Leaderboard

I’m sorry if this has been your experience. It has not been mine at all, and I don’t agree with this portion of your statement.

I’ll tell you that being a Patch should not mean you just PA to O-5. I’ll also tell you that you do not have to be a Patch to be a shit hot tactician. Some of the most lethal aviators I know are not Patches and some of the most garbage officers I know are Patches. Don’t let labels define who you are in the AF.

It's the only way to actually give any advice backed by science...

Been here three years and meet him once at the beginning of my first year. I was introduced as the new guy who used to fly Hawgs. He immediately checked my back for bird strikes. Sharp even on the way to retirement.

They are definitely gonna need dudes that want to change the system...are you ready to make that sacrifice? I spent 5 years grinding as a Captain to put myself in position for 1 or 2 BTZ for O-5 to hopefully make a difference, and I consider myself (and my family) lucky that I was smart enough to call Knock It Off at this point in my career. To me SQ command is the best opportunity to make a difference for people...I realized in my neck of the woods (RPAs), that every commander I’ve known has been put in an under-resourced situation where they have to surge and treat people like a piece of crap because of it continuously. The fantasy of being a commander that fought the good fight to only do sustainable amounts of work, stiff arm BS by not tasking people with it(CFC, holiday parties, qweep, everyone gets a medal type awards, etc...), focus on quality mission execution, and help retain people died for me when I realized all of this would get me fired and put me at the bottom of the barrel unable to “change things”. I feel like it’s theoretically possible in a vacuum if leaders at multiple levels were ready to sacrifice and fight to do the right things, but the reality that we know is over half (my personal observations are around 2 out of 3) of the commanders up the chain are narcissistic careerists drooling for the opportunity to back stab their peers hoping to “progress” and “stratify”. I hope it works out for you man...Its gonna be tough though if your fighting for “DP” without an influential advocate pushing for you (ask Ned Stark about HPOs). You’ve gotta at least make wing command to start making any difference....it’ll be almost impossible to go farther without a few years BTZ. And unless your a patch, almost none of the efforts on the way up will tie in with being a warrior or combat aviator. On the plus side, Ive been shocked at O-5 and school selects....indicators and rumint keep growing that o5/6 for everyone that stays are feasible. Different thing than being able to make a change though. All of these reasons and 60+ hour weeks for almost nothing that mattered are why I woke up and said no to a Pentagon gig and wing exec before being blacklisted as a nobody. The good part is I’m doing everything I can to return to fly real planes...It’s like they don’t have any cockpits available though...active duty would rather lose a rated pilot than keep one with cross flow. That’s good for the Guard, Reserve, and me though I guess. //Rant complete...feel like I threw up in my own mouth to say nothing new on base ops//

If you been in RPAs for 5+ years there was a recat board a few months back, odds were not good if you were in that boat. If not your odds are good of getting back to a jet. We have had two to T-6s, one to T-1s, a 130J, U-28, AWACS, EC-130, C-17, 135. It was a mix bag of returning to previous airframes and going to a new jet. We have a few more prior manned dudes that have been told to expect an assignment in the next 12 months. It’s a mass exodus of manned from RPAs right now. Back to regularly scheduled PRF/OPR talk.

Star Fox, we could give you much more sound advice if we know what we’re dealing with here...

I’m not sure if this book has been posted on here, looked through and couldn’t find it. Just finished the audiobook and was pretty impressed. Goes into the air war in Vietnam from an F-4 pilots perspective.

Isn’t it joinT spouse? And the unwashed masses want pics. If your future wife is a 0, they’ll say dump her. If she’s a 10, they’ll say dump her and fly what you want.

16 posts and no one asked it...must be some sort of record!

I think he stopped flying about 3-4 yrs ago and retired 2 yrs ago. Definitely a legend!

On the contrary, my experience is that most career mil guys (not reservists/guardsmen) are surprised by a number of things in the outside professional world after they leave the insular military world.

Whatever. I did what I needed to do in my time to play by the advertised rules for promotion. Don’t like it? Don’t do it. But don’t cry when you get passed over.

Queeped out and noticed the 13July2018 AFGM2018-02 for AFI36-2903 6.4.3.2 has a change that says: “On 1 June 2020, Coyote Brown boots will be worn with the OCP and the flight duty uniform.” The updated 28 September 2018 AFGM2018-03 6.4.3.2 part removes the “and flight duty uniform” from the add. Guess it’ll probably change again if this coyote boot/brown patch rumor is true, but it seems the AFGM/AFI change was in the opposite direction to the latest rumor.