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I've seen good ones and I've seen bad ones. Like most positions of trust, the best ones were though who never wanted to be there but were put there anyway, and then stood up and took responsibility anyway. The best ones violently advocated for their juniors, and for enlisted in general. They ensured that our expensive visits to the NTTR weren't just to train our ABMs or EWOs, but also our 1A3s or 1A8s. Likewise, they often tried to filter pay issues and mpf issues themselves before the CC needed to get involved. Sometimes this meant putting on an angry face and putting boots up asses. The REALLY REALLY good ones also found creative ways to mentor CGOs without appearing to be in their chili. Just subtle comments, or inputs. Nothing overbearing, and very very nuanced. I never felt like I wasnt in control with these ones but rather was reassured I was making the correct decisions.

This is probably the dumbest sentence of this entire thread. Are you pretty sure? How many 46 pilots do you really think are out there that are thinking to themselves “damn, I really wanted fighters…not because they go fast and drop bombs and look cool but because I don’t like flying with another pilot. Maybe AMC will make the KC-46 single pilot and my itch will be tickled and I’ll be a real tanker fighter pilot! Call me Maverick!” You think this is the case? Or…maybe you’re indicting the whole KC-46 community over the actions of a handful of patches at one specific Active Duty wing at one specific Active Duty base? If you’re not in the community, you should probably stay in your lane. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

I know it’s not stylish to actually support someone instead of shitting on them but I’m glad you’re putting a shadow box together after a good career and thanks for your work for our country. And if you earned a DFC, Silver Star, Air Force Cross, DSSC, Medal of Honor or anything else beyond the Purple Heart or POW medal, I appreciate those as well.

I'd say the AI fucking nailed it lol.

I just wanna watch them try.

FiFY

Some things just take time, and other things are completely beyond your control. The sooner you realize that, the less grief you'll feel over not being able to convert or connect with the crazies. Do you honestly think you're going to be able to "logic" your way into someone's feelings? What I'm saying is that there may be no "how," as you put it. If there was a "how," then by corollary, there would be a correspondent "how" to get you to think boys can be girls. Do you think there is a "how" that will accomplish that? Yeah I didn't think so. No. Sometimes, you just need to batten down the hatches, preach the truth to anyone who will listen, protect who you can, and let the shit collapse under its own weight - like seems to be happening right now in places like Oregon. To not be too cynical though, honestly, the best thing to do is probably approach all this indirectly - i.e. don't focus on "defeating" your opponent or converting people to your team. Create (or participate in) good institutions that reflect your values and be truly welcoming to other people who don't necessarily think like you. Put another way: show them, don't tell them.

Rat - you type a whole lot of what we should do. A ten year old could do that. What you are not doing is describing how we go about it. How do I have a discussion with a liberal about why immigration control is important when they are more outraged that some parents don't want dicks in the girls locker room than the fact that they are paying a shitload more at the pump and the cash register? Are you not talking to liberals? That's the kind of stuff they will come at you with claws over nowadays. The stuff you typed about NPR...good grief you are out of touch. Yes, the fringe mess is all over the View, all over MSNBC, and all over social media.

Danger your daughters are making you soft. Report to CH for remedial training!!!

Quite possible, they're coming hot and fast now (STS). LOL

Isn’t that the event where he said he spoke to the guy that “invented” insulin.

They’re gonna make some beautiful kids!

Who knew inflation was caused by the war in Iraq?

Facts, I’ve seen three separate liberal “friends” claim they are happy to pay higher gas prices to do their part to combat climate change and help Ukraine, no joke. The moderate dems must be in hiding.

@DMartin17

It sounds like your career ran from roughly 1995 to 2015. There were definitely some really shitty AF leaders during those years. I don’t have any opinions on you trying to get new equipment, justifying a larger budget or expanding mission sets. I wasn’t there so I can’t speak to the unique challenges that folks in your organization faced. However, “maintaining morale” and “handing out discipline” is something I think I can speak to. It’s helpful to remember that the Es like to handle that stuff in house. When it comes to maintaining morale there is often a disconnect in what the Es are interested in and what the Os are interested in. A lot of times it comes down to what the younger Es can afford. IRT discipline, it’s sometimes best to let the Es handle it and let the Os have plausible deniability. I often remind myself that, as Es, we are not only leading our folks, we are raising young men and women. The officers have completed college, gone through a commissioning process and are typically older. That is completely different than getting a 19 year dude/dudette that just graduated HS. They are often immature and most have just left home for the first time. I say all of this to hopefully help you with better memories of the enlisted leaders that you served with. They had very different challenges, responsibilities and goals than you did (assuming you were an officer). Cheers

Not the point. I was getting my shadow box ready for retirement and I wanted my rack to be correct. I thought maybe the training ribbon criteria had changed. After asking the question here, I found out that around 2011 it changed for USAFA cadets to be given at the end of basic training and not again at commissioning.

That and states, or people, asserting their constitutional rights and claiming that the federal government is bound by law is also threatening to their plan.

don't tell anyone there are 150+ 12R panel navigators that are about to have no job and are stuck in ACC

Scooter knows me. He would be the first one to endorse pilot/NFO (WSO/CSO/whatever you want to call them in the USAF) up front like we had in the Navy. Let's go for a ride Scooter....don't worry...I will get that switch for ya so you don't pull your back muscles reaching over here. I kid....I kid. As we all know, it comes down to money. Nav's are cheaper and faster to produce than pilots. I saw someone mention EP's before. I had to pass the same NATOPS as the pilot, attend the same instrument rating school and had to complete the same boldface as a pilot sitting up front. I did everything except physically fly the jet while guarding handles, pulling levers and flipping switches just like a rated non-flying co-pilot would do, because the Navy trained us like that. Dual pitch-channel disconnect 10 seconds from crossing the ramp at night, Single engine fires off and above the boat, dual gen failure off the cat at night off of Korea (that one really was bad), "CLARA" approaches to the boat where we had no HUD or functioning autopilot to assist, nugget pilot going out for his first round-robin flight in Japanese airspace (those were always fun...the pilots were basically an ATIS-activated autopilot [no smart a$$ comments Scooter] on those since they just did what I told them to do). I will give you one sea story. Black as ink night in the Pacific. I was standing the duty in the ready room, when my roomy PeeWee (NFO) comes in white as a ghost. I see the XO (05) come in from the flight...white as a ghost. Didn't speak a word, very unusual. I cornered PeeWee in our stateroom and asked WTF. XO got vertigo off the cat as he raised the gear, wasn't looking at his horizon gyro and the plane leveled off and started rolling left. PeeWee grabbed the stick and righted the aircraft into correct attitude while telling the crew (XO and the two back seaters he had the jet and what he was doing). Back at the beach a few years later my best friend and I were flying test in the goo one evening and he got the leans way bad. I saw it and asked if he was OK....he fessed up right away and I took the jet while giving him a verbal on what the aircraft was doing. Few minutes later after his grey matter gyro caged...he took the jet back and no issue after that. I know plenty of my NFO buddies that pulled the handle while the pilot continued fighting the jet beyond hard-deck or other not so favorable situation. We were doing front seat pilot/NFO flying before CRM even became the norm. It works. Standing by for wire brushing/return fire. ATIS side note: "CLARA" means the front seat crew can't see the boat after calling the ball at 3/4 mile, but the LSO's on deck can see the aircraft/lights. Typically their comeback after I state "CLARA" is "Paddles contact, you are XYZ-low-slow-high, continue, left or right for line up...power Power...POWER"...whatever they need to tell us to keep us tracking to the landing area. I can count on 4 fingers those approaches, and never want to see those again (three were off of Korea/Japan in the Winter, one in the Arabian Gulf).

Alert delivered on Tue Nov 01 2022 10:26:57 GMT-0600 (MDT): Caption: US and Saudi Arabia place military forces on high alert after warning of "imminent attack" from Iran on targets in Saudi Arabia: News Outlet via Wall Street Journal. Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-u-s-on-high-alert-after-warning-of-imminent-iranian-attack-11667319274 Link to alert in First Alert: https://firstalert.dataminr.com/#alertDetail/6/7195770880200247751667319793171-1667319793204-1 Gotta do something to divert attention from domestic civil unrest I suppose…

With the autopilot, no sweat. But flying a heavy ≠ flying a small plane designed for single pilot ops. We saw this often when the fighter guys would transfer to a guard KC-135. Just because the mission is a joke (and it is a very, very easy mission to execute), doesn't mean the plane was. Maybe the newer ones though? I've never flown the triple or the dreamliner. But a raw navaid approach in a 737 in actual weather would be a real ass kicker.

OK... that's pretty funny! I concede!

No one is arguing that it's a death sentence or that it's impossible to do. I have 100% confidence I could hand fly a kc-46 ILS to a safe landing, alone, after probably one familiarization sim. That is not the point. The first point is the 46 was never designed with a single pilot in mind. To my knowledge the u-2, and all the jets draco flies were. So that's not a valid counterexample. But the larger point here is that CRM improvements in large crewed aircraft have done wonders for safety over the last 50-100 years, to the point that there hasn't been a hull loss for a major American airline in almost 2 decades. But we are about to throw that down the drain to solve a problem that doesn't exist. On top of that, we are talking about a ~$300 million strategic asset, of which we only have around 50 currently built. How many mishaps can we afford? My worry is not these one-off experimental flights and whether or not the concept is possible. Of course it's possible. But now that the single pilot ops precedent has been set, it's only a matter of time before it becomes normalized, then expected, then mandated so generals can green up their manning slides. And when we start flying like this regularly, the accidents will follow. It's funny the people that actually buy the war contingency line. Got a bridge to sell you. I'm genuinely trying to concoct a wartime scenario in my head where we are magically super flush on -46 airframes with no one to fly them 🤷🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️ /endrant

They're more getting rid of the one of the Navs and making a DSO/OSO construct. The EWO functions will still exist but move downstairs.

It’s threatening one of the dems sources of voters and reducing the effectiveness of a destabilization tool used to help make current America look bad. There is no other rational answer.

BQZIP's Mom...

It’s all good as long as he didn’t go ninja’n anyone that didn’t need ninja’n.

Happy Friday, ya'll! After two years of applying, rushing, and interviewing, I am blessed and humbled to say that I was selected for a UPT slot with my dream unit. Before being selected, I had one alternate selection (at a different unit) and a handful of interviews that didn't pan out. I owe a tremendous debt to these forums and for many of you who offered guidance and help along the way. I'm excited to chase my lifelong dream and finally say that all of the hard work and countless weekends of travel paid off. I would be thrilled to assist anyone who is currently chasing a UPT slot, and if I can't answer your questions, I'd be happy to connect you to someone who can. It's an honor and a privilege to be in this position and I am excited for the future. Cheers!

It's not that they can't let it go, it's that you just don't understand. You weren't there. You wouldn't know... If I had a nickel for every time I've been told something like that in the past two years...

100% agree with you, but it doesn’t help when the 46 Squadron patch openly proclaims that if an F-16 pilot can do it, he can do it in his 46…yes actual words on an open forum. I’m pretty sure many 46 pilots want this bad as it will tickle their itch that wasn’t scratched after assignment night.