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dream big

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Posts posted by dream big

  1. 17 hours ago, Skitzo said:

    To any of the old heads out there… we’ve done the “no groups” thing before and have arrived at the present structure for reasons.

    While this missive addresses organizational change histories it uses relatively bland terms.

    Off hand I can reason that it will be difficult for a single wing commander to deal with discipline issues as well as there being difficulty being an operational war fighting wing dealing with a base commander who may or may not be in your chain.

    Anybody out there care to comment?

    https://usafunithistory.com/usaf-structure-and-lineage-history.html


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    To the friction with the base commanders point, apparently some old heads said that once upon a time, the base commanders were 0-5s, meaning the 0-6 Wing Commander could get his way; if the base commander is an 0-6 (think current Air Base Wings), then there will definitely be issues. I can see divorcing the current Ops Wing Kings from installation commander duties having its pros and cons.

    To the span of control point, the Army often has multiple Battalion commanders (0-5s), under one 0-6 Brigade Commander, anecdotally with more discipline issues than an Air Force Wing. Seems that Army Battalion commanders are trusted much more than Air Force Squadron commanders. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of issues with the Army but they get some things right. 

    • Like 1
  2. 14 minutes ago, brabus said:

    Yep, that probably applies to 99% of the Army. I can count on one hand the number of Army dudes I’ve worked with who I think actually have a clue about what they can and should do in PACOM. I’m also primarily talking regular Army. Higher functioning SOF dudes are a different story. 

    Army makes their money in USFK

  3. 7 hours ago, Swizzle said:

    Ooh, she has a DEI workplace certification...from Florida who recently banned DEI public university funding. Interesting, just made it under the wire at U.of South Florida. 

    Hell DEI is a full time industry/profession now! Random example, you can now select DEI fellowship for IDE/SDE! Wonder why we haven’t won a war in decades. 

    • Upvote 1
  4. 56 minutes ago, kaputt said:

    Garland announces the DoJ will fight Voter ID laws. Imagine being against proving that you are legal to vote. This should be a no brainer, non-political issue.

    Unless you want people who aren’t legal to vote to somehow vote? 

    Great plan for the Dems until they realize a majority of the legal and undocumented immigrants that come to this country from the southern border come from strong Catholic / socially conservative backgrounds. Not enough to sway the populace by any means but said “Latino Vote” is no longer a given, look at DeSantis’s win in traditionally heavy blue Miami Dade county. 

  5. 15 hours ago, yellerfever said:

    The Air Force is once again showing disdain for their hardest working, highest performing people…that have the most options on the outside.

    IMG_0436.webp

    Gotta pump those Air Force Ball bake sales and CGOC numbers up! Air Force doesn’t care whether you’re a good  pilot or not. 

  6. Everyone knows Biden is a bumbling idiot, but this SecDef has got to be the most incompetent piece of lard ever. His combatant commanders despise him, his staff is full of woke Ivy League chodes that just get in the way of actual war fighting business and have no business sitting in their positions. The fact that he didn’t resign after the historic embarrassment that was the Afghanistan withdrawal is downright shameful. I’m not thrilled about another Trump admin but at least it may lead to some executive cleaning house. 

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2
  7. On 2/16/2024 at 9:50 AM, DirkDiggler said:

    Ha!  Maybe so.  I get that new things/changes sometimes take a while to implement and function correctly but right now getting the same RFIs 3-4 times a day from the same part of the A-staff cause they're not talking to each other and whatever O-5 happens to have a burr up his ass about said RFI making the most important thing in the world is kinda frustrating.  I AFSOC fucked up by not having the A-3 be an O-6; probably wouldn't have been able to find another O-6 to come to CVS anyway.

    To be fair, I’ve never been at an organization where the majority of the HHQ staff wasn’t a hinderance to the mission (aka the RFI machine) as opposed to being supportive. It gets worse the higher up you go. Still not sure what the Joint Staff does besides answer RFIs to OSD. Staffs support the upstream commander, not downstream commanders unless they are bros.

    • Upvote 1
  8. 10 hours ago, HeloDude said:

    Once again, this is a good thing.  Now maybe more people who support this guy and their nonsense will wake up.  Maybe.

    No, they’ll move to Texas and still vote as they have. 

    • Like 1
  9. 3 hours ago, Oceaneocket said:

    Just got a pilot slot. I’m looking for any updates in the MAF community specifically with TDY frequency and length, and deployments too. 

    You’ll be gone a lot, but you will love it (family situation dependent). Depending on what airframe you select you’ll start pushing the envelope on the tactical side (aka C-130s). C-130s expect to deploy 3-6 months on 18 months off. C-17s similar with less deployments but you’ll be gone a lot more on global missions. Same with C-5s. Can’t speak to tankers. PM me if you have more questions. 

  10. 3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

    The scenario quietly playing in the background, and the one that scares me the most...

    Dems get to the Convention and Michelle comes sweeping in to save the day.  Maybe then she could finally be proud of her country.

    It’s a Democratic wet dream, won’t happen, she’s a celebrity millionaire living in places like Martha’s Vinyard. She has nothing to gain personally from running for office. Also she has zero qualifications, Hilary was more qualified than her and that’s not saying much.

    If she ran, she would destroy Trump or any White Male because to simple minded liberals, race and gender transcend everything else. Wonder how she would fare against Nikki Haley though. 

    • Upvote 1
  11. 14 minutes ago, ClearedHot said:

    I am at a loss for words, WTF are these idiots thinking?

    Stop retired pay.

    Stop VA pay.

    No choice of duty station.

    No promotion opportunity.

    Your time on VRRAD does NOT count towards time in service.

    Sooo come work in a crap hole of our choosing, for half pay, no promotion and its doesn't count towards your retirement.

    FU!

    Can’t wait to see takers in the single digits while the smuck who dreamed up this idea gets promoted. Seems like all we do is reward mediocrity. This will be similar to that stupid aviation only track for majors that only had 2-3 takers. 

    • Upvote 1
  12. 9 hours ago, JimNtexas said:

    She’s a second Lieutenant who has been in civilian graduate school.  She’ never even been the RAF (Real Air Force).

    Smart - definitely.   Naive?  See 2LT.

     

    She still better make the corn and stock the fridge with her peers!!. I wouldn’t treat her differently (lord knows people will.)

  13. 10 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

    It's not a careful dance, it's limp dick garbage.  I want maximum carnage as our response to the Tower 22 attack, instead they are telegraphing the strikes a week beforehand and blowing up empty warehouses while all Iranians forward deployed get a couple weeks off at home.  WTF.

    No surprises though, the same genius generals who have lost for 20 years are in charge of this retaliatory strike. Of course it's going to be weak bullshit. Bottom line: our enemies don't fear us and so we lose and continue to lose.

    I've been hoping to kill Iranians since this attack during my third deployment.  Fuck Iran, they are a paper tiger and we need to show teeth.  All of our supposedly experienced colonels and generals advocate a measured response but we need our boot on their throat or we need to get the fuck out of that AO.  Play to win or go home.

     

    With you 100%, but this one isn’t necessarily on the brass, our indecisive and lack luster policies are driven by the Ivy League academic liberals that make up the OSD staff and quite honestly run the entire defense enterprise (civilian control and all which I’m a huge fan of with the right people.) I’ve seen a handful of our GOs try to do the right thing in combatant commands only to get handcuffed by the shirks up at OSD.

     

     

    • Upvote 1
  14. 1 hour ago, ClearedHot said:

    As if the 11 million illegals haven't caused enough chaos now this...and as we've seen in Europe, it will only get worse.

    A group of illegals attack police who are trying to arrest their friend.

     

    Animals, treat them like enemy combatants and deport the rest. Every single one of them. Come to this country legally like my parents. 

    • Thanks 1
  15. 2 hours ago, tac airlifter said:

    Agreed, infuriating.

    My guess is another “proportional and measured” response, although with a bit more teeth, but well short of what is required for our enemies to fear us.  The SECEEF should resign in disgrace, this outcome has been obviously inevitable.

    He’s pretty useless but I have a feeling our responsiveness, or lack thereof, is driven by higher echelons than OSD.

  16. 33 minutes ago, HeloDude said:

    I just want to go on record saying that I didn’t trust the UN well before October of last year…

    “UNRWA fires 12 staffers who allegedly took part in October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel, US cuts funding”

    https://nypost.com/2024/01/26/news/un-fires-staffers-who-allegedly-took-part-in-october-7-hamas-terrorist-attacks-on-israel/

    UNRWA spoke at one of our academy political science conventions; I knew back then that they were a bunch of terrorist sympathizing lunatics. 

  17. Not sure America can handle another Trump v Biden spit fest (case in point this thread, which I really enjoy but just shows how everyone is just stuck in their echo chambers)..2020 was horrible enough, and here we go again. However, as alluded to, America brought this on itself. 

    • Like 2
    • Upvote 3
  18. 13 hours ago, JeremiahWeed said:

    UPT was a while back for me, but I think the basics of taming the fire hose still apply.  For me, the most important thing was repetition.  Studying written/classroom material, learning procedures, boldface, instrument approaches, contact flying, etc. need to be ingrained to the point that minimal effort is required to recall and use the information. 

    I will say, if you've gotten to the point that you have a college degree and a USAF commission and you don't know how YOU study written material and info delivered in a classroom, I don't think UPT is the place you're suddenly going to figure that out.  For me, reading the source material prior to class was key.  Notes taken in class can then be correlated with what you've already seen at least once during your reading.  If possible, I would then go back and re-copy my notes (cuz I write like shit when I'm trying to follow along in class).  This would allow me to cross-check the gouge and source material with what I wrote down in class and make sure the info in my notes is accurate and also allows me to see it all again.  Now at least my notes are something I created that I'm familiar with and can be used to study from later.

    Take advantage of any free time during duty hours to sit down with another student pilot and quiz each other on the rote memorization that is required of everyone.  Repetition.  IFR rules for clearance limits, min enroute altitudes, holding entries/airspeeds, etc. all will come more easily the more you go over them.  Boldface has to become like breathing.  However, there's a secondary part of learning boldface that often gets neglected.  It's one thing to be able to write them and say them without error.  It's another thing altogether to be able to actually complete them in the cockpit.  Once you've got the BF memorized, start making your regular pattern of repetition include sitting in a cockpit trainer or even just a paper cockpit and actually reaching for the switches and performing the steps.  You're not memorizing BF just to fill a square.  That shit is going to save your aircraft and maybe your life.  Wind the clock, slow down to get it right and know exactly what each step of the BF is going to require you to do in the cockpit.

    Prepare for EVERY mission by chair flying it from stepping to the jet until you're back in the squadron.  The more you think through every aspect of the mission at zero knots the less you'll have to think about it when you're actually flying.  There aren't enough sorties and simulator periods in the syllabus for the luxury of only trying to master everything you need to while you're actually in those training devices.  Go through the steps required of you on every mission from the walk-around, cockpit set-up, checklists, engine start, taxi, takeoff, radio calls, setting up maneuvers and entry parameters, instrument set up for approaches, etc.  If you have to sit in front of a paper cockpit set-up in your room with some kind of stick and throttle substitute in your hand, then do that.  If you can close your eyes and visualize what you need to, then do that.  Radio calls you make at the same point with the same information in them on every sortie should require zero effort.  Controls actuated and procedures necessary to accomplish a touch and go, closed pattern and another VFR approach off the perch should have no pause to think about what comes next when you're in the moment flying the jet.  The bottom line is that if you wait until you're doing 200-500 knots with air under your ass in the pattern, working area or on an approach to think about these basics that are going to happen on every sortie, you probably won't have enough extra brain cells to deal with the new stuff you're trying to learn or any other curve balls that Murphy might throw at you on any given day.  Repetition is your friend.  Seeing a trend yet?

    Most of all - enjoy yourself.  UPT was one of the best experiences of my life.  If it's not, then in my opinion, you're doing it wrong.  There's never going to be another time in your USAF career when all that is expected of you is to live, eat and breath flying, show up on time prepared with a good attitude and get paid to do one of the coolest, most challenging jobs on the planet.  You will make yourself miserable if you constantly stress about your performance.  The more prepared you are, the less pressure you will experience.  Don't worry about class rankings or trying to be #1 and help out your bros.  If you help your classmates get better, you'll probably make yourself better in the process.  The rankings will be what they'll be.  If you're a solo dick out for yourself that's probably going to back-fire.  It's pretty hard to be that way for a year without people who matter noticing.  Use Friday night and some of Saturday to blow off some steam and lower the stress level (whatever that looks like for you).  Depending on what's coming, maybe spend some time Saturday in the books and for sure get back to it on Sunday so you're prepared for the next week.  Know your weaknesses and do what's necessary to minimize them.  I didn't want to deal with distractions.  I didn't have a TV, I lived on base and until my T-37 cross-country I slept in my Q-room every night from the first day I set foot on the base to start UPT.  Maybe that seems a bit extreme, but it goes by fast and the results you produce will stick with you for life.  I hit the club hard on Friday nights, had a girl to hang with after that and maybe Saturday too and kept it simple.  I was very lucky to get an Eagle because no matter how well you do there's always stuff out of your control.  But I brought my A game, did my best and things went my way.  That's about all you can do.  It was a blast.  Have fun.

    I can’t top this sage advice, but I’ll add try your best to stay in shape and eat right. Mentally enduring pilot training involves your physical health. Even if it’s knocking out some push-ups in the morning or end of the day, you have to stay active. That helped me tremendously. 

    Pick one day a week (recommend Saturday) where you unplug and go do something fun with your classmates. I know there aren’t much options in Enid Del Rio and Columbus but we used to just grill out on someone’s patio and drink. That will reset you for the week.

    I 100% acknowledge this contradicts my first paragraph but sitting around with some beers and quizzing each other always made it more enjoyable. 
     

    God I miss those days, life was simple!!!

     

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