jazzdude

"Approach, you know the answer since you also work for the federal government...The government is cheap"

Training unfortunately isn't free, and it takes a lot of support to get that jet up in the air and keep it flying, much of which a pilot flying the line never sees. And everyone is doing more with less (while getting paid less than pilots, except for some in the med group). So the question becomes "what is good enough?" We've cut people to pay for jets, and then never really got those people back, or pushed them into operational AFSCs without backfilling support AFSCs (and putting the burden on ops to provide their own support). And remember, CSAF is/has been a pilot, so they are the one who made that trade, not someone from support. Congress has said we can't divest A-10, which drives an additional cost which has to be paid for (engineering to extend the life of the jet, pilots and maintainers, the logistic tail of parts and suppliers for an old jet). Not going to stop the AF from buying F-35s to replace the A-10, so that money is going to come from elsewhere in the AF budget. That turns into delayed upgrades for other airframes, reduced flying hour programs, etc. With fixed manpower and essentially fixed budgets, trades have to be made to meet requirements. It's an fact of life for the big AF. And unfortunately, this turns into a debate on what is good enough (training, equipment, airframes, weapons/munitions, etc) to meet strategic/operational/tactical objectives. And productivity becomes a measurable data point in that decision making, even though it may not be the best number to quantify what goes on in a flying squadron.

It starts that way, but re-reading it, I took it as civilian life is different than military life, but has it's challenges as well. Also, there's bad assumptions he makes and owns, and some points that come across as whining as well that makes it a bit hard to read. The bolded titles are quotes from other articles that he's responding to (would've been helpful to label the source each time), not his headers for paragraphs. Basically, have a plan for what you want to do when you get out, but be flexible, and find what makes you happy/gives you purpose. Also, nobody on the outside cares that you were a wg/cc, you're just another co-worker. Didn't take away you should stay in the military forever, just to make sure you think about the transition and have realistic expectations (which he admits he didn't have and that caused him trouble). So nothing really new... Just pretty normal advice packaged under a poorly chosen title. Guess he's also missing the exec and chief of staff to clean up his writing as well.

I'd argue that we try too hard to be productive and fill our days with some sort of duties that is the problem Unscheduled time can be great, leads to conversations in the office that either help build comraderie, or passes on knowledge/learning opportunities. It also free up time to plan and evaluate what you're doing and how you're doing it (like the article mentioned, need deliberate thought on how to organize and communicate). There's also time to learn on your own, whether it's studying the dash 1, tactics, or just learning something new in general that could bring in new ideas or ways of thinking into the unit. The excess manning also for people to take leave, go to training, deploy, or accounts for people being DNIF/sick. Hell, unscheduled time gives you time during the work day to knock out PME. This slack time is typically evident in support organizations having down time for "training". In ops, we hate to push back on mission, even at our own detriment, and ridicule the clinic/MPF for being closed once a week so they can have the slack time they need to do whatever they need/want. This attitude is great for our wartime/deployed mission, but becomes a grind when it's carried over to garrison/training mission. The pace isn't sustainable indefinitely (i.e. you can't surge forever). The problem is, if management/A1 looks at it and sees someone's got 8 hours in a day to work, they start filling that day up in the name of productivity, and eliminating all the slack time in the day. 15-30 min to do DTS every couple weeks (or even every day) looks fine on paper if there's currently only 7 hours of scheduled productive work a day. (Yes, I realize flying the line could drive the length of the day up above that. I know I've had much longer, but I also know I've had days where the only thing I did that day was organizing the office lunch push and cut out early). The hard part is defining how much slack time people should have in their workday. It's a trade between the benefits of that slack time, and the realities of budgets and end strength caps.

But does big AF see a loss in productivity? In other words, are we losing combat sorties directly due to pilots having to do additional queep? Or did flying hours get pushed down because of other AF priorities? Remember, training is overhead-it's necessary, but "not productive." Just like having extra finance airmen to handle travel vouchers is overhead, doing the vouchers is necessary, but isn't productive to the mission. Complaining about productivity will get no traction for change, until combat sorties aren't being generated at a significant rate. That's not to say there aren't problems that desperately needs to be fixed. The challenge is working on essentially a fixed budget while still executing the mission. Want to modernize and buy new toys? The AF has to find that money-it's essentially a zero sum game for the budget, and there generally is no relaxation of mission requirements while the AF tries to modernize. So trades get made between manpower, O&M, and new/old equipment in order to buy new stuff. Generally can't divest aircraft and their associated logistics and manpower tail easily, so the cuts generally get put on support personnel (like finance), or overall reductions (like manipulating crew ratios to keep "acceptable" levels of manning). Unfortunately, that means piling up duties on those who remain in order to buy new stuff. However, the AF can't kick the can down the road forever though; cuts in training usually mean poorer performance in the future (especially when it results in lower quality instructors in the future, which perpetuates the problem), and "too many" additional duties (which can be hard to quantify) create disincentives for people to stay in. This shows itself in potentially higher mishap rates and poor retention, and ultimately creates a hollow force at risk of mission failures.

It sucks for the individual, but welcome to the realities of working under a constrained budget (especially for an organization that does not care to be efficient). Think of it terms of costs paid by the Air Force. Sure, you *feel* less productive in your primary job. But does your squadron fly fewer sorties/missions because of individuals having to do DTS or fight with MPF? I'd guess no, so from the AF perspective, you're just as productive, so "nothing" is lost. You're a sunk cost as a flyer, AF can't really get rid of you without a potential direct impact on operations like getting rid of a finance airmen. Not saying the AF hasn't or won't cut flyers though, there's still that magic crew ratio that can be manipulated to show there's an excess of flyers. Same for your secondary job. Do sorties still get scheduled if your a scheduler, pre-deployment tasks documented in readiness, checkride completed/documented in stan/eval, etc? Again, I'd bet he's, so no productivity (in terms of sorties flown by the sq) is lost, and has cost the AFA nothing to have you do the secondary job. By putting the extra tasks like DTS on the line vs in finance, the AF can eliminate several finance airmen, and spend that money elsewhere. The work those airmen did are now being done by other airmen who would've otherwise been employed. So the same amount of work is getting done by the flyers, plus they've picked up some tasks done by finance, so they ARE more productive, at least in paper when looking at personnel costs against mission execution. Sure, it sucks for the individual, because their workdays get longer (for no extra pay since we're salaried) and more frustrating. Also, there are intangibles that get missed, like informal training, self- or guided- study to improve tactics or system knowledge, etc. But that stuff doesn't translate on paper in terms of productivity. Though it has gotten some attention, with CSS's slowly coming back, and contractor help on those secondary office jobs in the flying sq. If nothing else, remember that the military only cares about effectiveness, and does not care about efficiency (or about individual frustrations).

Oh no, the dreaded conventional sid/star! And planning on conventional airways instead of skyhooking gps direct... The horror...

Agreed, but AUAB will probably add to their uniform supplement that the shirt needs to be tucked in (in addition to a reflective belt)

Doesn't matter if they match the intent in the AFI, you're fighting against base commanders (sometimes from other services) who could just mandate tucking in the shirt when not actively working out. The military is super conservative with dress and appearance, and wants to portray a certain image. Look how long it took to allow women to have "normal" hairstyles (especially for PT) or grow out their hair, or accept typical hairstyles for different races/ethnicities used to handle physical characteristics of their hair as non-faddish. And for shirts, that image generally is with tucked in shirts.

Tacans are supposed to be portable. And we have portable MLS systems as well, and that even got some play in Afghanistan. But to your point, it's all just tools in our toolkit. There's also work being done on other navigation methods as well, though it's probably several years before we start seeing those systems in practice, and much longer to integrate it into existing platforms (gps took forever to integrate...) https://www.darpa.mil/program/adaptable-navigation-systems

Might not even make major...

If you haven't been to UPT, it doesn't really matter-getting good flight time in anything will help. Good as in don't be lazy, plan your flights, stay on desired headings/courses/altitudes, don't accept long/floating landings: basically, learn something or improve something every flight. Going from a military aircraft back to vacuum powered 6 pack would be slightly tougher when you're used to much better avionics, but many people make the transition back and forth regularly. I'm just not a fan of vacuum instruments, especially for IFR

$500-550 was the FHP cost for the T-6 when I was working current ops in 2016. True cost per hour is probably higher like you mentioned. Sample size of one, but as a copilot I flew my butt off; came to the C-17 in the middle of a surge, then deployed 6 months after MQT. So 750 hours was reached in under a year, though lots of the time was on autopilot flying on a combat basic crew just trying to stay awake. Not a lot of home station time to fly a companion trainer if it was available though, that first year was a grind rolling from post mission CR straight into a shortened pre mission CR and another 2 week trip. I do know I became a better pilot going to instruct in the T-6. It also made me a better C-17 pilot (and IP) when I went back. Lots of hand flying in different situations and weather, and lots of reps instructing and explaining aviation concepts. So I see a benefit for ACs and IPs in heavy platforms as well to fly something smaller without an autopilot. I'd scope it further back-don't even need an aerobatic trainer. An off the shelf IFR Cessna 172 or 182 with G1000 would likely suffice. Aerobatic aircraft would mean you still need parachute riggers, though I guess that could be contracted out. The acquisition process is slow because of the budget process and POMing for money, and competition for money is fierce. It also tends to get bogged down with complying with requirements, which sometimes get over specified and don't leave enough trade space, or are aspirational (assuming new technology is mature enough for production and assuming risk). I guess the closest example for the acquisition of a COTS companion trainer would be the DA-20s for IFS. Though the AF would likely put in a stupid requirements like "it has to have a stick and throttle, and the throttle has to be on the left side" that potentially increases costs and schedule. Super decathlon is a nice plane, it's in my running for a plane in retirement if I can afford it.

So...Any bets on what the Space Force PT uniform will look like?

tl;dr: I think $135M lowballs the annual cost, likely significantly, if the program is going to have any real impact on aviation skills... Napkin math time: 2 CFIs @ 100k/yr 2 A&Ps @ 60k/yr Let's call it 20 bases get a (new) companion trainer, with 2x CFI and 2x maintainers. Figure salary is about half the cost of an employee (taxes, benefits), and 20% management overhead, and 10% company profit based on labor charges only (assume all flying is done at cost) Puts people cost at around $8-9M per year, leaving $126M to fly. T-6 was around $500/hr to fly, giving you 252k flight hours based on the remaining $126M. Air Force says it needs 21k pilots, but I'm going to wag pilot numbers at roughly 14k (1k/yr out of UPT, 100% retention for 10 years, then 40% for the next 10 years). Real number is somewhere between the two, but I'll use my lower number as a "best case" for hours per pilot. 252k flight hours for 14k pilots works out to 18 hours per year, or approximately 1.5 hours per month per pilot on average. In other words, one T-6 sortie a month. If you ignore personnel costs/management overhead/company profit, you get to a whopping 19.3 hours per pilot per year. This also ignores the cost for the company to procure the aircraft, so cost per hour will go up to capture that cost, and reduce flying hours. So the cost of a COGO ACE program would likely be much higher, unless you use much cheaper aircraft (i.e. lower performance). A Cessna 172 at $125/hr wet gets you to a 1.5 hour sortie a week on average for those 14k pilots. --- Your "PET" idea is interesting. My ATP was about $4K, seaplane add on was $2.5k, so I'll use $3k as a "typical" course cost. Training would probably be about a week, so wag it at about $2k in lodging/per diem, and $1.5k for plane tickets to get to training. That brings us to $6.5k/trip. Using my 14k pilot inventory from earlier, and going roughly every other year in your career, puts the cost at about $45.5M/yr, which might be more manageable or easier to find in the budget. Then again, would you rather get a 1 week trip to go fly on the AF's dime every other year, or get straight cash on an increased bonus (extra $13k/year on a five year bonus, which would equate to the cost of your 10 PETs over your career)? Coincidentally, that'd put the bonus at $35k+$13k=$48k/year, which is what RAND recommended the bonus be to significantly affect retention.

That only works in New Jersey...

I mean, that's the point of having sims... I'd think the t-6 would make for a decent companion trainer, primarily for building air sense and all around flying fundamentals, and for instrument training as well. Sure, maybe you can't do RNAV, but how you set up RNAV guidance, check/monitor RAIM, and execute/activate missed approaches is very platform centric. However, keeping the LDI centered on a traditional approach while dealing with actual weather and radios and hand flying teaches skills transferable to RNAV approaches and to any other aircraft. But what gets cut to pay for a companion trainer (and the corresponding logistic tail)? We're not getting more money any time soon.

Redirect fire...DoD implemented that policy, AF just executed the policy. Plus, several other flags are still authorized as well.

The Marine Corps has banned it from their installations, so there's already precedent for doing so. https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2020/06/06/marine-corps-bars-public-display-of-confederate-flag-on-installations/

Southern heritage/pride of what?... Could just as easily fly their state flag to show a heritage connection without the drama/baggage of flying a confederate flag used in open rebellion against the US

Older article, but paints the picture. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1010221 Probably not a wide spread problem, but it's there, and pressures to meet recruiting quotas don't help the situation.

Well I guess that's why I don't remember doing the color vision test last year. Thanks@stuckindayton for the clarification.

The individual doesn't have to submit anything (I mean, by the letter of the AFI, you don't have to submit anything to you rater for PRF or OPR). Typically, once you've been passed over twice, you're no longer considered really promotable, so no one is going to spend time writing and coording on a PRF that "doesn't matter." So it used to just be a blank PRF with a "promote" to save wing/group/sq exec time. Though recently (I want to say starting on the 2017 boards), guidance changed to where being APZ was supposed to be ignored for promotion consideration. But again, it's up to the senior rater on what they want to submit (not the individual going to the board)

Near vision chart, distance vision chart, the depth perception chart (5 rings, which one pops out?), the one where you have to tell what kind the dotted line goes through, and color vision. Not the full set of stuff from FC1, but several tests. If you wear contacts, you also have to bring your glasses for some of the tests. ETA: I don't think color vision is every year, but not 100% sure

It's in the promotion board eligibility criteria on myPers (not in the AFI) set for each board on who's being considered for that board. Usually there are stipulations if you have a retirement/separation date set (usually at the time of the accountability date), and where that cut off is on if you'll be considered or not (basically, save the board some time if you've been approved to get out anyways). A PRF gets submitted even after you've been passed over twice if you're otherwise eligible for the board, though normally it's just blank (i.e. senior rater is likely going to spend approximately zero time on it). Maybe that'll change with the bigger promotion window.