Learjetter

I'm not sure I can help much on this. When I was actively flying them, we had conus bases at COS, RND, ADW, BLV, MXF, and FFO. MXF and FFO were flights under the Sq at ADW. COS and RND were flights under the Sq at BLV. All under the BLV wing. Oconus, there was ETAR and RJTY, as well as MPPA. At least one staff agency (AFFSA) flew them as well out of ADW then OKC. Schoolhouse was Simuflite at DFW and jets at BIX. There were about 86 jets divided up between the locations. We rotated covering west coast and central, south, America and Caribbean. We all rotated iron swaps to desert and exchanging tails with oconus birds for corrosion control and other reasons. We rotated covering 24/7/365 bravo or alpha alert aeromed evac mission (2 units on, 4 off, repeat every three weeks). Near permanent deployment to PSAB. So much for history. As I understand it, only COS, BLV, and ADW remain. Schoolhouse at BLV. AFFSA lost theirs as well, and many went to a few guard units as those units transitioned to other aircraft. Many tails went to AMARG. I don't know if OCONUS units still exist. Now, if the mission is the same, each base offers up x tails for missions daily. A central scheduling agency apportions the missions to the units. A mission supports and lifts whoever can get approved. Could be a courier 2-striper, important cargo, or a 4 star general or a senior SES. Or, BLUE BARKs, aeromed evac, human organs, or you go rescue some other lift who's jet broke somewhere, etc. The important thing is to be on time and fulfill your frag. Each unit also likely flies 1-3 training lines daily. Most missions (60%) are 2-3 legs done in a day. Others include an RON, or a few per month are multi-day trips. Most training lines are 2-3 hr transition style locals at nearby fields, or sometimes out n backs. Occasionally, a unit will take on the enormous challenge of getting a long oconus trip approved to alaska, canada, south america, or a European jaunt (the trip planning is easy, getting it approved is ridiculously difficult). Crews normally showed 3 hrs prior for upgrade sorties, 2 hrs prior for all other missions, except alerts. Both pilots go over mission and brief, then one pilot files, etc and the other preflights. An experienced crew could be airborne (legally) in less than 10 minutes from showing at the aircraft. Lears are fun to fly, can kill you really badly in only a couple ways, and are pretty forgiving, so are excellent airmanship builders. Since you often service the jet yourself, and even make certain repairs yourself, the units expect a very, very, very high level of knowledge about the aircraft and systems, how they inter-relate, and how various malfunctions can affect the jet (think EPs for which there is no checklist). But it's not a difficult jet to learn or operate well. That's what I recall at the moment. If I think of anything else after my ginko-biloba I'll edit the post.

Quoted for truth. I flew C21s, KC10s, and C130H3s (all 3 to many Conus and oconus locations, and logged O1 time in all 3)....the Lear was the easiest and most family-friendly, the -10 the most comfortable, and the most widely-travelled, and the Herc the most fun and challenging. The only one I'd volunteer to go fly again is the Herc.

"You win or you die" ?

An attached flyer often is a burden, not an asset, to a squadron. He can't deploy, must fly x events on the exact day or two he's in town, usually tying up an IP, and almost always needs some ground training item. Not that these are insurmountable, but when you also factor in that squadrons support themselves, it's fairly easy to understand why attached staff flyers aren't always wanted in ops squadrons.

Anecdote: some B52 deployed CCs say "no"...but they can't stop you from bringing the family over on your dime. But the jackholes can also put you on mids/12s, or restrict you to base, deny local time off, or other nasty anti-family time tactics. Not saying it happens...but it happened and discouraged a bunch of younguns from bringing over family. But, when you think about it there are a lot of TDYS/deployments you can easily turn into mini (expensive) vacations: I "took" my spouse on many TDYS to various places over the years, CONUS and not...often, we rode the same aircraft and stayed in the same hotel and drove the same rental car...I claimed the appropriate expenses and paid for thr rest...you get the idea. Example: I had to go to Macdill for a Centcom thing for a week. Travel days were Mon and Fri, meetings Tues- Thursday. So we flew down the previous Friday after work, had fun in Orlando until Monday evening, then we drove to Macdill. I did meetings, she did her stuff (sts) and we spent the last weekend on Siesta Key before flying home Sunday. Even had all the stops in DTS as pass/no Per diem days. Perfectly legal..did this kind of thing often. The AF may be tired, but YOU can still look for morale- building things to do.

I didn't really care if the records were IPZ or APZ. To find out would require careful looking for clues in the DQHB and various dates in the record. If the board instructions were to disregard zone, then you can bet no one looked for the clues.

The records are randomized. Not grouped by SR, or rating. Each panel of 5 colonels has rated and non rated officers on it, and sees both rated and non rated records in the line catagory. Panels read the whole record, including your name.

If you were "paid" in Feb '16, you'll get a W2 for the DITY in Jan '17, I'd wager.

Damn shame. I was an AWADS IP in that squadron once upon a time. And, yes, H3s rocked.

Android app still inop for displaying embedded videos. PRNC. Just FYI, if you've been doing some tweaking, as of July 2016: In ANDROID app on SAMSUNG EDGE 6 phone and TAB4 tablet, most embedded videos still do not show at all. Occasionally, one will, am trying to determine if that's a user-based thing, or the method of embedding the video used by the poster. GIFs seem to be working better, but some still don't show, or play. My screenshot above is still valid.

I think there should be no bonus, and a six-year UPT ADSC only.

"Don't you buy no ugly gun!"

I've said my piece and counted to three.

Some of us were born with that feature, some of us had our once-beloved USAF rip out said organ, so I think it'll work out just fine...

I wore cowboy boots with my blues and service dress for years. Was nice to wear with flight suit until we changed to suede boots.

Do people really care about boots?

I wore Nike SFB (sage field boot) for both flying and in garrison for several years. I found them very light.

H8ful Eight. Typical Tarantino we've grown to love. Excellent score, acting, cinematography, and plot twists. 3 hours of brilliance from Walton Goggins. Recommend. No kids.

Karl, I have no idea if stop loss is being considered or not. But, we've done it before, so I suppose it's not out of the question. If 7 of 8 IDE selects are PCing, then the ARC (and the total force) benefits. Nothing wrong with service in the ARC. If they are separating, then I'll thank them for their service and wish them well. It sounds like the SR at that wing is stratting based on merit and not member's intent...that's a good thing, right? I think so. People bloom at different stages in their careers...some excel at tactics or WIC, then perform less strongly on staff or in command. Others do the opposite. Leadership's challenge is creating a winning team with the players you have. I used "diverse" to cover areas of airpower thought, not physical attrubutes. No where did I say we were doing it well, just that we'd been doing it to ourselves. We've all looked at O6 and O7 promotion lists and wondered how some dweeb got promoted. But we've also nodded in concurrence at other names on the same list. But, this thread is about enlisted RPA pilots, so I'll shut it here, and the discussion can continue about whether we think this idea serves Airpower well, or not.

Concur. We had enlisted pilots...but Eaker had no enlisted planning ops at Pine Tree. This is "of our own doing" and we've done it on purpose since 1947.

M2s vids are not showing on android app either. Just links.

A dinosaur perspective for your consideration: American airpower has always been conceived, planned, and employed by officers. Missileers are officers, fighter and bomber pilots are officers. All are our primary trigger pullers for airpower. Their doctrine, tactics, plans, operations, joint and combined integration and c2 are all built and executed by officers specifically experienced and grown to do those jobs. "Farming" out isr (armed or not) to e's or wo's is doable, but there will still need to be a large experienced cadre of officers to do the employment planning and execution. Enlisted and wo's have different training and expectations (not capability)....none of which exist higher than wing level. We let folks fly bombers as CGOs so we can use the best of them on staffs...where the hard work of airpower exists. This is why lots of senior guys say "you're easily replaced"...there are a lot of folks who want to be CGOS and fly jets. It's a cycle, guys...and what's good for the Air Force over decades is growing a diverse officer corps capable.of thoughtful airpower employment. LJ

Board doesnt see PT scores. If someone had a referral OPR for PT failures, the OPR was seen. It counted the same as any other referral for a documented failure to meet standards...but there weren't that many folks with referrals. It helped soften the score reduction when the OPR after the referral was an excellent one. It hurt a score when there were more than one referral or the subsequent OPRS sucked.

PME not done is not good. You need that educational experience and knowledge to better be able to accomplish the really hard work the AF needs done...like budgets, contracts, multi-FY programs, acquisitions, plans, etc. Tactical flying requires a simpler body of knowledge (yes, even for carnivores) than serious staff work and planning and executing an air war. For non-res PME, timing irrelevant to me, personally, but earliest completion of was viewed more positively by some. Again, the more selective the program, the better it was viewed. But, we're talking small potatoes compared to the duty performance and leadership captured in the record. That's the single biggest determinator. Fail at that, and no school, any other program, will make up for it.

Speaking only for me: the more selective the school, the better that was viewed in scoring the record. But an awesome school record with little or no-impact operational duty wasn't as good as a "lesser" school record with awesome operational performance. All PRFs given equal weight. Can't recall any PRFs from DTs. LJ