tac airlifter

Can anyone recommend a program near Norfolk, Va? I'll be starting from scratch.

You're certainly entiltiled to your opinion, but all my experience says otherwise. Most of the BS ROE you lament originates from the military itself. Rules on top of rules to make extra special certain we get no where near any red lines. And there will never be war without "Political games." Never. War is a political action, and even the super rare total war scenarios like WW2 were suffocatingly political. Good senior leaders need to find a way to adapt and overcome political obstacles as we do in tactical scenarios; that's the GO fight and they mostly suck at it. Might be they have to take a stand and get fired if the true obstacle really is a politician. How often does that happen, versus how often a line guy makes the ultimate sacrifice? There are definitely some military leaders who are tearing shit up and held back from above. LTG Thomas said in an interview recently that he is told no 9 out of 10 times. He also admits we are losing badly across the board. He is a leader and not a manager, one of few. Leadership like him is the only reason I've stayed in the AF. We have one like him who posts here sometimes. Most of our management has a graduate degree in risk aversion. They got their rank by being the guy who never took a chance and always found a reason to say no, thus avoiding any incidents on their watch while simultaneously leveraging career ending paperwork on the few who take a chance that doesn't work out. I was drowning in those types when I was in AMC, and they absolutely got people killed.... More on that if you care. They are the reason we have failed to follow up any gains and consequently stay mired in indecisiveness. Ive seen the same thing in AFSOC, though to a lesser degree. But we are losing. It's someone's fault, and that someone is not the folks on the line doing the fighting. It's the people "highly respected at the pentagon" because that respect is gained making life easy on bureaucrats.

Cooter, I don't know anything about Miami, other than the city is awesome but you'll need to stay strapped near Homestead. Why don't you reach out to Fozzy Bear? He left U-28s for some kind of cush contract tanker pilot gig in Miami, and has been there over a year. I can link you on FB if you don't know him personally. ill be jealous and lonely in Norfolk!

Chang, thank you for coming back. I haven't yet agreed with any of your posts but representing the official big blue opinion is appreciated. I mean that. But for what it's worth, "respected at the pentagon" doesn't have any credibility with me or the other rank and file. The established leadership cadre, our most professional and highly educated in history, has been losing wars the past 15 years. Win something and their professional accolades might matter. Till then they are just a bunch of losers trying the same thing over and over wondering why it won't work while our enemies gain ground. McDew recently came to ACSC. Privately he said he does not think he will be CSAF next because the person who will be nominated already knows. Whatever that cryptic statement means..... i will say he gave about the most professional and articulate statements I've heard from any senior officer. Not that he was amazing, most of them just aren't impressive.

Anyone know when a decision will be announced?

AETC student MLR was given 48% I/APZ DP allocation. If AMC got over 50%, good for them. Seems like about 50 is the going rate in AETC and AFSOC.

Concur with muscle above, do it if you value that experience. I wouldn't, because it's not something that interests me. But if it seems cool to you, go for it. Sounds like 18 months and 2 PCS, consider second order effects on your personal life. Also you should ascertain if there is a required follow on or any type of payback. Once you gather the info, decide according to your tastes. Good luck! Having a choice is a blessing.

We are the ones choosing to use 138$ mil jet to do what simpler & cheaper platforms can do. And we're hitting them in small numbers because we chose not to strike when they were in massive convoys in open territory. So I copy that frustration, but that isn't an "unwinnable war," that is us making stupid decisions about how to wage war. I don't disagree, but it's presumptuous to assume the policy end is unattainable before we even give it our best shot. And giving it our best shot means, partly, keeping our best talent in the fight. Do you think that experienced school grad will influence national security strategy from a position on a staff? We're already sending credible guys to staff but our approach to VEOs hasn't been changing. I get where each of you are coming from, but we're all products of our experiences to some extent. And my experience is constantly working for commanders downrange who are unwilling to change their approach but repeatedly disappointed in the outcomes. This isn't an "I'm right & you're wrong" discussion and I appreciate your views. Big picture all I'm saying is: after 14 years of failing to produce desired results from combat, and doing so with the most educated force in history, we might entertain the potential that something about our officer production formula is wrong since we seem to be producing people who do the same things. And those things aren't working. And if those things can't work.... Why aren't we producing people who have the balls to say that at expense to their career? Also I don't want to go to staff!

What do you mean by "unwinnable?" and we certainly aren't doing our best. How could you even say that? Are we hitting every target we could? Are we streamlining the laborious target approval process? Are we capitalizing on every TST? Regardless of the viability of our strategic objectives, we simply aren't doing our best to accomplish them. If we were doing our best we wouldn't be forcing experienced line operators into school and staff while leaving the units executing missions short handed.

So far, no one at ACSC can explain to me exactly what I'm supposed to get out of it beyond a general sense that eduction helps build problem solvers. We have the most educated force in history and we're losing wars, so I'm not sure education = problem solving. I won't thread derail anymore than simply saying that ACSC is not worth a year of my time off the line while ops units are short on experienced pilots and the nation is losing wars.

Russia is NOT a de facto supporter of IS. This situation is more complicated than a binary paradigm can explain. I think this was a foolish move by Turkey. Just because you have the right doesn't mean you necessarily should. Besides we knowingly violate airspace too, if this is the new standard we'll eventually be on the receiving end.

We're all different with different motivations. I'd absolutely rather be an RPA guy doing something relevant to the war than any number of flying assignments which aren't helping the fight.

When will all this equality result in the same PFT standards?

that's a significant observation. We think somehow our modern era has intellectually matured beyond mankinds gory history. Not so, and our naïveté cannot be fixed unless first acknowledged.

maybe valid, I'm uncertain; we've yet to see our cyber dudes flex their might like the world saw the USAAF flex (CBO, nukes, etc.). Cyber & space guys keep telling me they have amazing capes justifying an independant service if only I were read in. Maybe. I've just had my fill of overt posturing while hiding failures behind layers of over classification; that's an old trick. An entirely separate issue is the practicality of attempting to create a new service from something not specific to military services. Meaning: if cyber/space branches off should they morph into a 5th service or new 3 letter agency? i don't know what structure would fit best, but it might not be military. Regardless, they'll be unable to integrate fully or be taken seriously while simultaneously insisting on total information control. Other tribes have secret capabilities too, but through years of combat discovered we'd be more effective with smartly placed fully read in liaisons sprinkled throughout the interagency. The JIATF construct has flaws but most times gets the right people cleared to know the right things. Cyber/space seems totally unable to overcome their classification barriers.

Add this to the list of rules I'll never read or follow.

Anybody own a scorpion EVO? Prices are reasonable & it looks like a fun range/ HD gun.

Anyone at ACSC now?

Stranahans Diamond Peak. Worth 65$, go buy it! Also I've officially found the best IPA around- Ballast Point grapefruit sculpin. You're welcome!

Just got the M6IC. I like the IC lower.

Not a reply specifically addressed to you..... But this cultural paradigm shift at AUAB needs to be documented in AF history. For years our Air Force was infected with the wrong idea that overlooking a rule, no matter how small, meant you would also overlook bigger rules and could therefore not be trusted to execute the mission. Simultaneously, leaders assessed (based on feedback from senior Es correcting these infractions) they were cursed with an especially undisciplined group and consequently needed to create more and more complex rules to exert more and more control; these combined factors created the bizarre situation which originally birthed this thread. People joining now can't even believe the level of stupid that existed in 2006, when guys flying combat missions to exhaustion would run off the plane with 10 minutes on an ERO and be told they were too sweaty to be allowed in the shitter, or they weren't allowed in the DFAC to get a bottle of cold water because they forgot their ID in Balad, or you'd walk 2 miles to chow only to be turned around because you forgot your disco belt. In the daytime. And now those extremes have burned themselves out at almost all locations; but it's important to kill the original philosophy which led to AUABs insanity by highlighting that without those rules and psycho enforcement WE ARE JUST AS EFFECTIVE AT THE MISSION. We shouldn't forget how wrong the whole system was about one of the most important aspects of leading people: understanding their nature and how to manage them. Also important to note how long it took the system to start fixing itself from even the most egregious and obvious foolishness. Those of us who experienced that time should take a moment to put a nail in the coffin of wrong philosophy every chance we get.

I can't speak to UPT, but for cross flow within AFSOC to RPAs half the guys we send must consistently strat in the top 20% at a minimum.

I just bought a LWRC IC PSD, the lower is engraved "pistol" so my FFL seems to think that will preclude me from converting it to an SBR. I'm new to the NFA game and just want to make sure I do it correctly. Any ideas?

Anyone have a pistol AR?

I'll rephrase: if the dude wants to fly low levels, he can do it in a training environment. If he wants to shoot terrorists, that's only happening deployed. So decide what you want and choose accordingly was my advice. You disagree with that logic?