What's wrong with the Air Force?

[nsplayr]

9 hours ago, hindsight2020 said:

...and certainly a bit of a Pontius Pilatus derelict stance on the part of said OG...

 

Pontius Pilatus depicted below:

Edited August 21, 2019 by nsplayr

[hindsight2020]

53 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

Pontius Pilatus depicted below:

 

LOL I always get that. It's not wrong;  your "correction" is a common misconception from the American mouthbreathing collective. Marcus Pontius Pilatus is the full Latin naming convention for said historical figure. Pilate is for those who think historical Jesus spoke 'Murican and had Jim Caviezel for a doppelganger. 

 

[hindsight2020]

1 hour ago, SurelySerious said:

Where else would Clark throw down his inane knowledge of random aircraft if he went with that simple of an idea?

[Clark Griswold]

 

As to a T-6, no doubt there would be cost savings in commonality but the DART would be cheaper to buy and fly, maintain as a fleet of ACE aircraft, not sure about that...

11 hours ago, Royal said:

Clark, it's a great idea in theory, but we have zero money for it. AFRC completely ran out of funding with almost two months left in the fiscal year...This trend will continue in perpetuity until one day we're bankrupt 1 month into a new fiscal year. The entire future of the USAF and its personnel has been mortgaged to a multi-decade unending conflict,  the B-21, KC-46, and F-35. Management bought into the sales pitch from the contractors that all we need to win any future battle is just a few goldplated wonder machines, and future generations are footing the bill.

Agreed, this has negative 6.9% chance of happening but it never hurts to argue for it over BO

No argument also as to how screwed up things have gotten thanks to the Higher, Farther, Faster crowd that Boyd fought at the Puzzle Palace.  Also, I see no end to it with current crop of leaders at the controls now or in the future, no one is going out on a limb to say not every plane has to be the absolute best in category or it's shit, the party line is continuing.

In other threads I've argued for less costly, less sophisticated platforms to be an appropriate part of the overall AF fleet and will continue to do so along with others, only a total idiot or a corrupt narcissist would continue this delusion that we need overkill for 80% of the time we deliver airpower.

Don't mind getting teased/chided for my incessant, cultish advocacy for platforms like the Scorpion or YA-7F, these are platforms we need, can afford and quite frankly, would be the easy A the AF needs to get it's mojo back with Congress and Media.  Every time we dream up some science project that blows up in our faces and we have to go back to Dad for more money is that much more political and real capital we don't have in the future for the other things we will need to just keep the lights on, but hey that's the next guy's problem...

Rant complete.

Edited August 21, 2019 by Clark Griswold

[HuggyU2]

12 hours ago, Royal said:

Clark, it's a great idea in theory, but we have zero money for it. 

Semantics.

It's a function of whether they want to allocate the $$ or not.  But the money is there.

For a number of years, the AF paid for the RQ-4 pilots (which included some Nav/CSO's) to fly the Aero Club Cessna 172s.  Great deal for them... dirt cheap for the AF... benefits were readily quantifiable.  But it was cut.

I remember one of the many attacks on the Beale T-38's.  Around 2005 time frame at Nellis, and F-22 crew chief allowed a gear pin to get sucked into the engine.  The resulting damage to that F-22 engine was more than it cost to fund 3800+ flying hours in the Beale T-38A companion trainer.  Yes... 3800+ hours in the T-38 were cheaper than the F-22 FOD'd motor.  

[Clark Griswold]

Semantics.
It's a function of whether they want to allocate the $$ or not.  But the money is there.
For a number of years, the AF paid for the RQ-4 pilots (which included some Nav/CSO's) to fly the Aero Club Cessna 172s.  Great deal for them... dirt cheap for the AF... benefits were readily quantifiable.  But it was cut.
I remember one of the many attacks on the Beale T-38's.  Around 2005 time frame at Nellis, and F-22 crew chief allowed a gear pin to get sucked into the engine.  The resulting damage to that F-22 engine was more than it cost to fund 3800+ flying hours in the Beale T-38A companion trainer.  Yes... 3800+ hours in the T-38 were cheaper than the F-22 FOD'd motor.  

The yearly flying hour budget for G-Hawk guys to fly the Aero Club Cessnas for the 12th RS was about $90k for the entire squadron for the entire FY.
It was so little money ACC didn’t even know about it until they began the process of creating the 18XX AFSC and started to audit the existing RPA squadrons.
We argued like hell for it but no soup for us or anyone else flying a robot. ACC said it would be too much trouble at OCONUS locations because GA type aircraft are almost exclusive to CONUS US airspace... #totalbullshit


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[MCO]

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

The yearly flying hour budget for G-Hawk guys to fly the Aero Club Cessnas for the 12th RS was about $90k for the entire squadron for the entire FY.
It was so little money ACC didn’t even know about it until they began the process of creating the 18XX AFSC and started to audit the existing RPA squadrons.
We argued like hell for it but no soup for us or anyone else flying a robot. ACC said it would be too much trouble at OCONUS locations because GA type aircraft are almost exclusive to CONUS US airspace... #totalbullshit


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The global hawks here at my overseas base are parked next to the base aero club hangar...

[Orbit]

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

The yearly flying hour budget for G-Hawk guys to fly the Aero Club Cessnas for the 12th RS was about $90k for the entire squadron for the entire FY.
It was so little money ACC didn’t even know about it until they began the process of creating the 18XX AFSC and started to audit the existing RPA squadrons.
We argued like hell for it but no soup for us or anyone else flying a robot. ACC said it would be too much trouble at OCONUS locations because GA type aircraft are almost exclusive to CONUS US airspace... #totalbullshit


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When did the Air Force decide it hates airplanes?

[LookieRookie]

25 minutes ago, Orbit said:

When did the Air Force decide it hates airplanes?

When incidents in a GA airplane that's part of an aero club counts against the wing commander's safety record.

[Bergman]

Alarming.  He’s right on the money.

 

78 Suicides so far this year 😡

[hindsight2020]

32 minutes ago, Bergman said:

Alarming.  He’s right on the money.

 

78 Suicides so far this year 😡

Random anecdote, but my wife's suitemate committed suicide in the dorms during my wife's first year of enlistment. Clamoring for attention paid to toxic SNCO leadership was and continued to be a common topic among her enlistment, which she smartly capped at one term. Her suitemate of course wasn't so fortunate. 

 

[Orbit]

45 minutes ago, LookieRookie said:

When incidents in a GA airplane that's part of an aero club counts against the wing commander's safety record.

So you are saying that we need to change the rules so the queep stops crushing good things that people enjoy.  Might make a small difference with the upward trend in suicides.  

[gearhog]

4 hours ago, Orbit said:

So you are saying that we need to change the rules so the queep stops crushing good things that people enjoy.  Might make a small difference with the upward trend in suicides.  

There's a quote that goes something like "A life without risk is no life at all."  How many Air Force programs and policies that are aimed at reducing risk are making us miserable?

 

 

 

[Clark Griswold]

10 hours ago, MCO said:

The global hawks here at my overseas base are parked next to the base aero club hangar...

Same as it was at Beale... easy setup that was a decent selling point to attract volunteers, no accidents, incidents or violations to my knowledge for the Global Hawk Companion Training Aircraft Program to my knowledge during its run.

9 hours ago, Orbit said:

When did the Air Force decide it hates airplanes?

From my perspective, about 5 minutes after I graduated SUPT.

Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex.  

Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree?  Yup  

Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)?  Nope

Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. 

What's wrong with the Air Force?  Many things but trying to reduce it further down to root problems... model career progression/paths envisioned decades ago and the credentials/education considered necessary for said old models and not really updated for today's reality, would be my choice for today.

Edited August 22, 2019 by Clark Griswold

[IDALPHA]

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex.  

Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree?  Yup  

Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)?  Nope

Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. 

Shack.

[FltDoc]

13 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:

Same as it was at Beale... easy setup that was a decent selling point to attract volunteers, no accidents, incidents or violations to my knowledge for the Global Hawk Companion Training Aircraft Program to my knowledge during its run.

From my perspective, about 5 minutes after I graduated SUPT.

Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex.  

Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree?  Yup  

Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)?  Nope

Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. 

What's wrong with the Air Force?  Many things but trying to reduce it further down to root problems... model career progression/paths envisioned decades ago and the credentials/education considered necessary for said old models and not really updated for today's reality, would be my choice for today.

Wait, what? I have SEI reflecting AIS. Other quals are shown multiple places, like K prefix on AFSC and duty title.

[Clark Griswold]

Wait, what? I have SEI reflecting AIS. Other quals are shown multiple places, like K prefix on AFSC and duty title.

Legit critique but as an institution we have used said AAD and PME indicators as discriminators for military rank promotion, just my opinion and experience they were given more weight (incorrectly) than K, Q codes or SEI.

 

 

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[HU&W]

Loss of prefix on your duty history is contraindicated for promotion. 

[Royal]

On 8/20/2019 at 11:00 PM, HuggyU2 said:

Semantics.

It's a function of whether they want to allocate the $$ or not.  But the money is there.

For a number of years, the AF paid for the RQ-4 pilots (which included some Nav/CSO's) to fly the Aero Club Cessna 172s.  Great deal for them... dirt cheap for the AF... benefits were readily quantifiable.  But it was cut.

I remember one of the many attacks on the Beale T-38's.  Around 2005 time frame at Nellis, and F-22 crew chief allowed a gear pin to get sucked into the engine.  The resulting damage to that F-22 engine was more than it cost to fund 3800+ flying hours in the Beale T-38A companion trainer.  Yes... 3800+ hours in the T-38 were cheaper than the F-22 FOD'd motor.  

Huggy, are you saying that the DoD could do a markedly better job at managing its almost trillion dollar annual budget? Does anyone have the shocked Pikachu meme handy?

Maybe I'm biased due to my own cynicism. I agree with you and Clark in theory. In practice, even if there were one or two Flags that wanted to make that happen, it's not enough to turn the ship around. It's like Chuck Spinney said, "You can't simultaneously have high tech tinker toys AND have a high operational tempo."

To bring this full circle: What's wrong with us? We're bankrupt of leadership. The people making the decisions on our behalf need to account for the fact that historically, even with a lower budget than we've got today, we were able to keep dudes flying 5 days a week.

[pcola]

20 years of global force projection plus a need to modernize to stay ready for peer/near peer conflict makes it difficult to balance the budget


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[HuggyU2]

4 hours ago, pcola said:

20 years of global force projection...

Coming up on 30, actually.

My old U-2 squadron has had guys deployed continually for over 29 years to the Middle East, starting with Taif in 1990.  It's not like there is another squadron that they can trade off with.  

[FLEA]

The book Superpower: Three Choices For Americans discusses the faults of America's overconfidence that as the only superpower it could do it all; police the world and maintain a strong domestic system. Worth the read. 

[slackline]

Coming up on 30, actually.
My old U-2 squadron has had guys deployed continually for over 29 years to the Middle East, starting with Taif in 1990.  It's not like there is another squadron that they can trade off with.  

Same with Rescue.


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[Bergman]

1 hour ago, slackline said:

Same with Rescue.


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Same with RC-135s.

 

[pcola]

Ok 30, my off-the-cuff number was off the mark by quite a bit. But my point stands. We’ve broken the force, and subsequently eroded our position of dominance in trying to do too much but without full commitment to anything. Some would argue that it’s the inevitable end to a unipolar system.


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