MCO
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Posts posted by MCO
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On 3/14/2024 at 3:44 AM, yzl337 said:
Please tell me 02-14 had some kind of epic friday patch that offset the kool-aid drinking nerdiness of that patch.
I think it’s understandable considering they probably started pilot training September 2001.
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28 minutes ago, Danger41 said:
Another thing in the fighter community right now for CC’s is that if you go back to when these dudes were in UPT, fighters were few and far between. The U-28 community just released their DO/CC list and the vast majority were T-38 trained O-5’s who in normal times would’ve ended up in Vipers or something else. It’s weird how you shut the flood gates for a couple years and end up paying for it down the road.
Yep. The fighter year groups from 07-09 are tiny, especially 07. 07 got ravaged by UAVs and backed up B courses making only about 1 fighter pilot per class across all three UPT bases. We just didn’t make any fighter pilots. Now everyone on staff throws up their arms like we never saw this coming.
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16 hours ago, McJay Pilot said:
Baby come back, any kind of fool could see
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back, yeah, you can blame it all on me
'Cause I was wrong, and I just can't live without youAren’t they inviting them back because it was congressionally mandated they invite them back?
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“We don’t want to pigeonhole ourselves in strictly special operations”- Air Force Special Operations Command official
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Dogs are fine and getting a car is not hard. The paperwork on the other hand is painful, but that’s true of everything in Germany.
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On 8/6/2023 at 12:57 AM, brabus said:
I’ve told 3/4 stars a few times a COA was bad, why it was bad, and what COA should be executed and why. I’m about 50/50 success rate. The one thing I did note across all of those interactions is the GO was genuinely interested in my thoughts and appreciated my effort whether they went my direction or not. The O-6 level was pissed I would dare to speak. It made me realize how much good things are filtered away from GOs at the O-6 level and replaced with yes man bullshit.
I was in a briefing with a bunch of 3 stars and a 4 star. Our team briefed some COAs and a 3 star asked the briefer why some majors and Lt Cols think they get a say when the proposed COA was presented. As the briefer was trying to find words the 4 star said I’m going with their suggested COA. Briefing concluded.
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1 hour ago, Anon1 said:
Primarily software. A few small hardware changes. The transition course from 6 to 8 is 2 weeks.
Nobody ever considered the need for a reverese snd it's screwing the FP community hard. Those dual qual'ed are flying their ass off while those that are block 8 only are flying 1 tac line a week and averaging 10-15 hours/month. I know one in our sq who got to 0 on their 30 day without taking leave. During their 6 month initial seasoning.
In a year or so you'll have block 8 only pilots who can't PCS to some of the AD herk units because they don't have any block 8 tails.
To all the others, without revealing too much this isn't my first rodeo. I know what a well functioning community/squadron looks like and this sadly isn't it. FP development out of the jet is lacking and in the jet is hit or miss. I'd say FGO leadership is largely absent (ROAD) and the below is the stark reality of the current Herk mission:
The cgo patches are trying but you can only bandaid so much.
Personally I'm burnt out from busting my ass on the ground and bending over backwards to get a hint stick time. And at the end of the day job satisfaction is nil vs. my previous. Having been on another side of the AF, I can't rec the herk to dudes currently. It's decently fun flying and it's got another year or two to grow on me, but otherwise I'll be headed back to my bros with lessons learned or onto another community that feels it has purpose.
Damn dude. Shitty timing and you even laid out the issues with the timing. Transitions end. Shit will still need to get moved to the front of the fight. Also, turns out we also train to worst case peer in peer but if we get into another less hot conflict guess who is going to be bearing the brunt of the intra theater airlift again?
Every deployment is different. There are squadrons that deployed and did 100+ airdrops on 1 deployment and literally the next group out did 0 on their 6 month deployment. They don’t make requirements based on what’s fun but what’s needed. Some of the stuff we’ve done in Africa is pretty cool, but it’s always changing from current world politics. No 2 deployments are the same.
There is a ton of stuff in the AF to get mad about and this is obviously an extra one, but you sound like you checked out as a 6 month FP.
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12 hours ago, Anon1 said:
Personally I dislike having landed in the community. It is currently overmanned at the FP level resulting in flying 10-15 hrs/month.
They also managed the block 6 to block 8 transition extremely poorly. Way behind timeline in terms of tail conversion but most FPs are block 8 only out of the school house. It's been an issue that you could see coming over the past 1-1.5 years yet there have been no moves to make a reverse 8 to 6 transition course or dual-qual out of the school house. As a result you've got tons of co-pilots that can only fly half the planes on station.
Top that off with planning 12 hrs to brief for 2 and fly a 2-3.0 tac flagpole line. If you get airborne.
If you want to hack the mission, the herk isn't it. At least not any more.
As an FP I have flow 5 actual missions this year and spent less than 20 days on the road.
If you want to pretend to be to be tactical despite the reality of the modern fight then go for it. If you want to pretend to be an airland bubba and take 2 days and 12 hrs to fly someplace it takes a c-17 1 day and 6 hours to get after it.
Perhaps my timing for entry into this community was bad, but it's left me uninspired. If you want to actually fly your ass off, see the world, and do something other than drop training bundles or army dudes once in a blue moon then I can't recommend.
Sounds like a stateside squadron that isn’t connecting the tactical training piece to the fight for you. Still trying to figure out new normal post Afghanistan.
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4 minutes ago, General Chang said:
Reading through this thread, there seems to be a lot of wing commander hate over time. Certainly there are some good ones out there now.
With the onslaught of chang posts, it’s always sad how there is just enough truth in them to scare you.
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On 6/6/2023 at 2:19 PM, ClearedHot said:
The comments on that video are gold.
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New PSDM out on strats. The only way to get a good strat now is to be an exec. Everyone else is a denominator for the exec, but small enough they can’t get a strat.
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On 4/30/2023 at 3:06 AM, saltystud said:
The only heavy drops from ENJJPT result from pretty extreme special considerations. There has only been one or two in the last several years. The mission of the program is actually quite philosophically exclusive to fighters. The mission of the program is to be the world's premier fighter pilot training program.
Plus of ENJJPT is some lower quality studs get fighters which forces some higher quality into heavies at the SUPT bases. Obviously not the best if they want fighters but it helps a little with the spread.
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On 4/9/2023 at 7:47 PM, ClearedHot said:
The pendulum swings hard left followed immediately by hard right.
For a while O-6's had to volunteer to be considered for command...that resulted in a shortage of "HiPos" seeking command. A Corona discussion followed..."we aren't people volunteering for command? The reason as it turns out, people were freaking tired...I can't imagine why? As is the norm CSAF responded by making all O-6's "all in" whether they like it or not for the next command screening cycle.
I don't know what it looks like now but in 2014 they had a SERB for O-6s, two years later they asked O-6's to come back from retirement to fill certain staff roles.
Also, as I recall in 2020 or 2021 AFSOC lost almost 60 O-6's, that is a lot of experience walking out the door to escape some caustic leadership.
Regardless of what they say your best interest is NOT in Big Blue's crosscheck. You are just another number in the system.
We were fat on O-6s the last couple years but back to normal numbers. I wouldn’t be surprised if it continues down. We are back to letting people opt out of command, although leadership can disapprove it and make you compete. We are always a number in the system from the day we join and it doesn’t change when you are one of 4000 Colonels. Some generals worry more about individual desires than others, but the system at least tries to listen. The problem is the system tries to get the best overall answer, but if your the guy that got sent to the opposite side of the world from where you wanted in a job you asked not to have, you rightfully could give 2 shits about the fairness of the system and how much it cares about you.
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2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
The EFMP system can be a maddening mess. My son had chronic ear infections which resulted in a slight speech delay. The pediatrician and state of Florida prescribed a year of speech therapy just as I was finishing command. My assignment from NW Florida to National War College was TURNED OFF by the medical system, they invoked the EFMP clause saying they could not confirm my son would receive appropriate speech therapy care in WASHINGTON DC! I tried to inject some common sense into the system for 10 days before my boss who was the Air Warfare Center Commander stepped in. He was like me speechless and went VFR direct to the Surgeon General of the Air Force. The SG called me personally to say it was all worked out and yes there was speech therapy in the Nation's Capital, but also told me "the system is just trying to protect you and your family."
I’ve seen this happen all the time, and it almost always is overturned and allowed after causing a ton of stress and delays. Sometimes it happens during people’s pack outs. It’s ridiculous. And most of the time it’s the gaining doctor just not wanting to add anymore “non-normal” cases because it’s hard…….
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15 hours ago, Internationalmesa said:
Question for y’all, is there a list of issues that disqualify OCONUS for dependents? I can’t find much online
EFMP will check with the gaining doctor who gets to decide if they can support, so it’s very doctor and location dependent. The whole process is kind of a joke for some of the stuff people get denied for.
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57 minutes ago, di1630 said:
I hear non-coyote brown Friday shirts are soon to be gone via the new uniform reg update.
Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile appYeah but you can wear an OCP patrol cap in your flight suit so it’s fine.
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On 3/11/2023 at 5:30 AM, BashiChuni said:
I wonder what it could be! 💉
Crazy! Almost like there is a new virus in the world that can kill people!
im not arguing any view actually, but I need more than tabloid headlines to draw an actual conclusion.
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7 hours ago, ATIS said:
'Don't know for sure"....."might have been a factor"??
A lot of two-stepping around the one thing she didn't discuss or put forth; did the member(s) have C-19 and what was the VAX status of said expired member(s) of society in the 25-44 year old age group.
"What we do know" is when the transition from pure reporting of the data in the study went sideways into the unverified.
IMO, you can't draw a relationship between C-19 and the increase, it's still an unknown. But I guess that's doesn't stop this from being broadcast to the masses.
Her husband situation makes this discussion more interesting, although on a personal level I am sorry for her loss.
ATIS
Either you are pro vax and the rise in heart attacks is because you hate science and caught COVID, or you are anti vax and anything negative that’s happened in the last 2 years is because a vax exists. No chance COVID being in the world on its own made heart attacks go up regardless of anyone’s actions. No middle ground allowed on this forum. Get your logic out of here.
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2 hours ago, FLEA said:
Suffice to say, most companies paying hourly do not compensate you if you call in sick. Lots of people living pay check to pay check--simply cannot do this. To categorize an entire population of people as lazy or flakes I think is a mischaracterization of what is actually happening in our labor force.
That was my point, a lot of generalizations of entire parts of the population.
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10 hours ago, filthy_liar said:
nsplayer I'm not sure your "not sure if you are a troll" or "out of touch" is going to work here. People that are earning low income are not showing up to work, not because they are staying home because they are sick. Do you not understand that? Do you really not understand that?
So there is not a single low income hard worker out there, they ALL just want to take advantage of the system?
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1 hour ago, Prosuper said:
But from non rated officers in all the support functions they get leadership roles with enlisted troops when they are 2Lt's to until they get passed over for Major and leave as Capt.'s. This flying stuff really screws up more than it helps.
Sure. I’d argue flyers also get leadership as Lts and Capts. I’d say better leadership, but they don’t learn how to manage a squadron as well as the support side. Those arguments elicit a lot of feelings though.
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1 hour ago, Muscle2002 said:
Even now, we have GOs and senior O6s with less than four years of command time. I know a few who did a quick one-year squadron command tour, followed later with a one-year wing vice commander stint, and then wing command.
Great point actually. Get rid of group command and potentially a 1 year EOSS then 2 years as wing king and that’s it.
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4 hours ago, dream big said:
Been saying this for years. Want to improve QOL for maintainers? Get rid of the AMXS and PCA everyone to the flying squadron. Marines and Navy have no problem with this model. 0-4 leadership position is MX OIC as a pilot. Not sure if it would make sense to fuse the MXS side as well. In any case, along those lines, I say get rid of all Groups and transition to an A-Staff model where Squadrons report directly to the Wing. I believe Mt Home and some other bases have already done that. My army coworkers look at my sideways when I tell them we have 0-6 Group Commanders and 0-6 Wing Commanders.
Your Army buddies also command as Captains. I don’t disagree with your logic but it’s not totally apples to apples. Without group command we potentially have GOs with 4 total years in command. We would need to change more than just getting rid of groups I thinks. Longer or more commands possibly.
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15 minutes ago, FLEA said:
If you are measuring by manpower alone, then no. But if you are measuring by accumulated power (industrial, machine, materiel and assets) then yes, we do.
This is a really useful site I go back to often for evaluating force strengths:
Some websites power index measurement is not a standing army. I’d agree we have the most powerful military, but it’s not the largest. Our Army in 1865 was larger than our army now.
Topic at hand, fund Ukraine, let them fight our near peer for all the reasons previously stated including doing the right thing. For your point on downsizing, we have to be careful deciding to drastically cut our military and use it to fund friendly militaries because not everyone may stay friendly forever, and we are giving them the say on what the appropriate use of the military is. I’m not against looking at our budget, but we need to know what we are getting ourselves into.
Reorganization Part 69
in General Discussion
Posted
This. Peacetime managers vs wartime leaders. Some people are good at both but many aren’t. 2 different skill sets and not being at war it’s hard to know who is actually a good wartime leader.