hindsight2020

Oh, this shit again? Jesus, how little memory this place has.... Yeah, this is just going to attract the unhirables period dot. No offense to the retirees who can't or won't do the airlines and wouldn't mind playing jet pilot for a paycut, this is statistically not going to carve up enough qualified volume to matter. I know I know, broad brush, but we went through this shit when they tried to ram the ART conversion at DLF. In the end they had to relent and give us the carve out to the policy. There were simply no takers of consequence. It's always been the same shit with ARTs, prototypical dudes who value getting any federal job as long as it's in this one town, or with townie-dependents, plus an unwillingness or, more often than not, outright inability to get hired at the airlines. And the toxicity that arises from ART leadership out of that demographic is a well established quantity amongst TR circles. None of this is new. The problem in this particular variation of this bad idea, is that from a straight GS perspective, it gets even worse because the payscale delta gets ridiculously worse from the AGR/AD benchmark. And we haven't even dealt with the survivor benefit issues when a civilian pulls military ejection handles vice ARC, vice AD. RegAF guys simply have no clue on these nuances. You guys think it's merely about living the simple life post-retirement and getting to fly a fun(ish) clapped out jet, but work dynamics are much more complicated than that. Don't be naive, the friction associated with doing the same job as the other guy for an almost 50K paycut does not go unnoticed. You can't keep AGRs and ARTs from each other's throats, and you think a non-SSR table -2181 series GS making flat GS-13 like a goddamn border patrol guy schmuck, is not gonna dagger at the ARC full-timers or AD green suiters over what he deems a fair level of participation in the organization for his paycut? And now you have an AD OPCON SQ/CC that has to tolerate the same level of title V scoff as they currently tolerate from the sim cadre leadership? Look, I get the schadenfreude for giving UPT IPs a paycut is strong on here, but the second tier effects of this proposal will make the UPT environment more toxic than it already is, by opening up the doors for these statistical-outliers to keep doing this job for a paycut in proverbial Del Rio. Extremely myopic. And I do know that the dynamics of places like Pensacola were not as rosy as described on here either. I know because we have a guy from there who double dipped as a green suiter and tan suiter, and is now at United when they finally gave him the finger about GS-13 as a T-1 pilot for the nav program down there. The level of toxicity was incredible at that outfit, and people left in droves. And that's in P-cola, CBM DLF and END have no chance of this gaining critical mass. The only proposition of this bad idea we had heard about on the ARC side "town hall" early this year that I think might have gained traction, was civilian contractor UPT at KAFW. Internationals only, all civilian run, fort worth in order to get these yahoos enough of an geographic incentive to do my job for 50K less, with that crappy FERS retirement, without the ART SSR pay even. The reality is that the people who could staff these billets as qualified (aka mil retires) are statistically insignificant. This isn't conjecture, we literally went through this exercise in 2013. The rest of the applicants will be the broken toys from the OPM/USAJOBS cesspool who mine that hiring system. Complete unqualified retards. We had anywhere from affirmative action web-footed african american lesbian secretary, to a no-shit ARMY tank driver with a PPL, to a female Affirm action UND graduate 23yo fresh CFI with no turbine experience.. all flagged as qualified for my job (when I was a T-6 IP). Let's stop wasting each others time. And it went nowhere when informed and rational heads prevailed. We just wasted hundreds of man hours repeating ourselves until it predictably went nowhere. And lost people to the airlines due to nothing more than lack of predictability in the midst of this terrible idea being proffered as a threat to their career prospects within the ARC. Stupid. The fact that this end should have been self-evident to the people in charge, was my only gripe over the entire god damn question. You guys keep tilting at them windmills though.

It's a bit of a distinction without difference if you lose your CJO over it, wouldn't you think? But no, not all your friends at the same time. Just one friend at a time, which is worse frankly imo. At any rate, if you're seriously interested in understanding what I'm talking about, google "institutional USAF reserves". It's pretty self-critiquing at that point, when you then start talking about navy reserve style invol mob IA within these special coded units. Got your attention right quick didn't it? Yeah dude, existing TRs as well. Everybody is vulnerable, this isn't the breakfast buffet. Would you commute to UPT to be vulnerable to 180 day (+41 = 221 freebie for transit) non-flying CENTCOM IAs as a TR airline guy, or even as an AGR with an AFI "deployed in-place" charter back when you signed on the line? Don't answer that, it's a rhetorical question..... ETA: The Air Force has lost its fucking mind. I'm just describing the water at this point, I'm not really surprised by anything anymore.

Your gouge is dated I'm afraid. They just handed down non-flying, individual involuntary mobilizations as part of the conditions of employment. I'm not gonna derail the thread with all the implications this has for this specific and non-standard conglomerate of flying units, but suffice to say the impact of not turning this good idea fairy off will be as close a reason as regAF will get to stop loss in the next 12 months. They're about to break the UPT mission on national TV and they don't even know it. If this is still too cryptic for the gallery, get a map of the CONUS, mark undergraduate training locations, then have google draw the punchline in purple dick crayola for you. Or go ask an airline TR the nuances of double commuting because your frau won't get caught dead living in neither. And for the newhire types in the room and to keep it in tune with the spirit of the thread: Raise your hand if you're interested in playing russian roulette with that shiny new DL/UA/AA/SW CJO your wife gave you fellatio over last night, because you told her you're done missing all your small kid's life milestones on account of updating powerpoint slides for a living in absentia. Caveat fvcking emptor. Not a personal dig at you or anyone, but like my old CAF DO used to say: "the thing about SA is, if you don't have it, you won't miss it....". Game is chess, it ain't checkers. If people don't pay attention they'll find themselves right back on regAF asking WTF happened...

Don't you know, that doesn't matter these days. Fighters for everybody...until the Viper pipeline starts sucking hind teet again and the BUFF gotta get their tributes. Rinse and repeat. Timing and luck muchacho....

The Moody UPT re-activation is still in the vaporware stage.

The last line is legalese so Stanley doesn't default to disconnecting the mask hose at the CRU-60, as opposed to the airplane hose at the CRU-60. Big difference in outcome of course. But yeah, that's gonna be a lotta sit-downs during stand-up and procedural phase tests lol.

It doesn't appear this has percolated outside 22AF circles. We'll take it to PM if so inclined. I'm done talking about it here, plus it's thread drift.

I'll give ya a hint....Navy Reserves.

WRT to UPT production..... Not helping is the grenade they threw into the bunker two weeks ago on the AFRC side. Let's just say if it goes through, kiss Reserve manning at UPT bye bye. Someone apparently hit "send" too early up there in Robins and now they got a hell of a situation down here in the catacombs. RC is not exactly a captive audience, retention-wise. WTF were they thinking.... Big Blue senior management has officially lost all composure. They're grasping at the straws and it's making it worse everywhere. Frankly, I expect stop-loss at or before end FY18. If they're so willing to lose 100 dollars to save 2 pennies on the RC side, then that tells me they've all but thrown their arms up in the AC side. Stop loss has to be the only logical next step.

I've addressed that very point, albeit over at APC. It is understood that an enlisted with access to a job at proverbial Delta (a growing percentage of junior NCOs are attaining a bachelors degree, compared to generations past) at the end of their training commitment has much less incentive to stay than a commissioned officer as the income delta (pun very much intended) is indeed much larger than for the O. I've yet to see evidence there's a sweeping push for the 11X career field to be manned by enlisted.

Fraternization rules could use a lot of updating. Too much drama over nothing burgers in the military these days. Female participation in the military to the degree they do today, warrants more liberal frat policy. Of course, pretending every single male/female interaction out there is a casting couch power dynamic is the flavor du jour, so fat chance frat policy getting liberalized in this climate.

Sure....if the MIF is U (2+).

No kidding, especially considering it took him two shots! That guy owes money at the bar for almost missing that turkey twice.

We did. The T-100. That in no way means it will be the choice. Again, those of us who live in the land of what things are and understand the nuances of politcs, understand that the T-50 is all but on rails here, unless Boeing can dig up dirt on Lockmart and stall it out.

glad I'm not the only one who noticed...

Exactly my thoughts.

T-X compliant retrofit to the Cessna SuperCitation, I mean Airland Scorpion, is not even in the T-X running anymore. So it's My money is Lockmart gets the contract, though in an aggregate view I think the Leonardo DRS M-346 variant (T-100) offering is probably the most balanced option out there that meets the criteria. Current production, ground training systems as well, Israelis currently use it successfully to follow on into the F-35. I really don't know the reason Raytheon backed out of the partnership. Something tells me they probably knew something about LockMart that Leonardo chose to gamble with anyways.

The T-100 economics are on par with the Citationjet, when viewed in the aggregate. We could even beat those economies of scale by going to Yakovlev (the M-346 is but a Yak-130 permutation), but no way the US awards a T-X contract to a peer adversary. Why are we talking about the Scorpion anyways? They're out. I have a better chance of winning bronze in female gymnastics than the T-X program is to down-write the RFP for the hardware. This is coming down to T-50 and Boeing T-X, with Leonardo DRS (Raytheon stood them up at the prom) as the Cinderella underdog with the T-100 stand-alone pitch. As long as Boeing doesn't win I'm happy. Because Fvck Boeing that's why. Their poorly coded MFD tries to kill me every week, and their tech support literally looks like they hired some laid off cable guys yokels from San Antonio to go give me the runaround while their field office contractors back in KSKF probably make more surfing the web than I do spinning the revolver chamber one more time down here...and I digress.

No love for the Slowtation here. I'm a T-50 guy all the way, but I'm warming up to the idea a T-100 would get the job done for less devil's money.Boeing's T-X is a concept car boondoggle compared to the former two, which is why I'm not really impressed by their chances.

Noted, but JPATS/JSF demonstrated the multiple-platform position has been largely bypassed by Big Blue going forward. The bottom line is that the T-X requirements are set, both the T50 and the T100 are already in production, with the T-100 having a cost advantage at below $20M based on the M-346 (not far from the Super-Citation, which doesn't even meet the T-X specs in the variant they had before they dropped out). ScorpionJet's T-X version is vaporware at this point. Cessna openly gave up the effort to tweak the motors and make the aerodynamic mods required to make the superCitation anywhere near a contender (mainly, cut the hell outta that glider ISR wingspan). I understand your call for austerity based on your apparent regard for the "small-fry" "low-performance" mission set of phase III, but your darling IFF is neither on the path to institutional expansion in present fiscal circumstances, nor getting a dedicated jet that phase III doesn't get to play with. The outcome will be a one aircraft solution, just like it exists currently. The IFF old guard just needs to get with the program. I believe they will. To your point regarding costs, I think the T-100 is the best choice going forward, though I would love to finish my career in a baby Viper on a purely PFA basis. You and I both know that the T-X, just like JSF, KC-X and JPATS before it, will blow the top off their stated budget. But that has nothing to do with the merits of the hardware, so we're crying over spilt milk on that one. I just want the IOC streamlined before more 38s inflight hull losses due to both the experience and mx fronts.

Word. So here's another story for ya. So there I was as an attached flyer, watching the flt/cc give the cats the formal release spiel. Some shit went down in San Antone I wasn't privy to the weekend prior, and they got straight up Shawshank'd into "flight room CAP". Nobody goes anywhere without an alibi, and pack a lunch. So fast forward to the next day right around 1100ish and I'm about to brief my kid when I see the flt/cc go over to a couple of studs motioning and arguing with Prince S. on the center table: flt/cc: "Where you think you're going man?" Pr. S: "Uh, Silver Wings zzir" flt/cc: "No you're not, what did I tell all of you yesterday about bringing in lunch with ya?" Pr. S: "Oh yes zzir, but zzir, you see...I don't have a wife, so I don't have anybody to make me lunch...." The collective room: I had to bury my face to contain my laughing outburst. I'll never forget the pregnant pause from the flt/cc. Truly didn't see it coming. It was truly a #thuglife moment, and the sincerity and nonchalance with which he said that was Epic... and the day I realized this goddamn place had jumped the shark. Fast forward more years than I care to remember or admit to, and I feel like the Houston WTF reporter. 50% of my daily grind is spent on this ME nonsense, but somehow we're all tapped out of 38 domestic production up in here though, but DTS ain't gonna unfornicate itself either. And now this mickey mouse business about zero-to-hero? Holy Mary and Joseph on a donkey. Like the man said:

Raytheon pulled out (sts) of the race as partner with *Leonardo for the T-100, which is the platform variant you're referring to. But Leonardo DRS (the US-based front shell company of the *former) is still bidding it on its own, so don't discount them yet. A production aircraft too, with training systems delivery in-house, so they meet the AF requirements for the program in earnest. LockMart is a monster though, that's your Goliath. And then you got Boeing, the whiny baby in any competition per usual, where the appeals/litigation is most likely to come from and stall progress at the expense of our National readiness. So by my napkin math it's gonna be more -38 cowbell for all my brothers for the time being. But hey, I'm just a guy trying to come home to the frau and kid after an honest day's effort in the rickety rocket. Doing the bidding for the goddamn House of Saud whilst they tell us we're somehow at max domestic production capacity in the same sentence, and my peers are out flying safe automated whales on the outside paying twice as much. So what the fvck do I know. Nothing new under the sun though, I'm just saying it would be nice to fly something a little less rode hard and put away wet sometime before my retirement for all my troubles. Wish in one hand and shit on the other type of thing....

I hear ya, but I think there's two issues at hand, one I agree with you and one I'm not so sure about. I guess I should ask you, what should the TX embodiment look like if you were king? Other than being part of the near-kleptocratic bidding and contracting process of our rent-seeking-contractor-beholden civilian government, I don't see anything obscene or "unreasonable" about a T-50 to replace the clapped out 38. It's not like the JPATS wasn't a blunder, and let's not get into the F-35. All "success" stories as far as the pocket lining they were intended to create. I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying I live in the world of what things are, though I'd love to live in the world of what things should be. At any rate, it's [T-50] largely commercially available already, which means your complaint about timelines would not otherwise exist if the procurement process wasn't broken to begin with. That's not KAI's fault, though certainly Lockheed is complicit. Now, just because it isn't a weaponized mission set doesn't mean we have to eat another underpowered handicapped airplane for a trainer just so the CAF doesn't get penis envy, if that's what you were getting at with the "nouveau-F16" reference. F404 power is not some sort of FWA just because it's UPT. Less of that ethnocentrism would do the organization a bunch of good imo. This week is probably not the best week for me to pipe up about the T-38 replacement all things considered, but it's overdue. That I agree with you wholeheartedly. If the political climate is such that these tragedies actually accelerate the implementation, so be it. I very much look forward to a F404 punching class of airplane in SUPT, and I don't think the world will end if they have to go back to a two-airplane UPT in order to pay for it.

Considering our week down here, the sheer irony of this statement does not escape me. --break break-- I can't speak for the relative merits of the T-1 program, but as it pertains to the 38, yeah whoever suggests all we do in phase III is play patty cake for flight hours can go EABOD, FTUs included. Col Jessup's infamous retort on A Few Good Men seem a fitting response to this garbage.

It's not that simple. First of all, many units are running overages on the part-time side, precisely because they know there will be attrition as people chase airlines and finalize domiciles long term. The second-tier immediate effect that has is that a full-timer who curtails (AGR) or quits his part-A (ART) might not have a musical chair to go to on the part-time side of the UMD. That's just not gonna fly when many of these full-time people are going to be future leadership, as invested staples of the unit as full timers tend to historically be. In reality, the "overage" game is played every day and we rarely if ever kick people out over it, but it is a threat to those who transition between status if the hiring on the part-time side gets mismanaged. Secondly, and this certainly may chap outsider applicants, but it used to be you couldn't get a direct-hire full time position. Certainly the case during the Lost Decade. Part of the reason is obvious logistics of supply and demand at that time of no a-word hiring, but the part that you won't be privy to as an applicant is precisely what @Duck already hinted at. Certain full-time applicants, especially those seeking full time work directly, can be the goobers/rotten apples with preceding AD reputation that nobody wants to hire, and/or who aren't willing to be part-time for very telling reasons (to the unit and their peers). They can also be the chasing-AD retirement types who feel regAF owes them and they're on a mission, and their naked ambition comes at the expense of the TRs they're supposed to be serving. or they could be a location-anchor (ART) townie that would be toxic additions to the unit ( again, me-centric full-timers are the kiss of death to a unit imo). Just because you're willing to take a job doesn't mean you're the right candidate, and these seemingly "soft" distinctions actually matter a ton. Few have the level of introspection to be able to look in the mirror and admit they fall in the aforementioned categories. Now all that said, your observation is correct. Certain units (pointy end in particular) can be insufferably "ethno-centric" when it comes to the occupational backgrounds of their desired applicants, even in times of buyer's market hiring environment such as today. I do believe some of that old Guard sophomoric bias will become self-correcting as a matter of necessity, and God willing. Hang in there, the weather changes every 6 months in this rickety organization called the USAF.