frog

That is a pretty broad brush that you are painting with.

It’s hard to help online. Go to a meeting at your local EAA chapter. Pitch in on chapter events, and people will get to know you. Solid mil and civ folks will pour out of the woodworks to help you. That doesn’t mean you get free training, but local people that know you on a personal level will be able to help, and you might stumble into a sweet deal.

They auctioned them off when they shut down the club at Wright-Patt. They had some pretty nice airplanes. There was a pretty large membership in the club. My first meeting was the one where the wing leadership sent a letter to be read at the meeting that closed the club. People were pissed, including some retired GOs. I was really glad I didn’t sell my plane prior to the meeting.

Is this not inevitable? The boss chooses his best qualified to be the exec from his perspective. Great commanders choose great execs. Bad commanders choose people just like themselves with the same bad leadership characteristics. Then, that person becomes a commander and gets promoted early...wash, rinse, repeat. Exec duty isn’t a terrible thing (in hindsight). You learn a lot when you work for a good commander. The problem is that bad leaders find a way to propagate their flaws.

This. I know that doesn’t make the wait any easier, but I’d bet a beer you get picked up.

I got picked up three weeks from school start at a joint school. It was a great experience, and I landed an embassy job after school. It hurt to leave the squadron on such short notice, but things have worked out. I lucked out...I would probably not be a happy camper if I went to the Pentagon after school...leaving the squadron just wouldn’t be worth it. Standard disclaimer: I’m a CE guy, so I’m not getting pulled out of a cockpit to go to school.

Task managing a contractor and leading federal civilians are two different animals. You may give the contractor a task, but his corporate management is responsible for his care and feeding. Regarding the civilian workforce, there are a few of those stereotypical civilians that contribute absolutely nothing to the cause. There is also a majority who love their association with the military and are literally begging for someone to fully utilize their talent and develop them into the employees that we need. I will never forget the sight of a 65 year old wage grade civilian with a high school diploma (maybe) on his back in the frozen mud at 0300 trying to get a snowplow back online with a smile on his face. He didn’t have to do that...how can we inspire the civilian workforce to be more like that guy, or hire 10 more of him? Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

CE guy here. Support officers don’t want to run the show. We just want competent senior leadership. Much of the aircrew senior leadership that I have seen has been LESS mission focused than my CE leadership. I can’t count how many times I have pulled Airmen off of the airfield to make the base look better, trim the General’s hedges, etc. Regarding pilots knowing how to talk to people in order to get what you want, “especially civilians”...you probably know the least about how the civilian system works or how to get long-term production from civilians. Check your ego at the door.

BPZ DP allocation rates are much lower than IPZ DP allocation rates. Your situation is pretty common.

Because the AF has invested money in a mil to mil spouse, and they want to retain him/her. We all know it is tough for non mil spouses in the workforce, but the AF isn’t losing a training investment forever if he/she decides to take a couple of years off. - Non mil to mil guy

This. And this is very much a war to the other side. You can't consider it "not a war" just because the enemy doesn't play to your strengths. They are most definitely using violence to achieve political objectives.

Sorry about the way the cards fell. Pilots fared better than everyone else the way I looked at the stats...what did I miss?

I think there is value in PME, but the AF should give you time to knock it out. This business of going home after 12 hours of work to tuck the kids in and start ACSC needs to end.

I understand the dislike for AFPAK Hands, but I don't get the saltiness towards the AF on this one. It's a DOD problem, and they don't have any good solutions so this is being forced on all of the services. Really, it's a national problem related to the attempt to federalize a tribal society. If you want to be salty, be salty about that.

They were all RIF'd 6-9 years ago. True story...our section commander gave the AF the middle finger and became an armor officer in the Army...it worked out pretty well for him.

They held our orders hostage, and we lost the battle at the group level. They Q coded them beforehand the discussion was even over. I'm pretty pissed. We have a follow up with the off-base doctor this week to see if he really thinks all of this is necessary. Unless there is some serious medical complication that we aren't aware of, I'm hoping he can write some magic words so that we can disenroll them. More bureaucracy that has run amuck. The real lesson for me is to tell my Airmen to NEVER sign EFMP paperwork against their will without talking to the First Sergeant. It's a shame that a program with good intent can be executed so ineptly.

Thread revival! I was just picked up for school as an alternate and only have a few weeks to report. I filled out the special needs screener with all negative responses. Apparently they reviewed the med files for my kids and decided they should be enrolled in EFMP because they "require" an annual ophthalmology appointment. In reality, they saw the ophthalmologist who said that everything looks normal, they just need glasses and a new prescription each year. My options appear to be to enter them into the program or engage in a lengthy fight through the chain of command that will put my assignment at risk. My kids are active and healthy, and I wouldn't hesitate to enroll them in the program if they actually needed specialty care. Any wisdom to share on how to quickly defeat this buffoonery?

Its a survival mechanism. Many MSG functions fall under J4. No AF officer other than loggies are going to compete well in J4...its a loggie's world. So, the up and comers go to HAF, were at least a handful can stay "on the path". I suspect it actually works out well for the joint staffs...they get the A-/B+ team that is going to work hard and expect nothing in return.

🍿

I bought my David Clark H10-30s 19 years ago, and they are still going strong. Don't get sucked into the gadgets. They are nice if you fly 500 hours a year, but a quality set of passive DCs will work great for your PPL and occasional GA flights down the road.

CE guy here...good discussion. Here is my perspective: - The arguments that flyers deal with too much queep and flyers should lead mission support squadrons are mutually exclusive. The majority of the queep in a CE squadron is personnel, finance, environmental, or contracting related. Much of the queep is driven at the HAF, DoD, or federal government level. Putting a flyer in charge of a CE squadron isn't going to eliminate queep. The queep problem originates with the fact that our government has become the most useless, grid-locked bureaucracy in modern history. So, you have to choose one argument or the other. Putting a flyer in a support squadron is going to increase the queep they deal with exponentially. - Many times the queep starts with a pilot. I've pulled teams off of apron repair to fix potholes in the wing headquarters parking lot. I've also had heavy equipment operators turn snow over with a shovel before a DV visit so you can only see "clean snow." No shit. That stuff wasn't an engineer's idea, and it is embarrassing and humbling to go ask trained people to do those things while making it "your own" (i.e. Not diming out wing leadership) - The Air Force chose long ago to invest in cool jets and not facilities. Probably a wise decision given our budget. But, I only get about 50% of the funds I need to maintain the base in a fair condition. One third of our squadrons are often deployed, and there isn't the manpower to execute 100% of those funds even if we got them. - Flyers don't understand what their support squadrons provide in terms of readiness because squadrons don't deploy with the wings they support. For CE Airmen, readiness means that our Airmen need to be able to repair a cratered runway, setup emergency airfield lighting, setup aircraft arresting systems, and provide drinking water among a host of other tasks. When most people think of CE, they think of Bubba plunging their toilet. Bubba is very important, but he is a very small piece of the pie. When we deploy, we need flyers dropping bombs, not figuring how to get water from A to B. - Where engineers often fail is telling the operational community where we can't support. Sometimes we let work slip into the black hole, which is unsat. So, this diatribe probably fits better in what's wrong with the AF, but the takeaway is that I don't think moving flyers into support squadrons is a cure all in terms of fixing support functions and rated promotion rates, and it certainly isn't as easy as some would think. If people are leaving because of all the non-flying stuff they have to do, moving someone into a support squadron seems like the worst thing you could do. I don't know what the right answer is to the pilot crisis, but I hope you guys figure it out. The nation needs you guys, and I'm proud to support you.

Sorry guys, but as a GA dude, I'm not leaving advisory until I'm damn sure I'm clear of everyone, and nobody on this forum knows what else was going on at MKS that day. The odds of me hitting another spam can trying to enter the pattern is much greater than getting drilled by a viper miles out at 1500 being vectored for an approach. Sometimes there is no fault or explanation; Fate is the Hunter. Hug your loved ones tonight, and drink a beer for two people who were likely very competent and passionate aviation dudes.

Ha, okay, you win.

So what do you propose we cut? Something has to go. I am not against the A-10, but if you want to keep it you have to get rid of $4B somewhere else.

That is not a good area to have a problem - very rough terrain (for Texas at least).