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Dupe

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Everything posted by Dupe

  1. Separate from guardreservejobs.com, what are good ways to reach out to the Guard/Reserve community? I'm doing some consulting work for a northeast Cirrus air taxi operator. We've found that hiring guard bums and reservists fits our model very well. Anyone have any insight on how to target guard and reserve pilots?
  2. I'm at National Intelligence University for IDE. I highly recommend it for in-res IDE. The schedule is very relaxed and there are no silly AF games.
  3. It's dumb. The Air Force should not buy a core capability "as a service." I can see leasing out some low-ball DV airlift requirement, but we're going to have to train MAF pilots for many decades to come... which is exactly what SAIC is banking on. Could we achieve training objectives with a more cost-effective platform? I think so... But we should own it.
  4. Keep trying. Don't be afraid to bail to the Guard or other services if being a pilot is your goal.
  5. Yeah...they don't necessarily make that clear to dudes at application time. The pitch "How would you like to go to a really awesome school, get a flight test job, then be a PM, maybe sit somewhere in SAF/AQ, and likely never fly again after senior captain?" may not sound that great.
  6. Sounds good in sound-bite form. Perhaps we will no longer be the highest-paying opportunity for History majors and a low-ball opportunity for IT experts. Or perhaps it will all get lost in a cluster of budget battles on The Hill
  7. To count time in a simulator (or "flight training device"), the device must be approved by the FAA under part 60. There's a whole FAA national program around certifying simulators: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/nsp/ It's likely possible to get fighter sims approved, but I don't realistically see it happening. How are you going to answer "Why should we have FAA-certified sims for our tactical trainers?" when the OG asks? You'd also have to get the sim operator contracts modified as the FAA requires a qualitiy management program. The FAA process to get sims approved: relatively straight forward. The Air Force process to get "FAA approved" sims: insane and not needed to meet our mission.
  8. In this case, there was a TFR: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_5_7298.html The problem is that many UAS operators don't know what that means
  9. Anybody have a 333 exemption here? It seems like there would be a business in just litigating the unauthorized....
  10. The rest of the AF tribes don't have FTUs, B-courses, TX courses, RAP, and upgrades to keep them chugging along.
  11. For now, yes. At the personal services stage, there is little that separates what is done as an individual vice what is done as a company. The OP can deduct business expenses without having to pay for incorporatation fees in each state he operates in. Once the business grows to having employees, significant assets, or is looking to have financing on its own merits, then it's time to incorporate.
  12. What is the "right mindset" for cyber? It seems like its somewhere between "outsource everything" and "our cyber platforms are major weapons systems for which people should be qualified on, we should plan for, and should be organized like operational units/systems." Those are two very different extremes, and I don't see the overall strategery.
  13. Did you mean W-4? This makes it sound like you are an employee and not a contractor. Get a 1099 from your client firm. As a note, the IRS has been cracking down on who is an employee vs who is an independent contractor. Asset base (your $400) has nothing to do with cash vs accrual accounting. Most small businesses use cash accounting and recognize revenue when it comes in the door. Accrual accounting is used to recognize revenue when a product/service is delivered vice paid for. For example, if you agree to do some work now and the company pays you next year, you could recognize (and pay taxes on) that revenue in the current year even though the check hasn't come in yet. On the other side, if you take a payment now but don't deliver until next year, the funds you took in would not be recognized as revenue until next year. Costs get matched with revenue: if you recognize the revenue in the next year, then you deduct costs the next year as well. Likely, just going with cash accounting is easier at this phase. I stand by my opinion that LLCs and other forms of incorporation are not useful for personal services work. Piercing the corporate bubble is ridiculously easy. This all changes if you hire an employee. Go consult with a business attorney - leave Legal Zoom to the landscapers.
  14. You don't need a LLC to deduct the expenses. You are automatically a sole-proprietorship. The reason to get a LLC is to separate your personal liability from that of your company. That said, if it's just you doing the work, it's very easy to "pierce the corporate bubble" and a LLC may not add any protection. Most attorneys will do an initial consult for free. See one. Don't get a case of the cheaps when you actually go to get the LLC. For now, I recommend organizing your expenses in the format of the Schedule C, then deducting at the end of the year.
  15. My view: Google is using their self-driving cars to create a very large pile of intellectual property for which they will then use to make a common auto OS. Google isn't dumb.
  16. There's no check to the manpower demands of the COCOMS. A1 tasking memos stating "DAV 64s can suck it" as a result.
  17. I'm not sure if it's gotten worse or if increased connectivity through a very vocal blogger, chat boards, and social media has allowed more of these to be known to a wider circle. 10 years ago, I wouldn't have known about the firing of a C-130 SQ/CC as it's pretty far from my lane. Today, I know about that.
  18. Reality (and one that I don't like): squadron commanders are middle management. Middle management often gets fired for things out of their control. That's pretty much true in any large organization, and there are more safeguards in the AF than in any size-comparable organization.
  19. It's reasonable that cyber should be a joint function. The problem is DISA: it's like Gotham City is asking for Batman and getting Vinny The Goat instead. By federal law, services are now required to go ask service-CIO for permission to go buy data center infrastructure (in a push to reduce foot print and move to the cloud). DISA was then deputized to be the arbiter of which programs could use commercial services and which had to use DoD funded data centers (manageged....by.....DISA). To date, I don't know of one program that has succeeded in using commercial cloud providers where many other executive departments (including the CIA) have been able to. 17D- I know you know most of that story. The viewing public may not. DISA costs are easily 6x-10x that of commercial cloud providers.
  20. I know a former MX Officer flying for them. It's good if you don't desire the airlines....
  21. From where I sit, it looks a bit like the JSF: Some big joint "program" sucking up service-specific funding then returning capabilities that are less than when you started. Without getting to in the weeds, there are some capability gaps that will emerge when we give up on the gateways (16 AFNET exit points for those at-home viewers who are not immersed in the gory pain of the AFNET) and switch to JRSS. JRSS is funny in that it isn't actually a program at all -i.e.... there's no program element that Congress approved. Instead, its all the services throwing money at this based on DoD CIO direction. I see a trend of increasing centralization at DISA, and I'm not sure that's a good thing.
  22. Disagree. I want to see blue-suiters operating in the cyber domain to achieve combat effects and not just keeping the street clean. For the support function (which is markedly different than the combat fuction), I think we can provide better support through services contracts vice creating rice-bowls. Amazon Web Services is a good example: I've simply never heard of it failing. I have no idea why we continue to maintain base data centers for base-specific applications when AWS is both cheaper and more reliable. Airmen need to be shooting from the castle walls and not cleaning the crap.
  23. This is to get an initial CFI certificate through mil comp vice simply renewing a certificate that has already been issued. Shack on the renewal -American Flyers for renewals is worth every penny. In the Pensacola/Eglin/Hurlburt area, the servicing FSDO is up in Birmingham -a four hour drive one way. It's also not located on an airfield. The DPE's logic was "You can take a day of leave, drive up to Birmingham and get the FSDO to do it, or I can do it over lunch for $200. Your call."
  24. I was getting $25/hr a few years ago. Rates are set by each base.
  25. PM me. I used to be a weekend CFI there.
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