Majestik Møøse

Good news, the U-2 has been solving its own problems at the Squadron level for some time. We just hired a P-3 guy, in fact. http://www.beale.af.mil/Library/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/279960/u-2-pilot-application/

They sent the guy who has the same decision making power as our CSAF. Both left the meeting with takeaways for their bosses.

What he’s saying is that the female nav who was “responsible” for signing off on the nukes is a fast burner while her former squadron and group commmanders were fired on the spot. None of the hate and scapegoating that rained down from on high hit her, even though she was the one and only person in the OG who looked in the little “nukes=yes” window and concluded, “yep, everything looks kosher, lets fucking roll out.” Or at least that’s what I heard, but I’m not a BUFF guy.

Oh, ok then. “2.0 MWS IP”. I got the significant digits wrong, thanks.

Gen Goldfien, You’re doing a great job. You understand what’s important and have the most combat street cred of any CSAF in the last 20 years. That said, if you let combat capability worth $Billions walk out the door to save $300m annually in bonus money, you’ll destroy our Air Force. None of these slides talk about the cost of a $100k bonus (a pittance) vs the exponentially increased costs of continual experienced pilot backfill production. The bottom line - if you don’t pay us more, you will continue to spend $Billions to solve the airlines’ pilot production problems. You’re making them money. Most of us see staying in the Air Force as the equivalent of paying $Millions in opportunity costs to continue serving. It’s hard to look at the wife and kids and tell them that we’re forgoing all that money and QOL to keep going on adventures. Army vets in Congress pushing back? Joint Staff complaining? They don’t understand the problem. Tell it like it is. Sincerely, A 2x MWS IP

A WIC-level discussion on the HDG bug, awesome. Oh well, here goes. When I was flying the KC-10 I felt like I was the only guy who wasn’t trying to constantly center the heading bug. On oceanic crossings, fucking with the heading knob had the very real possibility of inadvertently entering Hdg Hold or Hdg Sel, both of which will easily cause a GNE over a 600 nm leg. I know a guy that did just that and got schwacked. Watched a copilot do the same thing. To turn it faster than “click click click”, you have to push it in a little. A little farther than that is GNE mode. Sweet. I say if your OCD says you must bug some heading, choose the most appropriate divert field. Gives you the ability to instantly be headed in the right direction while forcing you to keep tabs on your divert options.

Lots of money, and rank based on qualifications? Lt=wingman or copilot, Capt=flight lead or AC, Major=instructor. Lt Cols are the bosses, everyone gets pay raises based on TIG. Sounds good to me. DOPMA may get in the way.

What's a "flying-only" dude? Show at brief time, fly a CT line and go home? Is he also able to solve tactical problems? Does he have to fill out gradesheets or Form 8s?

Don't send garbage. Dime store off-brand toothpaste, 1990s romance novels and the like. If you wouldn't use it yourself, don't bother. Suggestions: Good toilet paper David sunflower seeds Jerky Sage cotton socks Decks of cards Mouth/hair/body wash Loofas AA/AAA Batteries Hot sauce (no Tabasco) Packs of gum Basically all the shit you have to buy in the BX. Come to think of it, they're probably already intercepting this stuff en route, which is why we never see this stuff.

Draftees making your food, knowing your SSN, guarding your base, fixing your jet. No thanks, I want the guys doing those things to be happy.

Mandatory service works in Israel and Finland, but we're different. It's a leftover requirement for them because they needed it for survival in the 20th Century. It'd be really hard for them to institute it now. The vast majority of a population would have see a dire need for mandatory service for it to become law, so effectively it wouldn't be any different from volunteering anyway.

Holy balls what a mess. Step 1.) Delete slides. Step 2.) $100k pilot bonus. Step 3.) Don't change anything else. Step 4.) Measure results and adjust. Be amazed at the scientific method.

My favorite conspiracy theory (copyright: me): This why the Air Force's senior enlisted leaders are pushing for enlisted pilots. So a goddamn finance command chief can finally feel like they control Ops guys.

The following valid reasons have already been stated: 1. We can always get thousands of college grads so sign up to be officers and pilots. We can't retain the experienced ones because we don't pay them enough / they're assigned too much queep. 2. We love it when enlisted guys are motivated enough to become pilots. We've been rewarding hundreds per year with pilot slots and commissions for the past 50 years. This new enlisted pilot program shows neither an appreciation to enlisted guys (because we're not paying them) nor an understanding of #1. 3. There is a lot more required of being a pilot (ref my previous post) than a good ASVAB score, especially since that test is focused on nuts and bolts. High school doesn't measure anything but GPA. We don't pick officers based solely on GPA, or for anything other single measure. Some other country does it differently? IDGAF. European and Israeli "high school" grads are different than ours. They also go to a multi-year academy-like officer training school. The Dutch one is 1.5 years, IDK about the others.

My ops group has stiff-armed the majority of bullshit additional duties out there. The officers are all concentrated on primarily mission-related duties as well as flying. There is so much (worthwhile) work to be done to improve our platform and way of doing business. We couldn't afford to have a "flying-only" guy that doesn't help out with that. Pilots don't just pilot. Flying a plane is hard, but regular Joes can be taught. Learning all the technical shit is doable. Handling EPs is tougher. Formation is tougher. Doing all that in a jet is tougher. Doing that in the middle of the Pacific is tougher. Being responsible for multiple aircraft doing so is tougher. Add in weather. Add in GBAD and air threats and their intent to employ against you. Oh yeah, employment, that's why we're here. What, where, why, when and how will we use the thing? Meld that with everybody else's plan in real time. Who figures all that out and takes the responsibility for doing so? Who figures out how we're going to do that tomorrow and in ten years? The pilots (and navs). It sure isn't some mystical puppet master, and if it is, he's a pilot. So yeah, I want somebody with the ability to graduate fucking college first.

Unfounded theory with no actual evidence: The efforts to turn enlisted dudes into pilots is a power grab by Chiefs. They will finally have control over actual Air Force operations by controlling the careers of the operators. They want the AF to look like the Army - crusty Senior NCOs calling the shots while mentoring/scoffing at inexperienced officer leadership. How I know this: the proposed solutions aren't effects-based, they're based on enlisted guys wanting to sit at the cool kids table. Enlisted pilots solve nothing. They won't hang around longer than better-paid officer pilots. They don't solve Delta's production problem (airlines want 4-year college grads anyway). Most importantly, they don't provide the decentralized decison-making ability/authority that we need in complex NKE-thrashed environments.

The truth is somewhere in the middle. Some of those MC-12/HVAA/AMC guys would've been fine in a fighter; they weren't all bottom of the barrel, only 1-3 were getting fighters in some of those classes. However, figuring out now who would be ok now is tough. The AF already messed up its natural UPT sorting process 6-9 years ago when they knee jerk shut off all those fighter drops. Everyone saw this happening from the start, except the fools that made the decisions.

Well I suppose the U-2 is ok, as long as it is "allowed" to transit through it. Still don't understand why the military has to beg for waivers from the FAA nerdery.

Why are we worrying about ADS-B out on mil jets? Why do we spend one cent on NextGen/GATM/CNS-ATM/1801/EABOD compliance versus spending miney on mission equipment? Because we will "not be legal" in whatever host nation were pandering to?

Attention any lurking senior leaders: get your shit together, go to congress, and stand on their desks until they give you $600m annually for aircrew bonuses. That's $100k more for 6k dudes. All of the harebrained ideas above will cost you way more than that; $600m is only enough to get 600 unqualified wingmen/copilots vs getting thousands of experienced guys to stay. Dont make this hard.

How do you keep it charged? Power from the jet?

What's the worst they could do? Fire you and make you work at FedEx? Seriously, use solid judgement to choose the easiest solution to meet mission needs and tell the haters to fuck off.

We must keep the -217! Otherwise, what will AFFSA do? Other than provide "PhD-level" AIS grads. They no-shit said that. For a fucking 2-week course. http://www.tinker.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/388296/affsa-new-command-at-tinker-new-commander/

Preferred COA: use bro-level individually issued iPads and leave all the min-req'd paper in the jets. Make students/Lts update paper.

Are you suggesting that one of the Air Force's measures of effectiveness should be its ability to successfully retire the U-2?