pawnman

I've been told, and my impression is that it is true, that the front page is your ticket. If you don't have SOS, AAD, etc checked, you don't have a ticket. The board won't even bother to look at the OPRs and the citations if you don't meet the minimum requirements. It sucks. The boss who described AAD and PME as a ticket acknowledged it sucks. But you either have the choice to play by the rules as they're set down, and hope to change them as you get higher in the system, or you can just go ahead and cash out now.

So WWII wasn't worthwhile, then?

In general, the SQ/CC and DO, plus a pilot/WSO team who run the weapons and tactics shop. Often, the outgoing pilot/WSO team will hang out for a while waiting on their next assignment/school, and act as ADOs for the weapons and tactics shop. At one point, we had five patches plus the CC and DO.

Yep. We didn't make them ACs coming out of IQC or MQT, kept them on about the same timeline, then told them they were too old to go to WIC so we were sending them ALO or back to white jets so we could keep the young copilots and upgrade those guys instead.

Sadly, we're now mostly using the FAIPs to fill the ALFA slots, because they're "too old to go to weapon school". I hate AFPC so very much.

I wasn't on board with the idea of a draft either...but part of what doing a draft does is forces people from a large cross-section into the military. Even if the rich and influential people manage to keep their kids out, you now have voters across a large spectrum who are in the military or have kids in the military. Because we've shown the American people we'll do any job, no matter the cost or lack of resources, and because so few Americans have contact with the military, we are now the answer to every problem. Libya? Send the military. Afghanistan? Send the military. Iran? Military will take care of it. The American people are far too willing to commit to military action because, on the whole, it costs them nothing. Their kids aren't in. It's all financed with deficit spending, so their taxes aren't going up. There are no food or steel or rubber shortages. It makes the American people apathetic when our political leadership wants to use the military for every minor problem around the world. Part of what convinced our government to end Vietnam was the fact that draftees came from a wide-range of backgrounds, creating a wide-spread opposition to sending our military to die in a rice field thousands of miles away for nebulous objectives. Now, most Americans couldn't find Iraq and Afghanistan on a map, and most think we're done deploying.

Looks like most of the money gets poured into NAF funds...if only more people would join the club, they wouldn't be forced to generate additional sales by making people wear ABUs.

If I don't have TCAS, what do equipment do I turn off? Every damn time. And then we get to tell our story when a HATR is filed, even though no one is forced to deviate from an IFR flight plan or ATC instructions.

From the article: I think he may be about to face the disciplinary action of being completely ostracized by his peers.

Where does AAFES money go? The cynical part of me thinks this is a ploy to generate more sales at the local BX.

We're still in flight suits five days a week, and no talk of going to ABUs.

That's because we hate when the tanker drags us out of the track, out of the country, or through an active ROZ. Agreed with that one. The one that sticks in my mind is when we followed a C-17 down the boulevard. Visual and radar contact the whole time. Told them we were visual and radar contact the whole time. They made the turn off the boulevard, which led to increased closure, which generated an RA...even though we were going to follow them through the turn.

We don't have TCAS. I do have plenty of stories about guys reacting to us based on TCAS indications, after we tell them we are visual and explicitly state our intentions, though...

An interesting article by a retired general about the large disconnect between Americans at large and the military. Some of his ideas make sense to me, others do not. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/opinion/americans-and-their-military-drifting-apart.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Yeah, because talking on the radio is completely unrelated to...talking on the radio. Great analogy. Way to go.

If you can't get the radio comms right in the easy, non-stressful times, what are the odds that you'll get it right when it really matters?

If you can't do something smart or effective, do something visible.

What's the over-under on the base commander being fired for allowing this to happen?

We cancelled our last phase 1, given the deployment cycle we have...but now we're spinning up for a combined phase 0 (AKA, UCI), phase 1, and phase 2 for next year.

This might be a dumb question...but if the MAF is so over-manned that they can fill not only their own billets, but CAF billets, and the CAF is so undermanned they can't fill all their own billets and the cockpits...why are we continuing to turn out so many MAF pilots from UPT and so few CAF pilots? Where's the disconnect between the pipeline and the manning?

I don't think either party has a monopoly on dumb politicians. Our biggest problem is that we keep re-electing the same politicians, even when the overall approval rating is in the single digits.

I wouldn't get another MBA. I went the MBA route because my undergrad was business, and the MBA covered a LOT of the same ground, which made it easier. I'm pretty sure having an MBA wouldn't stop me from getting a Master's in some other subject, were I so inclined.

I'm pretty confident they will tell me to do the most painful one possible. I'm not asking if I CAN sign up for it...I'm asking if there's any additional value added for a guy who already has a Master's, or is this only for dudes who do not have a Master's degree prior to meeting their major/school boards?

I was asking about this one: I have a Master's, but no IDE.

I'm already complete with the Master's...is the OLMP worthwhile, or is it just another way to check the box if you've waited until the 6-year point? I should meet my major's board next year, just curious if there's any value added in the Joint Warfare OLMP versus normal ACSC in correspondence.