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well in my mind, I won't be able to apply for the 199th until the 2027 board because I have to finish college and get my AFOQT and TBAS done. From there, I will start flight school again and get to CFII in a year or two = 2028/2029. I probably won't be picked up for the 199th until ive applied for a couple-few years which is just time for me to keep building hours and instruct. id probably reach 1500 in 2030 and fingers crossed im hired around this time to fly for the HIANG. the pipeline has been pretty bad recently and our F22 select who just left for UPT got hired in 2021 which means ill most likely have four years to continue instructing or attempt to get hired by HA, or fly for HA. however, this is all hypothetical and im positive it won't be this smooth and fast tracked.

You're in the process of getting your PPL, as you stated in your first post. In your mind, how soon do you believe you will be competitive for an FO job at HA?

Yeah I also was thinking it would be kinda dumb to go through the whole process of learning to fly and becoming an FO for HA just to leave for UPT shortly after. well this is the first time ive heard someone say not to use the GI bill for flight school. I was planning on it, because im honestly not sure how else to pay for it other than scholarships, or just taking out a big ass loan and paying the monthly minimums for it until I have enough money to pay it off.

42 years later, and still in the conversation!

Throwback to a few years ago when the Nellis OSS/CC got fired. https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2025/04/25/air-force-lieutenant-colonel-will-face-trial-for-child-sex-crimes/

“Hey Vlad check out my Raptors… they don’t have drywall screws in their wings.” There was more 5th generation air power on that Ramp and in the Air over that exchange than in Putin’s entire Air Force and he knows it. This was a reminder that not every NATO entity is full of smoke, maybe rethink the way you looking at Latvia and Estonia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

CFI / CFII will make you a better pilot faster. If you already have a pilot slot, IMO you shouldn't waste your time trying to become an airline pilot. Second, are you thinking of using your GI Bill to pay for flight hours / flight school? Other people may say different, but using it like that is an enormous waste. You'd be better off taking basket-weaving classes at a community college and stuffing the E-5 (with dependents) BAH into a mortgage. Sell the house. Collect the money. Don't use it on flight hours.

About $50k a year hit for the rest of his life. He definitely put it on the pedestal. Hope it was worth it.

Instead of limiting who can vote, a better solution would be a government that couldn't tax our productivity in an uneven manner, thereby redistributing my precious and limited time on this Earth to other people. In lieu of that, however, the next best solution is to limit voting to those who materially participate - and to strip it from those who are merely along for the ride. What that looks like specifically can be debated, but the philosophical point some have made on this board is pretty clear. I admit it's a re-imagining of our idea of "democracy," but then again, so is the fact that 40+% (nearly 50%) of my time is stolen from me in some form or another and "redistributed" to other people. That's not the system any of us signed up for either. Rather, it's the end result of a perpetual creep from our originally envisioned government instituted to help us secure our life, liberty, and happiness. For a long time, voting was the best means to guarantee everyone's collective, long-term goals. Now it's become a means by which certain groups use the government to disenfranchise other groups. Voting ain't it anymore. Voting is a nice-to-have. Voting is a mechanism, it's not fundamental to a good life. A good life is me being able to keep what I produce. As soon as voting has become the way whereby I'm made a slave to other members of society, it has ceased being a necessary part of our society. We're all familiar with the meme about two wolfs and a sheep voting on who's for dinner...that's where we are and where we've been for some time. You have millionaire SS recipients who take 12.4% of my wages and spend it on whatever, instead of selling their million-dollar homes. Instead, they're going to deed their estates to their heirs, and use my wages to bridge the gap to their end-of-life. 12.4% of my time enables old people to make choices they otherwise couldn't (or wouldn't) make. In a two-week period of Mondays through Fridays, that's (more than) one whole day of my time. My commute. My gas money. My wear and tear on my vehicle. My time I could spend doing whatever else I want to do. Instead, my time is spent going to work for the retired. 30% of my income to income taxes? Well, you can do the math on how many days that takes up. You have EBT recipients who use their benefits to purchase luxury goods. You have school lunch recipients who throw away literally 100% of the food they receive into the trash. Every. Single. Day. Again, that's my time being thrown into the (literal) garbage can. The examples go on and on and on. I don't lament people's shock and disbelief that people could advocate for something as seemingly undemocratic as taking away people's right to vote. I understand those beliefs rest upon a hopeful, childish, but ultimately naive view of how our government and society function. i.e. a view grounded in a high-school-civics-level conception of our society. It only seems gross when it's juxtaposed against the cartoonish view of what we're programmed to think. When it's held up to a holistic view that encompasses how money, time, and productivity are actually redistributed throughout our society, it's the obvious answer.

think about @ClearedHot's MWS...

…and a tear came to my eye…..OBTW, IT WASN'T MY SQUADRON!

This illustrates my point exactly. In your comparison example, we were at war with Japan. We dropped nukes on them and forced their unconditional surrender. Today, we’re not at war with Russia, and the “deal” that will be brokered will almost certainly result in Russia….aka. the enemy……seizing land from a sovereign nation. And guys are acting like a fly by is some sort of flex of strength and power. It makes no sense to me, and the downvotes and memes with no other comment tell me it doesn’t make sense to other guys either.

Two WSO's in my class finished #1 & #2. #1, Roger Locher, had 3 Mig kills as a WSO. Couple classes after me DeBellevue, the WSO MIG Ace after washing out of UPT initially, came back to UPT and ended up flying fighters. After flying LL missions with any extra fuel I usually gave the stick to the WSO. On a 10 hr deployment from TX to Germany my WSO flew at least a quarter of the flight.

I wonder what was said right after

VID_20250816_072939.mp4

I’m certain you realize we did the same thing in Tokyo Bay on 2 Sept 1945. Also made Mamoru and his delegation, aboard the Missouri, stand with their back to Tokyo and the Emperor to sign the unconditional surrender. All very public, purposeful, and emblematic. But yeah a drone flyover would’ve been super duper epic, sucks we had to fly some fully loaded B-29’s and a shitload of fighters over the palace that morning instead of a few MQ-9’s to project American power.

@ClearedHot You’re WAY off the path and massively misrepresenting anything I’d personally consider. Moving on…

Is there a deeper meaning in the fact that he has an extra half finger?

It's been a few years since I instructed in the T-38 but the guys with flying experience, including WSOs (usually #1 in their class) but not Navs, did better than those with no flying experience. More flying hours in anything is better than no hours. No matter whatever you end up doing, once you get to UPT, how you did things that one time in band camp is irrelevant and annoying. Listen more, talk less.

What other carve outs are there? Is it a sliding scale of citizenship, I think I missed that part in the Constitution? So if you have a job you get your 15th amendment. You need to make $25K to get your 1st and 2nd...you don't get the 4th until you make $100K?

Who are you again?