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This is why you don’t let non-pilots run flying organizations

All righty. Going to breakup the monotony of this thread and just say. I survived command on a 365. One of the best experiences in my life probably because I wasn’t a shiny penny. There may be some wrong in the USAF but not in the deployed environment where the mission hackers make it happen. There are a lot of eager and aggressive Airmen out there who are only limited by the system they exist in. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why is the E-9 lapdog opening his mouth at all about an aircraft commamders decision? STFU.

Every WO returning from WIC

Young young crew chief uhhello was at PSAB for start of OIF. Waiting on pilot to show up and was surprised to see the WG CC's SUV pull up to spot. Was surprised and asked ignorantly what he was doing. "I'm leading the package in".

We can't solve the gang violence problem in any major U.S. city, but sure, let's go try to remake Afghanistan into a functioning country though we don't understand the language, culture, history, who is who, the centuries old feuds, etc. with a population who have an average IQ of 85 and most of whom probably have PTSD from the decades of war, UXOs, child rape, complete lack of safety culture, banditry, etc. FFS.

You are seeing the classic deny, deny, counter-accuse tactic used on this thread by some on the left. They’ve denied CRT exists. They’ve denied CRT is being taught in schools. And they’ve followed up with a irrelevant creationism argument. Teaching creationism or personal finance has absolutely nothing to do with CRT. It’s all about the pivot when you know you can’t defend your side’s position. CRT is the next step in the process of demonizing straight white men. It’s designed to create division and resentment for future generations. I’ve said in previous comments that we’ve gone from Nazi’s to white supremacists to now the entire country and system is based on oppression and racism. As some have pointed out, CRT isn’t about simply teaching history - the good and the bad. It’s about creating a narrative that our country is fundamentally flawed and must be changed. And it was exposed because of COVID. Parents were able to listen to what their kids teachers were saying while on classroom zoom calls. I’m glad parents are standing up to this garbage. I think we are going to see a lot more people pushing back, in many different arenas and over many different topics. The progressive left is absolutely out of control. This is all becoming an argument of right vs wrong or good vs evil and not just differing political views.

Logically I know you’re right. But emotionally, after 10 deployments there, I want to stay and smash every enemy forever. I felt similarly watching the first departure from Balad after 5 trips there. Alcohol with bros will be how many of us cope having spent years of our life doing something that sporadically felt necessary but mostly filled me with anger at endless tactical success but no victory. All while my kids grew up and I stupidly went back. In the end I chose how to spend my time and have no one to blame for my decisions but me. However I will never forgive or respect senior leaders who could not win. Why should any of us believe any of them about the “big shift” and GPC when they’ve lost this one? probably time to wear my veteran hat and move into a camper near the base pharmacy… 🥃 🇺🇸⚔️

Multiple thoughts on this topic. I'll go objective to subjective. Financially: the 'bonus' is still 25,000 to 35,000 dollars. It was introduced in the 1990s, yet has not substantially changed since then. in 2015 when I took mine (25,000 for 5 years), it should have been at least 37,000 to account for inflation alone. I didn't do my homework. I recommend others do theirs before deciding. By comparison, if you separate at 12 years of service and join an airline, a part 135 operator (think flying twin otters or -8's in hot places), a cargo carrier, or even a cargo carrier feeder to a major cargo carrier, you will make more money in the following 8 years than you would have in the Air Force. Moreover, the Air Force continues to insult their pilots with the need for a bonus and the option to take it...and sometimes no bonus at all...while GIVING doctors, surgeons, and dentists professional pay that exceeds the aviation bonus while not requiring a "take"...in the AIR FORCE. Not the dental force, or the medical force, the Air Force. This year, as a reservist pilot, I will not get an aviation bonus because it was not offered to pilots in my air frame at my base, because clearly the air force is good on pilots...while medical professionals get an automatic bump to account for the money they aren't making on the outside. Objectively the USAF demonstrates that it does not value it's pilots and is unwilling to truly push for retention improvements. The fellas at RAND have routinely updated their data that shows retaining a USAF pilot at 12-15 years for another 3 years using a $100,000 per year bonus is more cost effective than producing new pilots. Just like big blue, we'll completely ignore the safety improvements of retaining experienced pilots in one of the most complicated and dangerous corners of the aviation world. No, the USAF simply continues to accept the shackles that congress places on it regarding the restricted pilot bonus instead of pushing HARD for a professional pay similar to the medical career fields. That lack of effort shows me all I need to see. However that financial analysis ignores the quality of life items, right? Unfortunately a QoL analysis only puts more nails in the coffin. For example, pilots are likely to marry spouses in a like-status, like-education-level, and like-earning potential bracket. In short, we choose to partner within our peer group. Yet the Air Force completely ignores this fact and continues to move us every three years, thereby negating our life partners the opportunity to professionally put down roots and create a career, thereby stifling their earning potential. Yes, the air force has claimed new programs to improve this problem by letting pilot homestead, but they are largely lip service programs that have shown to kill career progression. Take a look at how well the career pilot program went...for the four individuals that got accepted. Or perhaps AFPAK HANDS, which I watched get used as a "force shaping tool" to force 8 senior MAF MWS IPs decide to separate instead of taking that as their next assignment (circa 2016). That trend has not changed. The senior leaders of the USAF refuse to force the middle leadership to abide by the simple rules of organizational excellence: Train and equip and prepare your people so well that they could leave and be hired by any other organization immediately, and treat them in such a manner that they don't want to. My own story included an advisory that my last three years before hitting 20 would include a PCS (I'd been in my API-6 'flying' non-flying desk job for 2 years) and a 1 year deployment...because 2.5 years in the desert and 4.5 years total gone from home in 17 years wasn't enough. When I asked for special consideration as the job I was filling is difficult to fill, I was flatly told no. So I voted with my feet. Then the USAF promoted me 3 months before my separation date...and I still separated (promotion carries no ADSC). But let's shift gears and assume I decided to apply to be commander a staffer or whatever career progression track big blue would advise me to take. The peek behind that curtain reveals nothing but another curtain. I've been close personal friends with enough commanders to have learned that becoming a commander, an aide de camp, or attaining some other advancement position does not actually allow you access to change, fix, or improve the system as we all secretly hope to do if given that opportunity. Instead, you are rewarded with a PCS, school, or lateral move every 1-2 years. Moreover, you get the exposure to discover that the senior GS and SES community as well as the bad O-7s (there are good ones, but the bad ones abuse their influence and tend to poison the well far beyond the abilities of the good ones to fix) and their staff sycophants continue to perpetuate the self-promoting trend of the USAF. That leaves the hard working 'good guy' O-6s and O-7s swimming very much upstream if they want to institute sincere and good changes. I know several of these excellent men and women, and I pray their influence changes the USAF. I realized that fighting that battle was not in my blood, so I couldn't continue on that road. What's that have to do with the bonus? In short, those who were going to stay would have done so anyways. Those taking it for the money factor only may not have done their homework to realize they could make much more elsewhere. So it's not really a retention bonus, it's a 'thanks for staying, we want to lock you in and take away your power to say "no" pay'. Hence I say, unless you know you and your family want to stay at the whim of the you-are-nothing-but-a-number AFPC assignment process until the end of whatever commitment you are 'offered', don't take the bonus.

So the OG/CC won’t be there since he’s an ABM…

All we did was create a nation of dependents. I listened on the radio today as Afghanis claimed they have been abandoned. The Taliban want it more, so they will win. This should have happened 15 years ago. We had a reasonable expectation that the Afghans would taste freedom and sustain it with our aid. They let us down, not the other way around. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Classic scene that’s obviously farsical, but the part that I’ve come to understand more as I’ve gotten older is the line of “someday this war’s gonna end” and being dismayed by that. I haven’t gone overseas in a few years and I can’t believe that I miss it. Looking back on it, I really enjoyed my 3 Afghanistan trips and really felt like we accomplished some good things in the tactical sense. It’s all a ball wash in the grand scheme, but being there to help out some young Rangers or even just walking to mid rats at Dragon with the Bros was truly a great time. Queue up Dos Gringos “Back in the LPA” while I fill out these TPS reports.

Big problem is these idiots come out here and think it's perfectly normal to pay stupid prices for real estate, because it's a "good deal," compared to the exorbitant prices they're used to in the city. Then they start to vote in the same idiots they just fled. Like a beaten wife who thinks their husband has really changed, they think it will be different. Stay where you're at and don't fuck up our area too!

I've had both pilot and WSO Commanders, and there were good and bad out of both camps. I consider it a good thing that there are some who I'd really have to sit down and stretch my brain to remember if they were front seaters or back seaters. That being said, I remember being at SOS and having one of those "senior leader seminars" with my flight. The guy who led the seminar for my flight was one of the original CROs, a big burly dude who was emphatic that any "leader" could command any unit, regardless of specialty. I offered that such a thing would not work in a fighter unit, to which he scoffed and told me I just wasn't evolved enough in my thinking about leadership to understand that I was wrong. I said, "in my community, our Squadron Commander generally is the lead pilot of the first formation to cross into badguy territory on the first night of the war. How are you going to inspire your warriors if on the first night of the war you're sending them into the IADS while you're going to watch them all take off into the night, then stay behind in the office and watch it on CNN?" His only response was, "that's not a fair question."

If ever there were a subject which should engender bi-partisan agreement it should be this: make China pay for unleashing this shit. Unfortunately we cannot agree on even that.

Well, it would appear AAL is bringing me on to hack a line number (no pay date). I had a CJO from back in March of 2020 that got COVID'd. I'm still on AD and I signed the 3 year bonus a year back. So pretty pumped they are doing this...and smart on their part since I was planning on shopping around with SWA and UAL when I eventually got out (again), but not anymore. 2 years of seniority on day 1 is pretty appealing.

The thing that pisses me off the most here is that while we all shit-sling about CRT, there actually is a topic that, if you taught it to every child in America, would go a long way in leveling the playing field Democrats are so convinced is systemically unfair. That topic is called Basics of Personal Finance. Proposed lesson plans include: What is interest? How can it work for me and against me? How does a loan work? How do credit cards work? How do I make a budget? How much should I save and for what? What is a retirement plan? How do I invest my money? What is appreciation and depreciation? The fact that financial literacy is not regarded as the absolute most important thing to teach in public school has always blown my mind. I had a substitute teacher play Dave Ramsey videos for a week once in 11th grade, and if I hadn't already been taught most of those concepts by my parents it would have been the most consequential week of education in my life.

After retiring from airline flying @59, I consider flying my RV-8 3 times a week the pinnacle of my flying career.

I’ve never understood the reluctance to use medicine to improve performance. If I have an infection that makes me DNIF, I take antibiotics. If I have a sleep schedule that needs to be shifted to operate safely, I take ambien. Need to be awake? Go pills. (Edit to be clear for OSI: I’m describing the ideal, not what I do or current practice. Also to be clear for OSI: get fvcked.) You’re asking me to strap into a fuel-laden tube, filled with fire but balk at altering body chemistry? Thanks Nancy. Smarter, stronger, and better at our job… of killing and not getting killed. Give us the pills. Can you imagine how great the MPF could be if we gave them Dex and locked them in for 12 hour days twice a month?

Two of the absolute worst commanders I’ve had were pilots. Two of the very best were navs. The radiator shield does not automatically qualify one to be a good commander.

Smoke and mirrors. They are essentially just executing phase 3, but with wings. I don’t understand how this changes anything, except maybe gets them a form 8 earlier so the MAF bound guys can be softened up to Q3s and re-quals earlier in their career.

You make a great point about the limitations of our knowledge. Humility is key. Foundational to one's world view is the question how the government should proceed in a low-information scenario. I default towards individual freedom, a lot of people don't, or they overstate the certainty of their position to seize moral authority they really shouldn't. FWIW, Im vaccinated, but I don't support making it mandatory right now.

My personal take on it is that it’s time to move past the vaccine/not vaccine, mask/no mask discussion… The vaccine is free and widely available, get it if you want, don’t if you don’t. Wear a mask if you want, don’t if you don’t. Don’t come crying to me when you get COVID, and I won’t come crying to you when I can’t have kids in 3 years. Make your personal choice and let’s get back to business. Hopefully this policy stays local to us so no one else has to deal with this painful step backwards

Yes. Snort died in his L-1019 up in Lewiston. Got the word from my warbird / airshow buds. He was heading back to Ft Snort when he crashed. Quite the character, and there are a lot of opinions about him. But Snort was part of the dying breed of old school fighter pilots that the current military really doesn't want around much anymore. My Tomcat buds that flew with him and worked for him think the world of him. Even the ones that didn't care for him! The fact he flew the way he did, and was able to live as long as he did... well, that's quite a feat. Snort was a Brother in Arms, and I raise a glass for him tonight. edit: for those not aware, Snort was the pilot of the famous knife-edge Tomcat pass. https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-and-video-behind-dale-snort-snodgrass-legendary-super-low-banana-pass/

Yes, combat ORM is a skill that takes a lot of time to develop and requires actual experiences (e.g. it can't be taught in a classroom), just like airmanship and judgment. But just like airmanship and judgment, combat ORM it does not require intentionally violating rules or doing something unsafe to see and understand where those boundaries are. Generally the boundaries of the black and white are gently touched during peacetime training, and it is only in no-shit combat ops (and with that combat ORM already seasoned) that you can "live in the gray area" to get the mission done. I say that as someone who had the special opportunity to wear my blues and describe my operating in the gray area to a board of rated officers.

Sure did not used to be that way. I'm fortunate that in my first AF gig as a 21A1 MX Officer I had a CMSgt who grabbed me by my scrawny neck and showed me the ways of the AF. Certainly not like the soy boy E-9s hunting for hurt feelings and missing glow belts by the time I was ready to retire.

I’ll never tell. She made me promise.

Hope this blows up on social media and this OG/CC gets publicly raked across the coals and fired by ACC leadership backed up by the CSAF. No offense to my ABM bros but is this OG/CC an ABM that has zero concept of aviation hazards and fatigue? Unless you’re in combat, an ABM not being able to do their job doesn’t kill lives.

After however many years of work (and a good bit of luck), I’d like to request a username change to “FormerPilotCandidate” as “PilotCandidate” is no longer accurate.

Every one of your arguments is founded on reinterpreting concepts and quotes from the literal authors of the source material. A link to an article explaining CRT is not compelling when compared to the authors of CRT. Remember way back when I posted the article from the second largest teachers union in the country supporting Critical Race Theory? Your retort to that was to post something else from secondary sources and surveys. Why on Earth would you take that over the literal stated position of the teachers' union? Because it doesn't fit your narrative. An organization run by Marxists with Marxist principals on their website (until they became headlines) is somehow not actually Marxist. Lol. That's mental gymnastics. I also love the idea that you have to go to communist Russia for some reason to learn about a German ideology... Seriously do you know anything at all about the topics on which you opine? Honestly, the most amusing part of arguing with someone like you is that you capitalize MARXISM as though anyone is treating it as a boogie man. It's not. It's a fairly old, fairly persistent, and fairly dangerous ideology that rears its head repeatedly over the years. It's not fuzzy, the concepts are very well understood by both sides. But because you can't fathom a situation where your political opponents aren't just a bunch of backwards hick redneck religious nuts, you have to caricature their argument into something it's not. You go ahead and Google a bunch of sources that try to make CRT something that it's not. Pretend like anti-racism isn't what it is. I'll just continue to cite the authors of these doctrines when speaking about their ideas, rather than relying on a completely fabricated alternative explanation that better fits my ideology. Imagine the chaos that would ensue if Republicans started espousing the merits of Nazism, but every time you referenced Hitler or the Holocaust, the republican explained how Nazism is more of a nebulous concept that covers lots of things, and did that "trained Nazi" actually go to Germany to learn about being a Nazi? Your posts have become almost as audacious as the press secretary getting on national TV and claiming that um, actually, it's the Republicans who are the party of defund the police! Why are you blaming democrats?! I could be wrong, but your posts read as a well-meaning but completely ignorant liberal who's just caught up in the mythos that is being told to you about the other side. Pretty much the same thing that's happened in the Republican party in a lot of ways. But it's a pretty solid strategy, because it stops you from thinking critically about anything that "your side" is doing. And right now, the democrats are doing some amazing stuff. Conversely, your almost deliberate refusal to use the source material when defining these concepts seems like a little bit more than casual ignorance. It's incredible that not a single Republican politician has met with white supremacists, read from their books publicly, or donated to their causes, yet we're still fed the bullshit line that the conservative movement is aligned with white nationalism. But even the most casual link is distorted and misrepresented as some sort of full-throated endorsement of a hateful and racist ideology. Democrats however jump fully in bed with people espousing the most fatal ideology in the history of humanity (yes, your favorite bogey man, Marxism), quote them publicly, join them in protests, and defend them fiercely from any sort of criticism, but don't you dare call the Democratic party Marxist. And don't you dare call them racist either, because only white people can be racist in America (another real claim by White Fragility author and leftist darling Robin DiAngelo).

I could write a few pages on my feelings (disdain) toward our continued involvement in that place, but I'll keep it short and sweet. My two trips were over a decade apart. First one kinda felt like I was doing something, but even then, there was no clearly defined strategic objectives, just some nebulous bullshit. At least I was helping the Americans on the ground. The second time (late last year/early this year), was a complete waste of my time, money and hours on the jets. Zero strategic goals, zero tactical goals, zero sense of accomplishment, zero feeling of what we were doing meant anything. Two good things came out of that trip...we brought everyone home safely and it strengthened my resolve to get out. Who is going to be the first to pen a book called The Eagle went over the Mountain? Maybe they'll update to the Graveyard of Empires.

RM math isn’t anywhere near perfect, but it also never will be. Sometimes a risk assessment just comes down to gut feeling. Hairs on the back of the neck and all that. If a dude one day isn’t comfortable with 300/1 and he wants to cancel, sure go ahead. If a dude will never be comfortable with 300/1, that’s a different problem.

Intrusive leadership that holds people accountable just sounds like toxic leadership with extra steps.

Saying people should immigrate legally according to the laws of the land they are attempting to join us racist.

Valid, he has nothing on the master of extemporaneous eloquence that is Joe Biden. 🙄

Holy smokes dude, if anyone is chugging down propaganda from media shills, its you. Antifa has gone more quiet because a leftist administration that has worked to advance many of the things they demanded is now the regime in power. The notion that they are just hippies that don't like neo-nazis is f*cking laughable and makes me wonder if you aren't just trolling. Or maybe you really believed that the shit that went down over the summer of 2020 was just a "summer of love". Hunter's laptop story was effectively silenced by big tech. And the whole Hunter Biden story only continues to get richer (just like Hunter Biden) as anonymous buyers pay massive sums for his garbage art, sums that not even established artists could pull down for their works. Wonder where that money is coming from? BLM as an organization that simply wants black lives to matter as much as white ones is a flat out lie and a quick scroll through their own website will tell you as much. It has literally been defined, linked to, etc.. multiple times in this very thread.

I was at Bagram in 2011-2012 for my 13-month sentence to the MC-12 (a mess of a program that was mismanaged, with poor leadership, poor training, and a huge range of pilot abilities: incredibly shitty, to some of the best tactical minds and pilots I've ever met). Do y'all remember the Afghan guy that served ice cream in the chow hall? That guy looked like he had seen some violence, and the hatred in his eyes was intense. I always thought he would find a way to grab someone's weapon and open fire. I looked him in the eyes every time I left, if he was working. I've ram-dumped nearly all of the time I spent at Bagram. It's like a hazy dream now. What a mess.

They flat out say, “yes, we are incorporating CRT into K-12 education.” And the facts back that claim up. To me it’s an apolitical topic…no type of morals/values/lens (beyond basic don’t-break-laws societal norms) belong in public education. If you want religion taught at school, send your kids to a religious private school, if you want CRT-driven curriculum, send your kids to the CRT private school, if you want kids to learn in a drum circle from a teacher named Flower send them to the hippie private school, etc. If you can’t afford those/don’t want to, then teach the values/morals you want to at home, and let the public school take care of non-politicized/agenda-driven math, science, history, and literacy. Pretty simple and apolitical concept…in theory.

Why don't you describe it for us?

We’ll never be able to afford to mass enough pilots on AD for a just-in-case peer fight. Or jets, for that matter. Entire AF force structure should be inverted, with a smaller amount of highly-bonused AD guys and a larger amount of guard/reserve ready to spin up when needed. Modern jets and pilots can’t be cranked out at WW2 speeds, so I can’t see how having a larger reserve force isn’t the best way. It keeps experience around, gets us out of the constant upgrade cycle, saves jet hours, and lets pilots go out and make money for the economy rather than being a personnel drain. Not to mention the great deterrent of having a huge combat force on standby, chomping at the bit for some action. It’ll take an act of Congress, but so what.

For what it's worth, I trust the vaccine because of the pharmaceutical companies, not in spite of them. Conservatives (including myself) love to tout how the free market in America fosters more medical innovation than anywhere else on the planet. And I really believe that is the case. Most drugs are developed here. If you need world class surgery of pretty much any kind, you come here. The system isn't perfect but on the innovation front, we solve the shit out of medical problems. And the covid pandemic is the perfect example of that. 9 months ago the US was the covid dumpster fire of the entire world, and now because of these vaccines we are more open, back to normal, and with lower case loads than almost anywhere else. That's an amazing achievement and it has absolutely nothing to do with the government. It has to do with the awesomely smart people who figured this shit out and who would have never signed off on it if the benefits didn't outweigh the risks. It also has to do with the fact that the free market incentivized these companies to make a vaccine that would actually work. They knew they'd have to compete with other vaccine brands and they also knew the mother of all global class action lawsuits would be waiting for them if they porked it.

You can blame the officers who allow E-9s to act like E-9s. A true Chief is worth their weight in gold.

Well that's their mission, not training, which is what the sign is getting at. I agree in one sense because we won't even fly through a thunderstorm on a combat mission. We'll fly around it, but never through it. More on the subject in the context of this conversation. I've never shown up to work only to been told to go home and come back in 12 hours to go fly without being offered go/no-pills. If this training was important enough, then the docs would have given them the pills.

🤦🏻‍♂️ No one is talking about the hurricane hunters. And I'm not sure what airmanship or proficiency you gain by flying into a thunderstorm. Sounds like a good way to damage your aircraft and thereby reduce the combat capability of your unit. The point of the sign is you shouldn't take unacceptable risks in training. Get-the-job-done-at-all-costs-itis kills more people at home station than combat does. People regularly lose sight of the fact that they are conducting training and push things well past the margin of safety. As for this instance, the OG has the right to be pissed. His people couldn't execute when the time came. But his anger is directed in entirely the wrong direction, with a big bag of AFI ignorance to boot. Something in the chain broke down between the exercise planning and the squadron level where the aircrew were given a garbage plan. A good commander would have gotten up there and asked his people how this broke down to the point aircrew were forced to make that decision. And how they should approach exercises as a wing in the future so this doesn't happen again. But he didn't do that, and seems like a pretty big twat. I'll be eagerly awaiting the crucifixion.

Did you miss the part where the Government is working with private companies to silence voices? Or is government censorship something you’re cool with?

No it isn't. It's intellectually honest to follow the science and science points to the Big Bang. Scientists are also perfectly happy admitting to you that they don't know what caused the Big Bang, or what if anything existed before it. Intellectual honesty is admitting you don't know rather than making shit up when you reach the limits of your understanding.

But he’s not talking about withholding medical care, he’s talking about taking from him personally against his free will, to help the person who made a poor choice. In this analogy, dumbass wrecks his bike wearing zero PPE while going 69 mph, so Prozac is pulled out of work to donate an asscheek of skin to graft onto dumbass’ fucked up body. Yeah hyperbole, but so is this entire analogy.