Leaderboard

People that know real things know they cannot brag about it, you under estimate most of us.

Classified Sword fight!!!!! 🤺 Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Becoming a military pilot is a serious commitment of time and energy for sure but it can be incredibly rewarding. It's not a job to go into casually though. If you're getting cold feet, you really need to assess if this is something you're driven to do. And your family needs to be on board too or you'll have a very tough time. I wouldn't trade my time flying in the Air Force for anything, it was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream, but that's not to say everything was sunshine and rainbows. It will undoubtedly be better as a Guard or Reserve part timer than an Active Duty guy, but there will still be things that suck at times. Can't speak to the ops tempo of your chosen unit, but as a part timer, you should have a fair amount of control of that eventually. As to the flying requirements, someone with part time C-130 experience will need to chime in. As for the balancing of your current career and part time AF flying, literally thousands of guys before you have been able to manage both their traditional civilian job and their part time flying commitment. Not everyone goes into the airlines and they make it work just fine. That said, as I'm sure you're aware, you will be on full time orders for a while as you get through OTS, UPT, FTU and then some seasoning so you'll be away from your current job for a couple years potentially. Your civilian company is required to keep you on, but that doesn't mean they'll be happy about it so only you can know what those tea leaves are telling you. Some companies have been fantastic to their military employees, others have been horrible and many are somewhere in between. Bottom line is, you've been given an incredible opportunity to become a military pilot in a part time capacity. That's about as good as it gets in my opinion, but only if you're motivated to do it. Good luck with the decision! (Full disclosure: I was full time AD my whole career, but spent many years working alongside part timers with varying civilian careers so while i didn't live the part time life, I worked with and knew many who did.)

I honestly think if we could metaphorically hold a gun to their head and make them actually BRAC, it might not go the way most would want. Votes are votes, and those nice locations with the functioning economies of a metro area don't really need or in many cases want us. Plus as stated earlier a military base is a huge landmass of developable (meaning valuable) property that could line a lot of pockets. Those outlier installations 3 exits down from the edge of nowhere don't really attract anything but social welfare votes. I'd see them more likely to tell us enjoy Cannon/Polk/Fallon/etc while they close and repurpose the Mcdills of the force structure if you made them chose between option A/B.

Pretty Darn Good

Not me! I'm pretty stupid. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Transition crews are traditionally considerably slower to develop than guys tracking straight into the platform or from another fighter.

Terrible idea. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Because it shows a lack of honesty on some of the more interesting things RPAs have been doing recently and are doing right now. There is plenty going on right now today with drones and other tools that resembles far more closely the scary scenarios than the permissive scenario of putting a predator orbit over a mud hut in Afghanistan for days on end. Everybody wants to scream "RPAs aren't mature for the near peer fight" well after 15 years of coin-centric warfare neither is probably 60% of the military. The Army has only just been getting its shit in a sock to do Brigade level maneuver warfare again. I've been in units where my senior NCOs don't know how to put up a GP medium because up until now they've never had to. But if you or others want to sit here and pretend that the RPA structure from tactical to strategic is just gonna throw up it's hands and say "we can't play" either you're inventing a scenario that doesn't exist or ignoring the laundry list of other systems/players/platforms that are going to be just as screwed or have to work around just as many issues in the nightmare worst case WWIII fight.

Again, so what? So we have RPAs that won't survive (you assume) near-peer contested airspace? They're RPAs; we can afford to lose a few. Also, they aren't designed for that; they're designed to do exactly what they are doing now. So why do you care that RPAs haven't been "truly tested against a real adversary's military that can actually counter our punches?" I don't care if they get tested in that environment or not, we paid for them to do what they're doing now (talking here about the 1/9). I don't understand the point of your comment, hence I asked you to elaborate by asking you "so what?" Regarding your "go to a vault and garner SA" line: what do you think that adds to the conversation? I'm not impressed by your comments about yourself.

F that. If that happened that would give big blue the ability to more easily send everyone to an RPA assignment against their will. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

Having firsthand experience with rural inbred vampires feeding off Uncle Sam's troops, and seeing the coming exodus tsunami firsthand as well, I ask if the Nation will soon be forced to choose between its federally funded rural welfare and the all-volunteer force. NSplayer, you are committing the classic corporate finance error of throwing good money after bad sunk costs re: Cannon. All that matters is future earnings, and we both know that the massive retraining bill caused by attrition quickly dwarfs the cost of building that capacity at other, nicer bases. If the Nation wants to prevent the loss of the vast majority of combat airpower (meaning pilots and other aircrew) then they will pressure their Congresscritters to act. If they value their welfare kickbacks, they can act accordingly . . . and face the consequences when the draft comes back. Even stop-loss cannot work forever. For those saying "that can never happen," go re-look at Fingers' breakdown of pilots produced vs. airline demands over the next decade. He's not wrong. I predict that attrition of 90% or more is totally possible over that time period - and where would that leave the Nation with no one to fly the jets?

Update on life under AFGSC and PACOM deployments: 1. Ops Tempo/Deployment: It's still 6mo deployed/12mo home, with various TDYs punctuating those 12mo home. The CBP mission is quite different from CENTCOM; reference NK's latest rants and you'll get an idea of the missions we fly. The shift in TTP focus has been refreshing and provided training opportunities we can't find elsewhere. Home station TDYs add another 4-12wks away from home. Overall, life is fairly predictable and reasonable compared to stories from friends in other platforms. 2. Lifestyle/Family Stability: No change. Probably as good as you'll find anywhere in AF ops units. 3. Community morale: Still pretty high. AFGSC/SAC introduced some extra queep and nosy oversight (ACC hardly knew we were in the inventory), but the transition has been fairly smooth. GS seems to sincerely want to improve processes, and has adopted several B-1 dudes into 8AF/GS staff to smooth it out, but some things still don't translate well to BUFF language. CSNO: conventional support of nuclear operations...really? 4. Advancements & Future of the airframe: Blk16 (upgrade mentioned above) has now hit all the ops squadrons. It's a dramatic difference in CRM, increase in SA for all 4 aircrew, and cuts down on previously required fore-aft chatter. Future upgrades (next 1-3yrs) include JDAM mines, LRASM, FMV helmets w/targeting pod feed, and increasing bay door limits (will allow for supersonic weapons releases). For career moves, AFGSC initiated a program called Striker Vista. It takes senior captains/instructors and moves them to a different bomber platform. It promotes crosstalk between the platforms and probably feeds into leadership positions down the road. Pilots can apply to any of the platforms, though I have yet to see the a B-1 pilot go to B-2s. 5. Preferred PCS locations: The wife and I would have preferred Ellsworth for all the reasons above, but Abilene was a guaranteed join spouse move. I actually enjoy it. Land is cheap, the community is very friendly and patriotic, and hunting licenses are free for military. If shooting stuff and hunting aren't your thing, Ft Worth, San Antonio, and Austin are all within range for weekend trips. There are two good hospitals in Abilene, and Dyess only has a clinic so all other medical appts are referred offbase. The CDC is excellent and cheaper than any childcare you'll find offbase.

Understood, I was at a Northern Tier base years ago and money would not be enough to go back there, a shit load of money maybe. Ultimately it is time, you're never going to get more of that and I understand the low to negative desire to spend it at a base in the middle of BFE. Concur - push back on the COCOMs on staff requirements and give credit where credit is due. On a related note to, an idea to reward 365s, a volunteer could be rewarded with a follow on already decided, ex: 365 to A-Stan with follow on to Hickam, 365 to the Died with follow on to Peterson, etc... There would have to be a data driven argument to convince the AF of the upside for them versus the current method of 365 requirement matching, this should be a survey project for an AU student...

Valid. Which is why any such system should be implemented on a "continuous" vs "discrete" basis. A day at a time would likely solve the issue: 3 days in Holloman, 4 days-of-service (*DOS) - new acronym, first coined right here. Then, at worst, dudes get screwed out of one days' time. At its core, this is the exact same issue, and root cause (IMO), that led to the design of the 179.

I would worry about timing any sort of adverse location bonus to a specific amount of time. That's way too easy of a "fix" for assignments to accomplish where they simply PCS two guys from two separate crap locations at the year X-1 day mark to the other guys crap location (and vice verse). Then they get to pretend the PCS cost nothing and that they "saved the service money" in not paying out a bonus. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree that incentive pay would fix the issue for some folks (like with those whose personal desires align with the assignment, such as having rug rats). Using myself as a data point, however, I can tell you that right now I make right around a $100K/yr, and there are contractors that the AF pays ~$180K/yr - to do a similar job at Holloman. If that extra $80K (~10x the bonus amount you suggest) was offered to me as "Holloman incentive", it still would not be enough for me to move there. So I get that I'm a data point of one, but I'm telling you that the AF could double the money, and it wouldn't affect my calculus. IMO, to a great, MANY people, it's all about location, location, location, and with the way BAH, and COLA is designed, no one at any base should be hurting financially, so it's not like someone would really need that extra money. Just my 2 cents. I think the AF does have to get creative when it comes to solving their problems, re: your X% of 365s suggestion. On that note, specifically, however, I think 179s/365s need to be drastically reduced, and beyond that, the AF needs to keep a long-term (i.e. career-long, 20+ year) list of those who have done such tours - and ensure everyone who hasn't done one, stays closer to the top than ANYONE who hasn't - including HPOs. A lack of transparency and fairness when it comes to 179s/365s is a major factor I think leads people to bail. On the career benefits side, I think there could be stuff done in that regard. Something like every 3 years you spend at Holloman (sorry to keep piling on), nets you 4 years of service (YOS) - meaning you get pay raises earlier, get more time subtracted off your commitments/ADSCs, AND get to retire early. Costly? You bet - but such places already are costly in terms of attrition. Soooooooo, costly is a given at this point. Two tours at Holloman? Cool, you get sanctuary at 16 YOS, and get to retire at 18 - with a 20 year retirement. Yeah, I like it. Maybe give certain assignments/bases "point values." Lock up a Can-Kun tour, get 100 points; rock a non-vol AFPAK hands, clear 500; soak up Spang/Aviano, pay -200. Next assignment drop, whoever has the most points, gets first dibs. This flies directly in the face of how the AF stacks the deck, but it would solve LOTS of problems - I can almost guarantee it. Every point you get to the end of your career with, the AF pays out 1000-to-1.

Our former Wing King at Yokota was always MR as an instructor. Made it a point to fly (many times with students) at least twice a month if not every week. He was the definition of leading from the front. He even went off station a few times. Needless to say, he understood the plight of maintenance and crew dogs. Of course he is an anomaly, never saw that again.

I take issue with any argument that says the AF can't afford something. Bullshit. The Air Force will prioritize bleeding edge technology fighters over everything else. If solving personnel issues means one less F-35, they'll take the jet every time.

Mine was at SAF for 4 months.

Yeah, that 37 month average sure ain't happening at Afcannonstan . . .

I think we're at 2 now?

fify

Another special pay for shitholes for 0 to 3 years, bonus for staying beyond three years. Bottom 1/3rd requested bases get a base pay bonus of 10%. Sign up for a 5 year hitch at Turdshit AFB and get years 4 & 5 with a bonus + 10% base pay. Make the bonus appreciable, at least 6 o 12k per year, with increasing pay for tenure at Base X. Coming at it from a perspective of someone with rug rats, steer money to these bases for great housing-facilities-schools (On base DODS or contract schools if the local schools are abortions or grants for local school improvements if it could be done legally). Not saying this from hate but there could be other incentives to encourage movement at appropriate times rather than stagnation at garden spots. You could require the desirable spots to fill X % of 365s first with some caveats to ensure they get sometime in the sun or beach before a 365 to somewhere not so nice. Less desirable bases would then have at least one attractive amenity (or several if you implement that plus a bonus pay).

They sure as hell follow that 4 year TOS minimum when you get sent to RPA purgatory. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The monetary and personnel costs associated with the PCS grind are massive. DoD spent $4.3B reshuffling its people in FY14, which is up 13% since 2001 even though the number of moves is down 12% over the same span, meaning that total costs are up 28% on a per-move basis. The AF sees a disproportionate amount of that cost too, since airmen, and AF officers especially, are the costliest segment of the DoD to move. Per AFPC's own statistics, we're also PCSing our officers every 37 months on average, despite the assignments reg stipulating 48 months as the standard. If you crunch the numbers, you'll find out that Big Blue could save close to $100M per year if it did nothing but follow its own damn AFI WRT TOS before PCS's. That doesn't even begin to account for the added value in QoL, the likely increase in retention, etc. Here's the GAO report if anyone's interested. Assignments AFI is 36-2110.

It's funny because the last few we've sent to Phoenix from the Herk were the sewn-in kneepad types that we wanted out of the community. You're welcome.

Agreed, with one exception and the guy that comes to mind was phenomenal in the plane after he came to tankers and now is one his way up; most tanker guys that came to 130s were skilled careerists who could not fly the plane to save their lives. Likewise, my tanker bros want to punch me in the face after some of the "HPOs" we sent to tankers. Want a prime example of Phoenix debaucherry? Little Rock AFB under Rhat, tanker guy leading THE c-130 hub of the world. Good lord the toxicity that came under him was unprecedented. Now this is not to say it was because he was a tanker guy, it provides evidence of what kind of "guy" Phoenix types usually are. Yes, eliminate Phoenix. And stop making our weapons officers Wing execs. I don't think ACC does this at all?: making viper guys eagle guys or vice versa for career reasons? Seems the CAF values depth while AMC values breadth = not being proficient in your airplane..

In AMC (which is probably the most toxic community) get rid of the PHOENIX programs. You get career Airlifters in Tanker squadrons that: 1. Don't give a shit about the mission or community. 2. Are only there to check the box and get command. 3. Never grew up in the community, so of course they don't know how it's ran. Same could be said for the Tanker "management" that goes to command Airlift squadrons. Also the majority of folks who PHOENIX programs are the ones that sucked in their original MWS and never flew. But they're the ones who were the Exec/CAG/Guy who shouldn't be flying, so of course they'll get a great strat. Then they'll cross flow into the other side of AMC where they'll be Exec/ADO guy who doesn't fly a lot, doesn't know the new jet at all, and is just hanging on to go to school. Other communities don't do this type of program, don't know why the MAF feels why they have too.

The original Hawg going old school medieval on jihadists. I give it two tusks up!

I gotta say, very cool of the Colonel to give his approval for civilian family members permission to drink alcohol (responsibly). Didn't know they needed his permission, but what a nice gesture.

Dude, it all makes perfect sense. You just need to spend some time in the NSA vault in Maryland.

I didn't think "get into the vault" could be trumped but this post does it

When the AF starts sending the E's to RPAs, they will be responsible for crashing them all. Doing every pilot a huge favor. I would sign off on a medal for that.

I'm guessing by the timeline you just suggested your not exactly in the loop with the current goings on. Given where UAS exist in the active targeting cycle and the targeting cycle it's self, the necessity/history of work of guys developing TTPs for the scenario described, and the current daily validation of them doing a lot more than just thump guys in man dresses who have at best a ZPU.... yeah drones have actually been doing a hell of a lot of proving themselves. I guarantee you right now there is a drone orbiting somewhere that 20 years ago some Intel troop or planner would have said "we can't sent anything but the 117 there...." And they are only getting more refined and supported. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As far as RPA bases, there's no reason not to have an RPA flying squadron at every base in the AF.

I don't think anyone has any idea what you're talking about anymore.