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Or do something really stupid in the first year. Everyone will know your name. By the third year, nobody will remember why they know your name …. But they’ll still know your name.

The only way it would negatively affect you is if you’re a douche. Don’t treat the students like you’re better than them, talk down to them, etc. Give a shit about teaching them - their success is your success. Those students will be in the CAF when you get there - be the name they’re stoked to see on the inbound list, not the guy they cringe at.

Every business is going to try and realize cost savings from teleconferencing in lieu of business travel... Until the first time they lose. $5 million contract to the company that sent their executives out in person for a couple grand.

I’m tracking what Joe’s saying, and he’s right for the most part, our frustration mostly lies with entities well above an ARW level. But, dream’s quote above is still very applicable. I am rightly frustrated with tanker crews when they show negative desire to make the mission happen...not flexible at all, outright don’t want to be “tactically” involved in a mission (because excuses), flip out at the smallest of changes airborne (I guess that’s a double hit on inflexibility), etc. In general, the perception is those crews are checking the box for the airlines/can’t or aren’t willing to do something outside of their super low-risk comfort zone driven by a career of CENTCOM ALR low. I’m not talking scheduling at all, but the planning and execution part. Now, I also know some of that is because some OG’s are giant pussies and the FGOs/CGOs can’t do anything about that. If that’s your case in life right now, then at least resolve to not throw in the towel, wait that guy out, and be ready to win harder when the next guy (who hopefully isn’t a pussy) takes command. Now, I have also worked with phenomenal tanker crews, both AD and ARC. Same MWS as the shitty ones, but a whole new world attitude-wise. One real world example...Niagara lost their -130s, but they clearly brought the more tactical mindset to the -135 world. Those guys have their shit together and are willing to “push the envelope” to make the mission not only happen, but be more effective. I appreciate their openness to “non-standard” things and their flexibility. My perception is they care about the bigger picture and doing their damndest to make the team more effective within their means. There are other great units in the region as well, but I think the Niagara example is one that shows perspective/attitude can be the sole thing that makes a tanker unit awesome, or dog shit. But that’s just one fighter guy’s opinion. I do truly feel for all my AMC bros who have to deal with monumental bullshit and candy-ass leadership on a daily basis. I know many of you would be doing things a whole lot differently if the careerist weren’t on your backs 24/7.

For bros waiting on UPT dates and trying to “prepare”, PM me. I have a passed down 5-page guide from a soon-to-be- fighter pilot that recently graduated UPT.

I was part of a (now defunct) aero club when I was a LT 18 yrs ago. Just like everything else, the USAF did everything it could to make things difficult, qweep ridden and kill the fun of flying. Go rent a Cessna or get some partners and buy one. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

This just can't be true! I heard it elsewhere (and here) that Zoom will revolutionize the world...everyone stays home, businesses will never travel again...YUGE SAVINGS!!!! We even had senior leaders on FB saying the airlines won't be hiring "for a long time," (better sign this shitty bonus). Meanwhile, in addition to all the other airlines hiring, DAL just announced hiring 150/month starting this fall and 200/month next year.

Agreed with everything Tank said. Now for the part the Bobs in your sq won’t tell you. FAIPs are a dime a dozen these days (especially at DLF). When the rack and stack comes and the T-6 Bobs are arguing with the T-38 Bobs about who gets *insert your #1 airframe here* you need to be someone that the T-6 Bobs know and like/respect. That way when your sq/cc says, “IOperate020 deserves X airframe because: *reasons*,” the other sq/cc’s will say, “oh yeah he does great work, we’ll just have to give our T-6 guy his 2nd choice,” instead of them saying, “who the f*ck is IOperate020?!?” How does one get this name recognition? You projo a bunch of stuff around the OG and/or Wing and manage not to pork anything away. Now, you can either go about doing this the right way or the wrong way. The right way is with a humble attitude and the honest desire to put your talents to good use and help out. Or, you can be a kiss ass that the Bobs like but every bro in the squadron and all the students (who will be your IPs when you get to the CAF) loath. Good luck, it’s really not that difficult.

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.

(non-faip) Do a good job and remember that you were selected to teach the basics (because that's all you probably know at this point). Be humble, approachable, and don't try to give any "in the real AF" lectures. As far as in the office, look for projects that interest you, and when given a task, go do it well. The young officers who can be tasked "fire and forget" style with consistently good results usually are looked kindly upon.

Cold. But then they will be other community problems!

I work for an automotive supplier, and some recent events have indicated director level management is going to be looking at increasing international travel to get more eyes on things in our plants around the world. Sometimes just having a fresh set of eyes on things makes a world of difference.

Doesn't surprise me in the least w/ the Niagara dudes. A unit culture derived from operating in the -130 mindset for decades is hard to purge. Kudos to those guys to still make it happen!

Shit, we can’t even get “ADS-B Out OFF” right in my community. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Yes, I am telling him that. Congrats on getting the point. Moral of the story -- there is nobody else, he just has to deal. Maybe give Omega or those other dudes a call, idk. Is that a bad business model? Probably. My attitude? You have no clue what my personal attitude is, I'm simply relaying the truth that there is a huge disconnect in what the priorities are for line tanker crews vs. what the priorities are for customers. And I explained why things are the way they are. You don't have to like the truth, but you do have to live with it. My logic is simply this; if you, the customer, were that important, the people who decide where our time and effort is spent, would allocate it to supporting you. Ergo, if you are not getting the support you want, you weren't considered by those people to be that important to begin with. It's not like the MAF runs the Air Force, go take it up with the pointy nosed generals -- it's their show, not ours. See, this is the part that is bullshit. How can you sit there with a straight face, take an impossible situation with structural issues that's caused at the absolute highest levels of government, and then pass the buck to the young guys to make it better? There's not enough fucking airplanes and crews to go around, dude. I mean, seriously, WTF do you want these young guys to do? Work 16 hour days trying to manifest jets into reality and achieve higher mission capable rates through the power of positive thinking? Tanker crews for the most part do their honest to god best to work with customers and give them the best support they can, but at the end of the day, you get what you get.

I guess I need to choose the correct wife then, don't I. I'd go with the 757 with the Rolls Royce motors. Long legs, big hooters. Loved flying that jet. Friggin' typos......

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.

That is a bit different and I haven’t come across anyone who’s done that yet. I’m sure that it’s just taking Wright Patt a little longer since you sent it in. If it turns out it’s not in by July, I would ask your recruiter to help get in touch with WP and check on its status. Since it’s an FC1A all they have to do is essentially look it over and sign you off, shouldn’t take this long. Hopeful for a speedy turnaround for you!

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?

A FAIP assignment does not affect your career in a negative way. My advice: Do your best and work your ass off as a FAIP. Seek out and get first hand knowledge from the IPs coming from the CAF. If you work hard and do well, the rest will work itself out and you should get something pointy nose after your FAIP assignment.

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.

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).

Part of the problem is that the "training" between MAF deployments is normally operational requirements. You can't say no to an HHQ order to move a fighter squadron's DDF to their exercise or moving some broke MRAPs back stateside. So you might be leaving end of August on a deployment, you are required to get your Vol 1 beans prior to departure, you also want to take some family leave prior to deployment, and you have to fly tasked lines. The only one you have a choice in is choosing to give up your family time for a week to head out to a Flag exercise. For a long time I was an advocate for crewdogs to do exactly that. "It'll be your pink butt on the line in that fight..." But now that I'm approaching 20, the Lt Cols who were Lts when I told them that have flown their entire career in CENTCOM and AFRICOM against low end threats. And along the way we've been out on the ramp to admire the small arm holes in our airframes, or watched the SIPR porn of unsuccessful SA-7 shots due to our tactics. And it gets harder and harder to convince guys that they need to give up their family time to focus on the high end fight even though not one of us has ever been looked at in anger by a near peer. Instead they've seen the only "danger" come from shots in CENTCOM and AFRICOM. And that's what our local training focuses on the most. We'd all love to reduce our CENTCOM and AFRICOM commitments to focus on EUCOM and INDOPACOM. But the Pentagon actively fights back against that. So it gets very hard to say with a straight face to the young guys that "No, I promise, this will save your life in the next major conflict. When you receive a laydown with double digit threats in it are you going to be happy you skipped a Flag to see a few tee ball games?" Especially when they ask if myself or anyone who was an FGO when I was a CGO ever flew in that scenario. And if the Flag is going to help them on their next deployment to Africa this fall. I've also signed up for COCOM exercises and taken a group of young copilots along to get them some "OPLAN integration experience". Only to fly an uncontested airdrop on the first day because no one wanted to take away from the partner flying to provide a scenario for the airdroppers. And the Army didn't want anything complicated because they just wanted troops and equipment on the ground ASAP with 100% success so they could begin the maneuvers portion of the exercise. Then the rest of the "exercise" is just moving DDFs and JMRS around theater. We were only invited to shuffle equipment around major airfields with 10,000'+ runways. And the host nations won't allow you to do more than high altitude IFR to an IFR approach and landing. Nobody in leadership within 3 levels of a flying squadron has the ability to push back against COCOM taskings. So until you actually see Pentagon and COCOM leadership commit to EUCOM and INDOPACOM, you will continue to see people focusing on what will realistically get them killed or their wings taken during their 20 year careers. And that'll be in CENTCOM and AFRICOM until we are allowed to actually retrograde. Not just reposition it to another corner. Which of course increases airlift demand building new bases to get out of a named country without actually leaving the theater.

I have worked in the tanker cell and AMD in PACAF and TACC. I don’t know how or why any of the AMC crews would stay in or care about “tactics.” AMC leadership does not care. It’s not a priority. Countless times telling the line units “yhea we got a waiver to go into your training fence . . . . no I don’t care it’s a 3/4 day weekend or 4th July/Christmas/pick a holiday” The AF should just outsource everything mobility. It’s way cheaper, and the ol Russians will do anything. I’ll never forget the time I was at Shemya falls in 2003 watching the Pinkos land with an entire F15 squadrons maintenance package. They stopped for gas and vodka break on the way back to Elmo. No shit.