PAWS

I laud the energy these two guys have, but laugh that they think the anyone with the authority to change things will use logic to reverse the recent shifts in long-term manpower/talent management. There’s always room to create UPT 3.0 and UPT Next-next. (Not that the current side-effect of using modern commercial technology to increase student skills are bad, but intentionally using that as the primary solution to a self-made problem is wrong.)

I’m in a similar boat. ‘Volunteer-esque’ options arose that I could tailor my next 2 flying assignments (or 3 if I really min-run my tour lengths) to work in my favor; mind you, my personal priorities may not mirror everyone else’s. I also saw the Air Force’s stellar talent-management/COVID-flavored writing on the wall, and renegotiated the FY20 bonus in the last few weeks it was offered to work for my family and myself. I flat out tell the younger guys and gals whom I work with that if I was maybe 1, but definitely 2-3 year groups later, I would be making different choices, but this worked out so that I can bend it to my benefit.

Some sand-covered, tarped item stored outside a lab will now be shuffled as a tribute to the Petting Zoo...

I've had diplomatic "tea" in a dry (in both senses), exclusively Islamic (as they'd like to claim) country. I'd be interested in how creative those solutions are, and why only certain water fountains are so meticulously maintained, too...

Or, if you’ve had too many toxic commanders, you do this knowing you'll be Q3'd (for failure to chock a parked aircraft) faster than you can process what happened on that hasty LZ analysis you just executed...

He’s clueless enough to say that cutting recruitment might be a good idea, plus it presents opportunities for challenges in the future. He’s spouting buzzwords without concern for reality, merely for the sake of being quotable for future PME... ”If the future Air Force force structure can’t afford bread, let them eat cake!”

They have those little two-shack townships with surprise drastic speed changes on both sides of that gem of a town. I was trailering my motorcycle headed east through Taiban and definitely saw some blue lights flash brightly. Even though I slowed, they didn't pursue, despite being well over any "You're new here, let this be a warning" speed... It must have been something about my motorcycle being roughly 5 times the value of the car towing it (and clearly apparent to the uninformed observer), that caused the fuzz to question whether his radar gun was working!

I tried to time the remainder of our Roth IRA contributions this past February, but lets just say that 20/20 hindsight says that was a premature deposit... If you’re playing the long game (unlike the kids day-trading Tesla and Boeing), being consistent is generally better than timing the market. I think someone posted this link about timing the market vs time in the market on another thread (I’m not claiming originality, though I would be curious to see that guy’s Google spreadsheet go past May 2019). We’re using the bonuses on our mortgage principal to kill that “gravity penalty” that mortgage interest is, while still investing. Rolling equity forward to future PCS moves can be eye-watering if you are patient. If you’re already there, though, more power to you in timing the crash perfectly.

I’d be more worried about the longitudinal changes in CG during critical phases any phase of flight when multiple passengers get up to “finally get a better view of (insert XYZ) than they’ve ever had before” rather than the pilot’s sight picture. The German Blohm & Voss BV 141, Burt Rutan’s Boomerang, and The North American F-82 were all aircraft where the cockpit wasn’t even housed along the longitudinal thrust centerline, and modern bush planes don’t have the pilot sitting too far from the mid-wing position. Granted it’s a very primitive video, but that sight picture doesn’t look like it would take too long to adapt to.

The standard YMMV. Three and four SQ/CCs ago, I would have been thinking similarly, but we’re on a pretty good vector now.

Some quick Google-Fu: This article on Federal News Network (not sure on their veracity in reporting, but an interesting speculation nonetheless) seems to predict higher percentage of take rates than historically. Elsewhere in the aviation industry, talking heads are forecasting doom and gloom for the next few years, El Al is pretty much in an accelerated stall though they’re about to get a ballistic recovery system from New York, Emirates is cutting OVER 9000 jobs without actually admitting that they’re in dire straits (or “up to 9000” if you want to quote it verbatim), and The Motley Fool is claiming that United Airlines isn’t expecting the most recent spike in air travel to continue... Personally, I took 4 years under the FY19 AvB, paired with the BRS for concurrent monies and ADSCs. But this summer, the wife and I are considering tacking on a few more years in the FY20 offering before Big Blue’s money dries up, which would allow me to eventually enroll in the check-of-the-month club. Family stability and meeting significant financial independence goals are the primary reasons, and the current COVID-driven dip in outside employment in my career field shouldn’t affect the FY25-FY28 hiring peak too much, I hope.

Almost forgot, ask your cadre what type of base visits the can get your detachment to take. When I was in AFROTC, one of our cadre members was good friends with an MX officer, so she contacted him and we visited Tyndale AFB and got to walk around and crawl under an F-22 with it's bay doors open. Have a few beers with your cadre, ask them to invite different AFSCs to talk to your detachment, or if they have any contacts who would give you all a base tour or orientation flight (I always had work or classes I couldn't miss when our det did the KC-135 rides), and hope that your cadre actually want you and the other cadets in your det to be informed about the various AFSCs, rated and non-rated.

Go find an OSS or some other support unit at a flying base that will let you get a peek at the vanilla portions of their mission. You'll learn a lot more by learning the different communities, than picking an airframe based on the mission. Plus, don't come across as too much of a brown-noser while you're doing that, and you might actually hear folks open up about the good, bad, and ugly portions of their MWS/mission where they may otherwise just brush you off as an ROTC cadet who think's they're God's gift to SUPT. I didn't get the airframe (or even track) I wanted in SUPT, and in retrospect, while I was REALLY really disappointed not to be flying something with a pointy nose, my personality wouldn't have gelled with the community; not the mission, mind you, the community. Yup, that's it. I swore I'd never fly tankers in UPT, and then I absolutely loved it. True, it was the KC10 and not the 135, but I realized it's not so much the airframe as it is the people you're with. As long as you're surrounded by good dudes and dudettes, you can turn any shitty experience into a good time. So fighter drags were my favorite mission. Nowadays, the most rewarding missions are the high risk SRO ones where I'm going for a swim if the engine fails, but let's be honest--it's the go-gel I really like. In my experience, this is mostly true. I'd amend it to say "Whatever mission you perform is the best mission in the Air Force." My first two MWSs from SUPT I said I'd never voluntarily do that. In hindsight, though, I'd still say I'd never voluntarily do that, but the mission was very unique, and if I gulped enough Blue Kool-Aid and held my breath, I could see how my mission was an irreplaceable cog in the GWOT. My current MWS, by far, I'd say is better than all the other airplanes out there (though there are still some pretty dope missions others do), and I'm seriously considering hopping our TFI fence for greener pastures. We even just recently got a pointy-nose driver who switched MAJCOMs just to get to our airframe, and he can't stop making fun of the fighter community he just left. If I had to do it again, I'd find a guard/reserve unit to sponsor me through SUPT, once I had figured out which communities did or didn't mesh with my personality/lifestyle. All the missions are great if you seriously get in the books and leverage your capes (and TDYs) to the max, even if you don't get your dream job. Learn to read the JTR better than the finance squadron can, your unit mates will love you, but you might pigeonhole yourself...