What's wrong with the Air Force?

[jazzdude]

The key thread to all of this is that it's really about people wanting a wide array of oppurtunities and a slight a bit of control to vector themselves to where their own interest lie. 

I agree with you on this, but the AF should've done this 10 years ago, when the first indications of a shortage were showing.

But it didn't, putting us where we are now. Now, to give those opportunities, means taking a body from an operational unit because the shortage has gotten that bad. Can't even rob the MAF pilot pool anymore to at least get a pilot body in a staff seat that once was held by a CAF pilot. Same with non-flying deployments.

MyVector is a step in the right direction. I was initially planning on just finding another flying assignment, and accepting that retiring as a major was a real possibility. Basically I had no desire to go to Scott and not fly in return for a miniscule increase in promotion opportunity. However, after some talks with my CC, I dug deeper in MyVector and found some staffs I didn't know about or think I'd have a shot at going to, and applied. I ended up getting my #2 choice, and going to work somewhere I thought I'd never have the opportunity to go to based on my DT vector.

Pilot bonus up to $35K for most initial eligible pilots is another step in the right direction (even though RAND says it should be roughly $48K to really affect retention).

So the ship is turning in the right direction, or at least starting to, but I fear it's too late, and the AF has just accepted the next 5-10 years are going to suck until it can produce it's way out of the problem.

[Danger41]

First step to fixing staff issues is to eliminate the Group staff. Single most useless organization I’ve seen. They exist to be middle men. I’ve actually been counting, and my last 7 interactions with them have produced exactly zero. Outside of the directorates, the number of execs they’re pulling from ops units to do nothing but forward emails and work on a rack and stack is a joke.

[panchbarnes]

It'll be interesting to see what happens with manning in the next 12 months.  A declining economy should dramatically improve the retention numbers across the board, and the political landscape could drastically change in 6 months leading to a reduced DoD budget and manpower is always the easiest cut as opposed to major weapon systems.

[Ryder1587]

Anyone have recent experience with the Air Force restructuring and combining the flying squadron with maintenance and getting rid of Groups?  Pros?  Cons ? 

[jrizzell]

Having worked MAJCOM staff, while it’s not as sexy as flying, fighting and winning, there is absolutely a need for rated expertise. There is a glut of retired AF aviators running divisions, who fill GS billets, but their currency is often decades old. Being able to participate, lead, and work on MAJCOM/HAF level projects is eye opening and expands your professional aperture. While some despise the idea of manning a desk, we need to be there, as we know what’s best for our fellows flyers.

[shark]

3 hours ago, jrizzell said:

Having worked MAJCOM staff, while it’s not as sexy as flying, fighting and winning, there is absolutely a need for rated expertise. There is a glut of retired AF aviators running divisions, who fill GS billets, but their currency is often decades old. Being able to participate, lead, and work on MAJCOM/HAF level projects is eye opening and expands your professional aperture. While some despise the idea of manning a desk, we need to be there, as we know what’s best for our fellows flyers.

Seconded.

Quals: current majcom staff fgo

Amplifying info: there's a handful of old GS civs hanging out, but outside of that i'm the only AO with recent (past 20 years) experience in my MDS.  I'm the tactics, training, readiness, and Stan eval SME, since there's no one else.  My job went vacant for the previous 2+ years, so I'm still digging the enterprise out of a hole of neglect.

In my experience everyone else means well, they just have no context whatsoever, and that leads to terrible decisions.

[Bender]

Line pilots still do the staff work, even if they aren’t on staff...


Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

[norskman]

1 hour ago, Bender said:

Line pilots still do the staff work, even if they aren’t on staff...


Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

shack

[dream big]

On 7/9/2020 at 8:23 PM, Danger41 said:

First step to fixing staff issues is to eliminate the Group staff. Single most useless organization I’ve seen. They exist to be middle men. I’ve actually been counting, and my last 7 interactions with them have produced exactly zero. Outside of the directorates, the number of execs they’re pulling from ops units to do nothing but forward emails and work on a rack and stack is a joke.

I’ve heard arguments for and against.  For one, how is a Wing/CC supposed to manage 20 squadron CCs with no middle management? I heard back in the day there were two 0-6 Wing/DOs, one for ops and one for support. The respective squadron CCs would report to each 

[YoungnDumb]

53 minutes ago, dream big said:

For one, how is a Wing/CC supposed to manage 20 squadron CCs with no middle management?

Be delegating responsibility to the squadrons.  There is no reason for waivers or approvals to require an O-6 approval.  Let Commanders be commanders, give them the power to run things the way they see fit, tell them the only reason to bother the O-6 is if they need something, and get rid of all the pointless meetings (most of which can be accomplished with an email).

[Hawg15]

4 hours ago, YoungnDumb said:

Be delegating responsibility to the squadrons.  There is no reason for waivers or approvals to require an O-6 approval.  Let Commanders be commanders, give them the power to run things the way they see fit, tell them the only reason to bother the O-6 is if they need something, and get rid of all the pointless meetings (most of which can be accomplished with an email).

Weird how the Navy/USMC can figure out a way to not have 6-9 middle men in every organization, and the squadron COMMANDER commands real authority, yet the Air Force thinks it is impossible.
 

We are such a bloated organization. It’s ridiculous how many random organizations there are that shouldn’t exist/be independent entities, and only exist to create another useless billet for “command.”

Edited July 13, 2020 by Hawg15

[dream big]

4 hours ago, Hawg15 said:

Weird how the Navy/USMC can figure out a way to not have 6-9 middle men in every organization, and the squadron COMMANDER commands real authority, yet the Air Force thinks it is impossible.
 

We are such a bloated organization. It’s ridiculous how many random organizations there are that shouldn’t exist/be independent entities, and only exist to create another useless billet for “command.”

Makes sense.  For instance, when Dyess 317th was an Airlift Group it was the place to be for herks. It ran flawlessly, morale and training was never better.

Then it became a wing, and AMC flat out admitted it was to create more 0-6 billets.  The first wing king was a toxic POS and was fired for it.  Retention for O-4s went from high 80s to single digit percentages. The IP core was cannibalized to fill all the new positions. 
 

To get rid of Groups, you first need to cut some of the bloat and red tape on the staffs.  Otherwise the Wing’s won’t be able to keep up with the admin. 

[FLEA]

Worth noting that Space Force immediately dropped Group and NAF level their coand echelons. Granted they are very small at the moment but I am sure they anticipated growth when they laid out the structure. 

[Breckey]

The NAF needed to die 3 decades ago. As soon as we had email there was no reason to have a middle man at took the guidance from the Wings and gave it to the MAJCOM. 

[FLEA]

42 minutes ago, Breckey said:

The NAF needed to die 3 decades ago. As soon as we had email there was no reason to have a middle man at took the guidance from the Wings and gave it to the MAJCOM. 

I would say the NAFs that coexhist as a component command of a sub unified command probably have a small purpose. Korea is a good example where there just needs to be that regional specialty with the OPlan and culture to really make things work. But the vast majority could nicely find a deep grave IMO. 

[jice]

1 hour ago, Breckey said:

The NAF needed to die 3 decades ago. As soon as we had email there was no reason to have a middle man at took the guidance from the Wings and gave it to the MAJCOM. 

There’s also value in NAFs that own missions that are inseparable but distributed across multiple organizations. DCGS & U-2 under the 16th AF (formerly 25th). Having a CC to slap the table with force of law (who isn’t shouldering the the MAJCOM/CC role) is important 

That said: in that case in particular (and I’d suspect in most cases in general), why the fvck are we organized so that two parts of the same machine (front and back end of a system) only touch at the NAF and on operational sorties?

[Sua Sponte]

Not having a NAF/CC makes the Convening Authority for General Courts Martial the MAJCOM/CC, which would be a job within itself.

[Guest nsplayr]

Growing up in AFSOC, I never knew exactly what the 23rd Air Force did. During my time at HRT it was activated in 2008, then inactivated in 2013 and I think literally nothing changed. Good job everyone; at least they fixed the glitch quickly on the bureaucratic time scale, which closely rivals the geologic time scale in most orgs.

[Bigred]

‘Mildenhall model’, if approved, is doing away with the groups, creating a pseudo A-staff under the wing, and moving some maintenance back into the ops squadron. 
 

It’s basically what I saw in the Navy for 15 years, and it does have goods and bads, but if it pushes some waiver authority and go/no-go decisions to the SQ/CC level, it’ll be a really good thing. 

[Breckey]

2 hours ago, jice said:

There’s also value in NAFs that own missions that are inseparable but distributed across multiple organizations. DCGS & U-2 under the 16th AF (formerly 25th). Having a CC to slap the table with force of law (who isn’t shouldering the the MAJCOM/CC role) is important 

The nuclear enterprise has something similar. Shouldn't the integration piece be the job of COCOM/MAJCOM staff? Re-distribute the billets to non-NAF staff.

[FLEA]

Even with things like the DCGS, that is an Enterprise architecture that is equivalent to a group of wing. In combat they would ideally be nestled under the same operational control and the combatant commander's air component commander owns and directs both of them. With the U-28 it's tricky because SOCOM is its own combatant command and AFSOC has their own DGS as well. However they could be organized under the air component of a JTF also. I guess what I would forward going forward is removing NAFs or NAF functions that soley exist to fulfill an administrative role and in the rare case they exist they should exist to provide an Air Force GO to a combatant commander who needs that because his Air Forces are large enough to warrant it. 

Edited July 13, 2020 by FLEA

[war007afa]

NAFs became the place to hide personnel when PBD720 pushed hard on the staff cuts for the Pentagon and MAJCOMs. Most of the NAFs liaise with a COCOM (notable exceptions) which makes it easy to validate the billets when it comes time to slash some more flesh off of the bone, leaving them immune in many cases to losing bodies.

Don’t a lot of the rated NAF positions still get to fly? In MAJCOMs or other staffs it’s rare to be able to continue to fly while doing the staff gig. 

[jice]

7 hours ago, Breckey said:

The nuclear enterprise has something similar. Shouldn't the integration piece be the job of COCOM/MAJCOM staff? Re-distribute the billets to non-NAF staff.

If you’re talking tactical integration, it should happen outside this type of relationship at the USAFWC.
For administrative relationships: I’m all for the flattest organization possible, but in this particular case I don’t think the MAJCOM the right answer. Let’s be real: ISR is always going to be a red-headed stepchild in ACC. BUT ALSO! More important than being the center of attention, ISR needs to be responsive to the needs of ACC. (Why it makes sense to live there.) That said, having the 25th Air Force provides a balance. The two star has a seat at tables that ISR (now cyber and EA as well) wouldn’t otherwise occupy, and ACC can still make demands of their subordinate org in an absolute sense. (Rather than making it a MAJCOM/DRU unto itself.)

Now! If we really wanted to make a better structure, we’d dissolve the 480th ISRW and align its component parts with the collectors and customers. That, or suddenly pluck all WSOs up into their own wing with their own rules, own schedules, and admire why B-52s, B-1s, F-15Es, and the rest are suddenly not able to employ effectively.  Ever shown up in the mission area an hour after takeoff only to discover that most of your airplane’s crew is out hiking 1,400 miles away?

[SurelySerious]

10 minutes ago, jice said:

That, or suddenly pluck all WSOs up into their own wing with their own rules, own schedules, and admire why B-52s, B-1s, F-15Es, and the rest are suddenly not able to employ effectively.  Ever shown up in the mission area an hour after takeoff only to discover that most of your airplane’s crew is out hiking 1,400 miles away?

That about describes the mental status of most WSOs, physically present in the airframe or not, so it’s been demonstrated at multiple RF vuls. 
 

 

Shots fired!

[jice]

59 minutes ago, SurelySerious said:

 

Shots fired!

You’re on your own!