Ant-man

There’s basically zero chance you’d get released back to a fighter if you’ve already been trained in a heavy platform. It’s hard enough to switch platforms in the same MAJCOM, let alone cross-MAJCOM. Once that heavy drops your name in an FTU class with a fixed number of spots per year and spends time and money training you, they’re gonna want a payback in the form of several years of flying in an ops squadron, and then the functional will want to keep you as a body to fill shortfalls within the community or white jets. The “promise” of a going back to a fighter will be a long-forgotten empty consolation for your hard work in UPT that was made by someone who is now no longer in your chain of command.

I regularly use HF phone patches in the B-52 when I need to contact the base outside of LOS radio range. One time I had cadet incentive flyers call their parents, and it was the highlight of the flight. Thanks for what you continue to do!

They’ll appear like any other billet on your MAP list on TM. For the current winter VML, that list will open on April 22. Keep in mind that your functional “curates” the list and removes jobs you’re not eligible for or that they wouldn’t entertain releasing you to (as a Global Strike guy I’m not gonna see a job for an F-35 IP in Alaska). And just because you can bid on something and get the billet owner to bid back on you, doesn’t mean you’d ever get that job. I was told “no chance” for a particular white jet job last cycle based on how they execute the Rated Management Directive and current manning priorities. That being said, if you see something you want, it never hurts to reach out to the functional and try and get more clarity. Hope that helps.

Chang is that you? Can’t tell if this is a troll post or not. If you’re serious, this doesn’t warrant a new thread, there’s decades (literally) of info on this forum about how to succeed in pilot training. Regardless of what you want to do with your life after wings, right now you should only be focused on doing your best at UPT. The rest will follow. You don’t even have to decide what you want to fly yet. You may want fighters now, but that could change the moment you pull more than 1G. For now, get your affairs in order (finances, family, personal life) to maximize your ability to solely focus on training. Oh, and advice on succeeding? Work hard, be a bro (don’t screw your classmates over), and never study on a Saturday. That’s it. You’ll learn everything else you need to know when you show up.

My buddy punched out of the 38. Took him well over a year of back and forth with Bremont to get it ordered. It's a cool watch! The Bremont MBI is a unique and bespoke watch available to Martin-Baker ejectees only and can be quickly identified by its red aluminium barrel. Every watch is engraved with a personal engraving of up to 10 digits consisting of their call sign, name, or date, and will feature the individual’s Martin-Baker Tie Club membership number.

They must mean Senior Flight Examiner, which is just a default function of being the wing king or OG/CC and has nothing to do with experience in the aircraft. Definitely not a rating. I've only see them serve as FEs for people in the evaluator "pyramid" that can't be evaluated by a normal FE (Sq/CCs or Chief of Stan/Eval). The "valid instructor" caveat must be a workaround for the situations when you have a wing or group commander that came up in a different airframe and doesn't have a K-code in the aircraft they're responsible for. Not sure how often that actually happens. Weird thing to put in your bio though...

Pretty cool educated guess of the B-21's design features. Doesn't look like there's much room in the crew compartment for even a piss can. That's a lot of piddle packs over a 30 hour sortie... Interactive Graphic: Design Features Likely on The B-21 Raider

Any insight on T-38 PIT being coded as a PCS now? A friend of mine just got orders for a PCS to Randolph for PIT prior to assignment at Columbus. I've heard the time to completion has recently been getting longer (sts) due to mx issues with the 38. The ETCA announcement still says it's a TDY out-and-back but they haven't updated course information since January. If they formally extended the course length past 20 weeks then I think 36-2110 rules regarding PCS vs TDY for training apply. That's the only explanation I can think of. Trying to make some life plans, and this would certainly change things...

Good read about the general decline in American support for the military since 9/11 https://today.duke.edu/2023/08/thanks-your-service-americas-high-hollow-support-military

Why bother retaining people when you can make them evaluators in their MWS with less than 72 gate months? I've seen it, and most people didn't understand why I thought that was insane. With the exception of the commanders and DOs, guys actually doing the flying in my corner of the AF are well within their ADSC, and the only ones past 10 years are lifers mostly relegated to staff.

Yep. The list of bases is broken down by core MWS, and they are essentially all the same format: ops bases for your aircraft, the FTU, or any UPT base. First come, first serve basis. That's how they get around the problem of appeasing everyone at once. Also, if you only do the BOP it's a four year commitment. Who is gonna trade a four year ADSC for two years at their base of choice? https://www.milsuite.mil/book/groups/dpap

New bonus, including the Assignment of Preference option. Looks like scaling monetary options based on contract length OR Assignment of preference (with several caveats) OR both options that incurs a longer ADSC.

On the topic of 11Fs washing out of PIT and where he would go next, my sq has a couple dudes that came from the Viper to the BUFF, so dropping a fighter doesn’t guarantee you’re gonna stay in that MWS or even in the fighter community for your whole career. A lot of UPT studs seem to have this foot-in-the-door attitude about their dream plane, “I just have to get a 38 spot and I’ll get my F-35.”

B-52. My thought process is that with all the new upgrades coming down and the eventual new designation as the B-52J, there won’t be a push to get rid of BUFF experience to other airframes. Whereas my understanding is that the Bone and B-2 will be divested as the B-21 comes online, freeing up experienced aviators from those platforms. I do recognize the doors that being a patch can open, however.

Anyone have gouge on how they’re gonna select initial cadre? I’ve heard RUMINT about some people already being identified for ops leadership once the squadron gets stood up at Ellsworth. I recognize that she hasn’t even flown yet and will spend a considerable amount of time with the DT guys before it becomes IOC, but I imagine that the ball will start rolling here soon. Is it going to be primarily B-2 guys? B-1 guys since the leadership keeps using the B-21 as the answer to all of the Bone’s problems? F-35 guys for their LO experience? Who will decide who initially joins the community? Will it be a board or push from your sq cc? I ask because I’m being solicited about WIC, and I can’t figure out if that would stovepipe me into my current airframe and close the B-21 door, or if it would actually serve as a pre-requisite. Another path I’ve considered is a white jet tour to give me experience in a different airframe as an 11B and potentially make me more marketable? I’m grasping at straws here.

What everyone else said…you’re gonna get shit on at some point in your career until you figure out that no one cares how professional or motivated you say you are, it’s demonstrated by your actions on a daily basis. Every AD student in my pilot training was ready to take on the world and be the next Chuck Yeager, but most of them (including myself) started flying and got a sobering dose of reality. Pilot training is HARD and it’s not easy to keep grinding and maintain the drive to get better. Once you get to your first ops squadron it’s not any different. The grind starts over again as you work towards the next upgrade. If you walk in to a UPT class and adopt the mindset that you’re somehow more disciplined or serious or more deserving of a certain platform because of some factor unrelated to your performance, your classmates and instructors are gonna sniff that out and you’ll look like a jackass. It certainly won’t help you in the “be a bro” section of your ranking. Be in a competition with yourself. Don’t take criticism personally. Don’t argue with the IPs. They aren’t critiquing you because they don’t like you, they want you to get better. Help your bros. Keep an open mind about airframes. Ask your MWS IPs what it was like flying their airframe. Pilot training gives you this skewed mindset of what’s “cool” or not, and often masks the reality of the lifestyle associated with that airframe. List what YOU want and make sure it actually aligns with what your spouse is okay with. Alright, no more unsolicited soap container rants. Now to answer what you were actually asking…AFSOC is cool no doubt. But every community has its upsides and downsides. I know guys in the AD 146 squadron as well as the AFRC squadron. It sounds like the reserves get the better deals. My AD buddy spent several months just flying rotators to the same type of bases that C-17s fly to. You’ll get to do things that are really cool, but don’t think you’re gonna be Barry Seal in American Made. Also there’s only one AD squadron, so the 146 doesn’t drop to UPT too often. We had one in my class and the guy was a top stud in the T-1. You could very well be the number one guy in the class and the Air Force just doesn’t have a spot for you. Luck and timing is everything. Look into the U-28 and the MC…they do some really cool stuff. Hell, if you want some difficulty and excitement, flying C-130Js out of Dyess in an 8-ship airdrop is more high-speed than what you’d do in many other career fields. You like a challenge? Fly a platform that requires air refueling. You wanna work with some spec-ops hitters? Fly the HH-60. You’re gonna find shiny pennies and shitbags in every community. AFSOC certainly doesn’t have a monopoly on professionalism. Best of luck to you, and remember…work hard, be a bro!

Former 1C in the squadron got out after his enlistment and became a police officer back in his hometown. He was killed in the line of duty two weeks ago. Some bros made a variant of the normal squadron pen tab with a thin blue line across it to honor his service and sacrifice. The two-star on base saw it and instructed everyone to stop wearing it because it’s “too political.”

But who will get the ATIS while the other pilot is flying!?

My father-in-law is working on machine learning for AFRL in regards to future aircraft development. As stated above, this experiment was more about demonstrating the capability of an AI to make real-time decisions based on human inputs. The Air Force’s scope of interest in AI extends beyond just the ACE (DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution) program, and I think there are some interesting albeit scary future capabilities being discussed. Of particular note is the R2-D2 program, which is just like it sounds: an AI navigator/FE/copilot. I’m interested to see if any of this plays into the B-21’s proposed capabilities.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35888/ai-claims-flawless-victory-going-undefeated-in-digital-dogfight-with-human-fighter-pilot https://youtu.be/McH63bA9TDU Have we learned nothing from Terminator!!!??

One of the graduates from the first class is already back from a 6 month CENTCOM deployment in the F-35.

All good info above. I think the most important thing you can glean from this forum is the general consensus that controlling your destiny with a guard/reserve spot is preferred over the dynamic nature of AD assignments. That being said, there’s a gotcha to every good deal in the Air Force, even guard/reserve. For instance, you could get picked up by a Viper unit, discover that military flying is a different kind of challenge and that it’s not clicking as fast as you expected, and you find yourself struggling. Fast forward to the end of phase 3 and your unit no longer has confidence in your ability to pass IFF/B course and they drop you (seen it happen). Or, you get picked up by a fighter unit and they switch to an RPA unit while you’re in UPT. Guess what you’re flying after you graduate... I’m not saying this to deter you, and truthfully nothing anyone on this forum says should discourage you from pursuing what you want. On the active duty side, my personal opinion is that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a fighter pilot to be a fighter pilot. And in fact, once you see how much work they put it that doesn’t involve raging, pulling Gs, and shooting guns, you may realize that the desire to be a fighter pilot for the sake of the achievements alone is almost required to stay motivated enough to put up with endless hours studying threats and counter tactics, getting crushed in debriefs, and having to accept that your best is never good enough. The benefit of the active duty side is that you’ll have the ability to pursue a different lifestyle should you realize that it interests you more. There are a lot of really cool missions in the Air Force that aren’t highlighted well, even in UPT. But if you want fighters, I wouldn’t worry about “chances” of getting a 38 slot. UPT IPs might back me up on this, but nowadays, if you’re good enough, you’ll get one. If not, it’s not a reflection of you as a person, and your instructors have seen a enough studs come through to know what they’re looking for. You’ll end up generally where you belong. You don’t wanna be the last guy that barely squeaked into 38s. Best of luck in whatever you pursue. Sounds like your head is in the right place.

As I think back, it seems like Kage has always been setting the example. All he ever wanted to be is a fighter pilot. We both put our names up for ENJJPT. I didn’t make the cut, and he was an alternate, even though he had a strong package (sts). I remember I was kinda bummed, but it didn’t seem to phase him. He was already focused on the next thing with a smile on his face. In UPT he was a few classes ahead, and every time I saw him I would bother him with questions. Didn’t matter what was going on, he would take the time to talk with me. I used his instrument gouge in T-6s where he effectively summarized the entire 217 into an easy-to-study format. It must’ve taken him forever to write. He was the same way in 38s, never too busy to give me advice. Truthfully, I looked up to him as a pilot. He was a natural talent, worked his ass off, and knew his stuff cold. His passing has made me think about the example that I have set for others, and whether I would be so lucky to be remembered the same way. We lost a good one. A toast 🥃

I can credit Lt Col Kincade almost entirely for preparing me to succeed on my instrument check. Phenomenal pilot. Rest easy gents. 🥃