08Dawg

It's going to be funny and sad at the same time to watch those guys they try to pull back in laugh and give the Air Force the finger.

With the current hemorrhaging of manpower, I find this unsurprising. I had an FTU instructor who retired as a captain...with a toilet boil on his wings. Weirdest thing I ever saw.

Sounds like the Buff

Probably because 12M no longer really exists outside the Guard/Reserve

RN- Radar Nav- the left seat downstairs guy in the Buff. Controls bombs, missiles, radar and pod. Has no control over defensive stuff. EW- Electronic Warfare Officer. Jams things, has no control over weapons. WSO- Weapon System Officer- historically, the backseaters in Bones and Mudhens. About a year ago, AFGSC made the decision to relabel radar navs and navs as WSOs because "WSOs promote better because everybody knows what a WSO is but nobody knows what an RN is"....or so I was told. The Striker Vista guys, coming from Bones, are versed in both offensive and defensive skill sets, but the Buff's EA suite is so much more man-in-the-loop than the Bone's that it'd be like teaching the guy Greek or something (wait, can I say that or is it offensive?) Skillset translates better putting him in the RN seat. There, now you know more than you ever wanted to about the world of the 12B.

Make corn and stock the beer fridge...

Luckily, I do! We, thankfully, did not shoehorn him in the EW seat. He went through IQT academics and a more or less TX-like flightline program as an RN...er, WSO....

If he wants to say "No drinking in OG controlled buildings"...fine...but I wonder a) what defines an "off base...semi-official function" and b) how well that order would stand up in court? This isn't Japan or Korea...

They were probably stoked...until they found out the Bones were picking up the Guam rotations...

I think the real intent is to create the B-21 initial cadre and senior leadership. All the bombers heretofore have been pretty stovepiped the last decade or so, sans the Buff to B-2 pipeline. This gives a bit of a broader perspective for the new bomber.

Valid. Even better..."You're the bottom of your class, here's an F-16". Either way, that's a helluva drop.

Gawd dayum..."You're bottom of your class....here's a compensatory C-17"

Still no 12x bonus....yeah, yeah, I know...."shut up, nav!"

Might be a placeholder the. U-boats aren't using the "CSO" nomenclature.

Our ARTs tend to take leave the Monday after a UTA...

Although we only just put through our first two Bone-to-Buff Striker Vista guys, I get the sense they were "could've easily gone to WIC but still on a command track" types, so that's likely out. Both our guys pinned on major while at the FTU, too, to give you a sense of where they were in the timeline. I'd expect to stick around. After hemorrhaging IPs/ACs the last couple of years to back fill 11F white jet bills, nobody is going anywhere this spring/summer. We're seriously hurting on manning all across the board. If you want to stick around and fly, it should be pretty easy.

TR slots for all my friends!

It only halfway makes up for the pain of being a GS-12 to the IP's GS-13...

Global Strike decided about a year and change ago to rebrand all the offenders as WSOs because supposedly "nobody knows what a radar nav is but everybody knows what a WSO is and WSOs promote better...". Whatever....I still think of my self as a radar nav. Our defense guys are still Electronic Warfare Officers, or "E-Dubs" for short. To the OP's question, the Buff, barring something entirely unforeseen, isn't going anywhere any time soon. My kid could fly the same jet I'm flying. There has been talk batted around the community of going from three smash-bug-wing types to two, but there is no way a Buff will ever fly with no 12s onboard, and we're likely to be in service possibly as far out as 2050. As for other platforms, from what I understand, AFSOC lobbied very strongly to keep CSOs/WSOs/EWs on all their various new J model variants, so plenty of job security there, too.

The locals are American, too...but yes, very good burgers

That seems to me to be what places like LA Tech, Delta State, UND and ERAU kinda already are. Tack on a government subsidy to the flight training programs and voila, a starting point to begin addressing the civilian pilot shortage.

Beat me to it....point being, there's already a precedent in the military flying community. I bet you could get a bunch of retired guys to sign up for it. All the fun, none of the queep!

Not surprising. Wonder when we'll start seeing the same from the AWACS community?

And that in a nutshell sums up the problems with the Air Force..."well, our metrics look good, so we must be ok!"

Here's a free piece of advice you should take- NEVER pass up the opportunity to shut the fuck up