Hacker

I never understood why they didn't use the term "Combined", which IIRC is the term when actions are multi-national (the analog of "Joint" for multi-service actions). Since international students are trained there (and there are sometimes international instructors), it should have been "Combined Undergraduate Navigator Training" this whole time.

SHACK. Leadership is simply unable to acknowledge the real cultural and leadership issues that are driving pilots to the door. It isn't a big mystery -- pilots are quite clear and vociferous about their reasons for leaving. Thus, there can only be a couple of reasons why leadership is failing to understand, internalize, and act on these reasons. My favorite theory is still the self-indoctrination, self-delusionary, fart-smelling, alternate reality theory that says leadership is so in denial that they are a key part of the cause (and a key part of the solution) that their worldview simply ignores these clear reasons and invents other alternate reasons out of thin air so it "logically" makes sense to them. Leadership can change their philosophy of leading and commanding. Leadership can change who they groom for promotion, who they promote, and for what reasons they promote. Leadership can re-institute a mission focus and shut down the death-by-papercuts side interests that dominate AF life. Leadership can stop the pandering and social experimentation to non-mission essential people, tasks, and ideas. We know there is a war on. We know you don't control what the National Command Authority tasks the USAF to do. We know there is suck and sacrifice in doing our duty. None of those things are why we have left or are intending to leave.

I'm always entertained by the inevitable APC post (or here, for that matter) opining, "why would the airlines hire a fighter dude who doesn't know anything about their business when instead they can hire someone who knows how to be part of a crew and use an FMS and fly into high-volume airports like the airlines do?!" Well, dude...why don't you ask the hiring folks at the airlines, who don't seem to see the same problem with it that you seem to think there is.

Yes, and that is how the bed you've made over the last 15 years feels to sleep on, Big Blue.

And have a backup plan if you don't get "the call" you want during the timeframe you want. Regionals, contractors, lower-tier national/LCC/freight airlines, etc.

The AF gutted itself, it isn't any fault or cause of the airlines.

Not sure which "the Airbus" you're referring to, but the one I'm on has a heading bug regardless of the status of modes.

At my current airline and in my jet, they are fairly militant about keeping the bug centered. In all my years of military flying, I never did this. Like Huggy, I used the heading bug for other stuff (like "pie in the sky" MOA maintenance, yeah baby!!). I don't have a preference or opinion contrary to that, so I just do it.

Retiree ID has been good enough to satisfy both the Club Membership and Marksmanship Activity requirements for the standard CMP membership and purchasing rifles.

Don't be a pussy. Do it. "Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?' You won't have to cough and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.'"

Soooo, I still haven't received a PM or email from anyone that can help me get in contact with ol' Tweak. The bag tag's about to start a world tour.

Interestingly enough, that pic was taken by my associate (who has the flag), who is a pilot at a regional...so that's the real reason to be impressed at the hotel pen!

This luggage tag, presumably owned by "Viper Driver Tweak" was found by an associate of mine at the aeropuerto in Erie, PA. It is currently being held hostage by the Swedish Bikini Team, who are threatening to suffocate it with their boobs and/or thighs if ransom demands for its return are not met. If you know Tweak, and he cares enough about this $15 bag tag to save it from certain death from overexposure to soft, delicious Nordic flesh, contact me to help arrange to get it back. Photos/video of the bag tag torture threats unavailable at this time.

I know several guys who fly for Blue Air and are relatively happy with it. At least out in my neck of the woods, they're supporting the JTAC school/CAS training, and are looking primarily for former A-G fighter dudes (Hogs seem to be preferred). There appear to be several spots in the CONUS where they're flying, and pilots airline travel and ferry the airplanes to/from the locations. Like what was posted regarding Draken, nobody's getting rich doing it, but retired mil guys with the pension and Tricare seem to be satisfied with the company and the work.

Hell, most active duty fighter "leadership" doesn't even know what an X-C is outside of an organized deployment to a Flag or to do adversary support or some other direct HHQ tasking. Giving guys the keys to the jet on a weekend to go burn flying hours and fill RAP squares was a totally foreign concept in the units I was in.

Well...Mississippi University for Women....

Ya know, back in the day, if a self-important, un-self-aware nugget showed up to UPT, opened his mouth, and this tripe spilled out of it, he would have had (in person) the exact type of no-nonsense attitude adjustment the dignified members of BaseOps have attempted to give him here. Let's hope that the bro-level IPs at CBM show him the same courtesy our IPs showed us when we were ignorant dumbasses that didn't know a f'in' thing about a f'in' thing but walked around as if we did.

Since many of the online sources for this vid seem to be drying up (reminds me of the crusade against the Gold Bond Powder video...), here it is as an attachment. Delta_Captain_PA.mov

Yes. Line bidding allows you to know before hand exactly how the contract language will allow you to manipulate your vacation days (sliding/moving days, among other things) against known days off and known trips that will be impacted. PBS doesn't allow you to do that, even if implemented the way you say. It would still be "surprise!" with whatever schedule PBS puked out for you based on dozens of seniority factors that are tough/impossible to predict, rather than the single seniority factor that determines what you can hold while line bidding (and which it is substantially easier to predict). I liked PBS when I was at the regionals for most of the reasons you do...but mostly because I'd never worked anywhere that gave me anything to compare it to. Now that I've worked under both, give me line bidding forever and PBS can lick my taint.

At my airline, allowing PBS to arrive on property to replace line bidding would destroy the real benefit of our vacation system. PBS would simply efficiently schedule a reduced-block set of trips around the footprint of my vacation days/hours. Screw that. Efficiency benefits the company, not me or my bank account. PBS is ass.

While the pay scale is an issue at Alaska, the lack of a scope clause is the substantially more problematic issue. Look no further than AAG's whipsaw of Horizon vs Skywest over the last few years to see how Mr Tilden is happy to play his own company against subcontractors if it saves a buck. Hopefully the addition of all the Virgin pilots to the seniority list will shake up the head-in-sand mentality of the high longevity AS pilots on scope.

If the main complaint of exiting airmen is the quality and conduct of leadership, then this stuff is part of the necessary course correction. Of course...you do have to hire competent replacements....

Definitely go to your Commander and let them help you before going much further.

Excellent mixed metaphor!

So let's see just how many different possible solutions the AF can come up with to sidestep fixing the actual retention issues.