ClearedHot

The story is getting more bizarre by the day. Supposedly there was team meet and greet that included the families. #1 and #3 get into a heated argument and punches were thrown in front of the families...

HuggyU2 Agrees, a pic from his recent inprocessing after returning to active duty.

Know a bro who came from the T-Birds a few months back. As he tells it this guy routinely busted min alts and other safety things like getting too close to the crowds. In addition, he was not open to any critique from the team.

The problem is not about production, it is CLEARLY a retention issue. If the AF produced 2,000 pilots next year, they would still be massively foooked. Look at the timeline, after a year of UPT (maybe less with the insane ideas floating around), Survival School, IFF, RTU...best case you get a crap ton of green barely qualified folks in 22-24 months from start date. How long to get them MR, seasoned...or would you just start throwing them into the fight like Kamikaze pilots in WWII. Retention is the issue up and down the timeline, you need seasoned folks to stay around at warfighters, instructors, and LEADERS.

Have to disagree, we don't need a flood of new pilots, in some ways that will make the situation worse. The dismal and sinking retention rate means we will be short seasoned combat pilots. The last thing we need is a flood of inexperienced greenhorns flying in combat. I know what you are trying to say but you kind of sound like Big Blue when they say we are going to "grow our way out of this."

Checks

It was announced this afternoon that the commander was relived November 20th because of his "Risk management Style" Nice move Tally...At least she is "personally grateful for his dedication to the 2017 season."

Fingers

The F-4 also had two afterburners...how'd it do at BFM?

My argument is for some innovative thought from our leadership (perhaps a bit much to ask). I don't see the current construct as affordable or effective. Again if I was king for a day I would use Scorpion (or equivalent), for the second half of UPT. Anyone going B/F would fly get 100 hours (or more at $5,000 per hour), to build airmanship and learn how to fly a more advanced aircraft. I would give the T-100 to the IFF folks and expand the program (at $20,000 per hour), to make steely eyed killers ready to fly advanced from and BFM in their 5th gen aircraft (at $50,000+ per flying hour). I am not on the Scorpion payroll, but I have seen it up close and personal. The performance, reliability and economics make sense (especially for a country $20 Trillion in debt and facing an endless war). I honestly think if you change the UPT construct you could train more pilots, with more hours and airmanship, for less money.

100% disagree. And no I don't work for Textron, but I can tell you first hand, the jet is farther along and has more capability than any of the other OAX applicants.

So lets stay with the same broken model that can't surge to the needs of a breaking force? The OAX experiment was an effort to help shape the purchase of 300 aircraft for Light -Attack...Congress is doing it at their own direction since the Air Force can't even seem to properly fuck a football. I would not be surprised to see that 300 morph into a mixed mission acquisition that provides light attack and a manned ISR replacement. EVERYONE on here is screaming for more flight time...buy a couple hundred of these for phase III UPT or light attack or manned ISR or fucking companion trainers. Fly the SHIT out of them at $5k per hour and build a base of pilots with flight time and air sense. So basic CAS and BFM (yes the new version of the Scorpion can do 7G BFM), put a 5th Gen OFP and build muscle memory...break the paradigm that is helping put the AF in this corner of the envelope.

Amen!

Prepare to read more articles like this. http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/11/25/us-troops-killed-in-plane-crashes-skyrockets-in-2017.html?ESRC=todayinmil.sm

For a jet that costs $30M plus each...

Since when has the AF cared about later?

A colleague who is F22 pilot for the Virginia ANG had honor of flying a Phantom at Eglin. He flew the aircraft we had at the reunion. Here is the F-22 pilot’s thoughts on flying the F-4: I flew your jet a couple days ago (see attached). I had a little trouble getting the engines started, so I climbed out and shoveled some more coal in the back; after that she fired right up. Ground ops were uneventful, although I couldn’t figure out why the cockpit smelled like body odor, Jack Daniels and cigars…and that was BEFORE I got in it! By the way, what’s with the no slip crap on top of the intakes, it’s like you have permanent icing conditions due to that spray on rhino truck bed liner on top of the aircraft. It’s no wonder you needed so much coal (I mean thrust) to get airborne. Take off scared the sh*t out of me. I lit the burners at brick one and 2 miles and 45 minutes later we were ready to rotate. After barely clearing the tree tops, the gear came up and I climbed away at a VERY impressive 2 degrees nose high. In case you don’t remember, “Trim” is your friend in the F-4 (pretty sure it’s also a good friend on the ground too). Once I got her up to speed and a moderate altitude, we were ready for the G-Ex. Two G-turn’s later and I’m sinking like a rock…the F-4’s energy seems to bleed like Holyfield’s ear in the Tyson fight! After the G-Ex it was time to do a little Advanced Handling Characteristics (AHC) and by “advanced handling” I mean the same crap the Wright Brothers were doing back in 1903…just trying to keep it airborne. The jet flies much like my old man’s station wagon used to drive…You turn the wheel (push the stick) a few inches and nothing happens, then all of a sudden the steering kicks in, inertia takes over, and all HELL breaks loose! You’re pretty much along for the ride at that point and only gravity has a real say in your lift vector placement. “Checking 6” was really quite easy…. because you CAN’T! Scratch that off the list of “Sh*t I need to do to keep myself alive in combat today”. Breathing, however, was surprisingly easy in the F-4 when compared to that of the F-22 (thank you Lockheed)…LOX works, who knew! I think I may have burned my legs a bit from the steam pouring out from behind the gauges. Where are my 6 mini-flat screen TV’s, I’m lost without my HD jet displays (editors note: actually, I’m an analog guy stuck in a digital world too…I really do like the “steam driven” gauges). After the AHC, I decided to take her up high and do a supersonic MACH run, and by “high” I mean “where never lark nor even eagle flew”; but not much higher, a foot or two maybe. I mean, we weren’t up there high-fiving Jesus like we do in the Raptor, but it was respectable. It only took me the width of the Gulf of Mexico to get the thing turned around while above the Mach. After the Mach run we dropped to the deck and did 600 kts at 500’; a ratllin’ and shakin’ we will go…. I though all the rivets were going to pop out. Reference previous station wagon analogy! Very quickly we were out of gas and headed home. As I brought the jet up initial, I couldn’t help but think that the boys who took this thing into combat had to have some pretty big brass you know whats! My first F-4 landing was a little rough; sub-standard really by Air Force measure… but apparently “best seen to date” according to the Navy guys. Did you know that there’s no such thing as an aerobrake in the F-4? As soon as the main gear touches down, the nose comes slamming down to the runway with all the force of a meteor hitting the earth….I guess the F-4 aerobrake technique is to dissipate energy via denting the runway. Despite an apparently “decent” landing, stopping was a whole different problem. I reached down and pulled the handle to deploy the drogue chute…at which point a large solid mass of canvas, 550 cord, metal weights and cables fell out and began bouncing down the runway; chasing me like a lost puppy and FOD’ing out the whole runway. Perfect. I mashed down on the breaks and I’m pretty sure at this point the jet just started laughing at me. Why didn’t you warn me that I needed a shuttle landing strip to get this damn thing stopped? All kidding aside, VERY COOL jet! Must have been a kick to fly back when you were in Vietnam! Just kidding!

It is but the powers that be have realized it is a losing battle and they plan to "Grow" out of the hole (sts). In other words, the senior decision makers care to make the institutional changes required to fix the retention problem. They are giving lip service, but have yet to make REAL change. Also, they demand signal from out joint partners is only getting louder and DoD proper is still directing us to answer at all costs, including breaking the force. Something has to give which is why these out of box hair brained schemes are popping up. AETC tried to surge to 1400 UPT students a year, it was unsustainable (part of my argument on the T-38 replacement). As we all know these decisions will be paid for in blood, watch the Class A rate and I am just holding my breath waiting for the next mistake in combat. I've been saying it for a long time, but I really think we are close to a stop loss, it may be the only thing that stops the system from imploding.

The T-38 is TIRED, that is a given, it must be replaced NOW. That being said, I don't think a 9G $30 MILLION trainer is the answer. Having been forced to look at the "numbers" as a OSD staff weenie, I am not convinced a pseudo F-16 will hold up and bear the fruit you want. Most current fighters are programmed to fly 250 hours a year at horrible FH costs (F-16 = $22,000 an hour, F-15 +$41,000 and hour, F-22 = $68,000 an hour), and I truly wonder if this aircraft can sustain 500-600 hours a year. I fully understand that folks going to fighters particularly 5th gen aircraft need to develop the ability to maneuver dynamically under high G, but I wonder is that a function of UPT or IFF? Most of the bomber folks going through UPT track through T-38's, why in the world do they need a 9G trainer other than the cool factor? If I were as you suggest king for a day, I would likely have several aircraft in the mix including a jet like Scorpion that has a 7G envelope and has business jet like efficiency AND reliability. I would beef up IFF and make it longer while equipping them with a jet like the T-50 in a program the truly develops fight pilots, not a top off of UPT skills for everyone. One of the constant bitches I hear on here is guys need time in the seat. You will not surge a jet like the T-50 and we certainly can't afford 1,000 of them to make the numbers good. If we bought something like Scorpion at a cost of less than $20 million that can EASILY fly 1,000+ hours a year at less than $10,000 a flight hour you now have the ability to build airmanship and experience. The other thing about a jet like Scorpion, you can easily put a radar in it and software that mimics what is found in our 5th gen jets. The young SNAPs can now go fly for hours practicing the muscle memory required to employ today's high end capabilities. Think about it, on a standard 5th gen training sortie how often are dudes flying high aspect BFM? And how often are they driving around in the bozosphere at 3-4 G practicing long range employment or air to ground weapons employment. Again, I am NOT saying we don;t need a high-end 9G capable trainer for our fighter folks, I just don't think we need that as part of the UPT program. We need a paradigm shift that allows us to train the best aviators in the world within the economic constraints we are dealing with.

The objective requirements for the TX program basically make it a new F-16...yet another blunder. 50 years later I would think we could make a reasonable T-38 replacement in minimal time that would have the economy and dependability of a business jet while still having the performance required to teach formation and BFM. Yet again, this mess is self-induced.

Ironically, the Squadron Commander of that Growler unit is....drum roll Commander Brendan "Tess" Stickles.

Perhaps just me but not very earth shattering. It was only 10-15 years ago that we went to the 11F or 11B only folks in the T-38 model. The vast majority of my T-38 IPs were from heavies.

Because there is an INCREDIBLE demand signal in the middle of a war and the seniors have tried MULTIPLE times to reduce RPA ops only to be told to pound sand. The entire system is in crisis and they did it to themselves.

This should help pilot retention....good call.