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Ability to do it and willing to do it are what separates fighter pilots from the rest of the paste eaters. I can train a monkey, I can't teach you how not to be a pu$$y.

Or an O-6, who hasn't flown in years, and sucked when he retired anyway. Lets be honest, most O-6's are lucky to find the gear handle.

It's too bad Secretary Carter doesn't understand that he can't fix the fighter pilot shortage with Eagle pilots alone.

Well played

Are one bedroom quarters with only a microwave for cooking considered "adequate" for a 9 month TDY? I don't know, but it does suck. Given how much suck is inevitable in our careers, and how much of it is beyond our control..... I find myself philisophically opposed to leadership decisions which increase suck merely to be in compliance with regulations, rather than produce some quantifiable increase in mission effectiveness. Officers exist to make smart choices in precisely these kinds of circumstances. Your logic above is soundly IAW applicable regulations. Unfortunately, zealously following regulations made by faceless bureaucrats has significantly increased the personal discomfort of this segment of our war fighting force without increasing their lethality. That's not the kind of leader I want to be, and probably not you either. Perhaps a better leadership angle would be: "I know this training is taking longer than we thought. I know many of you brought your families here and these accommodations are placing a strain on your personal life. Because I care about you being the best RPA operators possible, I recognize that your living environment should be conducive to optimal learning and my on base facilities simply aren't there yet. I'm rescinding my policy and I encourage each of you to find lodging within your budget that best enables an environment where your training is optimized. This is not an efficient use of funds or equipment on my base, but let me worry about those justifications. Our nation needs you to focus on honing the precision engagement skills which have become the bedrock of our strategy against AQ/IS. Do your best, be your best, and thank you for helping me identify a personal strain I can alleviate so you can focus on our mission. Go kick ass."

Most true sir, most true. Provided the music keeps playing on the Walkman,reel-to-reel, phone app, whatever... he's freaking unbeatable. But remember what happened when the music stopped? Nothing worse than having to come home not only without a kill, but adding insult to injury; "Code 3 iPod INOP..."

Can I feel like a girl for PT test purposes?

So this "retired fighter pilot" guy isn't even a pilot?? Pretty much destroys the credibility of the entire story.

JTR Intro: a. When necessary, a Uniformed Service: (1) May supplement the JTR with administrative regulations (see pars. 1015 and 1020), but (2) May not prescribe allowances that differ in amount or type from those authorized by the JTR, unless specifically permitted. They can be more restrictive but not deny/change reimbursement.

There is a lot of misinformation here. Ignorance on the writer's part or exaggerated tales from the retired ABM. More reliable link: http://magazine.uc.edu/editors_picks/recent_features/alpha.html

Wing commanders have control over what they choose to have control over. It sounds like you have a wing commander who is choosing not to pick this battle. Sounds like the wrong decision here from the peanut gallery. My experience has been when your number one priority is taking care of your people everything else works out. People ARE separating over stuff like this, so while the USAF wins this battle (saving pennies on lodging), they're losing the war (pilot retention). O-6s with the proper priorities have enough authority to fix these issues, and are choosing not to.

We did this in medical with the electronic health record called AHLTA and it's widely despised. The AF Surgeon General stated it was the John Deer tractor on the information super highway. It has cost in excess of 4 billion and due to the way we have to program money to fix and update we can't keep up. This was a DoD platform and it's now getting dumped (online since 2006ish) for a commercially contracted platform.

Yup - my thoughts also, the AF likes turboprops but loves jets. If it is a pick, the Super T would be my choice for the capability afforded for the cost and ease of acquisition (relatively). It has a strong track record with the Columbian AF and I believe only one has been shot down in over 20k operational hours and that is not acknowledged by the Columbians, only claimed by the FARC. Suitable as you said is the key word, we (USAF) sometimes shoot ourselves in the foot by by striving for the perfect plane when pretty good is the right answer.

The greatest part are all the desktop warriors coming (sts) out of the woodworks saying those a-hole fighter pilots will no longer be needed because some ABM guy got out sim'd by the sim.

brrr

I've heard there is a waterfall.

I don't want to ride one in either but I don't think you or any other pilot of a LAAR aircraft would be facing a significantly higher probability of that in a semi-permissive AOR, like Eastern Syria - Western Iraq or Afghanistan. Manned ISR has been operating in AORs like this for years with only one loss I know of, Iraqi Cessna Caravan shot down by 57mm AAA in open source, and that was / is an unpressurized aircraft not capable of operating out of the WEZ of a 57mm or above AAA. A Super T, AT-6B, Scorpion Jet, etc... would still offer more than enough performance to operate quietly, safely and reliably well above 15k and X miles away to avoid most threats / detection while being surveilled prior to going kinetic and if CAS is required for a TIC, it is built for that also. Is it the same an A-10? Nope but for the fight we are in and the modernization efforts we say we want to do, we have to consider costs. Ultimately it is the TOA of the AF and all the different pots of money that add up to that, that determine whether we can get new toys by not spending all our money in current ops. Bar napkin math for hypothetical B-1 deployment to the Died I came up with for a year with 6 jets, crews, support, and tankers was about 1.1 billion and for a Super T deployment replacing the B-1s with 20 Super Ts and flying 3 sorties for each B-1 sortie was 52 million. You could double my estimate for the Super T deployment and cut my estimate for deploying the B-1's in half and sill save in the neighborhood of 500 million per year, serious money. This aircraft/mission/capability would be a good fit for a Guard/Reserve unit with specialized group like the CAS integration group being stood up at Nellis being the lead unit or FTU for it, Call on it as needed and put it back on the shelf if the world somehow becomes more peaceful, not holding breath... Just my two cents again but the AF has a terrible delusion that it believes it is really only going to fight big Desert Storm or Allied Force style campaigns and that these missions in the Arc of Instability are not going to be the norm or at a minimum a large portion of our likely operations. For the past 15 years they have been the norm and a guess but 15 years from now we will still be doing lots of ISR, kinetic action on dynamic HVTs and targets with a high CDE concern and low destructive effect desired. I don't think we should be completely focused on CAS / Low Intensity conflicts but keeping something like 10 - 20 % of our air assets geared towards that seems a balanced approach to having a capability to eliminate 3 terrorists in a Hilux for about 10k per mission vice having a capability that costs probably 600k to 700k per mission to deliver the same effect at not really any greater risk.

For you new co's/lt's out there this is a great learning opportunity about when to bite your tongue, take good feedback from far more experienced dudes and seizing the opportunity to stfu before you dig yourself a deeper hole. I would love to see our buddy Scotch here handles a debrief. I sincerely feel bad for those poor souls in rpa's if this is the "help" they're going to get. Forget leadership 101, how about social skills 101? Not everybody has the same goals and desires that you do, you won't ever change them, so figure out a way to talk to them like a person and just maybe they'll be willing to work with you and help you out.

What about all that Servicing the President, Leadership 101? I think you've already thrown yourself upon the sacrificial alter. You make a shitty martyr. But hey, as you have so stubbornly argued, it can't really be that bad. When you figure out you had no idea what you got yourself into, just remember: attitude is everything.

I'm doubting he's a Major. The willfull cluelessness, unwillingness to listen to those actually doing the job, beclowning himself on an online forum, vomiting blue koolaid nonsense on officership and being stupid enough to volunteer for RPAs all point to 2 Lt.

I'd wager my next paycheck that ILoveScotch either IS Chang, or fetches coffee for him. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dude, I threw you a bit of a lifeline. I commend your positive attitude but you need to heed the advice to stfu and listen. Experienced guys are giving their gripes, don't discount them. I'm loving my USAF experience but I see dudes getting railed all around me so as someone who is happy, take it from me, there is a lot of truth being spoken here. Whether you dig it or not, you'll find out. But don't talk shit to experienced guys because whether you agree or not, you have Zero real insight. And don't ever ever EVER go spouting officer first at the pleasure of the president officer ship 101 outside ROTC or the shoe clerk 0900 PT session. I can't begin to tell you what a d-bag your post made you sound like. But keep up the great attitude. Best of luck.