hindsight2020

wish in one hand... Perpetual War is not the bug silly wabbit, it's the feature. Besides, those tax-free apportionments, sTrEeT cReD discounts on Grunt Style apparel, and turkey-shoot BOGO AMs aren't gonna issue themselves you see... But since we're on the Xmas wish list this early, hell tack on EUCOM to that list afaic. 😄

Oh lookie, it's children of the magenta "5th gen" style. "tHaT's jUsT tHe aDmIn bRuH". The irony of the intersectionality between 5th gen'er commentary and the PTN/UPTX.X shills does not escape me. Oh well, Uncle hindsight's gotta get back to "standing in the way of progress" and tend to my Luddite affairs now. Horse got loose from the ol' buggy in the final turn again....*shouts in the distance* "runway-airspeed-bank Stan, there ya go, watch your sink Stan...."

Shack. I don't understand why people struggle so much to understand that at face value on here.

Take the T-DART, it's a layup. Back when I was in your shoes, the Lost Decade was in full swing and there was no TDART. It was a grind to trough as an O-2.

Enlisted flyers is a red herring in this context. The real goal is to crank up production quotas via training dilution (airline training for heavies, reforge potato sophistry for fighters that depends on t-7 vaporware not anywhere near on time to fielding). Yes they'll deny the real goal, but thats what the doublespeak boils down to. Commissioning or lack thereof is immaterial to the timeline. That pesky task of actual pilot training is. Enlisted accessions is immaterial. As to the economic paradigm, this has been hashed out ad nauseam. Warrants and enlisted would have a bigger incentive to punch at ATP competitive mins vis a vis commissioned payscales. In fairness, the USAF doesn't care about retention, they only say they do. They are also satisfied with the current level of hull loss, and it looks like they might be cool with a little more, before they'd be willing to cry uncle and shelf this entire effetry currently making the rounds. As to the enlisted grad,, recognize the experiment for what it was, buckle down and get the g-damn bachelor's and move on with your life. The hard part is already in the bag for him, now he just has to do the attention span requiring part. The lack of need for a degree to learn how to fly an airplane has always been stipulated, but warrants and enlisted flyers aren't gonna come back in earnest so no point in tilting at that windmill. You hear the same shit from airline guys and the perennial kvetching over the de facto requirement for a degree to compete at the six figure right seat jobs in part 121. No shortage of qualified candidates willing to sling gear in the right seat of a major, considering the absolute surplus of underpaid pilots in the industry. Military won't have any problem continuing to field a degree requirement for fixed wing turbine assets going forward.

It is real. The end game for heavies is airline style training, as far as the Kwast-bred PTN illuminati is concerned. There's even sub-pipelines in the works to get hypothetical regional (and equivalent experience et al) civilian re-treads and just send them to FTU after an assessment of "credit" for civilian training. The paradigm is being baked to dispense with heavy sortie counts in the aircraft, which is SOP in airline training. That means T-1 sims only in the most likely formulation, though they'd love to jam the FTUs with T-6 direct. That's their Motrin you see; every problem in the USAF can be solved by Oculus and "t-6 dIrEcT". They got a fever, and the only Rx...is more T-6. *cowbell clanging* As to the question about quality, the quiet part has already been spoken out loud. It's even in the title FFS. This is about throughput and quantity, not quality. As to retention? oh children, enough already....They don't care about retention. And our new CSAF already took a jab at critics in that propaganda piece. So don't forget, any objective criticism of these opportunity costs just lands you in Luddite "you're part of the problem, old guy" re-education camp. Now it's on public record, so there should be no question what the marching orders are from the top. This will be the new reality. And be careful, the commissars are everywhere, "mentoring" has already occurred in some instances, if I may be euphemistic. From the article [my emphasis]: So they don't need your skepticism, now get back on the parade line and look enthusiastic for dear Leader, you're not singing convincingly enough. 😄 Stay safe out there everyone. LINK: Air Force Magazine, Aug 23 2020

apparently airliner vis recce content on the intwerwebz is a thing. Hats off to you a-word flyers. I admit it looks the same to me.

The drive times are a little longer now, but in the ballpark. I don't wish deathway 90 on anyone, I did lose squadronmates to that road during my tenure. I went the other way, and got an airplane (owned two of them during my tenure, since had to trade up when the kid came along and 160hp wasn't gonna cut it anymore). My family wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the spam cans. Places like DLF are perfect for that kind of mission. Some of the more memorable trips of that chapter of our lives were in the ol' spam cans. It truly became a pressure relief valve, and travel to my wife's family back in the KTIK area was a breeze vice driving. My avatar pic is of the second plane right there at the ramp at Pico circa 2013, which I still own. Regarding airline service, it went in cycles, due to the non-profitable nature of the city pair. Colgan had the contract with UA during the first half of my tenure there. Then the city lost service. As the pay and travel guy at my sq, I dealt with that fallout a lot. They regained service back a year or so before I finally got my parole from the place. AA feeder carrier. And now lost again as noted above. Doesn't surprise me in this environment. The one thing we legitimately miss? No traffic. But that's more of a pre-retirement lifestyle complaint. One of the appeals of airline de facto part time work, is the flexibility to live where you want. I think we're gonna try for smaller towns within driving distance to healthcare and urban conveniences when I get done with uncle sugar, since the wife is younger than me by a good clip and expects to remain in the workforce well after my second retirement. GA flying in retirement is a must (I didn't undergo all this indentured service to end up playing canasta in my off time), and since the finances don't quite justify airpark living, proximity to an airport with hangars will continue to be a driver. Good bad or indifferent, exurban living is more compatible with airplane ownership than metro core living, due to storage shortages and price pressures making it relatively unaffordable. We're not quite willing to retire to a place like DLF over it, but I'm, sure we'll find a middle ground location when we get to that bridge.

*spits out drink* 20!? Try 50, plus a heck of a lot less solos, night and cat checks, between my generation's year groups (TAMI/no-fighter lost decade days) and the FY18 benchmark that was used on the last email chain we exchanged on the topic in Jan 2019.

don't play coy, do tell us. 😄

*yawn* this whole discussion is a same ol same ol. Two neoliberal corporatist cartels squabbling over labels and cultural issues that don't put food on the table, yai. "Normie" Americans get what they vote for. Now back to lurking this thread for another 4 years, y'all have fun with the kabuki show.

Deal breaker? Of course not. Devoid of opportunity costs? Not a chance. PM me for the full context, not interested in debating this history lesson in the echo chamber.

Yeah right. Might as well stuff Al-Awlaki's kin in a Piper Saratoga and call 'em the Kennedys. Bad luck everywhere you go. That's some RPA whitewashing straight outta ACSC courseware. 😄

Yeah, and AUS, and CRP believe it or not. But there were a couple who would do it daily. The other cohort was part-week geo-bash, and those put a lot of miles on their cars. Basically split the week on Wednesday, so they were home every 72 hours. The only true commuter I know who did it consistently every day lived in Uvalde.

We had a good amount of geo-bachelors at DLF.

wut? Stay in your lane bruh. As a T-38 stall sortie IP, I can tell you it's the cornerstone of what we do, and there's valid reasons for that. If you want to advocate these are not handling characteristics that lend themselves for big airplane pilots to recover their wagons, by all means. But that perspective is clueless in the tac trainer realm. Horses for courses. If it makes you feel better, we're going into a T-6 direct to FTU simulators. So the herbies should have a pretty blank slate to work with here coming real soon with "UPT 2.5". The -217 is not gone. It's embedded in the 202, as @ThreeHoler alluded to.

...and yet the USAF still contends retention isn't affected by basing choices or lack thereof. *Laughs in AF 1288*

Since when did O-4 AD retirement become such an indignity? Don't answer that, I'm being rhetorical (as a career reservist enroute to one 😄). #winning #atleastihavechicken

Sure, I'll speak the quiet part: It's an insidious, but ultimately purposeful greening of the force, combined with inherited legacy fleet age issues. Planets align as they're destined to, and you get the swiss cheese thing and people die. Big blue has a number they're willing to tolerate while gaslighting you with bullshit SIIs; they're just not gonna tell ya what that number is. So check six, and internalize what you signed up for when you agreed to this shit. No right or wrong answer as far as quitting, but folks better understand what the they got themselves into.

We can have a conversation about VA grift without having to justify one's personal choices. When you do that, you risk falling under "lady doth protest too much", and that doesn't help your own point. IOW, don't feed into the false dichotomy. We can recognize both dynamics without having to circle our personal wagons. This is exactly why the grift persists, because legitimate claimants feel it's an encroachment on "muh benefits" to have the conversation in the first place, and the grifters take advantage of that. Stop raising strawmen like the bolded above.

In TX, you are completely exempt from property tax on your home at 100%. That's essentially trifecta in a state with no income tax. Many other examples of perverse incentive exist nationwide that promote the rampant maligning of the VA disability rating system. To suggest the criterion requires a fundamental overhaul is an understatement. But as long as people use legitimate cases as the third rail political shield for this servicemember grift, the looting will continue to worsen.

Anecdotally at least, it doesn't sound like a round off error to me. I can't stand people who cosplayed pilot for political gain (aka McBlinky), but I have no problem with people speaking the quiet parts out loud if it means we tackle the effetry. Fact is I have half a dozen anecdotes of shitbag females pulling similar stunts as was highlighted in the video (and I include join spouse chicanery in that ledger), commissioned officers included. Lotsa weasels in his Majesty's service. VA disability payment racket is another white elephant in the room, and that goes regardless of gender. My shitbag deceased uncle was one of them, 100% payments for life since getting mental health DQ at Benning during Vietnam draft. Didn't lift a finger for the rest of his life. Completely able bodied. I digress. Again, not saying it's everybody, but just like if you have to shake it more than once -- you know you're playing with it; when running out of fingers counting these weasels, well...a round-off error that is not.

College towns are on the top of the list for mil-retirement destination for us precisely for that reason. In my experience, the closest I've got to a bona fide "live and let live" construct, has been in 2 of the three college towns I've lived in. We're very much looking forward to exploring college locations as we approach my mil retire. Snowbirding is another alternative we've explored in order to ameliorate some of the political recalcitrance of both sides of the political divide. Sort of a poor man's "purple state" construct by proxy. Now, can't we all just get along? Don't answer that, I'm being rhetorical 😄