Hacker

I would call that something akin to the famous "barrel dive"....or a bad split S, hehe

I'm surprised that nobody has copypasta'd the post the DO of the CAF unit involved made on the day after the accident.

As we told you last year at this time, there are people on baseops that have experience with FEBs (from many different angles, hehe), so if you have an actual question about what you're going through with yours, fire away. Otherwise, we're not really sure what the purpose of this post, and the posts that followed, is.

I must be getting old and senile because I'm totally fucking lost.

Go buy a drill press from Harbor Freight, and a router from them, too. Then go buy the EasyJig, and 80% away. https://www.80percentarms.com/products/80-ar-15-easy-jig The jig comes with the drill bits and end mill for the router, and is really stout. I've completed about 10 80%s of different sources, and with the exception of the first one (which was admittedly a learning experience on many levels, but fixed up nicely with some JB Weld and re-milling!) they all turned out great. YouTube is your friend with all of this stuff: plenty of good tutorials, even with YouTube's latest gun control search-and-destroy attempt to eradicate videos showing how to "build assault weaponz!!!1!!"

Here's about as specific data as I can get you: 50/50. As of this morning, my logbook has my Purple flying time with 732.2 hours, 365.9 is day and 366.3 is night. This is the context: I have been at FX for just over 2 years, so still quite new in the grand scheme, but at 80-ish% seniority at the company already due to the constant hiring in the last two years and the steady retirement flow. I'm on the A300, which is nearly all domestic flying, with a little international that goes very senior. I am at about 69% (NS-TFS!) seniority in the right seat, and for some perspective the Bus is a relatively senior airplane because of the domestic-only widebody flying: the top half of the A300 FO list is very heavy with senior FOs who have been parked there for years and are not moving. The bidpack for the A300 is about evenly split between day flying and night flying, with a lot of variations of it (out-and-backs, multi-day trips, hub-turn overnights etc) of both day and night flavor. My seniority progression (in terms of schedule bidding) has been rapid, to say the least. - After completing training, 3 months of reserve, most of which was A Reserve (night flying). - Could hold secondary lines at month 4 out of training (secondaries are flying lines made up of scheduled trips and sometimes reserve days. Some months had nights, some months had days) - Held commutable night flying lines at 12 months at the company (9 months out of training) - Can hold commutable day flying lines at less than 2 years at the company. The interesting thing is that night flying doesn't necessarily always go junior. Over the last two years, my day/night balance has pushed over into 60/40 days and 60/40 nights, depending on what I bid and what I can hold, but up to this point it always trends back toward the center of 50/50. We shall see what it brings in the future now that I can consistently hold commutable day-flying lines, and that's what I intend to keep bidding. For some further context, I had originally intended to bid over to the 777 as soon as I could, due to a bunch of factors that @JeremiahWeed has posted about in these threads before. However, the last two system bids at FX have seen a lot of A300 FOs leaving for greener pastures (either 777/MD FO, or 75 Captain, or even A300 Captain) and very few FOs coming *to* the Bus. This is mostly because the guys coming off the 757 have a much easier transition training difficulty & footprint going to the 76 than to the Bus. What this means is that my seniority continues to rapidly advance in the right seat of the Bus -- in fact, scheduled to go up 30+% in just this next 12-18 months. So...I kicked back the plans to leave, and am instead going to enjoy a little taste of seniority (rather than "juniority") here this early on in my career at Purple.

Seriously -- single-pilot or autonomous ops at the cargo carriers aren't going to be the order of the day in the career-span of anyone currently reading this forum who is in a position to get hired in the next half dozen years. FedEx won't even spend the money to make sure the A300 FMS has the memory and processing power to operate in the full RNP/RNAV environment, instead opting to delete points out of the database that are at airports not served by the A300. So I don't see them jumping on a technology that isn't cheaper than just paying a regular old pilot to do the work. As soon as FAA-approved autonomous technology (and all the associated satellite time, system mx, reliability, etc) is a dollar cheaper than a pilot...well, then, count on it being the order of the day. But it isn't. Just look at how slow the FAA is to approve nearly *anything* technology related. Look at how advanced the avionics are that the experimental world has, and how nearly none of that is getting certification at anything other than a snail's pace, if at all. Go back and look at the archives of FlightInfo.com or APC and you'll see exactly the same fear-mongering in the mid-late 90s, and people saying cargo pilots were gonna be out of a job in 10 years. Those predictions aren't aging particularly well.

Worked out great for Maj Nidal Hasan.

I just love this interview...this guy has future senator written all over him. Totally incapable of answering a simple question. Just an example: "AIRMAN MAGAZINE: When did the Air Force start noticing pilot manning issues in the fighter community?" Seems like a pretty simple question...when did you notice it? "BRIG. GEN. KOSCHESKI: The fighter pilot crisis manifested itself because when you only have single seat fighters, it becomes a cockpit training capacity issue quickly compared to larger aircraft with multi-seats, where you have an aircraft commander and a copilot. You have a little bit more flexibility to manage your pilot training. The crisis happened quickly in the fighters because of that very reason. But what we’re seeing is the same dynamics are in place for other career fields, and also because of the fighter pilot shortage, the mobility Air Force has been carrying some training shortfalls and pilot training to cover the shortage of fighter pilots. So, their effective manning has been hit and they’ve been doing more than their fair share, trying to help out while we heal the fighter pilot crisis." Okay...but WHEN DID YOU NOTICE THE ISSUES?? WHEN, not HOW or WHY. WHEN. It is a time-based question, sir. The answer should have some kind of chronological reference, like "in 2008 when Gen Welsh was going around USAFE asking fighter pilots why they aren't staying in", or "last week when one of my staffers left Baseops.net open on his computer and I started reading."

That is a guy who has only ever been in the Air Force, and is so self-indoctrinated that he doesn't even understand the concept of "quality of life" as it exists in the real world outside of big blue. Thus, his assessments and "solutions" are only viable when compared to other previous states of things in the AIr Force, rather than being a comparison to the greener pastures on the outside that pilots are fleeing to. Basically, a man incapable of actually seeing the bigger picture due to his enjoyment of smelling his own blue-tinged farts.

Its even worse, since the pointy-nosed Generals are the ones who are leading the AF into the ditch in the first place.

That's how you know you've struck a nerve.

I think the actual solution would be the opposite -- ensuring the PIT syllabus and graduation standards are high enough to take a MAF dude and make him a competent T-38 IP. I'd love to see MAF-background 38 IPs do a mandatory IEP (or multiple IEPs) to see what IFF is all about, too.

Because this is how you get students who fly tac formation using the A-A TACAN, fly their turns using heading bugs and while looking at a PFR, execute the mechanics of the rejoin using numerical countdowns and airspeed cues, etc. In other words, all of the bad crutch techniques that have to be un-taught during the formation phase at IFF. Students who can't instead simply use the actual visual reference and "feel of the jet" techniques that are required to fly tac form while also being a good wingman. The techniques that, themselves, are only developed over many hours of having to fly tac form and also be an on-board systems and weapons manager, where you don't have time to use the crutches. Yet again, we are talking about experience, not talent.

Because they do. Point?

I don't. Honestly, if it were up to me, we wouldn't have them. FAIPs are fine when used among an experienced instructor corps who can moderate their lack of operational experience. They excel at what they know...and to a generally terrible job at teaching what they don't. When I was an IFF IP, one of my jobs was managing tracking the graduation-vs-washout statistics for the two IFF squadrons at Moody. For two straight years, there was a notably higher washout rate of students who had graduated from Vance vs any of the other winging pipelines. I participated in an IEP to Vance that was sort of a fact-finding expedition to see what was going on there. What we found was that at the time (04-05 timeframe) there were a large number of FAIPs and reduced contingent of IPs who were fresh from the CAF. We observed a number of things being taught that were poor technique and contrary to what was going to be expected of IFF students. When we asked some of the IPs (FAIPs and a couple of bomber-background IPs) why they were teaching what they did, they answered, "this is how they do it out in the CAF..." Further digging revealed that it had been a lot of FAIPs teaching FAIPs these techniques, and a lot of misunderstood 3rdhand "knowledge" leading to it. Furthermore, there weren't enough experienced IPs to call their bluff. So, again, it was not a talent issue, it was an experience issue.

Unfortunately, in order for someone to learn how to be a good wingman, their teacher needs to have some idea of what that means. That's not about talent, that's about experience.

Money, quality of life, not living under DoD's thumb, etc.

Cannot be repeated enough.

No experience with those magazines specifically, but I have never had luck with a multitude of ProMag products over the last 15-20 years.

Good details to know. Most military dudes -- even those who are somewhat light on multi PIC time -- won't spend very long at the regionals (6-24 months), and could get caught in one of these traps.

The 2nd and 3rd order effects of cancerous leadership philosophies and a lack of mission focus sometimes take time to manifest themselves...especially when many of the problems were being masked by commanders (and line bros) who are conditioned/socialized to never say "no" or "can't". I always giggle about the "fields of friendly strife" quote from MacArthur that the AF loves to use, and how the Air Force conveniently forgets its corollaries about what fruits are later borne by mediocrity.

On one of my assignments working on Wing Staff, I took to calling them "The Group" as they were not providing any support or service to anyone except themselves. The Wing CV advised me that, although that was dead-on and quite funny, I should not say that in Wing Staff meetings.

I just had this hope that the ANG was a last bastion of places that didn't have to deal with the big, inefficient bureaucracy of stuff like that.

In my estimation, that's how you know the report *isn't* fake news, hehe.