Lord Ratner
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Posts posted by Lord Ratner
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Now's your chance, boys. If there's a zero percent take rate, there will be positive changes....to ADSCs, to bonus rates, to RSAP, to assignment policies, to abominations like TAMI-21.
Prove Chang wrong and don't take the bait.
Vote with your brain.
Your freedom to choose your fate is priceless. Don't sell it too cheaply.
"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.
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Single seatThen whatvare they flying in bcourse?
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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 earlyI looked in the new JTR and can't find it right now.. but I am leaving HRT for CVS tomorrow. Of course CTO gives me the super awesome flight that get's into Amarillo at like 2330...followed by a 2 hour drive home. I remember something that allowed you to stay in lodging if the airport required travel and your travel time was early/late you were authorized to stay at a hotel/lodging. So, am I authorized to stay the night in Amarillo?
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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.
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I don't disagree with that at all. However, I wonder if that added perspective is more valuable than leadership experience gained through running an organization (section, flight, detachment, etc) with a varied set of subordinates. From my perspective (which is limited), many of our "broadening" opportunities are different shades of administrative work, not so much leadership exercises.All the senior officers that I've talked to about their exec time, usually me mockingly, have valued it highly in learning about the way things are at a higher level. It built perspective and a greater understanding for them when going forth.
As someone who does not naturally possess a leadership intuition, I don't think the pilots get nearly enough experience, especially considering they run most levels of the AF.
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He's like that normally. And if you're implying you don't want to visit said farm with said pigs living on it, you sir are a liar.Drink much?
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Honestly, I'd love to hear some of this.I could go on and on with more specifics (most of which people here couldn't relate to), but I don't care to bitch too much about my frustrations with the Army here.
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From what I understand, there are some pretty big differences between the KC-767 and KC-46. The 46 is more of a Frankenstein. Not enough to call yourself Chuck Yeager, but probably still a new plane. Ish.According to the internets, ITAF's KC-767 had its first flight May of 2005. JASDF KC-767Js reached IOC May of 2009. Plus, like Fuseplug said, the 767 airframe has been flying since the early 1980s.
Not a tanker guy, but is a "first flight" for the KC-46 in Dec of 2014 really that big of an engineering feat?
Also, the Italian guys I talked to hated the digital boom pod when compared to the old style, back of the plane boom pod. But, they also knew their opinion was irrelevant.
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Not always true, though a savvy dealer will try to make you think that.I am aware of the difference. O% Apr is to get you in the door and buy the vehicle (insert noun) at their planned price and not one cent lower. If you are willing to pay interest through their banks you can buy the same thing at an even lower price bit the overall cash paid, accounting for inflation, is still the same. Yes, some people prosper off of other people actually not paying off their balances but it isn't you the consumer, it is the shareholder.
Most times the agreed price and the financing are separate for the 0% deals. The 0% financing comes from the manufacturer, not the dealer or his partner bank, and is not affected by price since the manufacturer charged true invoice regardless of what the dealer convinced you to pay.
Now, the dealer will try to keep the price higher by any means, to include implying that the low financing rate somehow merits a higher price. A skilled buyer will go into the dealer claiming he does not plan to finance, negotiate the cash price to a defined number, then ask about manufacturer 0% financing. They'll fuss, but not enough to make you leave.
Again, this only works for manufacturer incentives, since their target is volume.
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Haha-I love credit, despise dave Ramsey but also no there is no such thing as a free lunch. If you pay 0% apt Suzuki, GE capital etc is making it up somewhere else. Either you paid a higher up-front cost or gave away some benefits. I am sure your credit helps you, but if you signed a 0 % interest loan they made money somewhere. Otherwise they wouldn't be in business.
You're confusing revolving credit with a car loan. A 0% APR loan on a car, or computer, or vacuum cleaner is not only a real offer with no strings (most of the times), it's fairly common. You see them offered by either the manufacturer (the actual Ford corporation, not the dealer) or the retailer (Newegg.com), rather than an third-party bank.
The benefit to them is that they sell the car, mattress, or computer today that you, the interest avoiding consumer, would not have bought until next month if you were paying cash. It's not much different than an infomercial offering 4 easy payments of $9.99. Less pain up front makes you more likely to buy now.
Even the credit card companies, contrary to popular belief, are thrilled to have someone like gravedigger use their credit card on everything and pay it off each month for no interest. Don't forget about transaction fees; they may not be charging you, but they are charging the retailer.
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So we've got 2 POVs we're going to ship back to CONUS here in a few months. Suffice to say all the people moving right now have put me off of using the company the gubment's contracted with. I've dug through the JFTR, but just looking to see if I can double up with a personally contracted company and be reimbursed for the cost of the single car. Similar to personal procurement of tickets.
Thanks.
You can not personally procure tickets for trans oceanic travel, or use alternative means of travel for trans oceanic. I suspect the same applies to car shipments
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More like a bunch of Colonels became O-6s.A bunch of Chiefs became E-9s.
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Not really. They get an inexperienced direct-to-AC who will upgrade to IP before they have the same level of systems knowledge as an experienced copilot, if they ever get to that level at all. Since the cross flow guys are immediately flagged for "grooming" jobs at the group and wing, they don't fly enough to make great IPs.His gaining unit.
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I always thought it had to do with ejection seats and flammibility
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I hate those lights, but half the time I tell the boom to turn them off I have to hear about how much they help the receiver that we won't see for another 2 hours.Probably the nacelle lights that eclipse the sun when it comes to burning my retinas. Bonus points if they're full bright when we're going in and out of thick clouds at night...1/2 the time it's OK, the other 1/2 my NVGs are instantly 100% washed out and I nearly hit the damn wing of the tanker.
That said, thanks for always being cool and turning them down when I ask.
They don't make finding a dimly lit runway off the wing very easy either.
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Which light?Is this where I insert the -135s need to turn off that damn observation light while tanking. The -135 will not see an avoid a fighter, or am I starting a new/old arguement.
EDIT: Azimuth, lol.
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It has a pretty cool air show demo teamI was just with the French for the last three years, huge surprise they got that thing to fly!
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There are plenty of ways to fudge that, I'm guessing. Combined boards with different sections, etc.Multiple A1 studies have been done on whether there should be separate promotion boards (I actually had to do one while I was on staff), the latest one I remember was a RAND study that the AF requested to find out why RPA pilots were not getting promoted, one of the factors was because they were unable to go to SOS due to mission demand and they were penalized on their O-4 Board for not completing SOS. So why not have separate boards
Here's why: The analysis always proves that rated officers would actually fare worse at O-5 and O-6 if you had separate promotion boards because, by-law you can never promote higher than your actual requirement and if you have separate promotion boards then aviators could only get promoted based on the requirement for rated officers for example, from the study I lead, the requirement for Rated O-6s in FY-12 was 33% and support was 54 % but Rated bubbas were promoted at rate of 47% (more than the requirement). If you had separate boards Rated O-6s could only be promoted at a rate of 33%.
Consequently, BPZ is far worse from 1998-2012 Rated officers made up only 37% of the Officer force but they averaged way over 50% of the BPZ selects.
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Don't bother, unless you also have some money that is about to expire.
I would have been fine with it as an instructor, but you won't have many opportunities to use it in T-6s, and if you find yourself needing it in T-1s, you can always get it then. But you probably won't
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Missing a Big Lebowski quote is grounds for banning in some forums...No shit? You don't say.
Allow me to quote the original poster:
Seems it's right on topic.
Even if the quote isn't 100% correct.
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I would have agreed once upon a time. These days I'm starting to suspect they actually believe the shit they say. Her personal history certainly supports the possibility.Oh don't get me wrong. I totally agree. I think her word choice was wrong, but I think her subject was about the trickle down theory and not really about who or what creates jobs.
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Drawing a moral equivalent between violent rape and mental objectification is exactly why your average Air Force member is so stoked about SAPR days.In other words, "She was asking for it."
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It's gunna be a mess. For starters, only Scots who currently reside in Scotland are allowed to vote. If "yes" wins, expect to see a huge push for a revote including all Scots, not just the group most biased towards independence.
The only plan for a currency is "we'll use the pound" which is not a plan at all, since the remaining UK will have to vote on it, and politicians supporting a currency union with a newly independent Scotland will face political suicide with the rise of nationalist parties.
The SNP has no plan for a military, other than "we'll have one, and we'll be in NATO." I think the last I heard was a standing army of 3,500. As compared to the UK army of 100K.
The UK nuke enterprise is heavily embedded in Scotland. Independence will be the best weapon of the anti-deterrent crowd, since moving nukes to a new place is political suicide.
As it stands, Scotland uses a larger portion of public funds than it supplies in taxes. The NHS is already at the breaking point in many areas.
The SNP plan appears to be almost entirely supported by the idea Scotland has enough gas and oil to be like Norway, but unlike Norway, Scotland's oil wealth is based on surveys of future reserves and extraction potential.
I think they have a decent chance of winning the vote. I also think that if they do, it still won't happen, especially if Whitehall keeps to their promise of denying a currency union. A revote including the many, many Scots who live in Wales, N Ireland and England would also kill the movement.
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KC-46A Candidate Bases Announced
in General Discussion
Posted
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.