Leaderboard

Burying the airplanes for survival is an extensive part of the base defense plan.

Thank god for ejection seats.

About to be more awkward.

You realize having worn both uniforms and realizing the only people who we are “looking cool for” are each other and 14 year olds I don’t want nor need the bag to somehow validate myself in life right? Again, the only people in the Army who want or actively cry about people wanting to go back to a 1 piece simply don’t know how good they have it right now with a 2. The people in the Air Force that are going to this uniform kicking and screaming “oh god we look like the Army now” might want to look at pictures pre digital camo stupid.... when we all looked “like the Army” in utilities except for the Marines who rolled their sleeves wrong and wore their little pointy hat. 2 piece is better. It’s just as fire proof, it’s way easier to take a top off in the heat than roll sleeves or god forbid wear them wrapped at the waist, and it works with gear far more comfortable than what we wear/wore with leg straps (can’t speak to G suits and don’t care as a helicopter guy). And I’d pay real money to get the DCU patterns cut back with the current camo OCP. Fix that and it’s perfect, especially when worn with the combat shirt. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As a G-suit wearer, I don’t care about your 2-piece. The Air Force left the Army for a reason.

WAYYYYYY more awkward

How many Senior Raters are there? The low select rate makes it seem like you essentially need the “if I had one more DP” push to make it with a P. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pretty sure no issue with posting this.. let me know if there is.

All interested - The 122nd Fighter Squadron, flying F-15Cs out of New Orleans, LA will be holding a UPT Hiring Board sometime in the spring of 2019. If you're interested in coming down for a visit during one of our upcoming Drill Weekends, please send an email to 122fspilothiring@gmail.com with your AFOQT/PCSM scores, some data on college, and a short BIO. The full application package contents are below, and will be required NLT the Drill Weekend prior to the board. Single PDF file containing: 1. Cover letter 2. Printout of AFOQT and PCSM scores 3. Resume (single page) 4. College Transcripts 5. Minimum of 3 letters of recommendations 6. If prior military service, your last two EPRs/OPRs 7. A current photo Please direct any questions to our hiring inbox, 122fspilothiring@gmail.com

You say that as though it isn’t a completely artificial construct, fabricated by insecure leadership. The way you say it, it’s as though you think it’s normal or something. It sounds...institutionalized. “[It’s a] Real policy that existed [...]”. Naw man, it wasn’t real. It was a policy, yes, but it was a figment nonetheless. A different perspective is that of the fifth monkey who just got into the cage, and there’s a banana up on that ladder. ...just sayin.

In other news the sky is blue.

Thank you FourFans! It was a pleasure to get to get to know you and your family and meet you in person at the closing! Lisa did all the heavy lifting. The paperwork sucks...no getting around that, but once it's in we do try to make it as easy as possible. Glad we were able accomplish that for you! Happy to help you anytime in the future. To our future clients, Marty gave me a team to handle our AF loans and I look forward to helping you guys. I'll be your POC with my goal to make sure each of you gets a great rate and service with no breakdown in comms. Nothing is perfect, but at a minimum we sure will give you better service than AFPC or the MPF (don't want to set the bar too high). Jon jk@mythl.com Cell: 850-377-1114

My turn to jump on for a Trident Loan debrief. I was matched up with Jon and his teammate Lisa. They are rockstars. My bride and I had the pleasure of making this purchase while PCSing from Eastern Europe to the Florida panhandle...during hurricane season. On top of that, my bride and kids got here about two weeks ahead of me. Before I hit CONUS, we went through the entire loan approval, house selection, rate lock, and initiated closing. Team Trident got us a fantastic rate (better than some other major banking/loan companies by .5% in our specific case), and were up front and completely transparent with the entire process. Jon and Lisa were apparently on the job 24/7 because I was getting updates as soon as they were available. As mentioned before, the housing market regulations now require a metric ton of paperwork. Thankfully Lisa is a level 74 ninja master at that stuff, and we were able to digitally sign everything. Taking it a step further, Marty, Jon, and Lisa made it clear that they understand the unique situation of pilots going through the transition to the airlines. In fact, some on their team are doing exactly that right now. They understand our earning potential, and reassured us that the temporary drop in paycheck due to the job change would not jeopardize our financial status for the loan. All told, team trident is populated with honest, extremely hardworking individuals who are diligent in making the home loan process as transparent and painless as possible. On top of that, Jon and Lisa went out of their way to answer any questions we had in language we could understand, and made sure that our family got settle into the local areas as smoothly as possible. These are some great friendships that we've started. Trident is fantastic and we'll definitely be bring them any business we have in the future. Outstanding work Team Trident! With our sincerest gratitude, FourFans and family.

The retirement gouge is wrong. If you're a guy with a commissioning date before 06 You re a legacy guy, you don't get forced into BRS. that initial entry into military date doesn't change with a break in service. The only guys affected are those who had the choice to opt in, did so, then left the military. With a break in service you don't get a do over on the opt in if you decide to come back. You re auto enrolled. If you never did enroll, you don't get auto enrolled even as a post 06 guy. Only initial entry guys of 18 and beyond are.

Well no IPZ luck here. 11F on third ops tour. Not stellar records but not bad either (strats, OEF, DG, awards etc..). Time to get smart on the guard and airlines - glad I had enough SA to avoid the bonus.

Completely inaccurate article. We signed this contract 3 years ago in fall of 2015. These were basic provisions in that contract and have nothing to do with the holiday season or any other industry dynamics. There are two "bonus" payments that really have nothing to do with "keeping pilots from retiring". One is the $40K if a pilot gives 1 year advance notice of his retirement. If he has 23 years of service or more, it doesn't matter if he goes this year, next year or anytime after that - same $40K. As long as he gives 12 months notice. So, not much going on there to "keep pilots from retiring". The other ($110,000 bonus) was a genius move by the company. Again, nothing to do with keeping pilots around longer. It was all about incentivizing maximum work and min sick leave usage over the last 2 years a pilot works here. Prior to this contract, pilot approaching retirement would make judicious use of their sick leave over the last couple of years which typically involved draining their maxed out sink leave bank (about 9-10 months worth of pay). With 6 weeks of vacation on top of that, they could usually take 6-7 months off each year with full pay during their last two years. Of course, they can still do this. But, they do so knowing they are turning their nose up at what could amount to another $110K on top of the rest of their pay. Not everyone values their time off that much. However, there are some strings attached - if they want the full $110K bonus, they need to work a full schedule for their last 48 months (i.e. earn at least $740,000 over that same 48 month period - which is pretty busy). None of that income can be from sick leave and their sick bank must essentially be full when they retire. If either of those two criteria are not met, the bonus is reduced accordingly. Again - both of these bonuses really have nothing to do with keeping pilots from retiring. Most guys are staying until the bitter end now anyway. But, if a guy has been here 25 years, he can get both of these bonuses in their entirety if he chooses to retire at age 60. Or, he can stick around another year or two, three, four or five. No change to the bonus - no real incentive to stay longer other than the pay he will receive for working those extra years. Just another poorly researched and written article.

Personally, Bogidope was a godsend for me. All of the application and interview prep material on the internet is generic and not very well suited to a career in aviation. Bogidope's application prep helped me really iron out how to present myself at a fighter squadron and the interview prep set me up with knowing what to expect, and how to frame answers correctly. Got 5 interviews and 2 slots with the help of Bogidope, I wouldn't have made it without their help.

Looking cool >>>> comfort Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Team loyalties are very strong. People get depressed/jubilant/furious when "their" team of perfect strangers perform a certain way in a kids' game. They attack other people for wearing the costumes of opposing teams. Now politics is a team sport. We can expect similar performances as long as this remains true

Of course it was

I can teach you to fly my plane. I want you to show up with some basic airmanship, some SA, and the willingness to study/learn. You can fix skill problems. You can’t fix will problems. #gloandgo Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

If we are going for efficiency, there might be some ideas in what you are sarcastically saying. I think the USAF spends a ton of time and money doing things the way it was done 40 years ago because we fear change. I know this happens in UPT because I was a student when the first T-6’s came on line. “Can you believe we are training in single engine props!” Said the old T-37 mafia. “There are gonna be pilots who never fly a jet in their career!” I was one of the last IFF classes to drop bombs off the AT-38. “Can you believe these new students won’t crank mils manually and have a HUD in the T-38C doing all the work...what a bunch of SNAPs.” At FTU we were all going to get lost and be lazy because we had EGI instead of a drifting INS and nobody knew how to do a delta update and our standby reticle bombing was horrible. One step away from communism. In my ops squadron wingman were going to kill themselves if we let them use their targeting pod the same time as FL. I was a T-38 IP when the magical fix to fix went away....all the students were going to wash out of follow-on courses because of that one. Back to the CAF....gotta print out maps like we did 20 yrs ago, can’t trust those new avionics with satellite imagery built in. HMCS and datalink was making us all soft. If we had unlimited resources, teach SFO’s to your hearts content. We don’t so we have to prioritize. You can’t cut it all because we need talent discriminators but once a kid tracks...well a heavy pilot probably doesn’t need a acro and a fighter guy doesn’t need as much crew communication work. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app