Promotion and PRF Information

[SurelySerious]

1 hour ago, pawnman said:

Sorry, not my intent.  But hopefully that information will help the young to mid-level captains who still have time to make a course correction.

1: clearly marked as chaff

2: fuck those guys if they think everyone has to go to staff. If you want to fly, stay in a flying squadron. 

[FltDoc]

On 1/11/2020 at 10:54 AM, IDALPHA said:

ACSC in correspondence is a waste of time. Basing selection for promotion on that single item is ignorant. I have NEVER talked to someone my senior that disagrees with this. (At least in a closed door conversation) But are any of you guys actually surprised at this? I’m not. 

Waste of time?

Reading and writing about our profession is a waste of time?  I think that's extreme.

As far as whether it's "Basing selection for promotion on that single item...", I gotta say it's not.  With ACSC and crap performance in your primary duty, you probably won't make it.  ACSC plus DUI = no promotion and maybe early separation.  The truth is that good candidates for promotion probably have all of it.

One difficult part of the conversation is that ACSC today isn't the same as ACSC 14 years ago, roughly when I did it.  It was easy to knock out at that time, but they purposefully made it more cumbersome, which I disagree with.

Anything that's fairly even among all candidates though isn't worthless.  It teaches you more about your profession and you may question how much, but I doubt you can honestly say not at all, at least not if you try to complete it with that end in mine.  Further, it filters those willing to do something that's a pain but is clearly helpful for career progression from those who won't.  

In my career there have been a lot of sacrifices.  I'm not saying adding some as a discriminator is necessary, but I am saying if you're not willing to do something so relatively easy, then you're unlikely to be willing to do a lot of the later ones that are much more demanding.
 

[17D_guy]

29 minutes ago, FltDoc said:

In my career there have been a lot of sacrifices.  I'm not saying adding some as a discriminator is necessary, but I am saying if you're not willing to do something so relatively easy, then you're unlikely to be willing to do a lot of the later ones that are much more demanding.

Tracking - sacrifice more now, so you can sacrifice even more later...all of it of questionable value. How's pilot and cyber retention going?

Looks like Chang is back.

[FltDoc]

2 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

Tracking - sacrifice more now, so you can sacrifice even more later...all of it of questionable value. How's pilot and cyber retention going?

Looks like Chang is back.

You don't like the bargain, don't take it.

If enough of "you" don't take it, the system will have to flex.  I don't see a lot of flex, yet.

If I'm in an echo chamber and there's only one right answer, that's ok, but it's still worth saying.  I started poor and the pay/security of the military has been worth it to me.  ACSC and AWC online were nothing compared to digging ditches.  It might not be for others, but knowing the rules helps make decisions.

As far as me being a repeat of a prior user, the moderators could probably look at IPs and tell you how right you are.  I'm sure a cyber "operator" would know more about that than I do...

[SurelySerious]

38 minutes ago, FltDoc said:

Inaccurate data

ACSC in correspondence to make competitive for in res is indeed a waste of time, CSAF said so. 

[Guardian]

Don’t believe everything this CSAF says. He doesn’t care about the individual. Just the service.

[FltDoc]

2 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

ACSC in correspondence to make competitive for in res is indeed a waste of time, CSAF said so. 

In-res vs correspondence wasn't really the discussion.  You might take a look at my screen name and wonder whether the direction on that was the same for my corps vs yours.

Regardless of how you get it done, what I'm saying is that it's not useless, either from a learning standpoint or a career standpoint.  New BPZ guidelines make it easier to choose to wait through all your chances at in-res before deciding to do it by distance learning, but it is good to do.

I'm anonymous and have already made my choices.  I would think someone who cares enough to look at this thread cares enough to maximize chances.  If not, if you're just venting, that's cool.  The data is out there (AFPC secure, RAW, demographic).  Look at it, know what you want, and make choices that are good for you and your family. 

[jazzdude]

1: clearly marked as chaff
2: those guys if they think everyone has to go to staff. If you want to fly, stay in a flying squadron. 

You don't "have" to go to staff. If someone wants to just fly, go for it. But there's a price to pay for that choice-it'll be a lot harder to make O-5. That's not wrong or unfair, it's just the nature of the business, and the mid-level captains should be made aware of the rules of the game so they can make informed career decisions.

Even when I was in college working on my PPL, my CFI (who had just retired from the AF and was an AF pilot that didn't command) mentioned that if all you wanted to do was fly, be prepared to retire as a major, but if you could could suck it up and do a staff assignment, O-5 becomes realistic (but not guaranteed). And that was 16 years ago when I had that talk. But it seems to check, the couple guys I knew in my career so far that just flew their entire careers retired as majors.

Same goes for ACSC- if all you care about is flying your jet and staying in the wing, then yeah, ACSC does nothing for you and is a complete waste of time. But it is a requirement for O-5. Not saying you should do it as soon as you have a line number to major, but if you've had your 3 looks at school and didn't get picked up, maybe you should consider doing ACSC-DL. Then again, if you just want to fly and are okay with retiring as a major, then cool, don't do it. Just don't be surprised you didn't make O-5.

Something about the more things change, the more they stay the same...

I will say that the myvector assignment process is (hopefully) a step in the right direction. I was going to just stay flying because going to Scott to do AMC staff or TACC is something I have no interest in. But I was able to find a few staff jobs that sound interesting in locations I'd like to be in, with some of them being flying staff billets.

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[Breckey]

The problem is that some communities won't release people who aren't the Golden Child to staff, ergo@pawnman

[di1630]

if all you wanted to do was fly, be prepared to retire as a major, but if you could could suck it up and do a staff assignment, O-5 becomes realistic (but not guaranteed). And that was 16 years ago when I had that talk.

16 yrs ago was a different AF. Hell ,5, 3, different AF. I hear we are looking at 90%+ to O-5 coming up. I’ve known multiple HPO’s would could have timed into 1-star jumping ship recently to airlines.

What am I getting at? If you want to fly, do it. As long as you don’t have a DUI or UIF and have min-runned your square filling (SOS/ACSC), in today’s AF, you can fly and will probably promote.

*some communities vary

I was told multiple times that by choosing flying over career I’d never make O-5. Best choice I ever made was ignoring that advice and choosing what I liked doing.

Even if I had been stuck at Maj for life, I’d still choose flying.


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[jazzdude]

What am I getting at? If you want to fly, do it. As long as you don’t have a DUI or UIF and have min-runned your square filling (SOS/ACSC), in today’s AF, you can fly and will probably promote. Baseops Network mobile app

Cool. That's what they told me, and I got passed over for major in my first look (95% promotion rate). No negative indicators, SOS in res complete, flt/cc, etc, just not a lot of real strats or awards, but nothing that would've pointed to bottom 5%. All my leadership up through the wing were as surprised as I was when I didn't make it. Best part was that on the same board, a dude that was a FP (needed supervision to fly, failed to check out as an IP in MQT) in the T-6 that was getting sent back to his previous unit made it. Picked up second look with a DP though

So yeah, glad you've been lucky, some of us aren't.

[SurelySerious]

1 hour ago, FltDoc said:

Drivel

Practice bleeding is unquestionably a fucking waste of time, I don’t care what your afsc is. 
 

if you want to read for fun on your own, just read books. Don’t press your overinflated opinion of what a “real” officer should do on others and then later on levy it as a promotion prereq against the CSAF wishes. They call that the frozen middle. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by SurelySerious

[SurelySerious]

24 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

 

 

Cool. That's what they told me, and I got passed over for major in my first look (95% promotion rate). No negative indicators, SOS in res complete, flt/cc, etc, just not a lot of real strats or awards, but nothing that would've pointed to bottom 5%. All my leadership up through the wing were as surprised as I was when I didn't make it. Best part was that on the same board, a dude that was a FP (needed supervision to fly, failed to check out as an IP in MQT) in the T-6 that was getting sent back to his previous unit made it. Picked up second look with a DP though

So yeah, glad you've been lucky, some of us aren't.

 

Don’t believe there isn’t more to this story. 

[jazzdude]

Don’t believe there isn’t more to this story. 

That's about it. Crap happens, glad you have been fortunate enough to dodge it.

Probably hurt having a long casual LT period (not by choice, ~1 year) followed by training with the Navy (last choice on my dream sheet, ~15 months because of how the AF prioritized classing up for training, so I sat casual again for several months), followed by a UPT contractor strike. So bad timing all around early in my career, and essentially 1 Lt opr short of what I should've had.

Flew the line, 2x flying deployments + 1x non flying deployment, C-17 IP, airdrop AC, UPT IP.

Played the "if I deserve an award, my supervisor should take care of me" game, so only had 1 quarterly award.

Only real strat was from the OG as a top 20%-ish flt/cc on my top opr for the board. Nothing spectacular, but not bottom of the bucket.

PME done, Masters degree done, no UIF or PFT failures. No missed end of tour decorations, no referral OPRs, no NJP/LOR/LOA.

The only thing the promotion counselor had for feedback was not enough awards.

So yeah, crap happens, better lucky than good, timing is everything, etc

[SurelySerious]

12 minutes ago, jazzdude said:

So yeah, crap happens, better lucky than good, timing is everything, etc

True. 

[pawnman]

9 hours ago, SurelySerious said:

ACSC in correspondence to make competitive for in res is indeed a waste of time, CSAF said so. 

I didn't see any part of his post that said you should do ACSC in correspondence to make yourself more competitive for in residence.  I did see in his post that you should do ACSC if you want to get promoted.

I did mine as early as I did not so that I would get picked up for school, but because I knew after not getting picked up off my major's board, the odds of getting picked up on subsequent boards was slim to none.  

Quote

You don't "have" to go to staff. If someone wants to just fly, go for it. But there's a price to pay for that choice-it'll be a lot harder to make O-5. That's not wrong or unfair, it's just the nature of the business, and the mid-level captains should be made aware of the rules of the game so they can make informed career decisions.

In my community especially, it seems the less time you spend flying the B-1 and the more time you can spend doing literally anything else, the better your chances for promotion are. 

Edited January 13, 2020 by pawnman

[WheelsOff]

45 minutes ago, pawnman said:

In my community especially, it seems the less time you spend flying the B-1 and the more time you can spend doing literally anything else, the better your chances for promotion are. 

Exactly the same way in literally every community in the MAF.

[jrizzell]

Promotion is pretty cut and dry, put yourself in the best position to get a DP. Even after all the new changes, it still going to be determined by DP or P. You can absolutely buck the system and choose not to do the things the “Air Force” deems important, and there will be a handful of people who make it. But until upper management, who’ve all succeeded using the box checking mantra retires, then that’s the battlefield. Good luck, may the odds be ever in your favor!

Edited January 13, 2020 by jrizzell
Grammar

[bennynova]

Any real memo on promotion %?

 

and what might DP rate be?  I think it’s around 50% or 55% DP for the previous 75% rate??

 

or ya the rate been higher than 75%

[di1630]

Cool. That's what they told me, and I got passed over for major in my first look (95% promotion rate). No negative indicators, SOS in res complete, flt/cc, etc, just not a lot of real strats or awards, but nothing that would've pointed to bottom 5%. All my leadership up through the wing were as surprised as I was when I didn't make it. Best part was that on the same board, a dude that was a FP (needed supervision to fly, failed to check out as an IP in MQT) in the T-6 that was getting sent back to his previous unit made it. Picked up second look with a DP though

So yeah, glad you've been lucky, some of us aren't.

Back in 2012ish, a bunch of 11F’s, mostly viper guys got F-Ed when their leadership tried to play with numbers thinking there was no way they’d get passed over, and favored the non-ops dudes with weak records. It backfired, the non-ops guys made Maj, the pilots didn’t.

Weird shit happens. It’s not right but the statistical odds are that that won’t happen to most people in a normal tear.

Your story sounds like something, somewhere at some level got F-ed up and maybe it was covered up and never explained to you.


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[jazzdude]

Yeah, I don't know, but I've made my peace with it.

Got some great advice from my then Group CC, that I've taken to heart. Straight up told that I probably wouldn't get an opportunity to command (wasn't really gunning for it anyways, and that wasn't a surprise anyways), but because of that, I don't have the pressure to play the game, so go out and find what makes me happy and do it. If I want to just fly, just do it, the pilot shortage isn't getting better. If I want to get out, the airlines are hiring. If I want to do something else, shoot for it without worrying about career progression. Lots of options still out there. And that mindset has given me some great opportunities since. I've found little niches where I can make make my corner of the AF a better place doing something I enjoy, so it ends up being a win-win for me and the AF.

If I retire as a major, great, I went out doing what I liked to do. If I make lt col, great, that retirement paycheck will be bigger. My self worth doesn't rely on what's on my shoulders.

[Bigred]

4 hours ago, bennynova said:

Any real memo on promotion %?

 

and what might DP rate be?  I think it’s around 50% or 55% DP for the previous 75% rate??

 

or ya the rate been higher than 75%

For the LAF-A category, the final allocation memo states 90% selection rate with a 50% DP allocation. 

[bennynova]

4 minutes ago, Bigred said:

For the LAF-A category, the final allocation memo states 90% selection rate with a 50% DP allocation. 

can you just post all the categories?  Or is it on Mypers?

[Bigred]

15 minutes ago, bennynova said:

can you just post all the categories?  Or is it on Mypers?

Ah, my bad, and sure. This will be promotion rate/DP rate. Dunno if it's on MyPers yet.

LAF-A: 90% / 50%
LAF-N: 85% / 45%
LAF-S: 90% / 50%
LAF-I: 90%  / 50%
LAF-C: 85% / 45%
LAF-F: 85% / 45%

[dream big]

15 hours ago, WheelsOff said:

Exactly the same way in literally every community in the MAF.

Yepp, as long as you don’t have too many Q-3s and you made Instructor you can min run your flying and be much better prepared for promotion than the mission hackers.  I’m hoping AFSC specific boards helps mitigate the good dudes being glossed over by nonners on the board.