Leaderboard

You sound like the twat in this interaction. Take that for what it's worth, which isn't much.

Please let this warm ray of sunshine fall upon us

What are the odds that our feckless leaders have now guaranteed the burning of what sounds like a possibly quality inside source, just so said leaders could make some political moves. The source of a leak that shared this intel from inside Russia can't be too hard to pin down (assuming it's non-technical). I see no way the American public could benefit from knowing about this threat other than to somehow impact the upcoming election. These clowns are outright irresponsible.

Since the French built it, his bailout kit included a white flag to waive. He was easily identifiable.

My guess is they're talking about US gun owners...

Selective enforcement of going after those who lie…and conveniently once again they go after mostly those who don’t help the leftists/elitists.

There's some of that, for sure. Definitely seems like some guys are leading scared. Since CAT 5 gave out 34 CC directed Q3s in his time as a Sq/CC and isn't averse to firing people, if you're a careerist CC in AFSOC right now you can see that logic (not that I agree with it). A lot of the mishaps/buffoonery I referenced above isn't coming from that; its coming from either ignorance or in several cases willful disregard of regs. AFSOC is extremely lucky that there hasn't been more death/injury up to this point. In my MWS, I'm seriously concerned that CAT 5 is willfully marching my community towards Class As. We're about to have an almost 50% reduction in the SOI at the schoolhouse, they're also going to stop teaching several METLs that I'd argue are core to our mission sets. These METLs will now have to be taught at the Sq, where we're younger than we've ever been; some of them are also the more risky things we do. We're also about to start getting pilots direct from the T-6 track on a shortened syllabus with less hours and experience. CAT 5 is pushing more and more risk to the line Sq/CCs without giving them any additional resources (beyond trying to throw a shitload of additional flight hours our way) to try and fix the experience problem. Most of the ideas he's pitching/implementing (large increase in flight hours, large increase in MQF test questions, pushing training onus onto ops Sqs that are ill equipped to conduct it) aren't fixing anything; in many cases it's going to make things worse, at least WRT retention and risk. The guys in HQ seem like they either don't care or are just trying to keep their heads down since if they speak up they'll get shot in the face anyway. Apologies for the long post and possible thread derail.

It’s not a new threat, or even the key development of ASAT tech… but it is an election year. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Even when ALL The current satellites are blasted into a cloud of debris …. Space is still a surprisingly empty place. Even in orbit. Even with everything turning into garbage. it’s not an insurmountable problem to solve. Satellite debris won’t be so thick it blocks out the sun. it’s meh overall

What I don't get is this supposed 'new threat'. I'm not a smart man but hasn't it been possible for many many years to put a warhead on an ICBM and detonate near LEO? Someone make this new threat make sense

That'll be the innovation part. 20 years ago we could track debris the size of a baseball, and that was just the unclassified level. Model the debris, predict the hole, and launch. We got bombers made of century-old tech to fly through oceans of flak, this won't be the challenge some are predicting it to be. Not ideal, but it never is. I can't even think of a capabilities scare that came true. Peak oil, deforestation, the ozone hole, Moore's Law, overpopulation, etc. Our problems will always be socio-political, not technological.

From a former AFSOC guy still tangentially attached, I can tell you that the command (line flying bros O-5 and down) seem afraid of their own shadow and a culture of Uber compliance has replaced that warrior spirit from the GWOT generation. Pretty sure that’s deliberate and starts from the top down. Honestly, pretty disappointing.

Sorry, by everything I meant the new, replacement stuff. I worded that very poorly. 😂🤣 Existing satellites are fucked. But the replacement cost will be much lower. I'm not saying it won't be an issue, but there's a whole lot of room left for orbital innovation, and usually a disaster is the perfect catalyst. In fact, I'd wager an "orbital reset" would put the US into a near space monopoly, over the medium term. The rest of the world can barely get assets in orbit now, imagine if it required an entirely new regime of space tech?

This is called the Kessler syndrome. Some already think we are there and just waiting for the trigger event to start the cascade. I don't know if current satellites can change there orbits enough to make a difference, and if they could, the expended fuel would severely shorten their lifespan. Once the cascade starts, I don't think there will be enough time to react. Getting a launch vehicle through the LEO trash cloud would be difficult (maybe impossible) after the cascade. Atmospheric drag would eventually clean things up, but that would take a very long time. There is a lot of research into how to de-orbit space trash without making things worse.

We'd just move everything to the next orbital level, each with exponentially-increasing room for more satellites. And no real effort has been put into cleaning up space trash. There will be innovation there for sure. It'll be costly, but not prohibitively so. We can thank Elon for proving that. Still, not ideal.

I’d argue that the cadets are young and will bounce back. They probably don’t give a shit who is in charge at the top as they’re just trying to keep their heads down and graduate. Much better him there as opposed to his current position where he’s doing his level best to completely trash/fuck up every part of AFSOC. The level of thrash in the command right now cause of him is the worst I’ve seen in 20+ years.

To be fair, I’ve never been at an organization where the majority of the HHQ staff wasn’t a hinderance to the mission (aka the RFI machine) as opposed to being supportive. It gets worse the higher up you go. Still not sure what the Joint Staff does besides answer RFIs to OSD. Staffs support the upstream commander, not downstream commanders unless they are bros.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Project_K_nuclear_tests My thoughts exactly. This just political theater, and dumb political theater at that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish_Prime#:~:text=On July 9%2C 1962%2C at,N 169°38′W. why all the hubbub…?

Nah brah...I've accomplished everything I needed to, and plan on leaving nothing on the table when I walk away. Making rank is at the bottom of the "nice to have" list, and it's certainly not a requirement for my service. Perspective is a great thing to have. Please make sure you have your retired ID card out before you get to the gate, and don't bore the thicc A1C a the gate with your "back in my Air Force" stories...some of us are trying to get to the shoppette before they stop selling booze on Friday night.

The VA found this comment not to be service connected.

This was meant to inform. I had retirement orders before my promotion results were released. I did not bitch or complain, I looked at the system in place and decided it was time to retire. I was not aware of the O-6 assignment process until after my O-5 board, never bothered to read that part of the AFI since I never thought it would apply to me. I didn't threaten retirement if I didn't get the assignment I wanted. That seems disingenuous and if you need to play that card, maybe it's time to retire. I had no illusions of GO, I was bound for staff O-6 life (never an exec, never a commander, 3 flying deployments, no CAOC, and no short tour). Talked to all the staff O-6s around me, honestly they all seemed miserable and waiting for 3 yrs TIG to retire. None could give me a reason to stay beyond pension or the prestige of joining the “kiddie DV pool”. Most struggled to give an example of any positive impact or change they could make and were surprised how little influence they had beyond being a cheerleader for decision that was pushed on to them. This was a bleak outlook since I was hoping for more job satisfaction or sense of accomplishment, or baring all that more work/life balance. Based on my line number, it would be another 4.5-5 years to retire as an O-6. In the end I decided to not withdraw my retirement. Through all of this, there was zero communication from my chain of command or the Colonels group about my retirement or if I would consider continuing to serve. I did more to try to talk myself into staying than anyone else did, and I failed. All that said, if it wasn't for the rapid retirement for 7-day opt, I might have stayed to see the results of the gameplan, weighed my options and decided. Retirement process is fairly long and can be stressful even with 12-15 months, cramming that into less than 4 months seemed punitive. You seem understandably salty because I walked away from something you were actively pursuing.

Some of my best music memories in the AF involved drinking: Got stuck in Maputo, Mozmbique once. Too dangerous to go downtown, so we stayed at the Hilton on the beach playing poker in the bar with about 10lbs of their local currency coins ($5). Someone broke out into "Sweet Caroline" and both crews +support drunkenly joined in. Ice storm in St. John's NF over New Year's. Spent a lot of time in O'Reilly's Irish Pub and another down the street. Crews learned all the audience callbacks for "Big Strong Man" and the performers loved playing it for us. Also, "Whiskey in the jar" (Irish version) and a few other drinking songs. Knowing Jimmy Buffett when his music comes on during a TDY/Deployment should be mandatory. Listening to Suicidal Tendencies via patch cord over IRQ/AFG was always fun.

A badass band. Lead singer was a previous AF dude. Don't know what he did offhand. Many of there songs deserve a listen at 11.

rambling' Gamblin man was pretty good. led zeppelin is a classic but I haven't listened to much of them. in regards to inner sanctum, I think that was the heaviest heavy metal ive ever heard lol.

I retired final pay which means 53.5% after 23 years. So, they won't increase your retirement, can't get promoted and still deploy, I just retired from my USAF civilian job. You know what!? It's nice not have to worry about airplanes and sortie counts.

Point of reference from a data perspective: My first year of retirement last year (half actually, as I retired from the reserves halfway through) working year 2-3 at an airline, after taxes, I made literally double my O-5 active duty pay (including BAH) while working less then half the number of days, doing a simpler job with Union support, and I attended all of ZERO DEI training events. To say nothing of retirement/401k/TSP/DC/matching stuff, which is all invisible until we actually draw it, so it doesn't feel like it counts yet (but OH YEAH, it counts) I could even do AOC work (arguably the easiest job for a flyer in the USAF) and be home every night for 3 years and then come back to the airline and collect a full AD retirement check...still not worth it. Why on earth would I go back?

This is hilarious

Minute 8+10, the guy at the bottom makes a comment that nails it. "Once you've tasted the free life...it's tough to go back." It didn't help that the last 3 or 4 deployments felt like a complete waste of my life, which includes my last trip to Afghanistan about 6 months before the pull out. ROE so tight that there really wasn't even a reason for us to be in the air. Why am I going to hang it out there if you're not going to let me do my what I'm good at and force me to watch the bad guys do bad things to good guys? Totally jaded me right at the end. I can't imagine going back simply because I love the amount of free time to spend time with my family, friends, fly for fun, go on unplanned vacations or maybe got make some extra pay at a daily rate of 6x my mil pay. My only regret is that I didn't go as soon as I hit my 20. If you're on the fence and contemplating the jump, do it, I highly doubt you'll regret it.

Just Brabus with his stockpile of tens of thousands of dollars worth of bullets and his assault knife building cabal!

“Reached for Comment President Putin said: Maybe it was something he ate.” That dude was on borrowed time. They already tried to kill him with nerve agents and the only reason he lived was evacuation for treatment out of Russia. Stones for going BACK to Russia to try and do something to push back at Putin. Not a lot of good it did for him unfortunately. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If anyone had “Iran annexes Antarctica” on a 2024 bingo card, I’d like to subscribe to their newsletter.

That's like a 1,000% VA disability - yeah?! PTSD, tinnitus, belly flop trauma...the list would be huge!

Did they find him?

If we can send CAF dudes to AIS for two weeks of academics on RNP stuff their jets can't even fly, no one should bat an eye over a 3 day course on useful foreflight features. The Air Force as a whole criminally under-utilizes foreflight. Send it.

You can now start and finish your career going to the ADC

Isn’t the ADC where you go after the CC reads you your Miranda Rights?

You guys are missing it…the AF is freaking out because of how much worse the forecast is wrt people getting out in the near future, not just because of how bad it is has been in the last 1-2 years. The only way this has any chance at working/providing any noticeable change (it probably won’t btw) is if enough people sign up to offset PCSs to other assignments which require long upgrades. For example, on the pilot side, if they could bring in a couple hundred prior T-6/38 IPs who only need a requal (or a full course with a lot of PAing) this would offset needing to send new C-17 ACs to a backed up PIT, where clearly a prior T-6 IP would do better. Now keep that C-17 pilot at their current base or PCS them to another C-17 base and the whole manning issue improved ever so slightly. This all being said, the AF screws up most things, especially when they’re trying to fix something…so I perceive things to get worse, not better. But they said diversity is our greatest strength so I think they should continue to focus their recruiting/retention efforts on DEI stuff while I cuddle up in my warm DD214 blanket.

I put my application in last night. Raptor to Hurlburt or don't call me back.

Fucking piece of shit creep