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Those are good fields that can help boost your civilian career as well. I am guessing you are reserve or guard based on talking about having to balance two careers? After having served in multiple MOSs (AFCS) in the Army, my two cents are as follows: Nearly everyone in every other AFCS wants to be a pilot. No pilot I know wants to be something else. Yes becoming a pilot has some harder schools, and yes people fail out. That is a plus: there is at least a minimum bar to entry that doesn't truly exist in other AFSCs as the graduation rates for their schooling are near 100%. You have the potential to work with a lot of incompetent people that get filtered out in UPT and follow on training. Not to say I haven't run into pilot types that need to find new lines of work, but overall it's better. There are still top 10% officers in other AFCSs, it's just the bottom n% that gets culled in pilots. I've found Guard/Reserve pilots as a whole to take their jobs more seriously than other AFCSs. If it comes time to do the job for real, I want to do it with people who know what they are doing. Again, broad generalizations and I am sure there are plenty of clerks in the Guard/Reserve that really know their job, love it, and do a great job. The downside is that means you need to take your job seriously, and you will have to do more than a weekend a month / two weeks a year at your base. In addition, you will need to do studying even when not at your base. On failing out: my experience in Army flight training and what I have read about UPT. If you dedicate yourself to studying and apply yourself during training -- it's pretty hard to fail out if you are a solid person. Some people's minds aren't wired right to be a pilot, but these are fringe cases. Most of the issues I have seen are people that don't know what they need to know, or don't know it well enough. Their flight busts are usually based on their lack of knowledge/chair flying causing them to end up behind the airplane. Finally: flying is the most fun you can have with your clothes on. I'll second what JHO says above, go take a discovery flight, especially in something like a Citabria that can do some aerobatics. If after all that you don't want to be a pilot, then the smart thing to do would be to bow out. Good luck!

The latest incident at the Deid typifies why the Air Force is a burning dumpster of idiocy. For those who have deployed to this garden spot in recent times you might know the story of “Ghost” a stray dog that several squadrons adopted and nursed back to health. Well it appears the all knowing leadership decided to capture and euthanize “Ghost.” Hey Fingers, this is why you and your scyophants are FAILING. Someone have that deployed commander choke himself.

@MilitaryToFinance you’re not wrong, in your fisnncial conclusions but: A) the article basically concludes that Roth is better for almost everyone, so same end result B) I’m in the military, have deployed many times to combat zones, but now am Guard and have a civilian job, so the discussion is relevant to me personally and many here who are ARC/retired and working lucrative civ jobs You are correct that the ideal beneficiary of a traditional 401k or IRA is a high wage earner living in a state with high state taxes who is self-disciplined enough to reinvest the tax savings from current-year deductions. If you are a young pup on AD and deploying, Roth is your friend 100%, but the point of the article is that Roth is better for most people anyways regardless of speculation on future tax rates. Personally, I max 2x Roth IRAs for myself and my wife, and do Roth TSP when I am on orders. In my civ job, I do traditional 401K because unfortunately Roth isn’t an option in our plan. When I hit the 401K contribution limit for the year, I switch to contributing to an after-tax 401K (which differs from Roth) because that money can be laundered into a Roth IRA the following calendar year above and beyond normal Roth IRA limits.

Here’s another angle:

I heard it. Looked up and saw the camo jet getting chased. The blue jet had a lot of damage. Word is he flew 180 knots on final to land. I looked over the damage, and am somewhat surprised he was able to land. Great weather but the turbulence inflight was pretty rough in the afternoon. Our morning demo on Sunday wasn’t such a punishing ride.

Huggy did you witness this? Great job bringing it down safely. Speed up to 7:40 if you don’t want to watch the race and straight to the incident. Really bummed I didn’t get to go this year.

3-4 years is exactly where big blue wants the timeline to “fix” everything. Everybody that was around when the problem first showed up will have PCS/Separted/Retired and it’ll be “normal” ops for the fresh blood.

I want a Ferrari as well , but as they say, get in line.

I ran the half marathon. It was 88% humidity and 70 degrees at the 0830 start, but it was overcast. Then the clouds cleared around 0945 and the temp went up to 80. My garmin watch said it hit 100 degrees on my wrist. Combined with the humidity, it was pretty miserable. Most people ended up walking quite a bit towards the end. It was by far the worst running race I've ever done.

NSFW for topic

Who loves ATAAPS?! Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

I’ve always preferred “0” or “Half my shit” for the preferred scale...

For me the best plans are Google Fi or T-Mobile one with the international add-on. Internationally, they are the same in terms of coverage for practical purposes. Domestically, Google Fi adds Sprint and US Cellular's coverage. Google Fi also does some good Wi-Fi roaming. For data while abroad, Fi can be faster, recommend the $15/month add-on for T-Mobile for faster data and unlimited GoGo on flights. While Fi is cheap when you use little data, the data costs can add up quickly to take you to $80/month+tax on a single line. T-Mobile's prices (they also offer military discount) are inclusive of taxes and fees. Why all this about plans? Because Fi really needs one of their devices to work well. T-Mobile you can take your pick from Samsung, Android, iPhone, etc... T-Mobile also has some subsidies on phones. If you generally use 1 GB a month of data or less, Fi is cheap and a clear winner in price. Security. SMS is probably the most insecure technology we use day to day. Leaving iMessage for Android means you will now use SMS to talk to other iPhone users. Work around: get WhatsApp or Signal (your contacts need to do this too) -- of the widely used messaging platforms these are the most secure. As far as Phone security goes I would rate it as iPhone, Pixel, and then all the other Android devices. iPhone does better sandboxing of Apps (meaning its much harder for that random weather app to read data from your other apps). Pixel/iPhone both get updated fairly fast, while Samsung and others are flapping in the breeze for months to a year. Android 9 "Pie" was released on August 6th. Currently no Samsung Note devices run it. Android 8 "Oreo" released last year is only on 2017 and newer Notes. Android devices get orphaned fast. iOS 12 when it drops in a few days will run on everything from the 2013 iPhone 5s to the new Xs phones. So if you plan on keeping the device a few years -- there's that. Customer service. I was abroad and smashed my iPhone. Screen was unresponsive so I used iCloud to remote wipe the device. I walked into an Apple store and walked out in about 30 minutes with a replacement phone thanks to my Apple Care. I had three more weeks in that trip that would have meant getting a burner phone or something if I had to send my device off somewhere. Interface: Android wins. iOS was designed to be easy. But now with triple home button taps, peeks and pops, settings in the app vs settings in the settings menu, and generally subpar multitasking it can be infuriating sometimes. Each release of iOS and iPhone since the iPhone 4 came out feels iterative of their last phone and derivative from their competition. I currently run an iPhone with my primary number. This compliments my iPad as they both run ForeFlight. Bang out a flight plan on my phone while sitting in a Cafe, see it on my iPad when I pull it out of the bag at the aircraft. For my GA flying I get briefs and file on either of them. I have a secondary Pixel that I use for Android Auto as it has Google Maps. Apple CarPlay only supports Apple Maps for now -- iOS 12 is supposed to bring Google Maps/Waze support at some point. Apple maps doesn't work in many of the places I visit. That, combined with the ability of the new iPhones to simultaneously use two SIMs means I can have my main number, and a burner phone number for craigslist or host nation data plan or whatever kids do with their second phone number these days. So in a few months I will probably be iPhone only despite it being the inferior product due to the reasons listed above.

My money is on the abbreviated syllabus that ends with an FEB at sometime before BFM-5.

Don't tell me how to live my life.

Another argument for the airlines, I guess. Totally cool to get with the help. You may have to eventually give up half your stuff, but the companies don't seem to care FWIW.

If we are going for efficiency, there might be some ideas in what you are sarcastically saying. I think the USAF spends a ton of time and money doing things the way it was done 40 years ago because we fear change. I know this happens in UPT because I was a student when the first T-6’s came on line. “Can you believe we are training in single engine props!” Said the old T-37 mafia. “There are gonna be pilots who never fly a jet in their career!” I was one of the last IFF classes to drop bombs off the AT-38. “Can you believe these new students won’t crank mils manually and have a HUD in the T-38C doing all the work...what a bunch of SNAPs.” At FTU we were all going to get lost and be lazy because we had EGI instead of a drifting INS and nobody knew how to do a delta update and our standby reticle bombing was horrible. One step away from communism. In my ops squadron wingman were going to kill themselves if we let them use their targeting pod the same time as FL. I was a T-38 IP when the magical fix to fix went away....all the students were going to wash out of follow-on courses because of that one. Back to the CAF....gotta print out maps like we did 20 yrs ago, can’t trust those new avionics with satellite imagery built in. HMCS and datalink was making us all soft. If we had unlimited resources, teach SFO’s to your hearts content. We don’t so we have to prioritize. You can’t cut it all because we need talent discriminators but once a kid tracks...well a heavy pilot probably doesn’t need a acro and a fighter guy doesn’t need as much crew communication work. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

This attitude kills me. So when are they expected to recover the aircraft with a serious EP? T-6's? T-38's? F-16's? When does it become "real"? I love how farmer bob getting his PPL has a higher expectation of emergency landings than USAF pilot training.

New students are close in age to the ARMS troops. What would you do to a student fucking an ARMS troop? Seriously, this is basic officership. It's not difficult to refrain from screwing people you have authority over. Edit: a word

I never instructed the T-6 so I have no clue what a standard student sortie looks like anymore. What I do know is that 30% of your instruction doesn’t equate to 30% of your flight time. Lack of ELP should not correlate to lack of EP training. If that is what happened, that falls squarely on the individual squadrons and the IP corps. What if...ELPs were such a great return on instructional investment they would have not been cut? You’re clearly the expert in the handling of emergencies, particularly loss of thrust and OBOGS, so I’ll ensure I pay proper respect to your future posts.

As a prior Chief of PIT... you would be surprised. I’ll take the FAIP over the C-17 AC nine times out of ten.

You probably critique a woman’s hair when she’s topless...

I met Stuck Barbour back in 2006 at Reno, in Box 102 when he was in college, and we were friends since then. He relished coming out there every year, and was well loved by everyone. The Box owner decided to do up a theme for Stuck on this year's T-shirt. Check it out.

For fucks sake it's 'lose'.

He accepts offer and completes a PCS to DC to work for CSAF. Six months later AFPC drops a 365 to Afghanistan on him...PCS ADSC won't let him turn it down and he finds himself sitting in Kabul guarding TCNs in the chow hall.