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Changing/Switching airframes


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1 hour ago, NKAWTG said:

How are the fighter squadrons going to find tails to fly a bunch of crossflow guys?  Weren't absorption rates the reason we TAMI'd people out of that community?  Nine years later we now have the cockpits to get pilots the right mix of experience to upgrade in a reasonable manner?

I also don't see the MAF getting the right pilots either.  Flying ability is not something the MAF has cared about or quantified in your records.  Your Christmas party planners may have a leg up on this over the guys out hacking the mission. 

Actually, I predict that MAF leaders will want to protect their "investments" and keep their top guys (records-wise) in the community.

Already seeing that in my neck of the woods based on the names in the discussion for being submitted to crossflow.

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8 hours ago, Champ Kind said:

Actually, I predict that MAF leaders will want to protect their "investments" and keep their top guys (records-wise) in the community.

Already seeing that in my neck of the woods based on the names in the discussion for being submitted to crossflow.

Names are just "being submitted" in your community? No volunteers? In my community (at least at my base) you have to interview for it with the Wing/CC. Just curious how other wings/communities are handling the process...

And I agree with you; I bet the MAF will hang on to their "prized possessions".

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From what I heard from our Wing Exec, nothing has officially started yet. This is still in the hypothetical, would you be interested, stage.

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From what I have seen. AMC/DO sent an official tasker to provide name, I read the email and it seems like it's already in motion.

My wing cc (AETC) is collecting information as a research/prep phase to this all. Which means they want to be ready if a short tasker drops (which is what happened to AMC) and generally have an idea who they would nominate.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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11 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

How are the fighter squadrons going to find tails to fly a bunch of crossflow guys?  Weren't absorption rates the reason we TAMI'd people out of that community?  Nine years later we now have the cockpits to get pilots the right mix of experience to upgrade in a reasonable manner?

I also don't see the MAF getting the right pilots either.  Flying ability is not something the MAF has cared about or quantified in your records.  Your Christmas party planners may have a leg up on this over the guys out hacking the mission. 

We have a shortage of 500 fighter guys, haven't you heard?

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The fighter pilot shortage is real, but the shortfall could be significantly reduced IMHO if the AF did an honest scrub of fighter requirements.  And I'm talking about requirements going away, not getting transferred to another AFSC.  NAF-level Stan/Eval shops for example...what would you say they do here...  In my experience, they just duplicated effort and got in the way.  My staff job as an 11F was training Joint Operations Center staffs around the world....completely unrelated to my AFSC and something I had no prior experience doing -- total waste of 22 months.  And overseas deployed billets that "require fighter pilot experience" frequently don't.  Kill all those worthless 'requirements' and we might close the gap on the shortfall a bit.

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The fighter pilot shortage is real, but the shortfall could be significantly reduced IMHO if the AF did an honest scrub of fighter requirements.  And I'm talking about requirements going away, not getting transferred to another AFSC.  NAF-level Stan/Eval shops for example...what would you say they do here...  In my experience, they just duplicated effort and got in the way.  My staff job as an 11F was training Joint Operations Center staffs around the world....completely unrelated to my AFSC and something I had no prior experience doing -- total waste of 22 months.  And overseas deployed billets that "require fighter pilot experience" frequently don't.  Kill all those worthless 'requirements' and we might close the gap on the shortfall a bit.


You just described the rated problem perfectly! How many 6-12 month deployments to do some stupid job that anyone could do... But instead let's make pilots do it.
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2 hours ago, Duck said:


You just described the rated problem perfectly! How many 6-12 month deployments to do some stupid job that anyone could do... But instead let's make pilots do it.

Sadly it's a double-edged sword.  How many times have you heard a pilot say to a nonner, "This is the AIR force....."  When you marginalize support personnel in that way, it is hard to have a leg to stand on when they make those "important" deployed jobs coded for pilots.  "They can't hand out a basketball without poking an eye out or pay out a travel voucher in less than 6 months...  why are we going to trust them to make operational-level inputs?"

All that to say yes, the staff and deployed billets absolutely need to be scrubbed, hacked, whatever.

Edited by Champ Kind
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Peoples priorities change. What I would have killed for 8 years ago, just doesn't interest me anymore. Time gives people perspective.

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22 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

How are the fighter squadrons going to find tails to fly a bunch of crossflow guys?  Weren't absorption rates the reason we TAMI'd people out of that community?  Nine years later we now have the cockpits to get pilots the right mix of experience to upgrade in a reasonable manner?

I also don't see the MAF getting the right pilots either.  Flying ability is not something the MAF has cared about or quantified in your records.  Your Christmas party planners may have a leg up on this over the guys out hacking the mission. 

So much wrong with this. We TAMI'd guys because we needed bodies for platforms that had no pipelines. 

Do you really think anyone is looking at the right mix?  Management is looking at for warm bodies. The right mix of experience is a pipe dream. 

On your last point I can only laugh - because it'sad and true. This may end poorly. So glad I'm out. 

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Peoples priorities change. What I would have killed for 8 years ago, just doesn't interest me anymore. Time gives people perspective.



Good words to the young guys who ask "why are all the pilots quitting...you have the best job in the world."

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Not even the Air Force knows what is going on with this "program". I have an T-38 to MC-12 guy in my T-6 Squadron (you know, back when we made it into an MWS) who is chomping at the bit to give this a try, but our leadership here says since he wasn't an 11M it doesn't look like he is eligible.

Bottom line, no one has a freakin clue. Classic Air Force.

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1 hour ago, RonaldRAGIN said:

I perused this thread over the last few days and saw some people mentioning the possibility of sending FAIPs to fighters. Anyone have any insight on this? Likelihood of them pulling from the FAIP pool to send people to fighters who didn't get picked up for 38s in UPT? Any ideas of preference for T1 vs T6 FAIPs in terms of eligibility and probability of success : qualification? Just curious since I see mostly the MAF to CAF argument here. 

That's because the crossflow email specifically was to MAF dudes. Only FAIPs that have flown the -38 have gone to fighters historically, as far as I know. I think someone was making the comparison between a FAIP and a MAF crossflow on their second assignments being similar to one another in terms of what jobs they'd have in/out of the squadron once in the CAF. I don't think they're going to look for T-1 trained FAIPs to "crossflow" - no operational experience. Although strange things happen...

Edited by WheelsOff
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41 minutes ago, WheelsOff said:

That's because the crossflow email specifically was to MAF dudes. Only FAIPs that have flown the -38 have gone to fighters historically, as far as I know. I think someone was making the comparison between a FAIP and a MAF crossflow on their second assignments being similar to one another in terms of what jobs they'd have in/out of the squadron once in the CAF. I don't think they're going to look for T-1 trained FAIPs to "crossflow" - no operational experience. Although strange things happen...

T-1 FAIPS this year (still awaiting their drop that was supposed to come out July 1) are being told to rack and stack B-1 and B-52 on their drop sheet.  They are still awaiting the decision on whether that will be activated.  Basically all FAIPS who flew the 38 in UPT will be getting fighters due to the shortage

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Don't count your chickens until they hatch...


Exactly. From my sources a couple bases pushed the drop back to AFPC with the caveat of if we are so short of 11Fs, why so many bombers for theT-38 FAIP drop. AFPC: "wow that's a good point, let us look at it and get back to you..."

Hence why no FAIP drop yet...
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Hm...surprising how A1 hadn't already done some critical thinking and caught that themselves. Hm.


I see what you did there... A1, thinking...
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2 hours ago, faipmafiaofficial said:

T-1 FAIPS this year (still awaiting their drop that was supposed to come out July 1) are being told to rack and stack B-1 and B-52 on their drop sheet.  They are still awaiting the decision on whether that will be activated.  Basically all FAIPS who flew the 38 in UPT will be getting fighters due to the shortage

True. I guess I wasn't specific enough in my original post...I was speaking about fighters specifically. Yes, bombers have periodically taken T-1 FAIPs in the past and guess they are now as well. 

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We can drop fighters to all of UPT, there is gonna be a serious backlog at the FTUs. Guard/Res (i.e., AD can't just make us fly 3 gos) make up about half of viper and hog FTU and all of eagle FTU. Some Guard units have already said "fvck off" to the AD "order" to cut the syllabus by 20%. We can't just wave a magic wand and make FAIPs into fighter pilots. 

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4 hours ago, Duck said:

Not even the Air Force knows what is going on with this "program". I have an T-38 to MC-12 guy in my T-6 Squadron (you know, back when we made it into an MWS) who is chomping at the bit to give this a try, but our leadership here says since he wasn't an 11M it doesn't look like he is eligible.

Bottom line, no one has a freakin clue. Classic Air Force.

We just picked up a -38 grad to MC-12's, now in the F-16 RTU.

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