contraildash

I've seen 10% +/- a few points depending on the class but seems to be trending higher. OP, I've been part of about a dozen commander reviews now (the process for removing someone from UPT). Attitude is probably the biggest discriminator for what your follow-on will be. If you gave it your all, with a good attitude, but just didn't have the hands....you tend to get helped out. Huge douch-nozzle blaming everyone else? Not so much.

I agree with Boomer here, our unconventional fight isn't on the high seas with big planes... I do think a small, specialized seaplane would be good for a lot of SOF related actives as well as CSAR. The USAF used HU-16s to support lots of clandestine operations worldwide till they reached their service life. USCG was still flying them when I was a kid. A C-130 on floats is the wrong answer and money is the least of the problems. I was at AFSOC HQ when this idea was in full force. The meetings were a riot, essentially the problem set was "the pacific has a lot of water" without much other discussion. Words were thrown around that had zero substance but sounded good: "sustain the fight" "ACE" "give China dilemmas." Obviously the corporate knowledge on seaplane operations has long left the building. Most nations divested of seaplanes for a multitude of reasons. The few that remain are typically small (exceptions are the C-415 and US-2) specialized aircraft (SAR & firefighting) and have multitude of operating restrictions. 1. Sea state. Blue water ops are hard and often out of limits. Japan FAFO'd with this a few years back and lost a US-2. 2. Surf break. How are you getting to shore? How are you getting back out to open water to launch? 3. Reefs. I'm sure the draft on a 130K float plane is decent enough, tides are both your friend and foe here. 4. Cargo. How are you delivering it? Sand is soft, beaches have waves, the list goes on. You aren't just driving up to the beach willy-nilly and backing in to drop shit off. What is the expectation of realistically sustaining forces here? Do we have floating K-loaders? The floating dock in Gaza didn't do so great... 5. Basing. Where are the seaplanes operating from? We had a fleet of seaplane tenders for a reason AND we had seaplane bases all over in various harbors. These planes need sustainment just like any other plane, even more so with salt water issues. I could keep going but you see the point. When people brought these issues up, the C-130 mafia scoffed dismissively....because C-130 on floats! So again, something small for SOF/SAR type things I think would be a good asset. Otherwise, let's focus on shutting the power off for a bit...

Who let the retired Army guy write something about the air force? lol For such an experienced and supposedly smart guy, that article is crap. Wants to consolidate different areas of effort, but only from the air force and no other services. Maybe he should just write about how much the Army continues to waste in cancelled programs. Maybe we should take the DFAC away from the Army and consolidate into a singular ‘Food command’ or better yet privatize it. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/06/25/upcharging-food-selling-booze-armys-plan-privatize-dining.html?amp Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Maybe I have missed it both here and in the various HQ talks... Does anyone know what the plan is for people coming to UPT who have all their ratings?

I joined because I wanted to fly in the military, grew up around it, it was all I knew. My route to doing so was certainly a challenge, but I made it in. I've been very lucky to have flown several different aircraft types and flown at every single assignment. When my commitment was up, I was in a good place, doing awesome shit, with legit people. The plan was to keep doing that however someone else's temper-tantrum led to my trajectory drastically changing and sending me to to a flying staff job. Towards the end of that I artfully dodged a huge non-flying staff gig to end my 20 years. I'm wrapping up back were I started, flying 5 days a week, it's great. But I am old, my back hurts, and thus I am ready to move on to the next phase and spend more time with the family. Zero regrets.

Well if we get 1500 pilots a year we’ll have lots of bodies and no iron… /sarcasm Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Recent visit feedback: Leard can’t read a room, was tone def, and avoided answering most questions. My professional concerns: 1. We don’t have enough applicants for UPT. Forcing more USAFA/ROTC grads to UPT will just result in more DORs. Problem not solved. 2. USAF doesn’t recognize FAA ratings and doesn’t seem to plan to do so. So to drop critical things like instrument training/checks is a massive failure on leadership. It is a wild abdication of our training and qualification that is unacceptable. 3. MAJCOMs don’t have the ability to absorb more inexperienced pilots. FTUs are backed up. Training is being pushed to ops units with wild experience-inexperience ratios. 4. IPT is not faster, cheaper, or better. Nor will it produce the 1500 pilots/year that they think. But as already stated on here, they don’t want to hear that. There is no backup plan for when this doesn’t work. 5. I expect higher attrition rates. Is AETC going to lower CTS when IPT isn’t producing the magical number of pilots? When everything else changes, that is all that is left. Unacceptable. Finally, and we are already seeing this, Q3s and accident rates are already climbing (this is before IPT even started). We are not flying enough nor experiencing pilots at a sustainable rate. SIMs are not a 1:1 equivalent. People need to fly. Throwing more inexperienced pilots at the problem isn’t going to help. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Shit talking in non-contact sports is funny to me. Especially when hitting a baseball is already incredibly hard, more than two-thirds of the time people don’t get a hit? Yeah let’s talk some shit. ‘Unwritten rules of baseball exist to protect the fragile egos of pitchers.’ -Jomboy That said, I’m always down to watch America’s pastime, slam some beers and $ hot dogs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro Update. F-this POS mobile tapatalk app. Apparently it’s back to spamming emoji shit anytime I type a number

So much for that. I’ll try from my computer later. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/eed.jpg This will probably be all jacked up, but here is the entire memo plus pre-made Q&A. No one is being involuntarily forced to stay….but we aren’t cutting orders and you may be delayed. LoL Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro this worthless POS app ADMIN NOTE: Sorry, tried to clean up your post but somehow that destroyed the URL you were posting!

None of those investments are due to the tariffs. Based on the articles you’ve linked, all three of those were generally planned expansion and upgrades to existing facilities based on strong economic growth through January. Not brining work/jobs/ect from overseas locations because of the current tariff discussion. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

The message where SECDEF is posting times/assets/ect is cut off. Note the squared bottom of the text block and lack of a time stamp. There was more to that message that was not posted in the link above. Just pointing that out. Update: saw on another platform, the cut off part says: LoL

AETC: focus on GPS things, prepare for advanced avionics. Also AETC: we are decertifying your GPS. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I am thoroughly confused as to what ‘problem’ 19th thinks it is solving with Future UPT (it’s all FUPT up…). They are sending students TDY to these locations, and they are paying the schools. That isn’t cheap. It will take longer to get through the entirety of the program from start to earning wings. I suspect that 19th will only count the T-6 to wings portion and declare ‘look we produce pilots so much faster!’ I highly doubt the product will be better by any means. I’d rather train up someone zero to hero entirely within the UPT structure….it has worked well for decades. So we are getting a worse product, that takes longer and is more expensive. Sounds smart. Once 19th started tinkering around with UPT, it induced all the issues. They haven’t let a year go by with any of the syllabi recently before introducing a different one. It has just been constant flail in a never ending state of change. If we want to incorporate civil training, I’d say do it after T-6s. Send the T-38 studs off to do their thing. Send the rest to (insert sim company) and get a king air rating or something similar. I’ve been through both Flightsafety and CAE simulator training for military aircraft, it was outstanding training and would be a good top-off for studs heading to heavies. ….or just buy some T-54s…. /semiannual rant off Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Not really. The medical O2 tanks tend to be smaller than you think. The photos of the tanks found at the crash site show them to be small at best. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro