C2 Question - SOFs and Command Post

[sky_king]

The JSTARS SOF program isn't much different from the AWACS SOF program. In that, it is basically just a filter for the OG so he doesn't have to listen to an hour of discussion between Ops and Mx about who is going to take the cancel.

[brabus]

...the JASDF controllers just stopped talking to us.

You can actually pinpoint the exact moment their brain explodes: when the mic keys, you hear only molar cooling, followed by the watch sup screaming in Japanese in the background, and then the TX stops...silence on the radio for X sec-min. Sequencing ourselves/doing ATC's job is still common place over here.

[Skitzo]

The JSTARS SOF program isn't much different from the AWACS SOF program. In that, it is basically just a filter for the OG so he doesn't have to listen to an hour of discussion between Ops and Mx about who is going to take the cancel.

Yeah now imagine a world where ac130s cv22s u28s mc130p and mc130h all have their separate issues and trying to get the story straight for the ops mx

[Ram]

JASDF ATC is a living, breathing example of how MORE comm does not equal more SA. I love loathe keying the mic 14 times more than necessary on a clear VFR day, while they make 69 useless radio calls instead of actually managing the pattern like they're supposed to do.

My personal favorite sequence here w/the JASDF:

"Viper 1, initial."

"Viper 1, report blake."

"Viper 1, in the break."

"Viper 1, report base."

"Viper 1, base, gear, stop."

"Viper 1, gear check, crear to rand, lunway 28."

"Viper 2, base, gear, stop."

"Viper 2, gear check, tlaffic turning base to final, F-16 randing lunway 28."

Every. Goddamn. Time.

[Rmarsh]

The JSTARS SOF program isn't much different from the AWACS SOF program. In that, it is basically just a filter for the OG so he doesn't have to listen to an hour of discussion between Ops and Mx about who is going to take the cancel.

Sounds about right.

"Well sir, our MESL says you're good to go, if you don't take this jet it'll be an Ops cancel..."

[Majestik Møøse]

It's worse than that. ABM's are now getting SOF qualified, thus plunging both SOFs and AWACS even deeper into the murky depths of irrelevancy.

I guess having an ABM as SOF is ok as long as they're not trying to give vectors back to the field!

Well you both hit on the original point. SOF was always a "nice to have", not a "need to have" in AWACS, now its been dumbed down to such an extent that essentially it is only a comm relay to let the ADO's know their SQ's takeoff and land times. WX divert? complex systems EP? They are calling in the Stan/Eval chief pilot or FE.

We tell CP (or the ADO) our TO times. If the WX is bad, we divert and tell the ADO enroute. Maybe our EPs don't get that complex. Different perspectives, I guess.

[Kikuchiyo]

"Well sir, our MESL says you're good to go, if you don't take this jet it'll be an Ops cancel..."

I love this MX mentality. A Mx guy said nearly these exact words to me once, so I asked him if he was in the US Air Force. He looked at me very much confused. I then reminded him that the MEL was in an AFI. If AFI's don't apply to MX, maybe they're not in the Air Force. It's his MEL, too, as much as it is "ours.". He made me show him the AFI and paragraph, then he went away. We canceled, and later I heard it was a MX cancel. And yet, the us-verus-them mentality persists

[JarheadBoom]

I love this MX mentality. A Mx guy said nearly these exact words to me once, so I asked him if he was in the US Air Force. He looked at me very much confused. I then reminded him that the MEL was in an AFI. If AFI's don't apply to MX, maybe they're not in the Air Force. It's his MEL, too, as much as it is "ours.". He made me show him the AFI and paragraph, then he went away. We canceled, and later I heard it was a MX cancel. And yet, the us-verus-them mentality persists

Our DO fights the MX canx vs. OPS canx battle almost every time we don't fly. Some of the stories he's told us, about the lengths MX leadership management will go to pin a canx on anything but MX, are both entertaining and despicable at the same time.

My community has been flying essentially the same jet for over 30 years; there's been some changes, but they're still all A-models. How is it possible that the crew pubs and MX pubs STILL disagree about what is acceptable for flight, and what is not?

/thread derail

[MXQA]

I spent a lot of years in MX turning wrenches, and I never understood the MX Supervision's penchant for the blame game on delays or cancellations. As far as I was concerned, I didn't leave the jet until it was fixed and working to the crew's satisfaction. To see a Pro Super or MX officer argue with a crew about MELs astounded me - it wasn't their a$$es in the seat.

[sky_king]

Basically it boils down to the retarded metric of why a sortie is delayed or canceled. Why does mx need to be crushed if they man up and say "We can't launch X sorties/day because we don't have the man power to fix them."

[Azimuth]

I love this MX mentality. A Mx guy said nearly these exact words to me once, so I asked him if he was in the US Air Force. He looked at me very much confused. I then reminded him that the MEL was in an AFI. If AFI's don't apply to MX, maybe they're not in the Air Force. It's his MEL, too, as much as it is "ours.". He made me show him the AFI and paragraph, then he went away. We canceled, and later I heard it was a MX cancel. And yet, the us-verus-them mentality persists

Our maintainers, civilians, carry a copy of our MEL. They just reference that if there's an issue.

[stract]

we don't have SOFs, we have ODOs. And when MX tries to give me a bird with the pilot's floor mike switch stuck in hot mike (writeup from the day go which they neglected to fix), and expect me to go fly doors off and conduct .50 cal weapons employment, I say "Great!" I'll buy that MX late T/O while you fix the fucking floor mike switch.

But seriously, in our community, ops could really give a shit who takes a dev at the end of the day. So this is a bit comical to read...

[disgruntledemployee]

MX gets bashed over the head via metrics that some pencil neck back office weenie manipulates. When various percentages look red, Sr MX get all spun up. So there is high incentive to fudge and cheat to their advantage. The Ops side fighting MX over delays and cancels is just us fighting back against that stupid mentality and/or let MX try to walk all over Ops. When the worker bee level cooperates and takes action to get the mish done, it had better be in accordance with the MX rules. Example, "hey chief, this gage is out." If it gets swapped out with one from the truck without the chief/crew doing a write-up and big supervision finds out, get ready for a nut pounding. I swear that some of the crap that staff-level A4 pushes down leads me to believe that they've gone full ape shit retard.

SOF. Ours don't really do much. Every AETC plane is full of instructors and thus rarely insert themselves into EPs. The DOs handle any Ops/MX issues with lates/aborts/cancels.

Out

[sky_king]

SOFs at UPT bases make sense because it eliminates a lot of the duplicated workload of the hundreds of flights every day. At a base with one or two flights a day... I'm sorry, but we're all big boys, figure it out.

[Buddy Spike]

SOFs at UPT bases make sense because it eliminates a lot of the duplicated workload of the hundreds of flights every day. At a base with one or two flights a day... I'm sorry, but we're all big boys, figure it out.

Isn't that the RSU's job though?

[Champ Kind]

Every. Goddamn. Time.

Pure gold!

[sky_king]

Isn't that the RSU's job though?

The RSU is there to keep solo students and colonels from landing gear up.

[10percenttruth]

SOFs at UPT bases make sense because it eliminates a lot of the duplicated workload of the hundreds of flights every day. At a base with one or two flights a day... I'm sorry, but we're all big boys, figure it out.

Sort of.

As a UPT SOF, the biggest function was setting the weather status for the field & pulling the trigger on a recall/divert. The vast majority of scheduling decisions were left to the ops sups & unless the guy with the EP was in your airframe, you weren't much help there as more than a comm relay/sanity check. T-38 dudes especially would talk to the sup before me & I often would have little to no SA on an EP until it was on final.

[sky_king]

Sort of.

As a UPT SOF, the biggest function was setting the weather status for the field & pulling the trigger on a recall/divert. The vast majority of scheduling decisions were left to the ops sups & unless the guy with the EP was in your airframe, you weren't much help there as more than a comm relay/sanity check. T-38 dudes especially would talk to the sup before me & I often would have little to no SA on an EP until it was on final.

Eliminates duplicate work in that, not every pilot needs to figure out their weather alternate for the flight. A UPT SOF also determines landing windows for the airframes in instrument statuses. Having a SOF minimizes the headache of 5 Ops Sups fighting over what they think should happen.

[disgruntledemployee]

Oh, and there is no such thing as a FAIP in Herk world, so there goes that excuse for a SOF. And no snappy 1Lts out there teaching AP skillz, so there goes that reason for a SOF. If WX gets bad, we can shoot any ILS down to mins, so there goes the WX excuse for a SOF. So the blanket rule that AETC units must have a SOF is silly. Caesar may now ban me.

Out