Lord Ratner

Never seen or heard of it Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Because FAIP is thought of as an alpha tour. Going from FAIP to transient UAV pilot would mean they have zero experience in a normal community on their third tour. Unless they are planning to permanently assign FAIPs to UAVs... Which would be truly brutal. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

We are quite successfully criminalizing human interaction. On the flip side, this shows that SAPR training works in some respects. Teach a bunch of 18 and 19 year olds that uncomfortable, unpleasant, or unwanted interactions are actually "violence" and "assault," and they will believe it. The pendulum is already swinging the other way in the college world, the military should follow soon enough. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Sounds about right. She pretends for a living, why should anything she says make sense? Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

What did blunt do? Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Are you making a living, middle class wage off of it? If so, good on you. I've always wondered how hard that would be to get into. One of the only downsides to being stationed overseas is the access (and price) to the movies. For what it's worth, your post about the movie lost me with all the parenthesis and "Oscar-nominated" add ins. Expected for an IMDB plot summary, but not a no-shit review from a human. Also, there is no such thing as an astonishing cast, unless they managed to resurrect Ghandi or George Washington to be in it. /unsolicitedfeedback Good on you for getting into that gig. I'm jealous.

What's the new gig?

I was trying to guess what numb nuts was quoting a movie trailer without reading the username. Figured Huggy had just discovered Movie Phone and was trying to impress us with his cinema knowledge. Are spammers really making forum accounts now just to post adverts?

Absolutely. My point isn't that flying is devoid of any leadership, but that the idea that what makes one a great leader at the tactical level necessarily translates to being great at the organizational level, is flawed. Look at Welsh. Seemingly a great leader at the wing-and-below level (according to others, I was not around in those days), but not making a huge dent at the top. Sure, I'd love to have AF leaders from the squadron up who are shit-hot in the jet and organizational wizards. I'd choose that guy ten out of ten. But wherever they are, we can't seem to find them. And the military system of job-jumping and hole-filling doesn't lend itself to identifying and positioning those officers who have the skills and experience to manage massive organizations. There's a reason airlines aren't run by pilots and sports teams aren't run by the best athletes. Of course, we like to argue that the military is too different to the civilian world to compare, but the pilots that lead the AF have to deal with cyber, maintenance, acquisitions, space, finance, etc. All areas which they are not tactical experts. I think a squadron commander of a flying squadron should be a flying expert, because the squadron is narrowly focused on that task, and it matters to the majority of the people under him/her. I'd rather have my Group/Wing and above leadership allow me to focus on being a flying expert while they deal with the actual purpose of their position.

You only get more money if you are taking the "9" (long bonus) year bonus instead of the five (short bonus). The short bonus is five years from signing. So you get $125k no matter what. The long bonus is until 20 years of aviation service. Depending on when AFPC gets the bonus out and how long the process takes, it could be 6-12 months between your initial ADSC ending and starting the bonus (either one). By doing the early eligible program you avoid this delay and your new commitment starts immediately after your initial ADSC expires. For the short bonus that means taking the early option will reduce your mandatory AD time by whatever the processing delay is for the on-time bonus. But since damn near everyone who takes the short bonus stays until retirement, this isn't as big a deal. For the long bonus your earliest retirement date won't change since it is based on when you started flying, not a set time after signing the bonus paperwork. But by signing early your bonus starts immediately after the initial ADSC ends, instead of 6-12 months later, and you get bonus money for those months. So TL;DR: For the short bonus, early eligibles can get an earlier separation date. For the long bonus, early eligibles get more money.

I think we agree more than you think What would you say the highly transferable skill set is? You think the CEO deals with payroll and recruiting of unskilled labor? I'll bite. How does a combat sortie in a fighting falcon impart organizational leadership skills? Wing commanders aren't really the ones tagged to be in the lead aircraft of a 50-ship bomber formation. That's the sq/cc job, right? Are you implying that one cannot be a good leader without being a good pilot? That leaves quite a few career fields out of luck I have seen very little connection between leadership and flying. Admiration, respect, sure. But running an organization of hundreds is not in the same realm... At least that's what I think

I know a few commanders who were "total bros" when they were captains and majors, then went full crazy when given command. And I know more than a few captains who are great dudes, but I worry about what they will be like as commanders. Leadership is hard, if it weren't for the fact I have virtually zero chance of command, I'd be worried about myself being in power as well. Unfortunately the pilot world doesn't rate and promote based on leadership abilities and experience. Since there are too many officers and not enough leadership positions, we use program management and education as discriminators. But what most of us want, a return to a flying focus, doesn't enhance leadership ability either. I think there is a huge credibility boost a squadron commander gains from being proficient in the jet, but at the group and above level I don't think flying ability helps any more than being an exec or getting DG at SOS. I don't know the right answer, but there is a reason civilian corporations hire CEOs and presidents from outside the company. Ford doesn't need the best design engineer or riveter at the helm. Leadership is a skill unto itself, and it cannot be nurtured or measured through other actions and skills.

I've been told by those who sat on the recent O5 board that AFPAK hands was consistently ignored, and the packages (and associated LtCol hopefuls) suffered for it.

AFPAK Hands is the only reason needed to not take the bonus. The fact they are giving it to 06 year group dudes now is probably evidence that they are losing too many people to 3/7 day opts.

I heard the plane was underwater for at least 45 minutes before reappearing on radar... #thetruthisoutthere

I call shenanigans. They are creating an entirely new aircraft from different 767 variants, but the bulkhead would have been too much? I'll bet if you factor in maintenance costs for the vastly more complicated new system, like every single other new system on the -46, it'll end up costing much much more. But who cares? It's what we have now. And since we can't afford enough of them, we'll have real boom pods for decades to come

That's interesting. The Italian and Japanese booms I spoke with and the I KC-767 universally disliked the digital boom pod.

This seems like something we've complained about here. If the numbers don't look good, redefine "good" http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/16/army-survey-morale/24897455/

Congrats! What reg did you use to prove them wrong?

Yes.

The MQ/AC/KF-5B Joint Everything Stealth Aircraft. No more pipelines, universally assignable maintainers, pilots never have to deploy, and JTACs could complete their training on an iPhone.

"2" The new bonus options prove it works. I'm not so sure this will make a huge change to the take-rate. If, hypothetically, someone who wishes to continue serving is unwilling to sign a five year contract for $25k/year, it seems unlikely they would sign an even longer contract for the same annual incentive. For most pilots in the era of the 10 year UPT commitment, taking the bonus is a proxy decision for staying until retirement. There may be exceptions, but I think for the sake of argument we can say that if a pilot takes the (5 year) bonus, they are planning on retiring. UPT + ADSC = 11-12. + Bonus ADSC = 16-17. Maybe I'm isolated, but the only guys I've seen get out with more than 16 years in were forced or TERA'd. So a pilot who doesn't take the bonus either wants to continue flying for the Air Force but isn't planning to do so for five years, or would like to retire, however wants the option to change that plan should he get a terrible assignment or 365. Why would a pilot in either of those scenarios take a longer bonus? Especially when the value of the annual bonus as a percentage of total annual income decreases as that person makes rank? Retirement is a powerful incentive the closer you get to it. Put a pilot 3 to 4 years away from retiring and most, though admittedly not all, will stick it out to get in the paycheck-of-the-month club. This new bonus squanders that advantage, and may actually do more damage to retention since it doesn't address the reasons a pilot might not take the bonus. If Jane Pilot isn't willing to take a 5-year commitment, she's not thinking about retirement as an absolute, so a 9-year commitment would be even less appealing to her. And if she's smart, she would realize that a longer bonus should be accompanied by a HIGHER annual incentive. There's a reason CDs and auto loans have higher APRs for longer terms. Instead, the Air Force should just double the bonus. 5 years at $50k/year. First it's a good chunk of change, but even better, compared to the old bonus it seems even bigger. Second, it entices the people who were worried about a 5-year extended sentence in the AF without exacerbating their main cause for skipping the bonus. Third, you get those uncommitted pilots to that fabled "final PCS" before retirement, and even after the bonus dries up most will stick it out 3-4 more years for the pension. I get that a higher annual bonus may require congressional approval, or more work of some sort, but after talking to people about why they did or didn't take the bonus, I would submit that it would be better for the AF to change nothing rather than move to 9yrs@$25k. It's been argued here that the bonus only pays people who were staying in anyways. I don't think that's true, but I do think the number of people who were unwilling to commit to 5yrs@$25k but are willing to commit to 9yrs@$25k will justify the increased cost. If for every 1 pilot you convince you pay 10 already committed pilots an extra $100k, thats an effective change of $1 million per pilot; now you're getting into the numbers people throw around when they talk about what a new pilot costs. And yes, I'm estimating that at best this bonus will convince one uncommitted pilot to commit for every 10 that were going to take the old bonus anyways. We'll see next year when the numbers are out.

Single seat

The JTR does not expect you to travel between midnight and 6am. If you have a 7 am flight at an airport two hours away, you should be entitled to travel to the airport a day early

I guess the MWS IP vs UPT IP battle hasn't raged in a while. You can't teach brand new FAIPs and recently-upgraded-to-AC-then-sent-to-UPT MWS guys what pilot training is like if you haven't been there. And no matter what anyone thinks, your memories of UPT as a student are worthless. And despite the fact that schoolhouse IPs deal with phenomenally bad pilots as well, it's just not the same. Hell, the 135 and 17 guys don't even see the new copilots until they've spent dozens of hours being taught by civilians. It's a good rule, and the IPs at PIT (who had been IPs in many other planes) seemed to agree.