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FIFY

Well shit. That's the majority of my posts contents.

I just choked on my dinner. Liquid, are you serious? You obviously have not spent very much time there. I agree with much of what you said, but the part about Cannon? Great weather? Ive lost count of how many sorties we've cnxd due to the winds and the dust storms. The base was lucky not to lose any planes to the two massive hail storms we've had in the last few weeks. Cost of living is low? We pay 20-50$ more per square foot here than in FL, and in FL we are a mile from some of the nicest beaches in the country. Low crime? tell that to all my friends who've had their cars broken into. Light traffic? Sort of, but getting onto base still takes 30 minutes in the AM. Plenty to do outdoors? True, if you dont mind driving 3-5 hours each weekend, unless youre into dairy farming. Schools are good? I guess if your teenage daughter needs free day care to finish her 3rd attempt at the 9th grade then you might think so. Throw in the shady-as-hell circumstances surrounding AFSOC's acquisition of the base, the repulsive attitude of many of the locals, the constant smell of fecal matter, and the tap water that I won't give to my dog, and hardly a rational person would see this as a desirable place to raise a family, or even live. Do some people like it here? of course, and good for them, but some people also volunteered to go live on Mars, and good for them too. I do love the last spear though, I'm sure it helps senior leadership sleep at night, but it sure as shit misses the entire point of the issue here. Honest question: If the Air Force decided to make your next assignment Chernobyl, would you go? Wait, what about all the AC-130 pansies that got out because of orders to Cannon? Or the squadron that deliberately fudged its performance data so it wouldn't have to go to Cannon at all?

For thousands of years tactical prowess (or frontline experience) was the only way for a soldier to progress through the ranks, to eventually work on the strategic level. This doesn't always have to be the case, in fact of all the Four and Five star generals that commanded our forces during WWII only Marshall, MacArthur, Nimitz and Spaatz ever saw frontline combat during WWI or the Phillipinnes. However, those are rare exceptions to the model. Julius Ceaser didn't expand the Roman Empire without first cutting his teeth in Gual, and George Washington didnt earn his reputation from giving lectures at Army War College.

Not really. You consistently prove that you have very limited knowledge (beyond perhaps a few ROTC or ASBC courses) of how the Air Force works from an operator level. You avoid the question every time it's asked, but yet you call out MWS's (like the Eagle and Raptor) while having no credibility. So either post up what you fly or sit down and shut the fuck up while the adults talk.

For M2 and other Texicans... https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vt7FDTpzGvo?rel=0

One huge step would be putting RPA units at nice locations. I know PLENTY of dudes that would at least be okay with RPAs if they didn't have such bad spots. When asked everyone of them say "If I have to go, then send me to Creech but screw anywhere else". Give a dude a bad deal and a bad location and it's no wonder their morale sucks.

"Since very few, if any, traditional pilots actually volunteered for the RPA community, most commanders generally sent Captains that were in the bottom half of the pool of eligible pilots. Some of these pilots had multiple downgrades or failures on their annual checkrides; some were unable to upgrade from copilot to aircraft commander due to below average airmanship; others did not have had the “right” attitude or personality that fit into the weapon system climate; and others had discipline or quality of force issues. It should not be surprising that a few years later the promotion rates to Major were below that of the rest of the AF, especially given the fact that these aviators weren’t high potential officers to begin with as a result of flying or discipline discrepancies. " Is this the truth?

My DO at the time told me that. I just laughed and walked away. Dude at by last base had a fini flight that ended up being a no-notice check.

No argument that cancelling a new start would save some money, it just seems like maintenance costs for an Osprey are crazy high compared to a 60. Does Big blue plan to buy full up CVs? My understanding was that big blue(FP-4) pays for MV-22s and SOCOM (MFP-11) pays for the CV modifications. 7.62 is dumb, and the fact that we still keep it around annoys me. .50 cal actually punches above it's weight class with the correct ammo, ball/ap/api ain't the correct ammo. I should have clarified wrt to contested objective, I really meant the terminal area. Without a doubt it has more advanced systems to deal with a more advanced enroute threat. But if AFSOC is looking at legit forward firing standoff weapons for the CV, that's pretty cool, I'd be curious about the EM performance however and ability to balance weight gain and power available to actually land. I could see three ship tactics make a come back. AFSOC logistics is much better than the CAF. Don't get too wrapped around the axle with mission statements, the 60 can in fact survive in a high threat environment, but I'll admit the CV-22 is better suited. However, requiring attack escort is a ORM measure not something that is truly "required." Ever been "escorted" by OH-58s? They're not any more capable than you were in the 60. It's a training issue not a capability issue. Based on what Liquid has posted (I now assume he's an AFSOC guy) and what the then acting AFSEC said, I'll buy that AFSOC is being an honest broker, rather than grabbing for money and iron. But I think you're right, we'd be naive to think they'd be offering this up if it didn't benefit them in some way. Whether this will benefit the "rescue triad" in the long term, I think only time will tell if this goes through.

One of your classmate's wives. Or boyfriends/life-partner(s). Because that's cool now. Seriously...talk to the STURON's wive's club. They usually have the inside info on that kind of stuff.

Now when I went to IP school years ago, one of the many things the old graybeards taught me was 'to be an effective instructor, you have to establish credibility'. If you don't, people will question your techniques, abilities, philosophy, etc. You do this by holding the correct qualification (ie IP), by sharing with your students what you have done in the past, and most importantly, by knowing your shit and being able to effectively teach what you know. I definitely learned this early on when teaching/advising the Iraqis as a relatively young guy instructing Iraqi pilots who were much older, who had been flying much longer than I have, and in quite a few instances, had more hours than I did at the time. Fortunately, I was able to establish some credibility early on, humble myself around those guys, and soon enough was able to see some positive results. Hell, a quick 6.9 second google search shows that the Weapons School even states "Taking the mantra, "humble, approachable and credible"..." Just because I am knowledgable about different airframes, can speak somewhat intelligibly about their ops, etc doesn't mean that I have credibility in that community. That being said, if I'm an aircrew member in that community (especially an instructor/evaluator), then I'll have some credibility in what I'm saying. Here at BO, a bunch of rated guys talk about rated ops--if it's a specific bomber issue, a Bone/Buff guy will have a lot more credibility than me. If it's an overall airmanship issue, then I think all seasoned rated guys here can adequately add to the discussion. So right now, when you add your opinion on flying/ops matters, I give you low credibility and thus don't give much weight to your opinion...after all how do I know if it's informed or not? And before somebody mentions 'well, we can pretend to be whoever we want online'...people have been sniffed out before for posing. Don't worry dude, it's cool--I'm sure there's plenty of other folks out there who would be interested in hearing your thoughts. But for me, there's a reason I'm not cool with a student in med tech assistant school diagnosing me with an illness.

Oh good, we are now consenting to have every protest broken up at the discretion of the local police department at any time, but a judge will sort it out later. Yay freedom!

Whatever your reasons are for getting out or staying in, nobody cares. Not me. Not your neighbor. Not the AF. The only thing to say is that when you are in, bust your ass, help your bro's, do the mission. Complain in the bar as nothing is gonna change. Once you realize that the AF will go on without you, you'll be a better man....

Wait...what?

I will definitely check it out. The wife works for Delta so we will go to Europe at the drop of a hat. We only had a couple hours to kill prior to catching the train to Prague so we had to go with what we knew. I wasn't all that impressed with HB the first time I went there but it was one of those things you have to check off the list. I wish we had known about Augustiner especially if it is that close to the Hbf. As far as Prague went, the very first beer I had there was Kozel 11. We just went into a restaurant and I told the waiter that I wanted the very best beer he had. He very confidently nodded his head and proudly sat a mug of Kozel in front of me. It did not disappoint. The Staropramen was my second favorite. As a side note (nothing to do with beer) on Prague......DEAR GOD at the amount of European HOTTNESS there. That place has to have the highest concentration of hott chicks on this planet Edit for not spelling good.

It's easy math for me. The Air Force has never sent a finance school / personnel school washout to UPT.