Leaderboard

The AF "needs" you. I'm of the belief that the AF can be told to wait. While on Active Duty, each of us... and our families... were often managed in a crisis manner of "we need you to deploy NOW!" Many things seemed to be an emergency because of lack of planning. As an AD pilot, we didn't have a choice. Now that a pilot has left active duty and has an airline job along with their Guard/Reserve job, it's time to tell the AF they will have to wait. And 6 months is not unreasonable. The AF will not crumble because you cannot meet their timeline. Giving up union protection by remaining on probation is probably not going to be a factor. But... what if it is? Will the AF rescue you because you went on mil leave 6 months before your probationary period was up to help the AF out? How's your family going to feel about your gamble if you lose? Most of you have SGLI, right? Why? It's because it is very cheap insurance. Waiting a few months and getting off probation before diving back into the squadron is ALSO cheap insurance.

I've considered finding orders to close out my remaining 3 years of AD to get the full retirement...and then I log-in (more correctly: I ATTEMPT to log-in) to a AF computer...and my decision to bypass the AD retirement solidifies again. As to probation, Huggy shacked it. Don't risk excessively extending probation. That next 20 year multi-million dollar career in the airlines simply isn't worth the 12 months of orders and absoluteluy zero protection that the USAF will give you in the event your new airline fires or furloughs you because of COVID-23 or whatever insanity is next. A few days here and there for drill weekend is manageable. Dropping 3 years at 6 months in is hanging it out on the line in what has proven to be a feast-or-famine industry.

Or maybe we had such an absurd goal or lack of practical mission that it sounded like the broken record that was going on…

I was a firm believer that America would weather her current storms and come out stronger for it. Now I’m not so sure.

Outside of the higher fuel load, talking with some of the early cadre, they are able to conduct AAR at much lower speeds than the -10 and -135 (don't know what is class or unclass for their stuff, so I won't post the number I was told). This is a pretty big win for the power deficient receivers.

Never believe a progressive when they say “nobody wants to take your guns away”…because that’s exactly what they want to do.

Hope everyone had a safe Memorial day. I'd like to do a shot for each one that I knew, but I can't drink that much anymore. So, a toast to our brothers and sisters

That's about the quality of analysis I would expect when you ask a Polish 50-year-old contractor about a geopolitical dispute in a region his family has deep and emotional ties to.