hindsight2020

holy thread revival dude. At any rate, focus on getting through UPT. If the closure becomes effective prior to you hitting your MWS FTU, they'll audible that before going through the expense. Otherwise expect to push through and manage the switch when you're back at the unit. A lot of these closings are not going to become effective for a couple years anyways. You could be proactive if you think your airframe in general is going to leave you out of options. Other than that I don't think you're really out a seat. You'll have to move, so if that's not palatable to ya then I got nothing. Welcome to AD Lite. The flying club is dead.

He's fvckin with ya. Most people find a replacement unit or (check this out) you're released from your commitment. My initial contract specified if I washed out of UPT I'd be released from commitment, not even re-classified to another AFSC in the unit. Plenty of people have walked away inside of their RSC (particularly in the NGB) and units didn't flinch. Bush did it....LOL

pfff under that logic I should get HDP for flying 2-a-day everyday in and out of the 'Dilf (DLF). You know these controllers are in training too up in here right? Besides, the place looks just like the 'Stan, it is remote already, we get dust storms too, people are dying across the fence by the boatloads and the locals are hostile. Yep, HDP please. Fvck, remote tour credit would be nice. :D Joking aside, the implementation would be a nightmare, but I agree with the essence of what the dude is saying. We all have a price it seems.

The work is fickle, furloughs abound. Plan on relocating frequently, not as frequently as military PCS, but certainly frequently enough to disrupt a child's school continuity. If getting out of active duty was in part to these QOL items, re-think the merits of going for employment in aerospace. Pay is median when the work is plentiful, raises are lackluster (at least in engineering). Retirement benefits are par for the course, well below a military/civil service/law enforcement retirement IMO. If you don't like Wichita, Texas, Seattle, St. Louis and willing to hop around the three for a couple decades, I'd punt on it. Bigger firms tend to be more Guard/Reserve friendly; I didn't find them friendly enough to stop troughing, and I have two degrees in aerospace engineering. Take it with a grain of salt, but that's one data point for comparison. Like everything, I guess there's worse employers to be at. The bottom line about aerospace is that the same people could just as easily push printer toners for a living. The problem with aerospace is that it's so localized that in order to remain employed in the field you have to hop around much more than your peers who are not as intent in working for a particular technical field. The pay is not higher in aggregate so you're not compensated for your willingness to move a lot vis a vis staying in one town. Most people in aerospace move because of furloughs, not promotion. Small but infinitely important point, at least it was to me when I considered employment in aerospace. Good luck!

Would you refresh us folk of SNAPish age what the context of the General's remark was at the time? Was he speaking to dying outside combat engagement? Becuase if I'm reading it right I think I could make the same argument about every fokin self-licking ice cream cone REMF-laden AF deployed location currently in existence. Not worth a fuckin hang nail over.

Right on. Such is the insanity of our humanity. I can certainly empathize with such an account. I believe the sense of remorse may come from the perception the animals, in aggregate, wouldn't attack you, but humans would snuff the life out of you in a heartbeat.

It'd be funny if it weren't true. 6 hour ground ETIC to get pushed by the second boss to press in spite of training ineffectiveness, followed by hydraulic failure on departure (no biggie, the thing has redundant electricals/plumbing that look like it was made by the local contractor's jobs program) and now we get to burn down to pattern weight for 3 hours. 16 hour day, rinse and repeat. Awesome.... F.T.S. I wouldn't jinx it. Dudes got recalled back to RPA (circa TAMI-21) just as they were hitting the FTU from being sent to RPAs 3 years before. That really sucked for those dudes. TAMI then a pipeline recall! Absolute raw deal. There's plenty of LTCs with bad backs who'd love to do that.. To the OP (wheelsoff) of the question. The BUFF's real and biggest con that nobody is willing to mention? The N word. All that supposed incredible amount of flying people are talking about, yeah you won't be doing any of it once you're bogged down with the N word. Think real hard (sts) about that one and if you want to, PM me and I'll give you the (OPSEC friendly of course) skinny about that stink and QOL vis a vis a conventional airframe. Fake *cough* training deployments to a tropical island aren't worth having to deal with that jab in the eyeball, but to each their own and all that jazz. I agree, it is as good as any airframe out there...if it weren't for that one. But hey that's what these boards are for right? If everybody agreed, there'd be only LIKE buttons and we'd call it facebook (which explains my low friend count). EDIT: Just realized, WTF happened to the dislike button? Awww shii..... Good luck!

Finally we get to the crux of the matter. We need barbarians with a disposition to take orders (versus barbarians without said disposition, of which we have plenty more in jails across this land), to effect this job. Warrior monks are a fallacy. They can't all be Jason Bournes in the file and rank, that takes money this Country is not willing to spend. It's an oportunity cost like everything else. We have a checkered record of re-adjusting our killing utensils to civilian life, so this is not a discovery at all. I'm not sayin' they should have done it, but I completely understand the dynamics that foster said displays and Im not willing to reproach them without acknowledging the former. I live in a mindset where one owns up to one's opportunity costs.

Word. They oughta give remote tour credit to that chithole

The air force is a part 135 charter full of chieftains replete with a gaggleful of pilots who got into the job hoping they'd get to fly the one Edge 540 on property for a living. It really is THAT simpleton. We can't all be winners in life.Situations such as this one are just mere manifestations of said dynamic. You think the dreams of re-enacting Top Gun (shirtless volleyball included) dies on these people when they get sent to T-1 with the rest of the gas chamber train car? Nope. We all gotta grow up some day though...It's just a crappy airline gig for the majority. Beats selling life insurance I presume. I personally find the King Air skull-fuckingly boring and rather do looptie loops with Stan all day like a poosie, but Im not about to shine my ass and bitch roll the uncle's Chieftain just cuz' I didn't get vipers. To each their own. My old mws was filled with dudes intent on whipping that ol'bitch like it was a mudhen. Idiots. The whole push towards the TGT Pod was further fuel towards that end. Now Im not gonna shit on the dead, but we got reminders around here in the not so distant recent past of what happens when we forget our ride is a chieftain and not a 540. QOL notwithstanding, the more I think about the motivations most of these young men got into blue flying for, the more I'm convinced a non-vol chopper tour in the ARMY would do a lot of AF flyers a whole lot of good. Where else can you crash the uncle's ride for a living, fire a gun at will, and get street cred for it? I digress. This is just another FCIF I gotta sign in order to avoid the wrath of enlisted folks...this place is all sorts of fucked up.

Indeed. I bought a C-150 a while back and sold it within two years. It was a great exercise in convincing myself it wasn't worth it to me. The utilization rate was low, the maintenance, though the cheapest in the inventory of certified airplanes, still came out silly expensive when amortized by utilization hour. It simply was not worth it carrying all the burden of maintaining a 40 year old spam can to not have that much in the way of capabilities. And the bottom line was that it was all I could afford at the time, financing just seemed lunatic for something that saw much less utilization than a primary driver car, which I wasn't financing either! Somebody mentioned LSA (Light Sport Acft). Here's the skinny on the unintended consequences of that aircraft category. It was ADVERTISED as the solution to this very thread; hoardes of Joe working stiff finally able to afford some very restricting kind of flying, which was better than envying rich people outside the airport fence right? Well, here's the reality of that category... Well off people can afford airplanes. We all know there's a generational gap in terms of affluence, old people have money, young people are increasingly broke as a joke. As a consequence the GA owner demographic is OLD by societal standards. As such, their health is failing and they can't continue to hold FAA medicals. The intent of LSA was NEVER to open the market to young broke people. Wanna know why? Because they included as part of the requirements to fly sport category the lack of a medical..you only need a driver's license. Presto!! The demographic that COULD afford to throw stupid money after silly money to keep that Bonanza flying 45 hours a year in the air conditioned hangar now get to continue flying under LSA rules. They let their medical expire, full knowing they couldn't pass a renewal, and so they take their buckets of money and throw it into a shiny new LSA. LSAs can't fly at night, can carry only one passenger, can't fly IFR, yet they cost six figures!!! What part of six figure acquisition cost for a day VFR two seater than can't exceed 120KIAS sounds palatable to the young stagnant waging masses (I'm such a populist, I love class warfare) ?!?!? It was never intended for them. Frankly it offends me to have to read the garbage blurb on those online CFI renewals I gotta do every 24 months, with old 1990s archive pictures of Suzie the college student and her dream to fly on a budget. GMAFB. I digress. If I could get an LSA (day VFR, non-IFR equipped, under 120KIAS) for the acquisiton cost of a rat trap 150, then we're talking. The avionics alone in that LSA cost more than the -150, forget the manufacturing cost of the thing. It's a non-starter and just like California equity refugees were swelling up the housing costs in Southeastern cities at the middle of the last decade, so are old rich people with failing health, artificially sustaining a ridonculous price for a glorified kite that you can't even tow past dusk. Sure, you could equip an LSA for night VFR and even IFR, but in order to fly outside those LSA rules you have to have a medical. People who can get a medical will go back to their Bo and fly 4 people in comfort at 140kts (burning silly fuel flow but I digress). LSAs are non-starters for the guy looking to "afford" GA. When this last batch of old folks (boomers in particular) dies off, there'll be a fire sale of aircraft, but no buyer's to pick up the inventory. The operating costs are going up and up and up. Even now 30+ yo spam cans are sitting idle waiting for suckers to pick them up and nobody will touch them; everybody knows the operating and mx costs of these relics are prohibitive when amortized for the kind of flight hours the median GA pilot does in a year. You're better off boating to be frank. GA will about cease to exist in 30 years they way this thing is going. The FAA and some of the airline/military crowd couldn't be happier about it.

...And too white for a girl in Hell Rio by the Sea...

Chaos and a get-it-done is acceptable during a contingency environment, such as the outbreak of conflicts (early 2002 et al). Ours has been a period of relative peacetime for the majority of AF members and as such, peacetime leadership abounds. This is where your bibles of regulations come from; monday morning quarterbacks with idle hands. I don't think there's anything one could do to effect change of consequence during periods of peacetime. More importantly, I'm not about to propose wartime as a solution to it, though I very much recognize it is wartime that "fixes" your stated problem. When you're statistically more likely to become a casualty as a result of a training sortie than as a result of a combat engagement, normalized per capita, you simply have no imperative need for unconventional and creative change. Even in the Reserves I've witnessed this... "Hey we have a deployment opportunity coming up, we could use your experience.." 'Oh yeah? We dropping?' "Um, no." 'Meh, pass.' Wartime has always been the incentive to fix your problem. It's a catch 22.

All these ills are a product of peacetime leadership. Some people in the USAF are fighting for sure, most are not. Peacetime is one hell of a catch-22, when it comes to being the root cause of all the qweep bemoaned on this board. I don't want war as a solution to our "corporate culture", burn me at the stake for sayin' so, if you must. I've met enough green-to-blue ARMY aviators to know that bleeding for the novelty of it, gets old really quick. They're more than glad to deal with, if with a condescending roll of the eyes (but earned) smirk on their face, the gay shenanigans of Big Blue, for a little less hell on earth. I value their perspective on that regard and don't find any cowardice or lack of mission commitment for being part of the least rough around the edges of the Armed Branches. Cogs on a wheel fellas... if it's that pussifiably unbearable, Army aviation is always hiring and bleeding, and they'll give you a demotion and a paycut for your troubles too, but you'll get the full no-seatbelt-on-the-bus Disney ride experience and no time for reflective belt shenanigans that side of the wire.... Just some balancing perspective. All that aside, I do think we could do better as an organization. Recognizing and accepting that AFSOC is not representative of the Air Force in aggregate would be a huge start. But that seems to be the root cause of the warrior towel folder ethos problem in the first place, the insistence on portraying everybody in the AF as AFSOC warriors... Ah hell It's Friday screw it, I'm gonna go bang the girl and call her dirty names, happy to be here and all that jazz, and give Jody a break you know what I mean? .... Cheers! :beer:

"3"

Last time I talked to my old folks, they were at 550K in retirement income 7 or so years after retirement. That's ONE pension, they both got one each. LTC Joe Bob will never get that kind of scratch in the new system. Anybody who thinks 400K in the bank after 20 years, even with fairy tale compounding miracles that everybody assumes will happen for them, you won't make it. 400K is chump change, especially when you normalize for end of life health care costs in the last two years of your life, unless you get lucky and die suddenly while flying your airplane and your wife is giving you a blowjay. Otherwise you're in the street. The point about my parent's retirement system is clearly righteous and on point. It's unsustainable what they have and they, as much as they love me, are smiling all the way to the grave knowing they lucked out, and I'm foked. Essentially the modern "contribution" plan based retirement that is being preferred over the old "benefit" plan based retirement, is going to yield a lowering of living standards for the majority. Party had to come to an end someday.... Now, you tackle the health care cost racket we got in this country, you might be able to stomach the lowering of retirement income that will afflict the mine and younger generations. But you keep education, health care and housing costs the way it is now, no freggin way a 401k, even in the best of circumstances, is getting you anywhere near 75% of peak income lifestyle in retirement, specially for the proverbial majority working stiff making 60K dual household income that IS this country. My parents lived on 95% of their income, you're asking people to live on 70% of their diluted income to save the rest to end up with 250K at the end of the day sitting in some retirement account. Whooptie do. No way you can make that math work and still make this country look like what we put on the uniform for in the first place. That's what I'm concerned about. This country needs an economic retooling, 401k is a crappy band aid.

Kinda already does that. Logs your academic CBT activity and times, so if you don't watch it, it'll bust your chit for turn times or some other bullchit bean counter time metric you got to keep a track of. Hell, they had an inspection up at PIT some months ago (rinse and repeat)and as the enemy was walking up the door, TIMS shits the bed fo da week. Panic ensues. Paper gradesheets begin clogging up the printer queues. Toners are running out of dust and you know what leadership does? Says, "that's it! Nobody double turns until TIMS comes back up". Literally, training halts because Timmy had a retard week. I'm surprised we haven't lost more wars... Oh well, who cares, its AETC, at least I'm sleeping home more nights a month...

To quote my old DO, on any matter pertaining to getting new anything...'never gonna happen' LOL.

Fuck, both the -6 and the Super T look sexy as hell. I'd love for them to spin that mission up. I'm partial to the Texan obviously, but the Tucanos are kicking ass down in South America and might prove an good bang for the buck. Then again I get this feeling like this thing is never gonna happen. :( Just like the T-50 -38 replacement, or the 2018 bomber, et al ad neauseam. With this economy, in this decade, no way no how. P.S. WTF Clovis for Tucano training?!?! The New Mexico Congressional delegation must have Czech hookers on the payroll 'cuz they keep that fucking shitty base on the roster like nobody's business. Talk about being hated by the entire penaut gallery and still getting first prize...What an unflickable booger that place is...

piston twins are worthless single engine. The second engine in piston twins is a false economy.

Isn't there a big "N/A AFRES" written in pencil on the sidewall of the UCMJ? If not, there should be :)

I'm assuming you're acknowledging the lifestyle of the guard baby viper driver, which is starkly different from the troughing barney/fred driver (until the MPA dried up for them too last year). The perspective of being a fighter pilot for $1400/mo versus making AD jack for the same privilege is different, anybody who says otherwise is being disingenuous. It's just like the kids coming off part 141 school and 100K debt looking at ATR jobs with Eagle @ KSJU. Sounds like a dream at 24. At 30? It gets old, quick. Same kid, same work ethic. In the days of 3-4 days a month, sure, you could swing the niche. 6-10 days? Forget it. Like a buddy of mine told me @ KHST last year when I asked him about opportunities flying -16s in sun laden Cuba *er* Miami: "pulling 6-9Gs is overrated..dude". Bummer, dude. Life's a moving target and all that jazz. To each their own of course. I wouldn't recommend anybody try to become a Guard/Reserve baby in the new AFRC/ANGB, the social contract broke a while ago for these types. If I knew then what I know now, the most sensible way would have been to go AD (again, at the time there was no UAV threat, so maybe the point is moot), separate with all those nice little IP quals that make you tasty (sts) to ARC units bleeding all these entitled and indignant O-5s, looking to replace them with unsuspecting blood, and go do the ARC thing as a TR with all the quals and hero medals under your belt after the 12 year stint. Guard babies are getting left in cold these days. I know I had to pull major networking and hoofing it all over kingdom come to effectively get me into a de facto active duty status so I could recover from attempting to do the guard baby deal right off college. Lockheed doesn't care you've been out of the labor market for 4 years because you were flying for the Guard, they're still not gonna give you O-3 compensation to work for them. You're doing that STRICTLY because the idea of pulling Gs in your 20s falls in whatever life story you dreamt up for yourself while you were trying to stay awake and stay inside the grading curve in Physics II. Which is great I guess, but let's not get carried away, it's not the answer to all the life questions. "Have a plan" is right. And in my opinion, the former is not a plan if you intend to not struggle financially in your 30s. I'm not being normative btw, just offering some POV from a different angle is all :) break break--- holy shit scoobs, you still around? Brother did ya ever get hired by anybody, how old are you these days, 35? In the words of 40 yo virgin : 'good GOD man, u gotta get on that...'

Actually, fluency or even native Spanish proficiency would probably pay bigger dividends...

Very well put. However, I don't think people are willfully ignorant of the 'up or out'. I think quite simply, most pilots struggle with the recognition that the pursuit of a 20 year career pushes you out of a cockpit. Most these individuals would try to fly for a living on the outside (even at their economic detriment..aka airlines) therefore they are sensitive to any period of time where they are not current and therefore non-marketable for said pursuit. That's it. And so the wheels go round and round. You know there used to be a time where such a thing as the technician track to a pilot career existed in the military. Being a MAJ with 20 year continuation and flying on all assignments wasn't a reason to consider somebody a "non-team player". Alas, such career allowance doesn't exist anymore, and anybody who so much as purposely attempts said career progression is swiftly marginalized. The dynamic actually reminds me of Office Space, when Michael speaks of the 'what would you do if you had a million dollars' question. "The question is bullchit to begin with, nobody would clean chit up if they had a million dollars...PC load letter, the fuck that means?!" At any rate, the point is that if given a non-punitive choice, most people would pick the cockpit and forego O-5. As such, the machine cannot accept that, so people find things to complain about. If it was possible to stay in the cockpit for 20 years without friction, I submit less people would gripe about ops tempo and deployments, even in light of giving up O-5. But that's really academic as none of this dynamic is largely possible anymore for the median. Granted, to others, making that paycheck is more important than staying in the cockpit, particularly in the new world of disco belts and ORM sheets and flying that's, honestly, not fun. But the majority would like to stay flying. To each their own.

Nonsensical whining removed for the good of humanity.