Leaderboard

A buddy of mine were BSing in the scheduling shop yesterday about all of this. He has palace chased to the guard at the end of his ADSC after getting TAMMY-21'd and then back to fighters. It's not that guys don't want to be in AD, or that they don't want to serve. His quote was something along the lines of: "It's mind boggling how you can take the coolest job in the world and people want to leave!?!" I don't want to leave AD, but I probably will. I know for sure I won't touch the bonus with a 10' pole. Money motivates some people, but I think those that find themselves in the CAF (I'm sure it's the same in other areas - just speaking for personal experience) have a lot of options that don't really make money a primary motivator. According to Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath etc...) the things that make work rewarding are: complexity, autonomy and effort tied to reward. I think for the 11X field the last one suffers. Likewise the three things (according to him) that make effective leadership are fairness, predictability and subordinates feeling like they have a voice. I think the AF fails wholesale at all three of those. It takes a tremendous amount of time and effort for someone to become a proficient active duty 11X. From personal experience and I have less than zero faith that I or the guys I work with won't get royally f'd just to make some power point slide square turn green for some O-6+. It's like if you spent 10 years trying to become a medical doctor and every year or so you may have to go work some menial job (maybe for the rest of your career) that you hate and have little training or desire to do just based on "needs of the hospital". There is certainly a disconnect between the senior leadership and the "drawdown force" that I have been a part of for the past decade. I have been impressed with the majority of guys I've gotten to fly with across all MWS's. The world's most proficient and lethal fighting force has slowly been starving to death and all of you guys have been making it happen despite of it. Good luck. My take on the bonus is that $1k/month is not worth giving up complete control of your life.

Historically, has there ever been a civilian vs military mid air collision in a MOA? If so how likely is this to happen? The nearest MOA (Gamecock) is almost 20 NM from the crash site. We know the C-150 departed KMKS and was headed to Myrtle Beach. Worst case, assuming a direct flight path, it would've been 30 miles was even in a position to enter the MOA via the southern border. That airspace is active 10k-17.9k. Those altitudes don't make much sense for a short hop to MYR or CRE and aren't very 100hp C-150 friendly on a hot summer day in SC either. It seems unlikely to be a factor in this crash. I'm not sure how this spawned into an airspace debate, but if people want to talk about airspace, it seems like a great time for both sides to learn from each other.

Dreams vs Reality. Individuals having more career control means AFPC loses some control: won't happen. Sourcing ANG/AFRES for deployment and/or staff is a non-starter. Dudes like me punched to the ANG/AFRES for the QOL. Many of us have civilian (airline, contractor, etc) jobs that are incompatible with 1-3 years off. Expect ANG/AFRES dudes to line up for those exec jobs? You really don't get why a lot of dudes went to the ANG/AFRES. UPT/IFF all FAIPS and Reserve? Holy shit. I spent slightly over 2 years teaching at a UPT base. Never at any assignment have I seen such a disparity between the bottom and top tier instructors. The MWS IPs mentored punks about the CAF/MAF, got them ready for IFF and generally had their shit together. FAIPs need the mentoring of MWS IPs. Some of the part-timers need it more; plus they produce the least relative to the sorties they require for their semi-annual beans. Entire RPA mission on the guard? It works in Tucson because the location is a pretty good deal. Good luck hiring ANG dudes to Creech and Cannon. Won't happen. The AFRES is already learning this lesson in Holloman. Mid-level Capts don't have 20+ years in the ANG. They are either going to 20 only and taking the part time pension or getting full-time Tech or AGR gigs. No one troughs their way to an AD-equivalent pension by punching at 6-9 years and spending only 20 in the ANG/AFRES unless they get put on long-term orders or get an AGR job. "as long as the reserve component is expanded to absorb the RAP commitment of maintaining an effective CAF/MAF/ATC" - here lies the biggest problem of all: money and flying hours. The going logic is that it takes 3 part-timers to make the output of one full-timer. Sure, let dudes punch after 6 years, then keep 3x as many of them around part-time in the ANG/AFRES as you would need if you kept exclusively full-time dudes (with a longer commitment). In an era of decreasing budgets and flying hours, how do they all make RAP? Oh, and AFPC needs to start worrying about actually taking care of people instead of just being able to assign people to billets. Good luck with that. It would be great if they cared enough, but they don't.