Promotion and PRF Information

[flyusaf83]

On 7/26/2017 at 8:13 AM, Duck said:

Rumor floating around that the P0417D board for '09 Capts has been moved up 2 months from December to October. Can anyone verify?


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Any ideas on why they would do this? Unless they are going to have a very high increment and fly through pinning on the 08' guys, I don't know why they would move the board to the left.  Otherwise they would just be building a massive amount of Maj selects.

[bennynova]

50 minutes ago, flyusaf83 said:

Any ideas on why they would do this? Unless they are going to have a very high increment and fly through pinning on the 08' guys, I don't know why they would move the board to the left.  Otherwise they would just be building a massive amount of Maj selects.

they aren't doing it, so it doesn't matter

 

PO417D board remains in December.   we are about 150 days out (minimum needed to get through all the gouge).   I think it's too late to make it any earlier already.

[Duck]

Sorry everyone. My Wing Exec misread the email on the PRF dates and thought the whole board was pushing left.

[NKAWTG]

17 hours ago, Newb said:

Question:

With a continued decrease in the number of pilots coming up for promotion each year (due to the pilot shortage), will it be less competitive to promote to O-5 and above? Or does the promotion rate roughly remain the same? 

 

While there is some merit to being the best of what's left, I doubt it will be any less competitive.  You're in the line of the AF category, which includes a majority of the support personnel.  You shouldn't see a change in absolute numbers or quality of records for them since the economy isn't luring them away at the same rate as pilots.  With 4 year commitments, by the time they reach the O-4/O-5 boards, they've had a couple chances to leave, RIF, etc.  Whatever is left out of that pool is going to be competitive.

Pilot side, your path is already set by the time you hit your 10 year commitment.  When the chosen ones bail at 10 years, the overall chances of the pilot pool decrease, since the system doesn't accept late bloomers.

Short of specific board directions to promote more pilots, the current crop of O-6s will look for the things that got themselves promoted.  You'll continue to see support personnel promoted at a higher rate than pilots, and your promotion board members lamenting the fact that pilot records aren't as strong as they used to be. 

[brickhistory]

37 minutes ago, NKAWTG said:

 

Short of specific board directions to promote more pilots, the current crop of O-6s will look for the things that got themselves promoted. 

Remind me again; who is in charge of flying wings?  Of most MAJCOMs?  Of Big Blue itself?

Same as it ever was...

[war007afa]

7 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

While there is some merit to being the best of what's left, I doubt it will be any less competitive.  You're in the line of the AF category, which includes a majority of the support personnel.  You shouldn't see a change in absolute numbers or quality of records for them since the economy isn't luring them away at the same rate as pilots.  With 4 year commitments, by the time they reach the O-4/O-5 boards, they've had a couple chances to leave, RIF, etc.  Whatever is left out of that pool is going to be competitive.

Pilot side, your path is already set by the time you hit your 10 year commitment.  When the chosen ones bail at 10 years, the overall chances of the pilot pool decrease, since the system doesn't accept late bloomers.

Short of specific board directions to promote more pilots, the current crop of O-6s will look for the things that got themselves promoted.  You'll continue to see support personnel promoted at a higher rate than pilots, and your promotion board members lamenting the fact that pilot records aren't as strong as they used to be. 

Actually, you'll probably see select percentages go down. Why? Because everyone left will HAVE to fly the line, leaving the REMFs as the only able bodies to man the Wing Bake Sale. 

[pawnman]

On 7/31/2017 at 5:25 PM, war007afa said:

Actually, you'll probably see select percentages go down. Why? Because everyone left will HAVE to fly the line, leaving the REMFs as the only able bodies to man the Wing Bake Sale. 

Telling that rated promotion rates continue to decline in the midst of a rated Manning shortage.

[Danger41]

What's the number of dudes promoting per month?

[pawnman]

On 7/20/2017 at 8:47 AM, nsplayr said:

For all other categories (CSO, ABM, Non-Rated Ops, & Mission Support) across the board all categories were more promotable in 2017 than in 2016 save for a 1-man-less erosion for APZ CSOs.

This is interesting to me...was the CSO promotion rate that bad in previous years for CSOs, or did AFGSC just perform exceptionally badly.  In my community, the rate to Lt Col was 47% for 12B.  Across all AFGSC, it was about 60%~ish.  Well below the 86% rate across the entire Air Force that was advertised by AFPC for previous years.

[Duck]

1 hour ago, Danger41 said:

What's the number of dudes promoting per month?

For Lt Cols its 70 a month. Should exhaust the list by November.

For Majors the list is exhausted by the end of September, leaving the 08 guys to pin on in October. No updates on what the rate will be yet on mypers.

[olevelo]

This is interesting to me...was the CSO promotion rate that bad in previous years for CSOs, or did AFGSC just perform exceptionally badly.  In my community, the rate to Lt Col was 47% for 12B.  Across all AFGSC, it was about 60%~ish.  Well below the 86% rate across the entire Air Force that was advertised by AFPC for previous years.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but overall rates for the last few years for CSO's have been around 60-65%. In other words, pretty much the lowest rate of all the categories.

[nsplayr]

On ‎8‎/‎6‎/‎2017 at 11:50 AM, olevelo said:

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but overall rates for the last few years for CSO's have been around 60-65%. In other words, pretty much the lowest rate of all the categories.

So I'm a nerd and wanted to analyze the source of the weakness in CSO numbers compared to the board average. I looked at 2016 Lt Col and 2017 Lt Col IPZ stats since back in 2015 the DP/P % was significantly different and thus harder to compare apples to apples.

In 2016, CSOs were fairly in line-ish with the overall board selection rate (70.5% for CSOs vs 74.1% for the board). In 2017, CSOs were significantly underperforming (61.4% for CSOs vs 72.6% for the board).

BL conclusion: about 1/3 of the difference is a lower rate of IDE + P dudes being promoted compared to the board average, and 2/3 of the difference is a lower rate of DP allocation for CSOs compared to the board average.

Problems with the analysis are the small number of years (2) considered and the overall small data set (total # of CSOs on AD isn't that large), making definitive conclusions harder to draw. Overall there were about 22 CSOs who didn't make it in 2017 who "should have" for CSOs to perform at the board-average promotion rate. Is that a systematic issue or a few handfuls of dudes not quite being awesome enough? Hard to say. Pilots and mission support are easier to draw conclusions on since the numbers are larger...smaller data sets are more likely to be influenced by a few outliers.

Super-duper BL: if we're in a rated manning crisis then we shouldn't be under-promoting rated aviators, that seems pretty obvious...the AF has no room to complain of 12X shortages now or in the near future since they've recently under-promoted CSOs and provided lower bonus numbers.

 

 

[nsplayr]

Double-post, my bad

 

Edited August 7, 2017 by nsplayr

[Duck]

1 hour ago, nsplayr said:

Super-duper BL: if we're in a rated manning crisis then we shouldn't be under-promoting rated aviators, that seems pretty obvious...the AF has no room to complain of 12X shortages now or in the near future since they've recently under-promoted CSOs and provided lower bonus numbers.

 

 

I was wondering about this myself. I am very happy with how my situation worked out, but was also expecting the AF to say "fvck you, you are getting promoted and serving out the remainder of your ADSC".

On the other side of the coin, I talked to a couple of my 11x buddies who were passed over unexpectedly. Only one of them had a negative indicator. I had buddies that were current/qualified Viper pilots who ended up getting passed over, who were planning on staying 20+.

How can Goldfinger and Wilson even have a straight face talking about a "Pilot Shortage" to congress, the airlines or whoever the hell else will still listen after the bloodbath from the past O-5 and O-4 board for pilots? 

 

Honest question. I really want to know how they spin this.

[MDDieselPilot]

1 hour ago, Duck said:

I was wondering about this myself. I am very happy with how my situation worked out, but was also expecting the AF to say "fvck you, you are getting promoted and serving out the remainder of your ADSC".

On the other side of the coin, I talked to a couple of my 11x buddies who were passed over unexpectedly. Only one of them had a negative indicator. I had buddies that were current/qualified Viper pilots who ended up getting passed over, who were planning on staying 20+.

How can Goldfinger and Wilson even have a straight face talking about a "Pilot Shortage" to congress, the airlines or whoever the hell else will still listen after the bloodbath from the past O-5 and O-4 board for pilots? 

 

Honest question. I really want to know how they spin this.

Any chance you saw or have a good idea of the viper dudes' records?  i'm astonished they aren't promoting every 11F who doesn't have a negative indicator.

[Truman08]

Since the pilot shortage/rention problem has been brought to light, in terms of rated boards convening, have the instructions to those sitting on the board changed at all?  

If not, then it's highly doubtful anything will change in the interim no matter what an 11X record looks like, good or negative indicators. Unless Big AF is stressing the promotion of rated officers in critically manned career fields, nothing is going to change. The board members will continue to look at all records the same and grade accordingly, allegedly. 

( This may have already been brought up in another forum but I was too lazy to look for it. )

[olevelo]

So I'm a nerd and wanted to analyze the source of the weakness in CSO numbers compared to the board average. I looked at 2016 Lt Col and 2017 Lt Col IPZ stats since back in 2015 the DP/P % was significantly different and thus harder to compare apples to apples.
In 2016, CSOs were fairly in line-ish with the overall board selection rate (70.5% for CSOs vs 74.1% for the board). In 2017, CSOs were significantly underperforming (61.4% for CSOs vs 72.6% for the board).
BL conclusion: about 1/3 of the difference is a lower rate of IDE + P dudes being promoted compared to the board average, and 2/3 of the difference is a lower rate of DP allocation for CSOs compared to the board average.
Problems with the analysis are the small number of years (2) considered and the overall small data set (total # of CSOs on AD isn't that large), making definitive conclusions harder to draw. Overall there were about 22 CSOs who didn't make it in 2017 who "should have" for CSOs to perform at the board-average promotion rate. Is that a systematic issue or a few handfuls of dudes not quite being awesome enough? Hard to say. Pilots and mission support are easier to draw conclusions on since the numbers are larger...smaller data sets are more likely to be influenced by a few outliers.
Super-duper BL: if we're in a rated manning crisis then we shouldn't be under-promoting rated aviators, that seems pretty obvious...the AF has no room to complain of 12X shortages now or in the near future since they've recently under-promoted CSOs and provided lower bonus numbers.
 
 

So datapoint within those datapoints for you...I'm one of those IPZ pass-overs this year (should have been IPZ last year, but that's another story). TPS grad, TPS instructor, and currently in a Sq/CC equivalent position. But not enough strats and awards (because I compete with a bunch of high performer fighter pilots and such).

[MDDieselPilot]

6 hours ago, olevelo said:

So datapoint within those datapoints for you...I'm one of those IPZ pass-overs this year (should have been IPZ last year, but that's another story). TPS grad, TPS instructor, and currently in a Sq/CC equivalent position. But not enough strats and awards (because I compete with a bunch of high performer fighter pilots and such).

You don't fall under USAFWC do you?  PM if you'd like, just curious.

[Guest]

On 8/11/2017 at 3:19 PM, olevelo said:

So datapoint within those datapoints for you...I'm one of those IPZ pass-overs this year (should have been IPZ last year, but that's another story). TPS grad, TPS instructor, and currently in a Sq/CC equivalent position. But not enough strats and awards (because I compete with a bunch of high performer fighter pilots and such).

Pretty impressive, just poor OPRS or negative discriminator in your records?

I would like to assume that TPS grad then instructor has to be above the run of the mill. 

[matmacwc]

On 8/10/2017 at 11:19 PM, olevelo said:

So datapoint within those datapoints for you...I'm one of those IPZ pass-overs this year (should have been IPZ last year, but that's another story). TPS grad, TPS instructor, and currently in a Sq/CC equivalent position. But not enough strats and awards (because I compete with a bunch of high performer fighter pilots and such).

Quit, join AATC, get promoted.  See, not hard.

[olevelo]

You don't fall under USAFWC do you?  PM if you'd like, just curious.

Nope.

[olevelo]

Pretty impressive, just poor OPRS or negative discriminator in your records?
I would like to assume that TPS grad then instructor has to be above the run of the mill. 

No negative discriminators. Well, except I was RIF'd in 2014, and then that was subsequently undone a year later (hence why I'm being my original year group). But I had all of that on my record in the RIF too...basically a function of being a 12M core and luck of the draw (I'm a 12S now). No one had any good answer for why it happened in the first place. But in any case, now I have an "OPR" (Form 77) that says "restored to active duty by order of the SECAF". The promotion board doesn't necessarily know why, but I'm guessing they can work it out by the dates....and it just looks weird.

As for the rest of my records, I have a UNT DG, TPS of course, a smattering of quarterly awards, decent vectors, but not many strats at all (remember, competing against fighter pilots and other TPS grads...we can't all be #1!), and that's the killer. I have better recent strats (post-RIF) but not extraordinary.

Meeting an SSB in September after getting another straggler correction fixed finally, so maybe the new board members will see differently. Or there's always next year!

[Guest]

1 hour ago, olevelo said:

No negative discriminators. Well, except I was RIF'd in 2014, and then that was subsequently undone a year later (hence why I'm being my original year group). But I had all of that on my record in the RIF too...basically a function of being a 12M core and luck of the draw (I'm a 12S now). No one had any good answer for why it happened in the first place. But in any case, now I have an "OPR" (Form 77) that says "restored to active duty by order of the SECAF". The promotion board doesn't necessarily know why, but I'm guessing they can work it out by the dates....and it just looks weird.

As for the rest of my records, I have a UNT DG, TPS of course, a smattering of quarterly awards, decent vectors, but not many strats at all (remember, competing against fighter pilots and other TPS grads...we can't all be #1!), and that's the killer. I have better recent strats (post-RIF) but not extraordinary.

Meeting an SSB in September after getting another straggler correction fixed finally, so maybe the new board members will see differently. Or there's always next year!

Good luck that is insane! I guess we r not hurting bad enough for rated folks (end sarcasm)!

Edited August 13, 2017 by Guest

[BashiChuni]

insane is right!!!

[olevelo]

Y'all should see the facial reactions I get when I tell the story in person. :) I will say, my Wg/CC did say before this board that he'd grade my record as basically an average score, so it would depend on how the board valued TPS and rated, and where the cut line ended up being. AFPC feedback was that with all of the RIFs, Force Shaping, and voluntary departures, its left mostly stronger performers so the cut line has moved up.