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First commander of the Space Shuttle flew west 5 Jan 2018. Fast facts: Naval Aviator, flew F-9 Cougars & F-8 Crusaders on fleet tours aboard USS Coral Sea & USS Forrestal, Navy TPS Grad, 42 year career with NASA, Flew on Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle missions. From his Wiki page: John Watts Young (September 24, 1930 – January 5, 2018) was an American astronaut, naval officer and aviator, test pilot, and aeronautical engineer. He became the ninth person to walk on the Moon as Commander of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Young enjoyed the longest career of any astronaut, becoming the first person to fly six space missions (with seven launches, counting his lunar liftoff) over the course of 42 years of active NASA service. He was the only person to have piloted, and been commander of, four different classes of spacecraft: Gemini, the Apollo Command Module, the Apollo Lunar Module, and the Space Shuttle. We don’t make guys like this anymore. Thoughts and prayers to family and friends. Whole Wiki page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Young_(astronaut)

as soon as you receive your PCS orders that show you will be accompanied by your dependents to your UPT base, make a TLF (temporary lodging facility) reservation. your TLF will be furnished with washer and dryer in nearly all cases. housing may or may not be available immediately upon your arrival. when you are assigned a house, it will likely not have a washer and dryer nor will it be furnished. pro tip: you may already know this but buy a small enclosed trailer and a used washer and dryer. do a partial (or full if you have few household goods) DITY move. always do partial DITY moves. the amount you will receive for moving the trailer, washer/dryer, and other goods will cover the cost of the trailer/washer/dryer and then some. sell when no longer needed.

^what he said plus add some flight time under your belt.

This ^^^^ I'v done two partial DITY moves and came out with at least 3k each trip, and I didn't even use a trailer.

I definitely think you have a shot. You've probably heard this before, and you'll hear it again: Whole Person Concept. I also think you should try to get your PPL or as many hours as you can afford. Reserves vs. Active Duty is your personal choice. You can always apply for both and see which one gets you there faster if that's truly what you want. You can get Lasik/PRK done as a civilian, and sooner is better than later from what I've been told by others who have had the surgery. As for the Nav//fighter/etc questions you seem to be asking, I would recommend you start to focus in on what you want to do. There's a long road ahead of you, and not being sure that the route you took is exactly what you want is not going to help you get through all the training. If you want to go after a pilot slot, go after a pilot slot. If you've always wanted to fly fighters, go after fighters. If you truly don't care what you fly, and just want to get there quick, apply for anything and everything (including AD). Good luck!

Awesome, sounds like you've got it pretty well figured out!

Yup, I was aware of the 402g limit of 18.5k applying across all employers, but until your post, I did not realize the 415 limit was per employer. After doing some research, the bolded text above, and my previously posted example, are correct. Contribution limits do NOT apply when rolling over funds, such as 401a, into a Roth IRA. For example, last year I contributed $5,550 to my Roth IRA (via the backdoor...sts) AND rolled over ~$7,000 from my 401a, for a total of ~12.5k into my Roth IRA. I do this because 401a is after tax money in which gains are taxed, which is obviously not ideal. I just wait for my 401a money to post into my account then immediately roll it into my Roth IRA. I only pay taxes on the small gains it makes in the day it sat in the account before being rolled. It's often referred to as the "Mega backdoor Roth IRA." https://momanddadmoney.com/mega-backdoor-roth-ira/ https://thecollegeinvestor.com/17561/understanding-the-mega-backdoor-roth-ira/

pretty sure there's still a rule that you can't bring a car to Japan unless it was built in 1976 or earlier (though the cutoff year might have changed)...

My first time around with the TBAS, my PCSM was 52 and 201+ hours score was 87. After retaking, my PCSM is 68 and 201+ hours score is 92. I studied my ass off for the TBAS. Planning on retaking the AFOQT as well.

Since your example gets out of the military at 10 years it’s not a fair comparison because you haven’t given up a pension at all. You never qualified. You need to run those numbers out to 20 years of service and compare the 50% pension payout to the 40% payout plus matching TSP until the end of life (say 85 years old).

The answer is training....lots and lots of training. The gunpig is not exactly a human factors ergonomic masterpiece. The AC-130H had the FCO and Nav on the flight deck but isolated form the pilots by a blackout curtain, the sensor operators and EWO were down stairs in a booth. The AC-130U has the NAV, FCO, EWO and sensors operators all downstairs in the BMC...yet somehow both platforms trained their way to excellence. I am not bashing the Buff...just one data point early in the war, I have a second data point but no need to dogpile. These are great Americans and they have since professionalized their contribution. In the end the thing that typically makes the U.S. military stand out from the rest is not the platform but the people and the training. Train like you fight and fight like you train...joint CAS can be a beautiful thing.

Non-Concur. I've seen good and bad. On the bad side I worked with a Buff crew very early in the war that was absolutely determined to drop even though no one could see the ground. I won't go into all the details but at one point he told me "We are going to mark the target for you"...ahhh no pal, you are going to mark GPS coordinates. I dropped under the weather and as I sorted out the mess I determined he was going to drop a of stick GBU-31s on a freaking village. #fail I will say this was not typical of other work I did with the Buff dudes. On the good side I worked with B-1s and these bros were absolutely dialed in...they knew the battlespace and had great SA of both the friendlies and the bad guys, they threw some serious hate with bombs that were right on target at the right time. Some of the best work I've ever done was while tag-teaming the bad guys with a flight of A-10's. It was a thing of beauty and one of the best missions I ever flew, although I am sure we pissed off a lot of virgins.

Go on...

We're conflating topics here gentlemen. AFRC white jet dude != AD white jet dude. Much to the grimacing of Active Duty, there is a difference, or at least there used to be one. Invol IA for the institutional reserves is a game changer, and one that the sycophants at the puzzle palace seem to be seriously underestimating. AFRC does 22% of UPT/IFF/PIT pull on 17% of the effective manning. AETC is already on the record stating they cannot meet current production, let alone the surge, without the AFRC piece. Even the pipe dream of some in AETC, the elimination of the Reserve Associate IP Program, is statistical vaporware in a regAF already 2000 flyers in the red at-large. Pulling this invol non-flying IA stunt will yield effective manning below 50% in the less desirable GSUs for the AFRC side, just like the Navy Reserve folks learned in the late 00s/early 10s, as @Buddy Spike already alluded to. The BL is that this will directly impact AETC's ability to come up with the pilot production surge HAF is clamoring for, especially in these new days of UPT-Next and other assorted faggotry. Regardless of the fact we all understand the AF has a retention problem and NOT a production one, the fact remains UPT is the flavor of the year for HAF, good bad or indifferent. This move will not help AETC. It would be ironic if they had any hand in suggesting this myopic COA to the HAF against their supporting MAJCOM (AFRC). I have not heard any supporting evidence that AETC had a hand in this, so I'll reserve judgement on that end. At the end of the day, and as far as I'm concerned, AFRC just showed their cards. There's no going back now. There's is no amount of dollars they could throw at me in this environment to sign a retention agreement of any kind in the AFRC or ANG. Maybe wiser heads will prevail, maybe not. But they are truly asleep at the wheel if they don't recognize the sheer attrition they're about to cause themselves by doubling down on this checkers-move decision that benefits neither AETC or AFRC, only CENTCOM. Biggest moral hazard I've seen in all my years in AFRC. This isn't bluffing, the Navy Res has all the data already. How the eff do you think we know? We hired their exodus!

Congrats! It is a tough road ahead and UPT is just the beginning. My advice is to get plugged in wherever you all live, doesn't have to be at the base with base wives, just somewhere you feel comfortable and people you trust. The real work starts now, deployments, TDYs, missing birthdays, holidays and anniversaries. Be understanding and realize that this too will end one day. His Air Force career will be over and it's really up to both of you to decide if you are gonna stick it out together or just be another AF statistic of a broken marriage. Tell him I said to always make sure he puts his family above the Air Force (there is a line for the stuff you have to do versus chasing the carrot). Trust him that he has your best interests at heart and be there for him and support him on those tough days. Bottom line, be honest with each other and keep the communication open.