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With no beer at official functions, I am guessing no one was there to see it...

Agreed but as busdriver said it is a notional requirements list and the AF is scared to put a ring on it, instead of a no-shit fly off, we're having: "Invitation to Patriciate (ITP) for the Capability Assessment of the Non-Developmental Light Attack Platforms in support of the Office of Strategic Development Planning and Experimentation (SDPE)... blah blah blah" WTF? Grow some balls and make a choice, do you want a LAAR or not? If so, then have a RFP / fly off and make a damn choice. Agreed, but all of them are a bargain IMO. How much more do we need to experiment? 15+ years of COIN / LIC is not enough for us to believe putting a 2 ship of15E/16/18s... at probably 40k+ an hour (factoring in tanker support) is nuts?

there was beer for studs at vance drop from what i remember END 17-07 F-35 (fake out w/ F-16) F-16 x3 F-15E A-10 C-146 U-28 EC-130 Compass Call T-6 FAIP x2 C-130 x2 (Guard) C-17 to Hickam (T-1 FAIP fakeout) (maybe a second) KC-135 KC-10 to Mcguire KC-10 to Travis Saudi Eurofighters x2

Well for one, there's some time management problems lurking in your statement, but that aside, do you think non-fighter communities work 40 hr weeks? I have a lot of friends in a lot of different corners of military aviation and I will never blow smoke up their ass saying I work more; it's just different. I think you're being sold a bag of bullshit if you think flying other platforms in the AF will lend you a leisurely life style. I will say my flying job is more difficult, perhaps even more stressful at times, than some, but that doesn't mean those others are working less hard to do an important mission (and spending inordinate amount of time doing additional duties, etc. that suck your time regardless of what wings you wear or what you fly). Bottom line, a UPT dude should pull for the mission he wants to do, not for a "life style." Maybe those two are related to an extent, but the mission piece is more important. Trying to pick a track or aircraft based on "being home more," or "not working X hrs per week," will only result in disappointment and possibly regret.

I'm sure it's been spread around this site already but, The 114th Fighter Wing is accepting UPT applications for our board in May. The application deadline however is 31 March so if you have apps ready or almost ready please see details at the following website. https://www.114fw.ang.af.mil/about-us/careers/ Good Luck

Most of the rest of the world does not understand how developed the SOF fires machine has become...they still think in terms of the AOC or CAOC running the fight with 3 GO's, 10 O-6's and 50 O-4's working the same permissions that a single dude in the JSOAC can pass. Sadly, BLOS and VDL have become pass fail, but they do act as an insurance policy in multiple ways. Sorry bra, I don't talk to the CAOC unless I want to know why the tanker is late...AGAIN.

Never had any issues with PACWIND......

Hard to blame them when that is all they hear instructors talking about in the squadron.

This. There is no better feeling than dropping bombs on bad guys. It was worth the hard work and occasional bullshit. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LJ, thanks for sharing that. Round and round we go. The article gave good insight to the culture of the AF in the early 90s, but was almost all sport bitching with no real solutions given other than platitudes like "Leaders, not managers are the key to success" and "Let's use 'RL'--Real Leadership!" Yawn... tell us what that actually means. I love the plug for Marines and their strong heritage vs our so-called confused heritage too.. So funny how all this shit still gets repeated today.

2sober2remember

after reading this thread for about a decade i finally went to my first drop night. reading back through the drop i remember the individual assignments but respect to anyone who can be there and simply remember them all. maybe it's a learned skill, we'll see.

Meanwhile... in the service that treats aviation like Hilux's.... I'm not discounting your points, but take a look at our forward UAS presence out there right now in the AOR. If we can land 10-15 million dollar sensor equipped drones on an airfield that had as little preparation made for it as just an earth mover and a couple sprays of Rhino Snot, you aren't going to win any favor with the supported commander (the ground force) by insisting you can't go to the same places. I'm the first to admit the way the Army beats on its helicopters is a self inflicted injury, but to pretend that an aircraft meant to survive austere conditions is a bad idea is a bit much. Yes your example of forward to the point of "why are we doing this?" Is valid, but it's also the 1% of the time Flight Concepts "let's go get Bin Laden" kind of day. The other 99% would be take a look at the conditions at some of our "Not Erbil/Taji" airstrips out there and say we need to set up operations. Essentially the requirement shouldn't be that it can go mud bogging, but that it wouldn't need you to ever land a C-130/17 to support it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How much longer until the All Call with the boss punishing everyone for the crimes of others, I see group discussions, reflection days and new case study videos and CBTs right around the corner.

No argument, it has to be more than 4th gen 4+ / 4.5 / whatever with very high end weapon(s) / sensors to relevant along with kinematic performance par excellence Just open source on how the other side is trying to play to their strengths and illustrative of this for the discussion The Russians never boast or exaggerate (/s) but decrementing these figures by 20-30% they still have capability in the modern high end fight matched up with an advanced R-77M or K-100. No argument again but it is ever changing ratio that takes common sense, data and professionals not easily influenced unduly by the MIC or ill informed politicians. Spend a lot for today and little for tomorrow? Sure when the barbarians are at the gates. Spend some for today and some for tomorrow? Sure when we've got them pushed back and have some breathing room. The problem is we don't have strategy, we have knee jerk reactions to the crisis du jour and we end up wasting our resources. Here's a strategy: Accquire an appropriate amount of low end inexpensive to operate systems in low threat long term operations so I still accomplish my mission and greatly lower my costs of executing them. Take my savings and build a modern force with a mix of systems, High-Medium-Lower, but all relevant and modern to fight against peer and near-peer foes. Here's our strategy apparently: Buy only high end systems, act like we need to use only high end systems in low intensity conflicts. Set the requirements so high that the high end systems get more expensive and are years behind schedule and never get bought in the amounts we set our long term force structure plans for then keep the legacy systems going even as they get more expensive and less relevant. After all that go ask for more money and promise you'll have it all fixed next year.

F-15. My absolute dream. I would be happy with fighters in general, but the F-15 was always my poster airplane (right next to the P-38 lighting).

One and done, baby! Just got hired!

Back to the topic at hand... I spent over 1/3 of my career in the Weapon School and from the instant I walked through the door at Nellis one thing was blatantly obvious, Albino Drivers are complete and utter assholes (including my old man who was one, but of course excluding BeerMan), that being said they are "our assholes" and I do not want cross the fence without those inglorious bastards.

Do a little searching on this site about she-who-shall-not-be-named (cha-ching $$ !) and you'll gain some tremendously important insight. The "story behind the story" with her is just as important as whatever you know about her currently.

As a Viper dude, this is a terrible idea for more reasons than I'll get into.

Better than talking about Masters degrees, which was standard at the FTU in the 2012-2014 timeframe. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hand-picked... like a booger. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Only the best of the best get hand selected to go groom the next generation in aetc.

Hey, they're aspiring to be professional pilots rather than professional christmas party planners. It's progress.

Back several years ago, probably 2008-ish, a CAFB SUPT student got picked up in one of these stings, too.

“I know I speak for everyone on this panel when I say we are going to investigate this properly, find a few Marines here and there we can burn, then call it a day until two or three years from now when this comes up again.” https://www.duffelblog.com/2017/03/marine-nude-photo-scandal-2/

Build a thousand bridges...

That's great! They've done a fantastic job with their site. We'll keep updating ours, but I'd recommend for everyone to reference that link for additional information to what we provide. Great job.

Lemme guess, part time UPS so you can get an employee number.

Now that the flames are well stoked, I'll provide some more perspective on why I am asking the question. Do I plan to abandon my unit down the road for fighters? No. Why not apply to a fighter unit? I am. Why ask the damn question then? I am well established in my current city, married, have a solid civi job, own a house, and dont really want to move (hence why the Guard). Therefore, my first pick (and probably best shot at getting a UPT slot) is to fly for the local guard unit which happens to fly heavies. With no plans to leave, I know I will probably never fly fighters in my career, but would LOVE to have the chance to fly them for a period of time even if it is just for Phase 3 of UPT. Sure, it gives me the flexibility down the road to possibly transfer should the wife get a life changing job offer somewhere else but that is not my motivation.

I laugh quite a bit every time I hear AF "pilot shortage". There is no shortage of pilots wanting to fly planes in the AF. There's a shortage of the AF placing those pilots in jobs that allow them to be pilots, and to teach other pilots. There's plenty of bag wearers sitting at group level positions, in staff jobs, at IDE, etc staring at a computer screen. I've flown less than 200 hours a year the last 3 years as an experienced MWS instructor because the AF values keeping the self fellating bureaucratic process running more that it values flight experience. Senior Capts and junior majors are begging to be 'allowed' to get back to teaching the young pilots, only to be told that they're more valued behind a desk. No thanks, see ya, welcome aboard Delta 4962, non stop to Chicago.

FIFY. If they think it's bad now, I'm sure they're really scared about what it will look like in a few years. In 2020 Delta starts retiring 500+/year, and doesn't drop below that number until after 2030. Five of those years are 700+. Thats 51% of the current seniority list in 10 years...not accounting for early outs. I'm sure UAL/AALs numbers will follow closely.

How's the commute to your mom's basement? Do you "loose" anything down there?

You exude such class.