Leaderboard

Recent visit feedback: Leard can’t read a room, was tone def, and avoided answering most questions. My professional concerns: 1. We don’t have enough applicants for UPT. Forcing more USAFA/ROTC grads to UPT will just result in more DORs. Problem not solved. 2. USAF doesn’t recognize FAA ratings and doesn’t seem to plan to do so. So to drop critical things like instrument training/checks is a massive failure on leadership. It is a wild abdication of our training and qualification that is unacceptable. 3. MAJCOMs don’t have the ability to absorb more inexperienced pilots. FTUs are backed up. Training is being pushed to ops units with wild experience-inexperience ratios. 4. IPT is not faster, cheaper, or better. Nor will it produce the 1500 pilots/year that they think. But as already stated on here, they don’t want to hear that. There is no backup plan for when this doesn’t work. 5. I expect higher attrition rates. Is AETC going to lower CTS when IPT isn’t producing the magical number of pilots? When everything else changes, that is all that is left. Unacceptable. Finally, and we are already seeing this, Q3s and accident rates are already climbing (this is before IPT even started). We are not flying enough nor experiencing pilots at a sustainable rate. SIMs are not a 1:1 equivalent. People need to fly. Throwing more inexperienced pilots at the problem isn’t going to help. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

And, since we must make fun of everything...

FUPA https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKut95ePnUJ/?igsh=MTc4MmM1YmI2Ng== What have they done to UPT?

They should have called it FUPA.

Yeah, this is concerning. "In the new model, pilots will earn a private pilot certificate, instrument, and multi-engine ratings in approximately 120 flying hours within a maximum of 139 calendar days. Pilots then complete military specific flight training, earning wings after 108 days—55 hours in the T-6A and 50 hours in simulators. Leard explained, 'Prior to implementing this new program, our fundamental challenge was getting enough flying hours in the T-6A to meet our goal. This new program ultimately provides our pilots with more flight time than the legacy system while exposing them to a greater number of aviation competencies.'" There's a lot in that little snippet that I'm not even sure is factually true. I graduated UPT (technically SUPT) with over 200 hours - most of them were in the T-38. These guys are going to graduate with 175 hours with most of them in some combination of Cessnas and Pilatuses? Hmmm. Not sure they're getting more flight time. Certainly they're not getting more relevant flight time. Maybe he was referring to the T-1 track? Can't speak to what the T-1 guys graduated SUPT with, hours-wise. Does anyone know approximately? My top concern is that this just seems to be trading quality for quantity. Instead of wings with a star on top, can we begin issuing wings with an asterisk? Also, I would like the statement "exposing them to a greater number of aviation competencies" to be substantiated. I doubt this is true. And if it is, what competency did we just discover in the year of our lord 2025 to which I have not been exposed?

That dog don't hunt in Texas! Our governor has already given the order for the National Guard to deploy in advance of upcoming protests expected here, especially in San Antonio. The Austin liberals are shitting squares about it, but it's well within his rights to do so! Some gender-confused misfit toys with rainbow hair will show up, flanked by Mexican flags; but as soon as they start transitioning from "peaceful protests" to rioters there will be enough bubbas around to squash that shit quickly!! We don't put up with that crap for long down here in the Alamo City!

You can thank Maxine Waters. She’s 86 by the way.

LA (the city) mostly sucks. I live in Cypress CA. I'm about 30 seconds from LA county by car. Whenever I go to LA (city) I'm saddened by what a shithole it has become. It used to be a cool city 20 years ago. Now, it smells like piss and the whole city looks like that house down the street with 6 broken cars and 69 cats living in the front yard.

Just one AC-130 would solve this.

Nonsense...I'll take Oct 2001-August 2002. "Reaper 69 - Killbox 175B is yours, Cleared Hot!"

If you have any chance of using the GI Bill for higher education, for you or a dependent, save it for that. Right now my daughter is getting just over 90k a year for school from the GI Bill. So when I got my ATP, I bit the bullet and paid for it all out of pocket.