Clark Griswold

Damn - had not heard of that crash, very rough week. Canadian Snowbirds did a great line abreast missing man formation for Blue Angels #6 https://www.avgeekery.com/no-greater-friend-canadian-snowbirds-fly-missing-man-formation-honor-fallen-blue-angels-6/ One other addition: Fat Albert flew him home with a fly over of P-Cola and down the beach with #5 on the wing, Godspeed... https://www.pnj.com/story/news/military/2016/06/07/blue-angels-fat-albert-fly-pilots-body-home/85550446/

Rough week for demo teams. Related story, Russian Knight Su-27 crashed and the pilot did not survive https://theaviationist.com/2016/06/09/su-27-flanker-of-the-russian-knights-aerobatic-team-crashes-in-russia-pilot-killed/

Said spreadsheet is as real as a Potemkin Village So the fact that multiple x multiple airmen complain about the same things and in reference to RPAa some very particular QOL / career issues and in your mind that is not evidence those problems exist but instead that is evidence of poor attitudes ? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok.. I'm not sure if you are full of shit, if you're just trying to poke the collective bear or you have yet to have that awakening moment when you realize that the AF is mostly made of good people that get treated badly in many cases by a few people who use rules, laws, policies, procedures and a self promotion system to keep themselves and like minded a-holes in leadership. You're right about living the Core Values and putting officership before being a pilot and a bro but you are implying that it is always exclusionary to those things, it's not usually and more often than not the Core Values and true officership are in opposition to the latest and greatest shoe clerkism that comes from on high if you believe that the purpose of the AF is to advance and defend the interests of the United States thru the projection of Air, Space and Cyberspace power. If you can't see or actually don't believe we are less a military organization than we used to be and are drifting towards becoming just another government agency by the evidence of the dearth of actual military activities in the daily duties / training of large numbers of members of the AF then you are lost.

Sounds good to me.

Yep, discussed earlier in the thread but that is a huge fly in the ointment, was that way also in AMC but was more obnoxious in my RPA assignment. Do you mean promotion boards restricted to a certain AFSC(s) so RPA pilots are only competing against other RPA guys? Lots of good ideas brought out lately in this thread that are feasible if the AF really wants to solve the RPA morale blackhole, it could act on them with Congressional approval, that will be the rub to tell Congress we want to go 180 out from where we have been going with this career field and get it approved. Better base locations and dispersed across way more time zones, manned aircraft companion program, career incentives for attracting fast swimmers, etc...

Fine by me. There has to be a reason for people to want to go RPAs, not just being forced too. RPA assignment = virtually automatic promotion is not bad. I have heard of the technique of career self-sabotage but didn't realize it was actually being practiced at an appreciable level and in the RPA world to shorten the time in by circumventing the ADSC, that is a helluva canary in the cole mine for how bad it is. ISR getting pulled out of ACC (sts) is the only way to actually fix the RPA enterprise, revise AF Intelligence Command and let RPA, JSTARS, AWACS and RIVET have their own treehouse to play by their own rules rather than keeping them in an abusive relationship with ACC.

Valid points. My solution that has negative 6.9% chance of ever being adopted would be to put these likely Captains and some Majors on a specific assignment profile and probably administratively assigned to a different squadron (OSS or the like) than the regular squadrons in the OG. This could prevent the potential problem at the squadron level and/or mitigate it as at the Wing level as they would eventually come into competition. Not perfect but something.

Why even have FAIPs? Nothing against them, most of the ones when in UPT were not that bad but it just screws up the primary intent of UPT, to supply pilots to the MWS community.. Offer droid drivers that were TAMI'd or re-cat'd a ticket out if they have paid the piper and want to go back to a manned platform - 3 years in RPAs sounds about right. AF pays the UPT bill, might save a pilot from becoming so embittered they want to punch at the end of their ADSC. I would rather them get a golden apple (MWS or base of preference) but instead of keeping them somewhere they don't want to be, solve two problems at once and give some hope to the 11U's there is a way out. Emerging from the shelter....

Herc History. L-100 in Delta colors and service. https://www.deltamuseum.org/exhibits/delta-history/aircraft-by-type/turbo-prop/lockheed-l-100 https://www.deltamuseum.org/docs/site/aircraft-pages/dl_lockheed_l-100_brochure_1966.pdf?sfvrsn=2

Yup - refining that idea, ACC truly doesn't give a shit about RPAs (crew force career, QOL, etc...) They won't let another branch or command have it but they don't want to do it in a way other than min run. This has come up before and I don't think another branch would do it better but another command maybe... who that is I don't know, a new command maybe that has 0.069% chance of happening. A new command to take in all the assets and people that ACC doesn't give enough love to, AWACS-JSTARS-RPA-RIVET, needs to happen or at least build out AFISRA with the assets shifted to it and assigned to another command.

We had a terrible RAP requirement for inexperienced pilots in the GH back in the day but that had the side benefit though of forcing the hand of some of the daywalkers you mentioned. They had to show up to make RAP but they were able to get so fast out of the inexperienced column from previous MDS experience that It didn't have long enough to balance the work load. I'm dating myself but Lt Rasczak had it right Not a Guard RPA guy myself but know several, they seem happy enough with it and it is a growth business, manned aircraft units shouldn't be too high a mountain to climb too if you want to look at them also, know several people who left AD RPA to go Guard/Reserve manned aircraft. Just amazes me how the AF is so damn penny wise and pound foolish. The QOL initiatives they could do, legally-financially-logistically, are not that hard and they would stop the growth of this huge manning and I would say cultural problem in the service itself and in its already dented reputation to handle its business: Flight opportunities for 11Xs while serving in an RPA assignment, a good GA aircraft program could meet this. Balanced workload so an RPA assignment is not a roach motel where Airmen go in but civilians come out, several ways to address this. Objective reporting on OPRs of flight hours compared to peers would shame skeezers into pulling their weight. Some preference for follow on assignments for RPA volunteers, within reason but again just a matter of leadership prioritizing this. A commissioning program for enlisted SO, MX, etc... in the RPA program to provide an incentive for strong swimmers to jump in the pool. Limited return to AD for Guard / Reserve to fill shortfalls/surges, not that expensive and scalable as required. Rant complete.

Glad you have an escape route - it's not flying but it doesn't have to suck AF Sidenote: I proposed not allowing PCA until a pilot / so had 400 hours & 800 for a PCS - went over like a fart in church but they asked for suggestions...

Yup - we (Global Chicken) had several close calls from sleep deprivation (falling asleep driving home) years past when the schedule was fluid (diarrhea) due to last minute changes from golden boys finding something else to do rather than crew the shelter and dropping out at the last minute. It was mentioned earlier in the thread about RPA basing overseas and just my two cents but Poland has more than a few airbases near good cities, thinking Krakow-Balice Polish Air Base, couple that with PACAF basing for the other side of the clock and while it is driving droids, that is a helluva consolation prize.

It needed a nudge... I'll raise you one... Another hypothetical advanced Eagle, again in Japan's colors... Actually I'll change my vote... early concept eagle...

I don't think an entirely based peer review system would be appropriate but a portion of an overall score would be good, an issue that I thought of with this type of system would be the drive for a static close out date for all officer ranks ala the new EPR system. Everybody would be voting all the time as someone was coming up for an OPR at sometime and probably be detrimental to the process. Maybe it could work but it would drive further synchronization in PCS, static close out dates, etc... still putting the objective standards, relative standing based on the professional opinion of your peers and allowing commanders to have a say I think would be an improvement over the current model. Not perfect but nothing ever is. If only applied to RPA Line assignments, getting all the parts lined up and synched up could be done.

Not bad. Basically, the shoe clerk gets ahead by having data on their records that looks like some sort of objective evidence of important, effective efforts towards the mission of the Air Force but in reality is just massive queep generation / processing. Going to harder definitions of that data or some other objective measure, coupled with a peer ranking can prevent shoe clerks from helping shoe clerks and could start to turn the tide. If the stats that really matter are tied to systems or measures that are not as prone to manipulation, shoe clerks will have to pull their weight. Trying this in the RPA enterprise first given its fast growth, high operational tempo, low satisfaction ranking by members might be a way to "fix" the community. Can't change the fact that it is still driving droids but at least the buds in the squadron could get a better QOL by keeping that X percent that don't want to play unless there is only 5 seconds left on the clock in the whole game.

We did that too until a Lt Col Shoe Clerk at one of the aforementioned bullshit queep offices whined, the DO folded like an accordion and the shit list came down, disheartening but that was years ago. I imagine it is cyclical like most things, leadership changes and the shoe clerk level of infection ebbs and wanes, seems like from this and other threads that as some operations have grown, the RPA enterprise, being the discussed here, and as large part of it is done "deployed in garrison" the temptation for shoe clerks is to go there, have their records look operational but in reality they are Power Point and TMT warriors, the problem being that the billet they are in is supposed to be for an actual AF Line officer doing mission duties not queep. Gonking on this made me wonder if this could be a solution or at least mitigation technique: What about canned OPRs for certain assignments that are operational and need everyone on the field / max participation in the actual mission to keep the QOL as high as possible by everyone actually doing first the military mission they were trained to do then additional duties could be mention (if at all) in a one line, maybe two on the OPR? Bullets would be mainly pulled from data collected about the performance of the unit, generic in nature then following those the one or two bullets about how Capt X's expert yada yada process improvement saved the AF yada yada... The push line in the RPA OPR could be Hours-Sorties-TDY for LRE/LNO-Crew Position (AC/IP/EP) and that could be say 50% of a score with the other being 25% being peer ranking, 25% commander ranking = Capt X is 1 of 20. This would be a disincentive for rated guys to only fly once in a while thereby causing other aviators in their Wing to have suffer poor QOL because they want wings and flight pay but not have to actually do a lot of it. Would work in the MAF too as there were several offices I saw young but well connected Capt new ACs abscond off too only to deploy to Istres when it was convient for them while there dudes getting 250+ days in the desert on any given rolling 12 month look back... Just a thought, I'm all about going big and trying to get big changes to the AF but we may have to look for other smaller less stunning ways to defeat the evil of shoe clerkerism

That's it - also analogous to referenced bird in that they stand around squawking while simultaneously dropping turds everywhere

Ha - said non-flying aviators also called seagulls in other communities.

Delta Hotel You just stated what A1 knows but pretends they don't know or actually doesn't know, that as they don't deep dive into the manning situation: box checking careerist who go to RPA assignments soon after MQT find somewhere to be at the Wing other than in the ops squadron. I can't tell you how many "fast burners" I saw come, get their RPA stink on them, do some job with a fancy bullshit title, work bankers hours, breeze over and man the shelter only a Friday morning then disappear for another two weeks. On the Excel spreadsheet everything looks fine but in reality only a portion of the pilots actually fly the line, a real analysis would not just be 11Us or 18Xs in positions in the UMD at Base X it would also involve comparing flying hours/sorties each of those individuals in those positions actually do, put that on a graph and you will see a cluster of hideouts with low hours, probably rank in the O-4 range and a good chance of PCS'ing soon to a school slot or other special duty without doing much in their time at said RPA assignment to serve the community / do the mission... But I/m not cynical... not one bit... Saw this in my MAF time also but it was especially egregious in the RPA world..

More seaplane ideas for the venerable Herc, retractable floats with testing done on 1:6 RC models from Tigerfish Aviation in Australia. Thought this was another Stavatti but the company seems legit. Where do we send the check? https://www.tigerfishaviation.net/index.html

True - just didn't realize it was that bad McCain is trying to close the JPO for the F-35 and split responsibility to the USN & USAF SPOs - my bet is that will give the Navy freedom to curtail their buy Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just when things seemed to be going better you find out something shitty: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-f-35-stealth-fighters-dirty-little-secret-now-out-the-16211 Only about 20-25% parts commonality among the different models.

A1 only intercepts course at 90 degrees so about every 4-5 years we go from full scale right or left deflection, either force shaping or stop loss of some sort, even if they made you sign a 10+5 type of commitment I put the odds of the AF staying on that manpower course that long as quite low, more likely during your commitment they would offer a Palace Chaise or other option to cull the herd based on some tea leaves or other equally based reasoning...