polcat

Yeah, but the AF can do a lot more with those majors and Lt Cols and there has been a considerable investment in the higher ranks than a Lt. The whole capt board is a joke. Believe it or not, each Lt has to be ranked by their senior rater when allotting DPs and Ps. The discriminators reside in the few TRs these LTs received from training. And you know what? Someone has to be number 1 out of whatever and someone has to be last. Crazy.

While I was waiting to complete a PDHA at our local med group (a story in itself), I passed the time reading an old AFRC magazine (no other mags around) and to my disbelief, I found this article. Here is an excerpt below: "Leadership examined the needs of the wing, called Air Force Personnel Center to ask a few questions and then established a benchmark that allowed a select group of 911th ARS captains to serve as executive officers at the wing and group levels...Because of the limited leadership positions within the 911th, it is more difficult for them to compete well with their active-duty peers at the 6th Air Mobility Wing. This opportunity is impressive. You should want to come here. " Basically, a "select" group of KC-135 pilots can work with the reserves at Seymour Johnson and fill executive officer jobs to further their careers. The kicker is AFRC is touting this as a good deal. As an exec, and one that can't wait to get out of the job, I see this as a means of catering to the careerists while alleviating the need to fill positions within the 916th. Am I off kilter here or am I just jaded? What do y'all think?

SocialD, there are just too many WTFs! F'n hilarious.

Makes me want to throw up. Just UFB! And no wonder why the US has so many problems.

LoadClear, Thanks for letting us know. Once we received the names, we figured it was the loads that were hospitalized. We pray that they continue to get better. God Bless gentlemen.

Really?! Empathy belly? http://www.stripes.com/news/army/soldiers-don-fake-belly-breasts-to-better-understand-pregnant-troops-exercise-concerns-1.168786 Best quote from another site about this: "Wow! It appears as though all of the branches have gone full retard lately. I think it's time to pull chocks ASAFP! I have an idea, I think women should have to don a strap-on to their waists to "better understand" what it's like to run with a penis. Ridiculous!"

The AMP'd Hs at LRF are on lockdown. Nobody is allowed to touch them.

Ours was Thursday. Yes, we got to go home and be "resilient" with our families after lunch. However, I lost all resiliency as I had to go in Saturday and administer 5 checkrides in the sim (I felt bad for the students). Oh, and then I spent Sunday working on another paper for my master's. Weekend gone. Resiliency my ass.

Is driving to LRF not an option? Life would suck here if you didn't have a car.

Tell her its the Air Force and moving is a part of life. Besides, LR isn't that bad and she might actually have a good time. We are you guys coming from? If she stays, you both will have to pay for two places. If you're going through the initial qual full tac course, you'll be here for 6 months.

Yes, there are now quite a few AFRC guys here now. A lot are ex-62d guys that got out of AD and are now doing the same job, but with AFRC patches. Are they close to taking over, nope. They have a long way to go before they can take over the legacy FTU. Word on the street is 2014.

As long as you were an AC in another airframe, you'll crossflow into the J in the left seat. I assume you're already a herk pilot. Get ready to drink from the fire hose. The short course is really short with plenty of CBTs that you ACTUALLY need to complete.

So true. Thank God I'm no longer an exec. I hated this crap. By the way, the number of awards out there numbs the mind. There is an award out there for everyone, as long as you're not male, caucasian, rated, and an officer. Being a small flying unit, we would just send back negative replies to the group since most of this stuff wasn't applicable. About secretaries. We have one (retired MSgt) as well as a director of staff (a la head of the execs). The secretary would still do a lot of the paperwork functions and answer phone calls, but wouldn't touch any of the taskers or awards. At least he'd review EPRs and OPRs for us and would catch the miniscule errors that the group or wing would send back.

There is no doubt the waste of talent that is an exec. There are much more important things that person can be doing. We had 4 rotating execs in our squadron, with me as the only pilot in the command section. Even when it was my week to sit the desk, I'd still fly at least one day because we are so undermanned in the pilot section (~47%). By having more than one exec, the pain gets spread around and one person doesn't get stuck with all the bs in that job. Unfortunately, now that I've moved to another job and one of the other execs is at the WIC, we are down to two. And guess what, one them is getting ready for a deployment. I hope they can find someone else to help out. Oh, and this is a job we are all supposed to want as its good for our careers - what a joke.

Well, there have been a lot of blackbirds migrating through the area lately.

Best news in awhile. TIB at Little Rock has been cancelled! What an early Christmas gift this is!

I'm going to throw this out there for those of you who really want to stay downtown or somewhere else. Staying on base at LRF isn't all that bad, especially when you have to wake up at unearthly hours to make a sim or day flight at the FTU. I ended up staying on base for the last 2 weeks of IP school and it was a pleasure that I had a 3 minute drive to work. You have a really short drive (aka you avoid the atrocity that is 67/167 as well as the ridiculously long lines at the gate) and someone cleans your room everyday. Oh, and navs show earlier than pilots in the FTU.

Well, this is all news to me. I guess its not important to tell the guys at the FTU about this change. I wonder if they will send initial qual copilots for everything but formation (Phase 2 student) or send them to Phase 3 (everything) so they at least get an intro to formation. I really don't see this working well, especially at KLRF due to the fact that TOT blocks are limited enough. If anything, it would cause more of a headache. It's not just military at the DZ anymore, there's some civilians out there now. They're still not as good as Glacier. The things that I've seen/heard going into the drop, ugh.

I did what Hacker suggested and it worked very well. Because I have a high efficient top load washer (without agitator), I decided that washing it in the washer would probably not work as well and may in fact damage the jacket. First round, soaked/washed it for a little bit in the bathtub with cold water. Once it was dry, I used a less-than-stellar leather prodcut (aka kiwi). Don't waste your time with cheap leather care products and go with what Hacker suggested. Well after this treatment, my leather jacker had the touch of plastic. So much so that my helmet bags would slip off during the walk out to the plane. Round two. Therefore, I soaked the jacket yet again, this time for an hour, pulled it out and drained the water, rinsed it and then soaked it for another hour with a rinse afterwards. I let it dry for a little bit and then wore it for about an hour afterwhich I let it dry. I couldn't find Lexol around here, so I just ordered it online through amazon. Tonight, I used the Lexol and even massaged the leather and voila, the nicest leather jacket that the USAF will ever issue me. It's no where near the quality of Pops or Mr Lims, but it is much better. I highly recommend this method.

Hacker, That's some pretty interesting info on the A-2 leather jacket. Although I believe you in regards to washing a leather jacket, it still sounds wrong to wash a leather jacket in a washing machine. I would love to get that plasticky feel off of my A-2 and might try this. If anyone else has done this, please post your thoughts.

I have a buddy that did that gig. Didn't enjoy it too much and ended up getting extended from 6 to 8 months. At least you get a type rating.

Rant ladies and gentlemen. Finally, I was able to get some new flightsuits (our squadron got some money) because my old bags are falling apart (I've had to sew seems back together). Well, there must be some variations or just horrible quality control as I can only fit one pen/pencil in the pencil pocket. The other slot is sewn too close together to fit anything bigger than a toothpick (slight exaggeration). Also, it seems that the nametag velcro is placed higher (1" higher than old flightsuits) and closer to the zipper. Anyone else have similar experiences with new flightsuits or any uniforms?

It'll only be H2s, no Js. The 48th will deactivate and become the new 62nd AS once the 62nd closes its doors on legacy training. We've got a couple more years before that happens.

And you think it's going to get easier as your career progresses? Sounds like your making excuses and need to learn how to balance your responsibilities. There is no reason why anyone should be worried about checkrides unless you know that your GK and flying skills sucks. It doesn't take that long to check vMPF anyway. Besides, if you don't have your s%*t stacked tight, you won't have a career. It's the way the AF is and I wouldn't expect it to change.

Simply amazing!