Danger41

It’s funny that you mention about the definition/perception of leadership. I’m in a group on Facebook for USAF O’s (long story...) and there are a TON of posts in there about leadership development techniques, styles, etc. Every one that I have seen is generated by and subsequently flooded by a bunch of medical and MSG O’s. I posted one time that my leadership philosophy and mentorship program was primarily getting young guys to study and be good at killing the enemy (tangible results). They looked at me like I had 3 arms because I didn’t want to take the time to sing kumbaya and get to know the feelings of every individual. To them, that’s leadership even if the ability to do their job suffers. To me, doing the job at a high level and producing results is what matters. I’ll admit that the President sounds like a dipshit very often but he produces some good results. The former president definitely made people feel better about themselves but was light on things that mattered (I know that’s a gross over-simplification). My $0.02

That’s no selfie, that’s the Day Man, fighter of the Night Man, Champion of the Sun. He’s a master of karate and friendship for everyone.

19k on a 35k bonus? That’s some hefty tax!

Anyone having any deployment issues with people over 30 BMI? I’m hearing people not being allowed to deploy of over 30 BMI...

My logic is literally thousands of American casualties (603 deaths CAO 2019) are directly linked to Iran. And the primary culprit of those are proxies led by the Quds Force. And Soleimani was the leader of the Quds Force. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2019/04/04/iran-killed-more-us-troops-in-iraq-than-previously-known-pentagon-says/ I’m not going point for point with you on the other talking points because I’m not pro-Trump and there’s no point. But the Soleimani one piques my interest whenever that gets brought up as a bad thing.

If you don’t think we’re at war with Iran and their (former) leader of the Quds Force then you’re completely naive. That was a fantastic move to me. And I know I’m as jaded as they come, but IDGAF about what Trump says about how he feels about the troops. I don’t care if he doesn’t understand the deep inner psyche of military members and why we joined. Keep modernizing the force, stop cupping China’s nuts, empower the leaders in the military, and make our “allies” do their part.

What’s the B course BFM syllabus now? 10 years ago it was 4 each of offensive, defensive, and high aspect with demo pro on the 4th. There were also “advanced” of each as well which was usually various tank configurations and some new concepts introduced.

This is an interesting topic to me based on an interaction I had in my earlier flying career. My sister asked me to talk to her elementary school class about being in the military and specifically about being a pilot. A lot of these kids were Native Americans, Hispanics, or really poor whites. They all looked at me like I was some alien from outer space but when I mentioned some fellow aircrew that were their particular ethnic identity, they lit up. Me, being generic white man had basically zero impact, but stories of people like them doing the job really resonated and motivated them. I try to keep this in mind when I default to the positions laid out above (with which I agree). Last point that has always intrigued me. Native Americans are the highest per capita racial group that serves in the military and have been for a very long time. Many tribes are centered on a “warrior culture” and honor military service. Why isn’t there more of a push for that demographic in the flying business? I can only think of two that I’ve known in my career (naturally both had the Callsign “Chief”). I know the raw numbers of Natives are lower than other demographics, but I just don’t see that in the rated side. https://www.militarytimes.com/off-duty/military-culture/2019/11/15/a-warrior-tradition-why-native-americans-continue-fighting-for-the-same-government-that-tried-to-wipe-them-out/

I get what you’re saying, but the “fairness” argument doesn’t work for me. It wasn’t fair at all when I went through and some really good pilots in 38 classes got sent off to non-fighters and UAV’s because there weren’t any fighters in the drop. Juxtapose that with now where kids graduating 18/19 are getting fighters. That’s not “fair” either. The USAF needs to fill cockpits and motivated individuals should be able to give themselves an edge within the structure of the program. This would also empowering flight commanders to have some control of vectoring if a guy is a totally selfish prick and doesn’t do anything to help out and be a bro. On the issue of accessing the sim building, have it available 24/7 but manned normal hours. I’m sure it’ll get broken or something, but these people are military officers. We trust them with opening and closing SCIFs and accessing SAP material as Lt’s, I think using the T-6 sim is okay. And if they’re fucking around to the point of breaking the sim, boot them out of UPT. This whole topic to me is odd because so many people are convinced we are going to produce terrible aviators that will kill themselves or not be able to accomplish the mission without doing UPT the same way we did in Vietnam. In my current community (U-28), I’d gladly take a smart kid that was T-6 only trained. Main reason for that is we put them in the copilot seat and most of their mission duties aren’t flying the airplane at all. The second reason for that is we have companion PC-12 trainers where you can go practically anywhere you want VFR or IFR and develop great air sense. That companion trainer is amazing to develop young aviators and I think that would help a lot. Admittedly, the PC-12 variants we fly have identical avionics and for all intents and purposes the performance is similar so that wouldn’t work in a lot of communities. Having some T-6 or T-7 (T-38 could work but I know they’re very in the tooth) sitting on the ramp for young bucks to cruise around in and build time would be great. I’m not personally a fan of the C-172 and similar as companion trainers because they’re just so different in performance than the assigned MWS. It’s better than nothing though.

I’m just glad their fact sheet doesn’t say you can track to Bears or Backfires from the T-1 track.

How long are guys sitting casual before starting UPT now? I think we should start those casuals on ground school immediately and get them some basic instructions before they start UPT and give them access to the sim building. Give them basics to develop their hands and some instruction for primacy and that way, they can start the syllabus ahead of most guys and trim time off of how long UPT takes. If the goal is truly to produce talented aviators, let the motivated ones work on it instead of some bullshit casual job. Get rid of syllabus deviation and shit like that and allow students to take care of events themselves ahead of time. Just rewrite those events to make them hours requirements and assign some IP’s to ensure they’re not going full stupid with what they’re doing. Then give them something like a checkride prior to UPT start to ensure they’re at a standard and start them on the syllabus. I honestly think with some basic instruction with this type of training you could cut out large portions of contact and local instrument sorties.

So Devil’s advocate here but for the AMC assets out there, why isn’t there a push or an ability to do a lot of the training in a Airline caliber, full-motion, category D level simulator? Let’s be honest with ourselves here that a lot of AMC missions are flying from A to B and knowledge and application of solid IFR abilities are more important than tactical acumen. I think you send a T-6 direct guy to that style of training, then drop him in the ops units and do an MQT style thing in that units mission. Then seek additional quals at various hour thresholds. This partially was inspired by talking to some C-17 IP’s looking to them to do an airdrop and several of them weren’t qualified in that and avoided it like the plague. That not only pissed me off, but if you want to travel the world like an airline pilot, why not train that way? That sounded overly venomous, but I hope my point is getting across.

One of my favorite political pieces I’ve ever seen. “Let’s imagine: It’s time to elect a world leader, and your vote counts. Which would you choose: “Candidate A: Associates with ward healers and consults with astrologists; has had two mistresses; chain-smokes and drinks eight to ten martinis a day. “Candidate B: Was kicked out of office twice; sleeps until noon; used opium in college; drinks a quart of brandy every evening. “Candidate 😄 Is a decorated war hero, a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer, and has had no illicit love affairs. “Which of these candidates is your choice? You don’t really need any more information, do you? Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill. Candidate C is Adolf Hitler.”

It’s just the way the USAF fighter community is going as more F-35’s come online. Similar to how the F-16 used to be the most common airframe in the USAF therefore a lot of pilots went to it to fly it. But right when it came out, most fighter bound guys were still going F-4 because there weren’t the seats available. If you’re T-6 complete now and about to start 38’s with aspirations of F-35, I’d plan to graduate at the top of the class. If you just want to fly a fighter, I’d recommend you maintain a pulse for the next 6 months and you’ll get there.

They may have the greatest drop video ending ever...