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I've had this argument with many other instructors. "Don't cancel until you have radar termination is sight" "Don't cancel until you are cleared direct" "Don't cancel until you are well clear of GTR (insert other airspace here)" "Don't cancel until you are at least 3 miles to radar termination" "Don't cancel until you are number one for radar termination" I hear these taught to students on a regular basis, and they all make me cringe. First, they are techniques, not procedure, and if someone is downgraded for canceling early (yes, I've seen it more than once), that's a foul on the IP. But more importantly, these are techniques whose purpose is to avoid, rather than promote airmanship. In every case they are meant to mitigate the possibility of making common VFR errors (getting lost, violating airspace, interfering with other traffic) by avoiding VFR flight all together. Not exactly building a strong skill set. And the result is a student (and one day a pilot) who only knows how to find a point by being vectored within 3 miles and then cancelling. Which, in my limited experience, often leads to misidentifying the point, due to only looking for a specific point (building, dam, tower, runway) instead of looking for the whole location (building between two freeways, dam on the north side of a oval lake, tower surrounded by chicken coops along side a river, runway with 12,000 feet of concrete and a military base attached to it). Anyone with any exposure to UPT can see the AF aversion to VFR flight. I saw the same thing in the MC-12. </FAIP soapbox>

You should also read "The Few" by Alex Kershaw. He writes about Billy Fiske and other Americans that went to England to fight in the Battle of Britain.

This is great news. Seriously. And it needs to get to the squadrons ASAP. There are a lot of folks who are completely fed up with our bullshit admin workload at the squadron level. This is exactly the type of simple fix that can get someone on the fence to re-think their exit strategy.

I always call Bingo to tower in my Bonanza. Is that not normal?

Not sure it's fair to blame your woes on RIF'd AD folks like me. Nobody had to ask me to leave the BS behind when I was involuntarily separated from AD and signed on with the Guard. I did that on my own and it felt good. And I'm willing to bet that 99% of folks who have recently been RIF'd from AD and been hired into the Guard or Reserves feel the same way.

Well, along those lines.

Haha, I miss the Crows, though I'm shocked you were able to get him/her to stop taking about Challenge and Response checklist discipline or the importance of Vref long enough to talk about Joe Jackson.

Good stuff! If you haven't read Unbroken, I highly recommend it. A book about Louis Zamperini, who was an olympian, that went on to be a Navigator. It tells an awesome survival story after going down in the Pacific. https://www.amazon.com/Unbroken-World-Survival-Resilience-Redemption/dp/1400064163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343484985&sr=8-1&keywords=unbroken

Imagine that! You have to be an officer to progress. Someone I respect once told all of us: "Look at your LES and see how much you get paid to be an officer and compare that to how much you get paid to be a pilot." It is good advice. Be good at your primary duties: officership and flying. Be good at your secondary duties: office work. You will be just fine.

When I was there a few years ago as a contractor with Dyncorp (we lived downtown on the economy), we were allowed to purchase alcohol. The Qatari government runs a "class six" on the west side of town, you have to be a westerner, show a letter with your salary on it, pay $100 +/- and you get a ration card based on your income. We would chip in the money and have one guy get the card. They had an ok selection, of course anything other than Tiger beer was pretty pricey. So if you make a connection with a contractor type they may hook you up. I know we used to have folks come out on pass to our compound/villas during some holidays/events.