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hindsight2020

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Everything posted by hindsight2020

  1. Looks like a B-2 redux, which is to say, that thing looks DFFM [dee'-fem] (e.g. doesn't f*ckin fly much). T-38a non-PMP TOLD in RCA in the summer is skkkkkkketch. πŸ˜„
  2. I sympathize with the sentiment, it must be difficult to hear public scrutiny of people one is close to. That is why, and I include myself in it as someone who chooses to opine publicly about it, one must take everything written in social media with a grain of salt, and attempt to separate objective criticism from the personal chaff. Easier said than done of course. I can tell you my in-person exchanges with folks close to CAF down here in TX have been cordial, even if disagreements have arisen. As such, I give much lower stock to the reflexive vitriol online, I don't think it's representative of how people are IRL, fwiw. Cheers.
  3. Yes to the naked nepotism angle. Nah to the neophyte argument; he wasn't that new. But that matters not (to me). His decision to audible that horrendously boneheaded in-trail, lanes shackle without defined vertical stacks, that was terrible, and fateful. As is the allegation by the NTSB that the brief had no vertical stacking between formation tracks. The fact nobody involved called KIO, especially mustang lead, is frustrating to me. I have a theory of the case, but it deals with organizational culture and perverse incentives. Topics which I've mostly debated with folks offline and in person who share ramp space and mx providers at some of the airfields and chapters in question (C and S TX in my personal interactions, since I'm based down here). The thin-blue line reactions online just quickly grow toxic and vitriolic. One invariably offends some people too close to the proverbial vest by merely daring to debate the merits of the organization. It's very much a "my family's got a bunch of shitheads; I'm allowed to say that, you're not " type of ingroup/outgroup thing. *yawn* At any rate, imho it was the decision to audible that nonsense which was more causal than contributory to the collision. The individual execution error on the part of Hutain I find much less interesting. That's just my opinion. Neither I nor the white knights, are the FAA. Which will be the ultimate authority on whether CAF keeps their revenue lanes open and accessible, and by extension the 501c3 salaried shtick going. To say nothing of the insurance angle which I've already spoken of previously. So we'll just have to see what comes of it. I just wanted to clarify I don't particularly find Hutain's execution error a salient takeaway in this whole thing, nor the most impactful aspect of this accident, counterintuitive as it may be for some.
  4. Was that before or after the T-1 divestment got frozen by congresscritter X at the 11th hour? If the quoted is true, it sure doesn't look like it has been communicated to AFRC. We got a pretty big footprint on that enterprise; I'd think we would have been sending folks shopping for new units due to divestment already (T-38 ADAIR for example, and those guys had a lot more lead time). That's gonna be interesting for our group. We'll probably capture a few to T-6 re-cat, but there's a lot of folks who'll probably try to retire or go desk/IMA/cat-E, especially over going back to a grey heavy with the usual TDY impositions. Interesting times indeed.
  5. Well, they're not playing very nice right now with their oil antics and the Russian shenanigans of 2022, so we're back to rubbing elbows with the Venezuelans. A good thing too from where I sit. A transactional alliance I prefer 6 days of the week and twice on Sunday. Of course, as a Caribbean Rim native, they're brothers from another mother, so I note my bias. Having to partake in flight training the Saudis has been the hardest Faustian bargain within my indentured service, fortunately I was never faced with an invol oconus duty involving those fuckos, forcing me to show my cards. *knocks on wood*
  6. A 20 year UFT RSC (Guard/Res)? Sure, I can see that preserving accessions traction. A 20 yr UFT ADSC? No chance that'd gain any traction.
  7. I was referring to base pay inflation parity, when referencing the last two FY NDAAs. But sure, add AvB inflation adjustment to the wish in one hand shit on the other collection plate while we're at it. --brk brk-- Said it a dozen times but I'll say it again. The USAF can and will always play run the clock offense. Certainly much better than the airlines ever could. I mean what are we going on, 209 pages and almost two decades of this thread? No bonus improvement of consequence. If you need another decade to figure out where you stand vis a vis the AF offense playbook....
  8. Frankly I find the failure of two FY NDAAs in a row to address inflation parity, a bigger source of retention woes than the bonus offering, going forward.
  9. Big optical illusion. Wreckage was closer to hitting traffic on the freeway, than aircraft on the runway. In fairness, that too is a good thing in that it didn't do the former either btw. Otherwise it truly would be good night irene for the volunteer-dependent experimental carve out warbird flying outfits. I'd put money on that, knowing what does and doesn't make the FAA pick up their one-hammer-all-nails, petty functionary asses from up their banker's hour GS-13 desks. Some folks on the inside baseball side of this dumpster fire of a hobby, fear the plan that has been mulled for decades, i.e that of imposing de facto part 135 impositions on these experimental-ETP letter outfits, may finally materialize as a result of this mess. Which as I've already pointed out, would be exit right for everybody involved, as volunteer-dependent organizations with little in the way of insurance self-sufficiency otherwise. In non-airline land, insurance rules the roost, not the FAA.
  10. Flying B-17s were already on legal palliative care due to insurance unavailability. Even this being the fault of the cobra pilot, it might put the final nail in the coffin of a lot of these larger experimental-exhibition-carve out relics. Just like Kobe and the 737 max, when it comes to insurance for GA, we all get to wear diapers when one shits their pants. The second debris landed on a public high-throughput freeway, that's when I knew this wasn't going to be just another seasonal black eye for the sector. This one might be worse in the aggregate than the Collings one, mainly due to the crash footprint, time will tell.
  11. OP username checks. Slapped down like one too.
  12. About time, that claptrap's been a jobs program damn near since Gorbachev screwed the pooch by letting the cat out of the bag with glasnost anyways. I'd have rather had an RWR upfront, and take the extra gas with the weight savings of not one, but 2 less Nosa fvckos onboard. No dog in the fight any longer thankfully, so I digress.
  13. given a bunch of 'em russian fuckos got mad radiation poisoning/ARS at Chernobyl months back by digging up/kicking up the hell out of the Red Forest, my guess is they'll do just as well with their little false flag operation. The world would stand to gain by finding a bullet to the head of that KGB megalomaniac and his authoritarian swan song. slava ukraini.
  14. yup, I-410 in SAT on a Tuesday night during the amazon sort-incoming. Except they don't pick up the leftover shrapnel and debris in TX, and you get to share stories with the 20 other victims at the Discount Tire on Wednesday morning. πŸ˜„
  15. ...Or the 2014 Gulfstream takeoff crash at KBED. IOW, not the first nor the last time a pilot attempts to takeoff with the control lock engaged. It happens, and it's unfortunately usually the result of interrupting a flow, or distractions that lead to interruptions. You know, hooman stuff, as my despondent feline in the avatar would retort to (if he could). These things happen, and we are all capable of falling into such a trap. Is it inevitable? Of course not. We just have to continue to honor the memory of those no longer with us, take these written-in-blood ADM reminders in stride, and attempt our best at keeping our behavior in the cockpit consistent. Easier said than done, but that's the bar we gotta cross every day, good bad or indifferent. It sucks to be judged as a high-experience guy getting killed doing something most bystanders would tend to associate with errors reserved for the uninitiated. Nothing could be further from the truth wrt to that assessment of course; high time in jets doesn't really make us immune from porking operations in simpler aircraft. I certainly don't make such presumptions when I jump into my woefully underpowered and weather-incapable flying lawnmower, with loved ones on board no less. It doesn't care one bit about my usaf command wings nor the amount of times I didn't get killed the week before flying it, or the much more complex flying I do at work. May he rest in peace. The man had a great run and flew the pants out of most he got his hands on, as most of us would have too had we had his enviable career timing. A life well lived in my book. Tailwinds and following Seas.
  16. Yup, described me to a T. In youth it was 2 then 1, now it's def 1 then 2. Career AFRC, not interested in airline "flying"/schedules/lifestyle. As to the AD question, I gave up *money in order to retain control of my life. (*quicker promotions in AD, plus the extra FYs it took me to get into AFRC as an off-the-street vs going AD the second I finished my undergrad, TVM etc). The ARC provided me the vocational control I was looking for, while doing the kind of flying I wanted to do, and still attain an AD retirement. We're very happy with the trade. No ragrets. To bring it back on topic, they tried to make us ART at the undesirable location I was at before my current one, and that went down as well as could be expected (read: DOA). They straight up asked me circa 2012ish what would it take for me to take an ART job in lieu of AGR in that location, and I told them: straight up an additional GS-12/13 check ON TOP of the ART GS-13 SSR tables, to compensate for a lost spousal career and the exigency to have to continue at the duty station all the way to MRA (age 57..in an ejection seat MDS no less) vs immediate AD 2.5% multiplier annuity at 20 AD YO. Sq leadership chuckled and nodded, as they knew the answer already and were merely being rhetorical. The conversion flopped. I've done the job in question, and I'd never do it for straight GS, especially without an AD retirement in my back pocket. The DOD is trying to save legacy costs (mainly retirement, VA and tricare for life), so I understand the motivation. Ultimately this is a FUPM dynamic. I'm not going to apologize for not being willing to do this job for civi-only GS (to include the deltas in healthcare, and retired pay). To wit, if the check of the month club was good enough for the @sshole GenXer who held this position before me, then it's good enough for me and mine too. FUPM. I do think B-scales create a tense work environment. The rift between ARTs and AGRs was bad enough in my first duty station, straight GS just makes it even worse. Airline folks know all about B-scales. BL, B-scales are just caustic in the long term and I rather work in places absent the dynamic.
  17. If you mean better than the last guy, well that's a pretty low bar. I'll withhold judgement until the new edicts start rolling out. I wish him luck, he's inheriting a mess of toxic second-tier effects.
  18. Apparently, yet again, "PC" related issues wrt a naming. Well, that was the over-the-hump moment, the firing I'm sure deals with a more at-large command climate ("Al Capone" twofer type of thing). Just another week in the island of misfit toys we collectively know as Team XL. I should have got short tour credit, or a campaign medal at least, for enduring 8 years of that place lol. Oh well. πŸ˜„ At least this time the shenanigans didn't occur in the presence of an O-8, but I'll digress on disturbing the corpses of the past....(not a great choice of words either, given the guilty party of that episode, committed suicide a couple months ago).
  19. No, we're talking about 11B follow-on recipients. And you're missing the point (well, as they see it anyways). It's not meant to do anything for the lottery loser; not anything that they care about anyways (namely, get a fighter in the first place, ostensibly the reason they went 38s). It's meant as a management-of-expectations tool for the benefit of the gaining bomber command. I contend it's virtue signaling, the manning realities of a mismanaged functional command like AFPC will quickly make this effort moot. To wit, it's basically the AF equivalent of that spiel Bob Slydell told Lumberg when he explained why they preferred to fire people on a Friday. Clear as mud? P.S. sweet I got another Office space reference in, when talking USAF broken dreams.
  20. I can tell ya the little birdie rumint stuff from 19th. This hair brained idea comes from you know who, the most famous instagram meme person on the AETC side himself. Shocker. At any rate, the RUMINT is this was done to walk the 11B recipients (who largely still view themselves as the losers of the lottery, good bad or indifferent) off the ledge of making career-chucking decisions. This as opposed to the end-game toxicity that usually befalls those who have been busting their hump for 3 years in UPT to end up getting sideswiped by rules #1 and #2 of military life. The gaining commands are basically complaining they can't get them copacetic in time, they need three years. Six months to two weeks from being gained is not cutting it goes the rumor grievance.
  21. The Lord's work is best done by St. Javelin. AaaaAAaaAmmmeeeen. πŸ˜„ slava ukraini.
  22. The retirement multiplier is the reason I stayed away as someone not interested in the airlines. The 4.4 bump and lack of tricare elegibility were the cherry on top. They really need to fix that mess of a program. Tons of people on less physically damaging jobs have better federal multipliers, and don't have to worry about meeting medical fitness on part A (TR portion). I was very thankful to have got a line into the AGR (title 10) lifeboat, and be able to move on from the duldrums of the Lost Decade, start a family and thrive. Agreed on the grooming value for airline aspiring young guys. Best paying " gig " job out there. I went the troughing route, but that worked out better for me as it kept me up to speed on active retirement points until jumping on the full time train.
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