds are marginal, even if you're an above average student.

@ClearedHot Emerald Coast area? I'm headed to staff at hurbie in a few months, looking for info on riding groups/good routes, etc

This isn't new. When Dream On and I were baby FPs the story was the same. I cannot tell you how many senior folks told me, "### threat? We won't even take off if it is active." It is on you to develop yourself into someone who understands the bigger fight and how the 130 will be involved. From the AFSOC side of the house, I promise you it will be and AFSOC doesn't have the MCs to go it alone without the slicks. Be the FP who is in the vault, reading and prepping. Its not glamorous, hell, many days it won't be fun, but you'll start to set yourself apart and you may find yourself flying a bit more because you make yourself stand out as the dude who is trying to challenge themselves and those around them. Ask your ACs and IPs to incorporate more difficult threat scenarios, find your local patch and see if they can help, or at least point you in the right direction. If you are uninspired, then find or make your inspiration, if you are waiting for someone else to do it, you have a lifetime of disappointment ahead of you.

In 50 sorties you flew with 120-140 IPs? How many AT, 88, 89 sorties did you have?

Perhaps I should have further elaborated. There is absolutely value in training via a simulator, and it *could* aid in significant performance improvement in UPT. The caveat is exactly what Pooter is discussing above, it must be used in a focused, methodical manner involving some sort of curriculum. Simply playing around and doing barrel rolls and loops in a VR sim is useless, I watch students do it constantly each day in the squadron. I see students screw around for an hour in the VR sims supposedly rehearing a formation sortie only to royally bomb the sortie the next morning. However when another IP or I sits next to them and talks them through training goals, forces them to set up properly and rehearse, and hold them to performance goals, there is noticed improvement in their performance in the aircraft.

Generally, a waste of money from a training standpoint. Prior to UPT it would have limited value. You may be able to practice maneuvers, but without knowledge of standards and techniques you'll be expected to perform under during UPT, the training is negligible at best, negative at worst. Once you begin UPT you will have nearly unlimited access to exactly this type of set up. At Vance there is a lab in each squadron with multiple VR simulators and each flight room has one of their own. You will be encouraged to use it as much a possible. As far as having one a home, you will be better off just reading the pubs, working out, and getting a good nights sleep.

hope so, I'd love to see an American GC contender at the grand tours, but a 5 stage Oman win is a far cry from 3 weeks of pain in the tour/vuelta/giro. Hopefully Movistar will give him support, the only other name on their squad this year is Enric Mas.

They are both internet blowhards attempting to make a name for themselves by throwing shit on the wall and seeing what sticks, over the bodies of people's friends and loved ones. Jumping the gun, bad guesses, they cover all the bases of poor incident investigation.