MechGov

In other news, I just saw the memo from Deputy CSAF-manpower that 2-line PRFs are official, effective 16 Sept 19. More details are apparently on mypers (not gonna log on to mypers to find them)

Did the AF ever really get into helmet art?

Can’t speak to the GSC side of the house, but AFSOC is still looking for rated bodies, probably across the board. I’ve known a handful of BUFF EWOs cross over to MCs. I imagine there’s a handful of bomber dudes who found themselves in gunships as well. However the biggest limfac in gunships is the AC-J pipeline. U boat crossflows have created quite a backlog from what I understand. YMMV, but most schoolhouses (except maybe U-28s) have limited student throughput.

Good point on lifestyle. To clarify, it’s post-20 yr plan. Thanks for the gouge. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that there are other federal agencies with leadership problems.

Mapping out post AF career options (already at 10 year point). Intent is to eek out an AD retirement and then punch at 20. Anyone have any experience applying for those types of jobs? Is it possible to work an airline career to pay the bills?

So...PRFs & promotions?

I couldn’t speak for the HC world. MC mission is pretty legit, although it’s a fair bit more difficult to stay current/proficient in all the METLs than in slicks. That being said...no guard/reserve MC units, so moot point.

2. Day vis formation through the Ozarks, some NVG assaults and a combat offload got me hooked on the Herk when I was a butter bar. It can be a challenging mission some days but it’s not too demanding from your average joe. Tac airlift is usually a sideshow to the main war effort, but there are times when all of the stacks and orbits are closed and you feel like the only one in the AOR that night moving pallets and pax to some LZ. Also, you get to see a lot of the AOR up close. Most AF dudes haven’t been to a FOB, yet you are the Army’s lifeline to the outside. Or at least the ticket home. Advantages: variety, hand flying, low level, drops, random LZs Disadvantages: slow I don’t think you’ll find another mobility MDS that can offer a brand new copilot the amount of mission sets and variety that a Herk does.

This. I don’t trust the AF when it comes to masking/unmasking. Unless you’re a made man, the bottom 90% is generally hard to differentiate. Senior rater endorsement has to carry considerable weight at the central boards. Enough to put you over the cutline? I don’t know. But it’s naive to think the SR doesn’t have easy discriminators like in-correspondence completion or AAD to stratify folks. So, if O-5 is part of your plan, then you skip ACSC at your own risk. Even if you consider it worthless.

*spits* Yeh, but I thought he was a bomber guy. I mean Herk guy? /sarcasm

Jesus. I don’t know if the Air Force could pack any more management level buzzwords into a short article before it bends space-time into an AFSO21 black hole.

Anyone have any insight into the IDE nomination procedure? I had heard that either you get nominated on your first look (fast burner) or third look (any other nom), but the second look was pretty much a throwaway. Any truth to that?

Here, here [emoji481]

You meant the T-X, right? That way the UPT-N kids can roll straight out of T-6s into 75 more hours of T-X training and be ready for the fight! /sarcasm. I’m with you Clark on the LAAR. AF let that one get away. Back to your regularly scheduled programming about doing traffic pattern stalls in Austin.

It would have to be an apples to apples cycle, I.e. rotating 3-4x F-16 units between an AOR rotation, capped at 120 days, back to a reconstitution cycle/workup cycle, then a MCO cycle including your trips to Red Flag. I’m not contesting that F-15E mission sets /= Viper METLs for major combat operations. However, I’d argue that our current construct in theater is largely “get in stack, drop bombs on coord, NTISR, AAR, sit in stack.” Again, within same MDS, trying to separate the training/readiness requirements from the VEO/low intensity fight from the high end/kick down the door training we still need. I don’t know if AEF was trying to address that since it’s been an abortion my whole career and reduced to “you all are enablers.”

Having gotten my wings during the great RPA scourge that was 2009, I considered myself lucky to get a manned platform. I think we had more RPAs in some drops than a year of pointy nose drops. That being said, times have changed and I hear Big Blue is hurting for fighter pilots. But if you know without the shadow of a doubt that you want to be a fighter pilot, find an ANG or reserve unit to hire you. UPT will be hard enough w/o having to always compete to be #1-2/30. Me? I went in thinking I wanted fighters, mostly, then my mind changed when I saw other cool missions in the AF (and when I realized I wasn’t the best pilot at UPT). Again, probably wouldn’t do it differently today, but back then I had absolutely zero idea how to get a job Guard/Reserve, let alone become a pilot. It’s a best kept secret from 2Lts. I’d highly recommend checking it out seriously.

Having a readiness cycle would be a nice idea in the flying world: preparing for routine deployments on one side of the cycle, then training for the high end fight post deployment. That might have a side benefit of shortening some of those 179s for you guys in the CAF if your community goes to a 4-part training/deployment cycle. It’s done with certain units in SOF and it seems to work out fairly well with units having dedicated workup periods for different, yet complex mission sets. Granted, if your MDS is low density/high demand and limited to a couple units, it’s probably not going to work.

Hell no, I would do it again tomorrow. There’s a lot of sport bitching from mid-career types like me, not in small part because the AF trained us to do a job that pays very well to do a quarter of the work on the outside. I wouldn’t trade having been an Air Force pilot for anything. Now if landing on boats is your thing and you feel compelled to do Naval aviation, have at it Hoss. But I’m willing to bet a few beers that the grass is no greener on that side either.

Man if I had a dollar every time I heard someone in the squadron say that. ‘Cause your 2-3 deployments to OIF/OEF/OIR is the only war will be fought. Gtfo. I was reading about the debacle that was Allied Force. Dudes going into a pretty robust SAM MEZ daily, and the AO was fairly small too. And that was only 2 years prior to OEF.

Any decent takeaways or was it a complete waste?

This

Wow. Yet I don’t entirely disagree. Big Blue seems to think putting “will command” or something similar on an OPR is the magical bullet to entice retention. However, the number of command pushes I’ve seen on OPRs has to exceed the number of available command billets. Granted I’ve figured out I’m in the bottom 90% somewhere, so not my problem...

Nice try OSI

Sorta related to both the bonus thread and the promotion/PRF thread, but what could the AF do for non-command track dudes to incentivize performance in the second half of your career? It seems like the HPOs have their trajectory pretty much setup for success. Reading the other few threads, the bonus isn’t enough to offset the asspain that is AD, or those that take the blood money are hoping to stay at the unit until retirement.

I’m a simple man. I see boobs, I press “like”.