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What's wrong with the Air Force?


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I think we can close the thread now. When flying is #18 of 19......that's what wrong with the Air Force.

^This. Worse is that the only thing below flying on that list is something they are expected to do anyway...integration...why would that even need to be a priority? It is your fucking job!

UFB is right. That list is going to bite someone in the ass the next time ANY level of mishap occurs with bent metal.

...and from the Reserve side too. Time to go...

Edited by BitteEinBit
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Devil's advocate here: Maybe these charts should have been labeled "problem areas" vice priorities. I would hope, as professionals, our ability to "Fly the jets" is working without issue and the wing staff is focusing on things they aren't actually experts in.

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Dupe, what you're saying makes perfect sense and if those are the problem areas I'd rather not see "fly jets" on that list at all. Good point.

It really should be a given that flying jets is a wing priority if that is the wing's mission. Don't get me wrong, if the things on that list are problem areas, by all means fix them, but there should be no other reason to put "flying jets" on that list unless you're intentionally trying to show that flying is not the focus of a flying wing (which makes sense in today's Air Force culture climate). All this does is reinforce the "everyone is the tip of the spear concept" when in reality, the tip of the spear is essentially the mission for which your wing is appropriately named, and everything else supports that mission. I really think we are moving away from that concept. Yes, the support functions are ALL important in accomplishing the overall mission, but they are not all tip of the spear...unless they want to be the AFIS Implementation Wing or Travel Voucher Processing Wing, then yes, flying is not as important unless we need to fly in order to support travel voucher processing. I'm a graduate of the old PME courseware so I may be wrong here, but I think there is supposed to be a reason it is called an AIRLIFT Wing and not an AFIS Implementation Wing. The bottom line is that everything on that list still supports the wing's ability to perform its tasked mission...flying jets...period.

Maybe it is me who is out of touch. Now I wonder why a Missile Wing is called a Missile Wing. I can't imagine what their mission could be....I better research that one.

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Air Force Inspection System. Replaced the IG for some base level inspections to save TDY costs. However it just creates more additional duties

Thx. I should probably have known that considering we're in UEI season.

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There's one thing that I think needs to be understood in all this (and this will kind of bleed into the Force Shaping and Pilot Bonus threads)--and that is demographics. In my estimation, it has more to do with the mess the Air Force finds itself in than individual leaders' decisions.

Here goes:

- Leader selection:

-- Our current batch of Air Force four-stars entered the Air Force between 1976-1980, and our current O-6s entered generally between 1983-1991 (pin-on somewhere around 22 years & stay as late as 30 yrs)

-- Peak hiring in the last hiring boom was between 1996-2000ish

-- What this means to me: Our current four-stars hit 20-year retirement eligibility, and our much of our current O-6 leadership hit bonus eligibility in the midst of the hiring boom and stayed in, while their peers were getting out in droves

-- What this means to me is that Big Blue had a smaller pool of candidates from which to select future senior leaders, and it is quite possible that there was a decrease in quality as a result. Dudes that might have stayed in and made the Air Force a better place pulled chocks instead

Note: I have no solid evidence of this, but choosing leaders from a smaller "gene pool" has to have a qualitative impact

Looking forward:

- Baby boomers are hitting age 65 in ever-increasing numbers; the peak of the Baby Boom was in 1961 (4.3 million--will hit 65 in 2026), so they'll be leaving huge holes in the workforce well into the future (for we pilots, as we know this translates into significant hiring)

- At the same time Boomer retirements accelerate, those Air Force officers who were born in the worst of the Baby Bust years (lowest births in 1973, with only 3.14 million) will hit 20-year retirement eligibility (born in approx '73, commissioned in approx '95, retirement eligible in '15)

- The year groups in and around the '95 year groups were ones in which Big Blue grossly underproduced pilots--and in particular produced way too few 11Ms

To sum up:

- In the next several years, rapidly increasing demand (most importantly pilots in our example, but they'll need experience across disciplines and industries) will be met by some of the lowest numbers of recently-retired Air Force pilots (and in particular mobility pilots) in many years

- Historically high demand will meet historically low supply, which will lead the majority of those who stuck it out 20 yr retirement to walk into the readily-available airline--and other--jobs out there.

Given the inevitably small (sts) number of pilots that bother to stay in past 20 yrs and thus meet their O-6 boards, how much quality control do you think Big Blue is going to have?

If the bumpy ride we've had in the Air Force over the past several years is in any way due to poor quality control (driven by low numbers of folks who stayed in during the late-90s as stated above), then we're in for a really bumpy ride over the next decade and a half or so.

- I guess the good news is that if you're a 15-20 year O-5 type and you've played the game reasonably well over the past several years, you'll have a historically good chance at making O-6. You won't have any competent minions (read grey beard O-4/O-5 types), since they'll find much greener pastures outside of the Air Force, you won't have any money for your organization, and you'll deal with senior leadership that for the most part has destroyed institutional morale . . . but you'll have some really cool, shiny birds on your shoulders. Good luck with that.

I hope we get some combination of competent/inspirational leaders and useful bonuses to ensure that we retain what leadership talent we have.

Rant off.

Edited for a math error

Edited by TnkrToad
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