General Condition

I'm curious as to how money has "never factored into the decision" when you clearly state that you intend to hang it up after 20 years. Maybe you mis-spoke, I don't know. But I can speculate that most guys want to do their 20 and then retire in large part due to the financial security blanket that an AD retirement provides. Why not do 24, 28, or 69 years if it's not about the money? Most guys tell me that they're out at 20 because they have no aspiration to be a non-flying O-6 an up, but mostly because you essentially take a pay-cut the first day you go to work after 20 years. You could be sitting at home collecting half of your base pay and doing nothing, or you can go to work to earn the other 50% plus your other allowances. Why not go somewhere else and earn a good salary on top of the retirement pay? You're not a sucker for taking the bonus, but you appear to have some mis-conceptions about life on the outside. Who's told you that you're going to spend your airline career playing video games at a crash pad? Was it an AD guy or an airline guy? It sounds like your decision is made, and I applaud you for that and wish you the best of luck. We apparently need more guys to do that (we'll have to wait and see what the final take-rate numbers look like in a month). But I want people to make decsions based on good information, not rumors, and worse yet, not based on emotions. This is why I "shot the messenger." He's clearly operating with bad data and was attempting to spread that around. Ask yourself this: why would a guy on staff, who's admitted that he's a one-armed paper hanger, engage on forum? Was he at work over the holiday weekend cranking through the applications that he's so overwhelmed with? If he truly cared, he would have been. He also would be making calls and gathering as much quality information as he can to make a better bonus recommendation to his boss for FY15. I'm guessing that those non-takers already have that information and they aren't buying the propaganda. To address TnkrToad's questions - I don't know why the number of eligibles seems so skewed. I'm also not upset that one community gets a better bonus that others. Maybe A1 decided that they're more desperately needed or maybe they have better representation in the world's largest office building. I do think that the Bonus overall will need to go up next year, dramatically. There are quite a few folks who also beleive it should disappear because they claim that most people who take the bonus would have stayed in anyway. What they're forgetting is that the decision to stay in isn't made on 30 September when your ACP application is due. It's typically made way back when your're a few years out of pilot training. If they take the bonus away in FY15, the effect wouldn't be immediate, but you'd see that pilots who are several years away from being bonus-eligible would better prepare themselves to separate. You're always going to have the ones who'd stay in regardless of pay, and you're always going to have the ones who are going to get out. The bonus is targeted at those who are undecided several years out. Take that carrot away and see what happens.

I'll never argue with someone who takes the bonus. I know that decision isn't made on a whim. The AD retirement is a great deal - it's a pretty nice security blanket to get a check every month and have some form of free health care (may not be the best, but it's definitely something). I just want guys on here to start looking beyond that carrot and think about what they're going to do when they're 42 years old. You also need to think about what you're going to do if you hit 14 years of service and get passed over for O-5, then get pink-slipped the following year. Some of the '99 folks were lucky enough this year to get offered an early retirement, that hasn't always been the case. I've known plenty of folks who walk at the end of their ADSC and do just fine with the airlines. By the way, what do you consider "highly lucrative?" First year pay as an FO certainly doesn't count in my book, but you'll be making six figures after that at the majors (AA, DAL, UAL, SWA, FedEx, & UPS). There are a ton of career FO's out there who make plenty of cash and are perfectly content to sit at the top of the FO seniority list. Don't forget the Guard/Reserve option. If you get out after about 15 years of service, you'll still get a retirement check when you turn 60. I've looked at some numbers and you'll be pulling in around $3,500/month (pre-tax 2014 dollars). Nothing to sneeze at. That's where the decision needs to be made. Is it worth deferring your retirement check by 18 years? Quality of Life at an airline is dictated solely by your date of hire. I'm assuming that you know all this, so I won't go into the detalis about what QOL does for you at an airline. For those guys who retired from AD, they get a nice check every year (which really helps during first year pay) and don't have to do squat for it. The Guard/Reserve bubbas have to work for their check, but they also have the advantage of taking mil leave. If you live by your Guard/Reserve location, this gives you a lot of flexibility (especially as a junior guy on the seniority list) to be home on certain days. True, you still have to work. I know a lot of people flying for the airlines listed above - they are all very military friendly. These are tough decisions to make. Everyone has their own individual circumstances. I want guys to be informed though. There was a lot of bad information being spread around on here and that pisses me off. If you've got questions about Airlines/Guard/Reserve, don't ask the AD Colonel who's never lived it. Find someone who has. Odds are that that Colonel is going to spout out the myths that his predecessors have passed along to him about life outside of AD ("the job market sucks," "the pay & benefits suck," "your quality of life will suffer," "it's not rewarding," "you'll be gone from home all the time," etc.). This forum isn't the place to preach the party line. It's a place to bitch, gripe, and complain, with some relative anonymity. It's also a place for people to ask and answer questions. If I have an answer or advice, I'll try to stop the spread of mis-information and answer it as best I can. I won't stop typing, but I suggest that someone else stop breathing. You know who you are. Your comments are trollish and worthless. I hope people disagree with me and offer intelligent counter-arguments. That's the best way to get all the information on the table. But I won't stand for incessantly posting the party line on here so you can go brag to your boss about how you "mentored" the restless natives on BODN. This is simply unacceptable. The people on here are smarter and better than you. Enjoy all of your "peerless" strats on your OPR. Just remember that peerless means friendless. P.S. Fuseplug - thanks for setting me straight. Truer words have never been spoken . . .

rtgators, All hostile debate aside, I (and hopefully most others on this forum) appreciate you stepping into the firestorm. It is useful information for dudes to know that the bonus will not go up next FY as many are sitting on the fence right now trying to decide what to do with their lives. Also, you are correct that Congress has made vast improvements to pay & benefits the last few decades. Just please don't bite off on the mantra that military personal and healthcare costs are spiralling out of control. MOAA has some outstanding charts to demonstrate that mis-information to be entirely false (even though I personally heard SECAF say it was out of control - immediately after preaching to us about integrity) I will caution you also that this latest Congress (really all of gov't) has shown that it has no qualms using the military as a pawn in its budget games. There are many DoD civilians out there who took a pay cut as a result of sequestration. I don't know if the AD will be so lucky next time. As for airline pay, you are correct also in that most majors took pay cuts in order to keep their company afloat. Most are now just getting back on track. I'll be very interested to see your numbers in 30 days. It's definitely on par to be lower than last year, and with airline hiring projected to grow even more the next decade and on, it's probably going to get lower and lower. The guys that are Bonus-eligible are usually at the top of their MWS pyramid. You simply can't replace their skills and experience with a fresh set of wings out of UPT. These are your experienced patch-wearers, FTU IPs, and the first guys you tag with leading the first wave into combat. This is what has us worried - that the AF either doesn't understand that, or worse yet, doesn't care.

I respect you for being a stand-up guy and sticking up for him, but let me offer some advice: 1. Resorting to petty name calling immediately discredits your defense. 2. Let him be a man and defend himself first. His data is bullshit and I called him on it. 3. Your're correct, it is a fact that not much hiring took place from '08 to '13. However, it's also a fact that the Soviets were second place winners of the Cold War and the USA finished next to last. My point to him, since you didn't give him a chance to answer, is that using the '07-'12 data is close to useless. There was an artificial bubble created by the mandatory retirment age moving from 60-65. He also hasn't acknowledged the fact that Boeing and Airbus are struggling to keep up with the demand for airframes. Lastly, you're right, I did label him a Kool-Aid drinker for saying it. I did so, because all of the Kool-Aid drinkers are saying the same thing as him. Hopefully, he's really not a Kool-Aid drinker, and he can show his bosses some more useful data. To address your point, WheelzUp, you're correct in that we are all like water - we seek the path of least resistance. At some point, folks come to the fork in the road: do I take care of my family? or do I try to affect change (for the good) in the AF? JQP realized that he couldn't affect things from the inside, so now he's attempting to do so from the outside. Do I like/agree with everything he's done? No, but I'm appreciative of the fact that he's apparently gotten the attention of SECAF (when she's not on her Selfie-Tour '14) and CSAF. There are some top-notch dudes working their way to the top. I pray for them. The future of the AF rests on their shoulders. But we need to get over this image problem (looking good vs. being good) that the AF has, and our Emperor Has No Clothes culture of protecting our boss at all costs. Your boss deserves the best information you can give him/her. They also deserve to be told when their ideas suck. If you can't accept the fact that your data is bullshit, and your perception of reality is way off base, then maybe you should take a look in the mirror and ask yourself if you'll stand up to the pressure of being shot. As a side note, if you've made it a habit of firing those that work for you - you are the common denominator and are probably the one who should be fired. This isn't your own personal fiefdom - firing someone isn't leadership, it's a cop-out. If that's how you want to run an organization, then I suggest you migrate to a nation that builds walls to keep people in. Meanwhile, I'll continue to fight for a country that has to build walls because the rest of the world wants in.

Here you go spouting off the same crap that your bosses keep telling you. The fact that you're using that chart to demonstrate how "hiring has been pretty non-existent from 09 -13" clearly shows how little you know. Let me throw some numbers at you: 60-65 and 07-12. Do those numbers mean anything to you? Your program isn't the only thing that's going to need to change if you want the USAF to be able to prosecute a war in the future. Your attitude and ignorance, as well as that of your other cohorts in the Ivory Tower needs to change. Money can only solve so much. I'm sure I'm not the first to admit that the pay sans bonus is still pretty damn good to go fly airplanes. It's all the other crap that makes people want to leave. If the senior leadership wants to say that that crap is what being an officer is all about, then I suggest they take a strong look at the current crop of bright and shiny "officers" that will be "leading" the force in the near future. They're a bunch of shoe clerks who did just about everything they could to dodge deployments and crappy assignments - all while their peers got min time at home between deployments only to be sent on a remote, then passed over because they didn't do their PME/AAD/Volunteer work soon enough. Why is it that Gen Welsh was the ONLY GO that people thought was fit for CSAF? I like the guy and I think he's doing a good job, especially considering the multiple layers of BS bureaucracy between him and the folks on the line. But, there should have been dozens of GOs that were fit for that job. Why is it that we can rattle off name after name of GOs (who's names shall actully not be spoken) that were utterly worthless leaders and men of disgusting character? That's because the promotion system is broken and it's going to continually get worse as this crop further poisons the well.

Do you really believe this? If so, you need to pull your head out of your ass. You also need to tell the O-6s and GOs that you work for to stop drinking their Blue Kool-Aid. I can rattle off a long list of dudes that have been hired in the last 6-9 months. I'm sure that many rated types on this forum can do the same. Your attitude/belief scares me. You sound like you have a high potential for future AF leadesrship though with your ultra-reliance on numbers and .ppt presentations. Do yourself a favor, read the forums on airlinepilotcentral.com. Talk to some airline pilots. Even better, call up some HR folks at the majors and ask them for yourself. I doubt you'll do that though. You'll continue to believe what the O-6 tells you. Just remember, that's the same O-6 who's never worked outside of the AD AF. To those of you on this forum who think that separating after ~10 years of AD service and going to an airline is a break-even point for career earnings, you're wrong. I strongly suggest you talk to some folks who fly for an airline. Using the approximated wages on APC is a horrible way of figuring your annual salary. You're also forgetting B-Plan/401K contributions. For those that want to stay in and fly for the USAF until they're forced out/retired, I highly respect that. But, don't tell me it's not about money while under the same breath talking about retirement/GI-Bill benefits. I believe in the end that it all comes down to financial security for you and your family. At some point, the AF will send you on your way. Then what? Do you want to be 42-45 years old starting over, or do you want to be a Captain at 42-45 years old making 2-3 times as much as the newly retired military guy sitting in the right seat for his first time?

Liquid, I warned you a long time ago about attempting to “re-blue” folks on this forum. While I don’t speak for anyone but myself, I hope that most on here are at least appreciative of the fact that you’ve taken a step that most of your cohorts won’t – you listen to what people say. However, I have seen little-to-no attempt on your part to say “great point – I’m going to tell my boss about your comment.” Instead, you demonstrate your disconnection by repeating buzzwords and AF corporate-speak. I have my doubts about you being a “good dude.” Telling people they shouldn’t be allowed to talk about the airlines at work. Administering no-notice evals to your peers. The list goes on. Good dudes don’t do that. Do you tell your bosses to shut their pie holes when they’re discussing the next triathlon/marathon/half-marathon they’re training for? Doubt it. I see way too many people talking about that useless stuff and never once mentioning their training plan for their student. It used to be NASCAR, then it was biking, now it’s triathlons, marathons, etc. I can’t wait to see when the next 4-star decides that they like (fill-in-the-blank) – just watch, you’ll see all their cronies rushing out to buy expensive gear, subscribing to magazines (with no women on the cover of course), and wasting hours at work discussing it. Don’t worry, it won’t actually be a sport, just some form of conditioning that was originally intended to better prepare you for something truly athletic. But we don’t want to do that because someone might sprain an ankle. I have news for you – it IS about the money. You and your fellow “leaders” have dangled the carrot of an active duty retirement in front of your people since day one. There are tens of millions of Americans, most of them less intelligent, less skilIed, less educated, and less motivated than most folks in the AF. Somehow, they manage to feed their families, educate their children, take vacations, enjoy life, and save for retirement. If they can figure it out, so can we. Making service members feel as if they’ll be lost and destitute unless they do 20 years and ensure a paycheck and health care for the rest of their life is almost criminal. Telling them that they shouldn’t discuss future plans is criminal as well. Nice job shaking their hand as they walk out the door at 42-years of age with no job lined up. That WILL leave them lost and destitute. You want to know why people get out? Because they’re not like you and they don’t like you. They want real friends, not temporary friends that the AF pays them to associate with for two years during their command tour, and then move on to a new set of “friends.” They don’t want to be judged against their peers, they want to be appreciated for the skills they bring to the fight. They’re tired of seeing good people lose their careers/upward-mobility over petty incidents while seeing people get promoted 2-below to O-5 for flying nukes across the country (you still haven’t addressed this BTW). You’re responsible for that. Your job is tell your boss that he’s full of shit so your people can execute the mission. If your boss can’t handle that, then he’s a piece of shit and needs to move out of the way. Stop defending the corporation and your boss. Sit down, grab a drink, open your ears, and open your mind. You, the “leadership” keeps telling the “minions” that you’re tired of hearing excuses. Did you ever think that all of your buzzwords and AF corporate-speak are excuses? They are. They are very poor, lame excuses for a lack of courage and leadership. Have you ever seen what happens when a Captain “mentors” an A1C outside of their organization? Several people chimed in to tell you that that Captain is ALWAYS called on the carpet in front of his/her Sq/CC for not playing nice. That’s YOUR fault. You’ve usurped your young officer’s authority and empowered the inexperienced and ignorant. Have you ever “mentored” a Sq/CC for doing this? Have you ever called in that A1C’s Commander? Of course not, you’re too busy writing Taliban-esqe rules for what type of memorabilia, media, and photos are appropriate for the “workplace.”

You need psychological help. Thank you for your service.

Liquid, I’m laughing at the thought of me having any kind of authority on here. That being said, I should apologize for the misunderstanding – I wasn’t asking you to leave, it was poorly worded. My intent was to warn you that you’d be wasting your time trying to reblue anyone on here. But, I think you get that. Let’s not beat that horse. I do believe that the people are more important than the institution. We’ve all run into some old guy at the BX who wants talk about “back in the day.” 99% of the time they talk about people they knew in the AF or some crazy mission or TDY. The recent leadership made a deliberate and conscious decision to sacrifice people for the sake of the institution. The newest airplane does you no good if there are no pilots to fly it. It also does no good to have 2nd rate pilots flying. We are an Armed Service – we provide the service of free airspace to the American public. Instead, we seem to be in the business of producing proselytizers, soup kitchen volunteers, and an organization chock full of people with worthless masters degrees. As for PME, I still say it’s worthless. But you are correct: if one doesn’t do it, then you have no right to complain about “the system.” As worthless as it is, it is easy to accomplish. I begrudgingly accept it as part of the military making you do dumb stuff. I hope guys like you can do something to at least make it worthwhile. Lastly, I don’t have the answer as to how to fix our promotion system. But, the .pdf in this link is a very good start. It’s kind of a long read, but well worth it if you have the time . . . http://www.airpower....ticle.asp?id=85

As serious as a heart attack.

My apologies - copy and paste from word doesn't work like a champ.

<p>Since long-winded seems to be the trend . . .<br /> Be thankful that this is a forum to discuss issues. Too many careerists disregard this site as they claim it's full of cynics and rejects. You'll gain far more insight by respectfully engaging on here than you will with some ass-kissing executive officer who's striving for that stratification. If your purpose was to spike the punch bowl with kool-aid and re-blue everyone, then I'll ask you to leave. When you begin to take actions that benefit people and not the institution, you've made the right decision . . .<br /> <br /> Liquid,</p> <p> </p> <ol> <li>Those that get promoted have an inflated sense of how good they are. They have a tendency to shrug off the grunt work so they can plan Christmas parties and become execs so they can advance their careers and have others take on the deployments and short-notice taskings. If you’re talking the law of averages (over 50%), sure, for the most part, the senior raters and the board get it right. But, we’re talking about the AF and 50/50 isn’t the standard that’s expected of anyone in the AF, so why is it acceptable at a promotion board? Would you care to explain how an aircraft commander, responsible for “accidentally” flying live nuclear weapons across the country, was not just able to make O-5, but make it 2BPZ? Remember, you can build a thousand ships . . .<br /> </li> <li>The top half is not easy to identify. You’re wrong. The bottom 10% is easy to identify. The top 5% is easy to identify. It’s that middle 85% that all looks alike. Since you seem to like sports analogies, let me help: tell me who the top 50% of teams are in (fill in the blank). You can’t. At least, you can’t without a lot of arguments and disagreements. But, tell me who the top 5% and bottom 10% are and, while there will still be some disagreements, by and large, the arguing will stop. <br /> </li> <li>Most people who, in your words “don’t give a shit” become that way because of the D-bags in the first paragraph. They quickly see that hard work, excelling in your job, being a stand-up guy, etc., don’t get you anywhere in the AF. </li> </ol> <ol> <li value="4">“The AF gets it right most of the time.” Those were your words. If you truly are a senior “leader,” thank you for identifying yourself as part of the problem. “Most of the time” isn’t good enough. You’re talking to a crowd of individuals who live in a world where 30 seconds can mean the difference between mission success and a catastrophic international incident. “Most of the time” doesn’t cut it dude. </li> </ol> <ol> <li value="5">I know plenty of people who regret “jumping through the hoops” only to get passed over. They wish they had bailed years ago. Hindsight tells them that they fell for the AF used-car salesmen pitch and they kick themselves every day. When life gives you a lemon, you take it back to the dealer and tell him to go screw himself.</li> </ol> <ol> <li value="6">PME is useless. “Back at SOS/ACSC/AWC I learned . . .” said no one ever. This goes back to an over-inflated sense of self-worth. The AF thinks its PME is valuable. It isn’t. Fix it, or get rid of it.</li> </ol> <ol> <li value="7">Stratification will be the undoing of the AF. Last time I checked, one was graded against a standard, not against your peers. People waste too many brain cells creating new types &amp; categories of stratification – brain cells that could be put to a much better use. As every year goes by, somebody tightens the vice just a little more to make our promotion system more “scientific.” What they fail to realize is that at some point, you tighten the vice too much and you ruin the product.</li> </ol> <ol> <li value="8">Your sports analogy sucked.</li> </ol> <ol> <li value="9">The AF won’t be fine. It’s shrinking by the day, and the concentration of careerists is getting stronger, and the core makeup of those that get the mission done will continue to shrink. Just look at the percentage of senior officers when compared to the Cold War. Senior officers don’t do work, they create it. You won’t do fine without the “toxic, anti-authority crowd.” Those are your critical thinkers. Those are the ones that meet your “diversity” AFI (diversity of thought). They provide the check-and-balance to your leadership. Not having a crowd like that leads to fascism, authoritarianism, despotism, etc. You should thank them every day. You should encourage it. And, lastly, you should promote it. They’re the ones who will stand up to the other services and Congress and tell them like it is. </li> </ol>

Was Tanker scheduling to blame?

And there's always this . . .

Is this what you mean by "navigator?"