All Activity

What you just said is* what the guade/reserve does, including the reserve units that teach IFF/FBF. They're high time IPs teaching guard/reserve babies how it's done. Bruh... The EX was also supposed to have a Sq replaced in 23. Don't drink the big 3 Kool aid. If all the guard/reserve units had to do was sit ONE and intercept Jim Bob in his cessna then sure put some Limas on a T7. The threat is far more advanced than that, and armed aircraft manned or not might not even been the answer. However, ONE is only a part of what these units do for AD. If you make them non-deployable AD will suffer. Not to mention we need them in the big fight. Guard squadrons aren't only getting F-35s because their politicians know how to deal.

I don’t think that’s what Clark is advocating for - look at ADAIR T-38s for example. Why not take experienced guys at the end of their careers who might hang up the cleats if they don’t have a good opportunity and instead let them train the next gen of true combat pilots. Give them a combat capability of their own (however rudimentary that is) and boom there’s the (soon to be mass produced) T(F)-7. Totally personal opinion and I’m truly not sure how a loyal wingman program would work (or how far it is from operational capability) but it doesn’t seem to be that crazy of a pipe dream considering that the F-7 has already been pitched to the AF.

It doesn't take a black border with plaid clearance to realize taking, let's say 30% on the low end, of your guard/reserve fighter pilots flying combat aircraft and putting them in an armed trainer is a terrible idea. The majority of your experienced fighter pilots live in the guard/reserve, especially these days. Not to mention you'd have to have a two seat "F7" for this, since four eyes are the only sensors you're gonna have in an armed trainer hunting CMs with nothing but a heater and hope in your heart. If we're coming up with pipe dreams I'd rather we use armed UAVs (thinking loyal wingman-esque but not necessarily stealthy) for ONE missions (minus DV protection). Give the reaper guys somewhere to go after AD and let your fighter guys focus on the big fight. At least we wouldnt be putting two dudes with 4K hours between them in a go-cart to go play heehaw and the fuck around gang.

It’s all in the execution whether or not it would be beneficial, detrimental, additive or unacceptable to the CAF and the Joint Force. I’m not privy to the data, people, o-plans, intel, etc… that I would need to come up with a real proposal but shooting from the hip on BO I’d recommend this F-7 mission(s) to A-10 units losing their jets, F-15C units not yet slated for EXs, F-16 units that have an ASA mission, etc… All branches of the DOW are looking at financially challenging times ahead even if the top line of the DOW keeps going up. The premier new weapons and platforms are expensive in of themselves, new less expensive unmanned weapons and platforms will need to be purchased in mass so in total cost of ownership they won’t be cheap and the sheer scale of what needs to be replaced, refurbished and acquired is daunting. Even if a patch wearing super smart guy says we need 690 F-47s, we won’t get them. Just my two cents, but the AF needs to consider a force less all gold plated and more copper, brass and some gold plating. Not every fight is night 1 in the Taiwan Strait. In terms of the CAF, an affordable light fighter, most if not all will be family models, primarily based in the ARC gives them billets & seats to retain experience, train FNGs and execute some missions without overkill. It would be awesome to have everything in the numbers we want but we are just not going to get that. Taking some risk, altering our perceptions of what the AF should look like and being able to change are necessary.

So instead of having combat capable aircraft and pilots with many years and a few thousand hours in said aircraft, you're advocating to take those pilots out of their fighter and put them in a non-deployable armed trainer? I'm sure AD units wouldn't mind back filling the deployments these units wouldn't be able to fill. I guess we could send these armed T7s in as cannon fodder if the balloon goes up, since there wouldn't be time to retrain them back to the fighters they left. Costs and consequences for sure...

Does anyone have SA on the Super Bowl flyover details? Apparently it was all USAF, but the Navy found out and complained. Now they are in it. Big dissimilar? I would hope so since it's now America's semiquincentennial.

Yup While I don’t agree with the premise the AF is apparently taking in a long term policy, that is to divest itself of all training aircraft save the T-7, I get why certain parts of the brain trust are advocating for that as there is only so much money, personnel, facilities, time and attention you can devote to training till while OTEing for ops. With that in mind and trying to meet the other side in the middle, both the CAF and MAF could use their ARC associated wings to build out new capabilities that still meet operational requirements but also serve as expanded training capabilities before new pilots report to their assignments. For the CAF, I’d argue for a light fight version of the T-7 with homeland defense, aggressor, training & exercise support as the raison d’etre(s). For the MAF, I’d argue for a reasonable fleet of transport category aircraft, probably replacing some older Herc and 135 tails. Adding airlift capability to the AF for regular personnel movement, light cargo, aero medical airlift, etc. Season and prepare new MAF bound pilots there before reporting to their FTU. There are costs and consequences to those ideas but you either want a strong pilot culture or not. You fly, train and focus on operating better than other Air Forces or not. You allocate the resources to build better aviators or not. I’m also not saying that those COAs are the only ways either but in a general sense an institution must have the honesty and character to change course when previous choices aren’t working as well as they thought they would. It must also think a bit creatively when resources are scarce, as Churchill said “Gentlemen, we have run out of money; now we have to think“ Think creatively, reasonably but also not timidly. The end goal is always a well trained, reasonably experienced and tested pilot graduate.

Maybe it's changed, but the "above 50%" was very loosey goosey as well.

Dude. Engage in the discussion. Fine. But go back and re-post this using your non-sockpuppet account. We all know this is someone who's been here for a while.

I really hope this is not M2 because dibs.

If he did, that surgeon did a helluva job.

Did M2 transition 🤔..?

@raimius Yup that’s exactly what I mean, and I completely agree with you it’s not a real fix but unfortunately it will be the standard moving forward. It really isn’t too late to go back though, because all I hear is that the resulting pilots are bad and that it was better before. If the speed of the FTU isn’t going to increase anyway, why not replace the T-1 and go back to the way things were? Or like @Clark Griswold suggests, get something that the AF can actually use (light transport style) to work with in the meantime that kills 2 birds with 1 stone?

By "fixed" you mean pushed more basic training on the FTUs? We cut an entire phase out of UPT to "fix" it.

This Minnesota Somali deal is getting uglier by the day...$18B

@Polar Bear as far as I’m aware it’s just that the FTUs aren’t ready for the influx of pilots. They fixed the UPT problem but seemed to forget that the FTUs need to be just as fast for it to mean anything effectively.

What’s causing the delay?

8 months So much good, applicable and affordable training / experience / airmanship building could be done vs meaningless busywork Already posted this musing but whatever $175k ish would buy a good deal of tailwheel, acro, AMEL time and a type course in a transport category sim, travel costs included But… here we are. Somehow other Air Forces seem to figure out how to keep a multi engine trainer program going, not that only multi engine training is ailing in the Air Force Italians are getting the Piaggio 180 Key AeroModernising ITALY’S multi-engine trainingNew generation Piaggio P180s The Italian Air Force’s air transport...From the article: The typical course of Phase 3, for pilots aiming to gain their military wings for the multi-engine fleets, lasts about seven months and includes 60 flying hours, plus 51 hours in the simulator. This equipment is provided by Alsim which is representative of a generic multi-engine jet aircraft. As mentioned earlier, SATA will receive a new simulator from Piaggio Aerospace, representative of both the VC-180B and the VC-180C versions. If they can afford it we can too.

@brabus from your Nov 9 post: I own a T-28S, but actually the LLC owns the airplane. This plane is available for rent to anyone actually qualified to fly it. There has only been one person who has PIC’d this aircraft for the last 5 years of the LLC’s ownership I also own an LLC for pilot services, and other things, for the past 8 years. These two LLC work together as a monetary transfer structure. That pilot is and those LLCs are owned by the same person, me. One LLC pays the other LLC to rent the aircraft in exchange for pilot proficiency. One transaction benefits both LLCs. Somewhat complicated of a tax scheme, but my accountant swears it is legit, 5 years experience to agree. BL: An aircraft owned by an LLC can be used for tax benefit to deduct all expenses of Maintenace, hangar, insurance, fuel as an offset compared to owning outright as an individual where nothing is “deductible” as when it comes to taxes. As my marginal tax rate is 32%, owning a warbird, or any plane, can be accomplished at a “reduced” cost. DM if you want more info, or others are welcomed to chime in. It has been a great experience.

Dude I understand your frustration, things like that suck for everybody involved. That being said, you only can affect the things under your control and UPT & FTU delays aren't something you can control. They're also nothing new. Some guys in the 90s were on the banked program, where they did 1-2 year non-flying assignments before they even went to UPT. Wasn't uncommon for UPT selects in my ROTC Det to do 9-12 month casuals prior to going to UPT. I had a 5 month BIT between EWO school and the FTU. Guys that tracked fighters in my UPT class had a 9 month BIT (which was pretty average at that time, if you were even able to get a -38 slot since all the fighter FTUs back then were severely backed up). The BLUF of all that is delays like these have been going on for decades and all those pilots writ small and the AF writ large survived. Focus on the things you can control and realize you'll have a great time flying AF aircraft whether you're delayed or not.

This is objectively true. You only have to finish top 50% to continue to fighters. Getting a fighter on AD would take finishing in the top 10-25% (ish). Those who finish below that, but above 50%, are your huckleberries.

Guard dudes leave for OTS with set dates for all required training from OTS to their MWS (usually). It's not a fast track, they just do all their waiting prior to going to OTS. There's definitely an argument to be made that some guard babies get passed when they wouldn't have made it if they were AD, especially on the fighter side.

Broad answer most heavies outside of AFSOC from the stuff I’ve been hearing but no way to tell if they are working on it or content with the fact that AETC is “technically” reaching the desired numbers of winged UPT grads. and @Boomer6 yeah I wish I considered it more because they funnel guard/reserve through as quickly as they have in the past. That’s another conversation that I’m sure has been discussed on this forum with whether or not they should fast track guard people when active duty is so backed up but I don’t need to open that can of worms here

Recommend going Guard.

@NoFlyZone fresh pilot grads are waiting 8 months, seriously? Broad trend or specific MDS/MWS? Generalized answer more acceptable here.