HookEmAll

There was a civilian at grand forks named Roberta at the protocol office. She helped me deactivate a squadron. I don't know her last name but it is a small base and you could probably find her in outlook search. She had template scripts for everything.

Thanks guys. I'll just roll with it an see what happens. Auto correct is so fun.

Back to the old question about tamp. I've called everyone under the sun trying to confirm what I know is true from this board, that palace chase gets it. Everyone out there at mpf, total force disservice center, etc says no because the separation code of FGQ is ineligible. From what I read on here FGQ is correct for palace chase right? And everyone says they got it but nobody could help them out. Did everyone have FGQ on their orders? Just to confirm, everyone who palace chased and got it was not the old force shaping program of 07 and is not confusing it with tricare reserve select? I'm out in 10 days and need to get this straight before my wife flies cross country to do tough murder uninsured conveniently a week after I get out. Sadly I trust the information on here exponentially more than what I get from mpf.

I got waived with 1 year at my tfi unit. My friend got exactly 2 years waived. I had afpc functional approval recommendation only. My friend had had sq and wg cc only recommending approval. Obviously what anyone other than the saf pc board thinks is irrelevant. Our local ang wing commander "heard" if you apply, it will be approved. With four years, it's a pretty big risk if your commander isn't friendly toward it, but it might just be worth it to get out now and beat the stop loss.

There's not much better lifestyle than guard tankers. Most locations are top notch. The people are usually great. Remember that and go forth.

My situation may be weird then. I have a 1288 that recommends disapproval due to low manning at the Sq level (despite the fact we have 7 more pilots than our UMD requires, odd huh?) and the wing/cc marked concur. I wonder if he concured with the disapproval recommendation or should have marked non-concur. Oh well, 6 weeksor so, and I'll figure it out. I find it hard to believe they would keep a guy who can 7 day opt an assignment and 3 day opt a 365, but this is the air force. Thanks for the info all.

Was that with or without commander support? I'm sitting at 12 months and just got pushed up without. A friend in my squadron just got approved with cc support with 26 months left.

Has anyone had any luck with getting approved when your commander recommends disapproval? I'm still stunned that some people can't just let go even with rifs, force shaping boards, and vsp going on.

Any updates on pilots palace chasing? I just put mine in asking for 11 months off. 01 maj kc135. Anyone else in that boat? Anyone been approved lately?

I was a faip back in the day, way back in 03-06.... This happened to several people, I think they were the Kansas guard. They were all allowed to complete. One (he was fixed wing qual) ended up going to Hurlburt Field and doing something with AD, though I can't recall if he joined AD or just did a tour with them. All of the actual UPT guys got hired at other places, most within a few weeks. IFF washouts tend to get picked up by heavy units if they still want it. One came up to my associate unit just last year actually.

I've called the flight schools, the VA, the base education offices, and word of mouth on how much of your 36 months you are giving up. The flight schools can't seem to get a straight answer from the VA. I can't get an answer even when I ask the question four different ways, the answer is always, well sir it depends on how much you use or well, up to 10,000$, and the base education office gives me the old montgomery gi bill answer. I have a friend using it now, but even he doesn't know (or care). Most people on here have the info that it is one month, but I'd rather not accidentally use 12, right?

Matmac always gives good advice. My CC keeps telling me to tell him everything I plan (........ok.......) but keep my cards from afpc as long as possible. He told me the closest thing to a sure thing he could tell me that it was highly unlikely they would PCS you with 12 months or less. More than that and you were equally likely to move with no ADSC and stay at your home station and separate at your ADSC end.

Matmac, From what you heard, does "6 months" mean, for example if my commitment expires Jan 13, then I should apply July 12 for a separation date sometime between then and Jan 13, OR would it refer to applying in Feb 12 (or so) for a July 12 (6 months prior to commitment expiring) separation? Sounds like a moot point, but it matters to me and probably a lot of people. When it's time, it's time.

75 still. This from a guy whose personal policy is to carry 75-90 days at all times.

Quick question someone asked me yesterday... What happens if, say, you're UPT commitment expires June 1st 2011, but you have a tuition assistance commitment that expires in Dec 11. When do you get the bonus?

It sounds counter intuitive, but if the AD squadron has a deployment tasking, then the host ANG unit can volunteer to deploy on our tasked lines. I guess this may cost more money, but it's the way it is for now. I suppose having to deal with AD bs can sometimes have its benefits for the guard.

For now, ANG/AFRC deployment help does not apply to associate units in the tanker. Who knows when that will change. If it does, it will likely be the day I get two days notice I'm deploying.

Sorry dude. Wasn't trying to spin you up. I was just asking a question about a rumor. Probably just means we're all going UAVs to be replaced by copilots in the 135. The 150+ is why I'm asking the question.

Any KC-135 pilots try this lately, as in the last 6 months or so? I heard legit-ish rumors, as legit as rumors get, of 50-100 tanker guys getting cut, but my guess is that means getting moved into UAVs, not released.

As a tanker guy, I can say that the active associate at Pease is far and away the best assignment that I could have ever imagined getting. Everything is going great so far. You work when you want. You deploy when you want to. You go TDY whenever you feel like it, and you live 40 minutes from Boston. How long will it last? Who knows, but it will always likely be better than at an active duty base. The best I ever thought of getting as a tanker guy was a huge active duty base in Tampa, but this active associate makes living on the beach pale in comparison. If you have the opportunity to get one in any airframe, do it (and don't complain about it... you could always be a faip, or a uav guy, or assigned to Cannon).

It is listed as a "should" in GP. (GP is the "military" source document for this). I use it as a sound technique, especially in crowded/busy airspace. I blow it off around Grand Forks. The intent is to reduce the chance of TCAS RAs at high altitude due to reduced altitude separation.

I went through back in 03, but I imagine things haven't changed too much, with respect to the core nature of the program. First, on the T-1 side of the house, I never met a non-prior UPT IP, and at my base we had one of our most amazing IP/EPs who had been an IP in two jets try to go there as joint spouse, and in spite of his great record, couldn't get a waiver with the OG and Wg/CC on his side. The nature of the program is great. I went through as a faip, so it skewed my perspective, but I found it easy. Academics were optional, almost. The LSI instructors basically made the tests group effort. Sims were two hours of flying approaches with a friend. The flight line was chill too. You could knock out three or four events on one flight, so it goes by super fast. The IPs were nice, as a whole. Not quite first names, but there was no saluting.... I was still a Lt at the time, so that was huge. There were one or two hook em all kind of tools, but they were far and few between. Unfortunately, the "picture" is very narrow, and focuses on the one right way to do things, the AETC way. They do a fair job of getting you ready for flying with students, and while I left very confident and at the top (then) of my game, I still barely got the gear up on my first real student ride. So, how well does it prepare you? Not to well, at first, but I still rely heavily on things I learned as a huge part of my skill set years later.

This does not answer your question, unfortunately, but it does address the problem of using a card reader on vista. My IM and comm guys were completely unable to help me, much to my surprise, so I emailed the manufacturer's tech support people to get instructions on how to load drivers and firmware for vista. Maybe this will help someone else out there. Please plug in the SCR331 Reader into the host running Vista. If it has CCID firmware, then it should work immediately. Follow the steps below, only if the device enumerates as "STCII Smart Card Reader" as it needs a firmware update to work under Vista: 1. Download the file: ftp://ftp.us.scmmicro.com/security/driver...ccid_update.zip 2. Unzip the downloaded file 3. Use the driver present in the "driver" folder 4. Run the FWUPDATE.EXE in the "app" folder to update the firmware Now the reader can be used under Vista. Your PCS Support Team, SCM Microsystems

Here's a good question to go with this topic... Let's say you're deployed and decide to buy a car from the BMW military sales program. You have to pay an import tax, but do you have to pay sales tax on it as well when you register it? Anyone actually done this?

I usually just read these posts and laugh, but as a fellow sports addict, I must assist you. I am a college football fan, and last October, (thankfully I was only there for one week of it) AFN basically (by my standards) dropped college football off the map and showed sooooo much baseball it made me sick. The NFL over there is sweet. They show the NFL network 4 games at once and cut back and forth between them. For college, they show every big game and on slow sports weekends with no race, baseball, or other big things they show a bunch of little ones. I got to see 3 of 5 Florida games and all the Notre Dame ones. I got to see more Pac 10 there than I did here. My roommate was a baseball fan, Cubs actually, and he was never unhappy. In summary, if you are a married guy, you will watch more and better sports deployed. If you are a single guy, you will miss your 2 big screens, HD, surround sound, and BW3's, but you will still be happy. And you will collect combat pay after buying photos of you dressed up in combat gear with your eagle cash card after getting dressed down by a Chief for having your sleeves rolled up and zipper too low. Enjoy!