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Your primary mission is to aerial refuel aircraft and you’re telling someone who wants their aircraft to be aerial refueled to find someone else to do it? Stunning business model.

built for speed or comfort?

Are we talking 757-200 wife body jets or A380 wife body jets? There’s a big difference between the two and need to know where your standards lie.

Fixed it for you :) In all seriousness, those investments are being made because AMC has to fund it to continue it's core mission, whether it's to comply with airspace requirements, or to address diminishing sources for replacement parts, in order to keep the jets flying. You'll also get other minor (cheap/easy) improvements that piggy back on a bigger effort like replacing the HUD. While RWR gear or being on the link would be great, that costs money, and AMC/big AF is spending that money elsewhere. The budget is essentially a zero sum game: if there's no money for an effort, well, unfortunately that tells you what the priority is (or isn't). ETA: For the copilots, just remind them regardless what the AF's or AMC's priorities are, it's still their butt out on the line. And that the WOs will probably be in the planning cells, and not flying in the threat environment, so learn what you can from them to maximize your (and your crew's) survival if you have to fly in a threat environment

As much as I don’t want to underestimate the power of a ambitious captain to “accelerate change.” What we really need is the MAF to get on board to give us the tools to actually participate in the high end fight. You know what the next C-17 block adds to the jet? Better VNAV to help comply with STARs, a HUD whose primary addition is to make those ILSs even easier, a software improvement to eek out a little more efficiency in the autothrottles. You know what it doesn’t have? the ability to build a threat ring on the glass with less than 36 keystrokes, the ability to display the jets bullseye location without mental gymnastics. RWR? Pleaze. Any datalink? Forget about it. So I have to tell our enterprising young copilots that training to fight near peer adversary means improving techniques to mark up their crappy bullseye chart. I can understand why some get skeptical and want to primarily train in the jets core competency that AMC actually invests in.

It’s not just fighter guys, it’s the rest of the Air Force flying community that understands MAF is a laughing stock because of attitudes exhibited in your post. Look, no offense, I’m sure you’re a great dude and pilot but we will never advance as a community if we don’t be honest brokers and push back against some of the queep in place of real training and readiness. If you are nearing retirement, I can understand it is not your battle anymore and thanks for your service. To the young guys, it’s not okay to just be box checkers, build airline hours and roll over and say “well nothing I can do about it.” What are you doing within your shop, organization, unit etc to make us more effective as a MAF and by extension the shooters more lethal?

One stat I’d like to see is how much of the high end business travel is back. The provide a disproportionate amount of revenue to AAL, DAL, and UAL. While TSA numbers are trending upward, the revenue from a person buying a full fare First Class to Singapore on a 777 is different than an Economy Basic ticket from SFO to Vegas.

There aren't enough tankers to meet everyone's needs, so yeah, stuff gets prioritized by big blue/TRANSCOM/COCOMs and requirements go unfilled, and operational missions generally get the priority over training or exercises. So yeah, if you don't meet the priority, go find someone else if you still want a tanker (your unit can always try for a business effort). Throwing spears at line tanker pilots does nothing to fix your problem; talk to your current ops or to your MAJCOM to fight better for your requirements. I've been in C-17 squadrons that wanted to do DACT with fighters to actually practice how to self defend (particularly the high workloads and CRM required to keep an attacker in sight), but almost always it falls apart in early planning due to fighter availability (and even if the training executes, that gives one crew maybe a couple attempts at the task, so not likely to get to a proficient level). Why don't fighter units support heavy squadrons getting better tactically so they are ready for the near peer fight?

He's not wrong though. This is a command and control issue and a systemic problem with everybody believing they are the #1 priority. His point stands, you can bitch at the tanker guys but you are bitching at the wrong people. Bitch at the HHQ who prioritize and assign their taskings.

Showing my age here. I remember her in the Runaways.

60s covered in the 80s...

If there are any bros who either have a plane, or would consider purchasing (with or without partners), consider putting it in a club out of a local airport. It probably won’t make money, but it’ll offset costs for the owner(s) while providing a fun environment to fly in...notably without the AF bullshit or other things that come with flying out of a FBO. You’d be surprised how many people you can have in a club per aircraft while not having much, if any, scheduling conflicts.

Here’s a controversial opinion: I don’t care about near peer/GPC. If it happens, I’ll have time to get smart because other taskings will be zero. If it happens and I don’t have time to get smart, I’m screwed anyway because I can’t keep that level of proficiency concurrent with maintaining my CVEO specific skill set. Also I don’t think it will happen. We have an almost zero percent accuracy record predicting future conflicts (seriously, look it up, the US has been awful at this).

Finally. https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/U-S-judge-overturns-California-s-ban-on-16226551.php

I mean fighter guys can blame us for not caring more, but at the end of the day, MAF controls where our time and effort is spent. I'm not going to sit here and laser focus on your pet interest while blowing off the other 10 mission sets demanding my bandwidth. Want my advice? Go around the MAF to get your AR support.