Jaded

Awards matter because they create strats that can become a bullet on an OPR. OPRs matter because bullets from an OPR can go on your PRF. PRFs matter because they go in front of promotion boards. Therefore, one might think that working on an OPR is virtuous, since you are producing a product that in the end will help a person get promoted. The reality is that 95% of the work that goes into an OPR is an absolute waste of time that does nothing to actually help the person you're writing the OPR for. Generally, a person is going to have 2-3 "accomplishments" in a given OPR that are actually worthy of carrying forward to your PRF later. These are easy to write and take about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, there are 6-7 bullets left you still have to fill in, and you will spend several hours making shit up and working on formatting, knowing that the rest of the stuff that you put on the OPR will never see the light of day again. Decs are coaches awards more times than not. Having written a couple, I'm generally embarrassed listening to them when they're read, since I realize that half the stuff on there is a gross exaggeration/borderline lie. Hence, OPRs are queep (in this CGOs opinion).

Anybody know what the ACP take rate is so far this year?

For the pharmacy co-pays:

What are you talking about? Affect our lives? Aren't all of the proposed increases only for working age retirees? https://www.military.com/benefits/tricare/retiree/proposed-tricare-fee-changes.html FreeBeacon even titled the article a misleading, "Obama to Soldiers: pay up", when in fact, soldiers are completely unaffected. We can argue about whether retirees deserve a fee hike, but let's stop pretending that the common service member is at all affected. Here's the wall street journal's opinion. They provide explanations about the provisions to try to back up their opinions, rather than just spouting anti-Obama bullshit. https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303665904577452382402650966.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

FreeBeacon is a very poor source to get info from. Much of the stuff from them is either not true or hyperbole.

Does the gw4000 hack itself in Korea? The diagram shows that the Japan station is within range; just wanted to see if anyone had some personal experience.

Does that means that 365s will terminate at the 365 day mark now? I know that the last time I was on a 179 I didn't leave until the 220 day point or so.

Brabus, you say that as if the fmc rate at your wing was any better.

Got a hypothetical: If you're leaving Korea with 13 months left, what can they tag you with?

December 2012 is the first time we are going to start seeing age 65 retirements from the airlines as well.

Sorry, next time I'll make sure to link the official AF.mil story whenever I post.

And the eagles replaced Misawa Vipers who sat in Elmendorf for 6 months. I bet guard units are salivating at the ability to sit alert more.

Good on 'em. I can only imagine the threats to their livelyhoods that they're dealing with.

Looking it up, I stand corrected.

Yes, you'd get 5/30 days tax free if you used 5 days of tax free leave. Remember though, that leave is used in a first in, first out method of accounting. Looking at your example again, you'd have 5 days of tax free leave from Jan/Feb, and then 10 days of normal leave from Mar/Apr/May/Jun. If you took 5 days of leave in July, you'd be using 5 days of *normal* leave (Jun/May), and would have 5 days of normal leave (Apr/Mar) and 5 days of tax free leave remaining (Feb/Jan).

I don't see why they don't make RPAs a good deal non flying assignment. Man it properly so you work 40 hour weeks, put the shipping containers somewhere like Hawaii or Los Angeles, and make it count as an ALFA tour. Good clean family time. Maybe pilots will look down on it less if it isn't such a kick in the balls in every single possible way.

Air Force Policy for Advanced Education Production of Human Capital or Cheap Signals? Maj Tobias Switzer, USAF Air and Space Power Journal - Winter 2011 https://www.airpower...._07_switzer.pdf This guys says it better than I ever could. I hope our senior leaders take note. Lots of gems like that in there. Also talks about PME.

They can put aircraft on a "paint shaker" and simulate years of flying fatigue in much less time (i.e., if they shake it for a week, that's 168 hours of flying fatigue, which is obviously a lot more hours than you are going to operationally put on an airframe in a week). They're doing that with F-16s right now to determine what needs to be replaced for the SLEP to extend the Viper's life.

I was able to transfer my benefits after 6 years of total service and I incured an ADSC of an additional 4 years starting the day I signed the form. I have a commission from ROTC that came with an initial commitment of 4 years. The Post 9/11 GI Bill ADSC is concurrent with (and ends before) my pilot training commitment. If you are trying to be most cost efficient with the benefits, using it on a type rating (or on your spouse) is not a great plan. Giving it to your kid or using it on school after you separate is better, since you'll get the housing allowance as well. I think we've talked about this at length, but my search skills are weak. Stupid form won't let you search for "GI bill".

"He has served both physically and through telewarfare in Iraq and Afghanistan" Telewarfare? Really?

I saw signs of this at one of the Raptor bases months ago after they had started flying again post stand down. As a small TDY detachment, our detco had been invited to a meeting where the various squadron commanders on base brought up the biggest issues affecting their unit. He showed me the summary page that came out of it, and I remember two from a couple of the F-22 squadrons. One said something to the affect of, "The pilots lack confidence in their on board oxygen systems." Another (I think this one was from a reserves guy) said, very candidly, something like, "Our pilots are just waiting for the F-22 to kill another pilot in the wing."

Wow. Those are great.

And if the DO tells the squadron to log those sorties as RAP or you don't fly?

I don't know how he did that while wearing a yellow t-shirt. Obviously that guy has no discipline.

Burn thousands of dollars of gas and hundreds of man hours to get the wing leadership an af.mil pic and some PA exposure? Usually you can't turn it into an LFE because of all the live weapons.