Leaderboard

A few weeks ago I made a statement to a room full of senior AF leaders that we were making a big mistake paying contractors and civilians to fix and fly aircraft in combat while we keep active duty support personnel, including band members, comm, CE, firefighters, finance, etc. I said an Air Force that pays civilians to fix and fly aircraft will soon end up in the Army. I didn't get a slow clap, or any supporting fires, but it felt good to say it to a bunch of senior decision makers. We should cut, contract and civilianize all support functions before we cut combat power and our core missions. Our support functions are vitally important, but they don't have to all be military. We should contract all housing, CDCs, fire departments, base security, FSS, DV airlift, protocol, CE, base comm, base logistics and most our health care. Contracts keep costs down, quality up, allow for competition, hold people accountable and leverage corporate experience, technologies and responsiveness. And you don't pay for full benefits and retirement for non-combat/non-critical Air Force capabilities, so it is cheaper in the long run.

WTF? I use the screen name "Liquid" so I can speak and listen in an unofficial capacity. Why would I create a sock puppet screen name that described what I did to make a comment I could easily make with my current name? I only post under this name. I will continue to do so until some anonymous coward posts my bio and allows other anonymous haters to attack me professionally. I'll be surprised if congressman posts here again. Have some respect for what makes this forum useful (the fact we don't put our signature block and contact info at the bottom of each post).

For some of the DVs and their handlers I've had the privilege of transporting, nothing would please me more than to see them getting passage on "lowest bidder" outfits. In fact, if it were possible to have an organization lower than the lowest bidder, that would be even better.

*shakes head again at the poorly written prose and example...the mislabeled 12* *also despite deleting his post, believes "AFS" was a typo, and knew what it was and was just being sarcastic* *didn't like people not appreciating his sarcasm* *hangs head* *is going to go sit in the corner of the DFAC and eat dinner alone* Bendy

The plane I fly is maintained both in garrison and in combat by contract. Coming from the B1 they are far more responsive. They also don't play politics and argue about MX Cnx vs Ops Cnx and after and air abort they could care less about a 2407 for adding a sortie. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Stop giving that clown credit. CSAF has been saying this in public for months along with the rest of the GOs. Major Chang gets no credit for merely repeating the PUBLIC statements of GOs.

Thanks for clarifying. Now I feel like an hyper-sensitive little b*tch. I'll get over it.

My understanding was that "Congressman" has two logins, one from which he can post with anonymity and the other as "Congressman." This allows him to post as an aircrew member without having to attribute his comments to a US Congressman. The Congressman login was a way to post on here and get feedback from military members. I really do appreciate him posting on here, (while I am frustrated with his most recent vote) because it gives us close contact to a member serving in government (if he truly is who he claims to be). My hope is that by giving him the direct feedback to our frustrations with the cuts in the pension system that he and his party can rectify their error and attempt to regain the trust of the military community.

So... You vote AGR?

You know 333...if you add all the digits it equals 9...and upside down that is a 6. Just wanted to point out the connection between your reference of 333 and the numbers 6 and 9 and I think that is sexist....that is all.

Counter argument: Unless things have drastically changed, the people in my ROTC class that got pilot slots were rated the highest for leadership. I think the vast majority of pilots are just as (if not more) capable of walking into a large shop and leading just like any other new LT is.

Contractors or GS/WG AF civilians? Because there can be a pretty big difference between the two. I would agree that some of those functions could and should be contracted (many already are are many bases, like housing) but as someone who has spent the past year dealing with a contracted logistics organization (as well as contracted maintainers), you need to be careful what you wish for with contractors. I would agree though that the greater evil is having contractors fly and fix aircraft downrange. As for the idea to just throw rated personnel into all support leadership positions....man, y'all don't have a clue. First off, there is a rather inflated view here of just how much large organization leadership ability your average rated mid level Captain is going to have. For every one good one that I've met there's another 5 who were absolute clowns when it came to that. In their defense, why would they need that skillset at that point in their careers? They've spent their first 6-9 years in the AF responsible for being tactically proficient at flying a plane and with whatever ancillary duties they got stuck with, not with rolling in the door on day one as a butter bar and being put in charge of a 150+ person flight. And before you say "leadership is leadership," it's not, not when you're talking about the difference between leading and managing 200 people versus a 20 person "flight" in an ops unit. Second, unless we cut out the insane amount of queep that exists within the support world, y'all are either going to be doing a lot less flying or your duties as Flt/CC are going to be significantly neglected, because there aren't enough hours in the day. Even if we cut out the queep, there's a lot more work in many of those career fields than I think many of you think to be the case. I know the counter-argument will be "Well, those are our future senior leaders, when will they develop those skills?" I'm not sure what the answer to that is, but it sure as hell isn't to throw them into the MXG and MSG worlds at their 7 year point. I do think that the idea to throw non-school select Majors at the 12ish year point into support squadrons as DOs might have more merit, but even then you'll need to judicious with who you put where...the idea of some of the non-select ops Maj's I've met being thrown into an AMXS/MOO position is making me laugh pretty hard. Fire was actually the one I was thinking of when I brought up AF civilians (AFETS would be another), since everything I've heard indicates that the civilian/bluesuiter mix seems to be working pretty well. The big thing with contractors and legal/contractual limitations is response time...sure, you can deploy them (I think that if there's one thing the past 12 years have demonstrated it's that we can deploy contractors), but you aren't necessarily going to have the quick response that you may need in certain situations and you may not have the flexibility you need at the deployed location, depending on how the contract is written. The obvious response to that is "make sure the contract is written the way we want it"...hoo boy, if it was only that easy.

^This... Not to mention the continuity by not switching out a seasoned Airman for a new Airman every 2-4 years. Seems like personnel and finance functions are always operating at the "new Airman in training" capacity and we never really get to the "competent Airman" capacity because as soon as SSgt Schmukatelli gets to that level, we PCS him and bring in A1C Effengee. Sure, we'd probably need some expeditionary types that could deploy downrange, but with the technology we have these days, you don't need a lot of them downrange to get things done. Not having to fund full benefits and retirements piece is key with contractors....

Things are slowly improving, at least in the sense of having someone to call if something needs fixing. Changing the culture/ mentality to one of proactivity will take longer. There is no way a PCA should take over a month to process after the OPR closes out and the secretary submits it. A huge problem in the support (and ops world as well) is over centralization. Functionals at MAJCOMs or above write inappropriate things into AFIs, not knowing the impact it will have on base level ops. This combined with MICT/oversight flavor of the month leads to situations where even the WG/CCs hands appear tied. For example, I shouldn't have to beg someone at ACC to approve a comm request for a mission system that requires 15 seconds to change configuration at base level but the discretion has been taken away from the local CS. Liquid, if you're still out there looking for good COAs/solutions, publish the intent of AFIs (risk to be mitigated) and allow CCs/leaders at all levels to waive them for mission success if there is an alternate plan for mitigation.

That's why I claim that being a flying Major up until the day I retire isn't such a bad thing after all….

At least this way our travel vouchers would actually get paid and broke shit would get fixed.

Prove it...if you're not joking, I'm applying for vsp.

But I thought the AF was experiencing record high retention. That's what I keep hearing from my "senior leaders" in multiple forums, at least. In all seriousness: isn't this A1's J-O-B? How could they roll out of a program without knowing where we could take cuts? Absolutely mind boggling.

My guess is it has something to do with the fact that the people who want out are not the people the AF wants to get rid of.

Thanks for the insight. I really appreciate you jumping on here to show us a little peek of the bigger picture. For feedback, the budget deal did some damage to the relationship with troops who were planning to continue to retirement, but not as you might have expected. Sure, the loss of $100K or so over 20 years hurts a bit, but the real issue is with the betrayal of trust. Throughout the year, as recently as September, congressional leaders from both houses promised any military retirement reform would include a grandfather clause. This one didn't. If those holding the keys to our future are willing to make this small reversal, can we reasonably trust them with 20 years of our lives without fear of far greater losses?

No problem. It was one of the hardest votes I've taken, and I've taken some difficult ones. I fully get how people feel, and can empathize. I recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Liberia. Each place I visit in my official capacity reminds me how great of a country we are and how great our military is. We need to preserve that power and that's what I have been trying to do, disagreements with my recent votes aside

Thanks to both Congressman and Liquid for answering the questions.

Shut it punk. Here's a non-CGI from when I was a Capt and you were still deciding if you liked chicks or dudes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNHXFviVb8I

As a result of some of the recent forum updates, youtube embedding is now very simple. Copy and paste the link from the video into your post. Doesn't matter if it's https or http. Trash on the end of the link should be automatically removed by the forum software. No need to use the media button or any other button. Also, you should be able to auto-fast-forward to a specific time by copying the link from the "share" button within a youtube video (top right corner) and choosing to copy a link for a specific time in the video. Questions?

The Jordanian CN-235 30mm is on a pallet that rolls on the aircraft. The gun and pallet are removable.

If Liquid is who I think he is, I'm gonna go with him over an artist rendering that's been around since about 2 years before the 235 was even put together.

You have the opportunity to engage with a congressman about an important issue and this is the best you come up with?

The 30mm gun on the Jordanian AC-235 is not a roll on system. https://media.defenceindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_CN-235_Gunship_Conversion_Concept_lg.jpg

I had no idea who the Congressman was, until page 23 of this thread, and until the Congressman responded about voting to cut military retirements in response to the above. If the individual using the handle "Congressman" didn't want to be a public servant discussing his public service on these boards, then that escaped me. I have no other accounts on this board.

You're just looking at the ops/mx relationship. if you look at it from a programmatic perspective, or even from the perspective of a blue suit mx/logistics organization working with those contractors, you would have a vastly different take on things. Contractors are far from a cure-all, and just because they are nice when dealing with ops does not mean they take the same approach to all the other entities they work with. FWIW, the reason they don't care about mx cnx vs ops cnx is more than likely because per their contract they aren't graded on abort rate...if they were, I guarantee you they would absolutely care about that. As for why they don't care about adding a sortie, if I had to guess I'd say it's because aircraft availability isn't an issue with your MDS...it is with the Bone. Comparing a low mx MDS to something like the Bone isn't like comparing apples to oranges, it's like comparing apples to a moon rock. And I'm saying that is a gross oversimplification...which goes to the root of the discussion. If we're cutting 25K people, cut the shitbags (of which there are still plenty, in every community), not just assume that because someone wears a flight suit they will be able to figure out a different job in 6 months without any detriment to the mission or the enlisted folks who work in that job.

Why was it hard to vote for a bill that didn't save money, but rather took from military retirees and put it in other pockets while breaking faith with a group of individuals who have given more than anybody else for the nation? I have a hard time understanding what you mean by "hardest votes." Similarly, I had a hard time understanding what it meant on your bio that "Captain Kinzinger now serves as a pilot with the Air Force Special Operations Command." Made a bit more sense after folks contacted you, and your bio was changed to, "Captain Kinzinger has served in the Air Force Special Ops, Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Air National Guard." Do SpecialOpsTankerPilots refuel SpecialOpsFighterPilots?