Danger41

I remember back when the Bin Laden raid happened and a bunch of people were mad about Obama taking a lot of credit (even though he was pretty deferential and gave credit to lots of folks). In that case, that was 100% his decision and very easily could’ve tanked his presidency like Eagle Claw. I didn’t vote for Obama but he deserved tons of credit for ordering that. In your scenario, people would be claiming we shouldn’t have left, he abandoned an ally/girls in school, China was going to move in, he didn’t have the spine for a tough war, doesn’t understand international affairs, etc. Comes with the territory.

I’ve worked quite a bit with AI and proposed solutions on this very topic. I think copilots jobs are safe for a long, long time if the current state is any indication of where the technology is.

All good ideas that I'd like to see implemented. I'll pull on the acquisition and test process thing a bit to get your take. I was the DO of a rapid acq and test squadron and I saw some interesting stuff. I will say that the AF's (and by extension DoD writ large) is WAY too slow on this topic, but the steps taken and processes in place for acq/test are actually pretty good to prevent wasting of resources. I heard on the Merge about how NGAD was going to use a new testing process but has since gone back to the old method. That's disappointing but I don't know enough to intelligently comment on that. The part that concerns me about your statement is the lack of response to your force (I'm assuming C-130 based on your avatar?). One constant battle I had (I also was the Command Chief Pilot while the DO so it was my job to make sure we knew what the community wanted and looked for) was a lack of knowledge about how to get things changed. There was the standard aircrew bitching but hardly ever any follow through on actual written requirements and documents. That's where the big disconnect would take place because we would move out immediately on stuff once we got it...we just had to get it. Writing 1067's, JUONs, CMNS, TIPs, anything like that will at least get the ball rolling to allocate resources. Do those requirements just not go anywhere or what's going on?

I always hear that about top level players but it wasn’t nearly as widespread as people think. Some definitely got some shady money under the table, but the vast majority of players didn’t get anything beyond scholarship and stipend. Now with NIL, there are high school kids signing multi-million dollar deals just to sign at certain schools. It’s truly nuts. That coupled with the transfer rules changing completely changes the landscape. The dirty secret about the transfer portal is something like 50% of kids that enter it don’t find a home on the other side and their career is over. Wild stuff.

What would you suggest?

The updated uniform reg stated that only coyote brown undershirts will be worn and got rid of the colored morale shirt. I legitimately think most people either didn’t read it or don’t care because I’ve seen zero change. Which is good.

No shit there I was…Buckley SFB and I have to go do a urinalysis. I am waiting with 6 to 9 others (1 of whom is a chick) for our pee gazers to be available. The chick says she is ready to go and her observer was a trans individual transitioning from male to female. She said she wasn’t comfortable and I could see storm clouds brewing… Not sure how that all turned out but I can report that I had one of those life changing pisses like Lloyd Christmas in the Mutt Cutt’s van.

I hope so but where the fires are (at least the really devastating ones near Lahaina) is on the opposite side of the island from Kahului and the private airfield near Kahana I doubt could handle anything substantial. The roads getting there are narrow too but having said all of that, I seriously hope there is some major help headed that way. It’s hard to believe the damage.

I hate to admit that one of the first things I check in a bio is number of Air Medals a senior leader has. My thought being that those who have reached O-6 to Flag rank in current times were in their prime during GWOT and had ample opportunity to deploy. Not even based on heroic flying or anything but just being there and getting participation ribbons. Obviously exceptions exist (Eagle/Raptor dudes being a great example), but when I see AFSOC dudes with 1 Air Medal it really makes me wonder.

Obviously the turbo.

I hate to see an older American in that distress, but it doesn’t surprise me. I belong to the Daedalians along with my dad and attend meetings whenever I can. I’m the only still active flight suit wearing dude there and most of them were Vietnam guys with a few before that (including guys that participated in Ploesti and P-51 pilots with kills that were also shot down). They always absolutely grill me about all the culture war talking points about LGBTQ+ stuff, woke policies, socialism, etc. They then don’t believe me when I say I don’t see that stuff and haven’t seen it. We all then have beers and burgers at the O club and shoot our watches for awhile and have a great time. I recommend pilots look into it and hear some great stories before they aren’t around to tell them. Navs and other folks have fraternal orgs that I’m sure are great, as well.’ On the topic of military confidence, I personally have great confidence in our American military to fight and win our nations no shit wars. If you let the military off the chain with a clear objective and victory criteria, I have no doubt that we will get there. I have way less confidence in our ability to do small, dirty wars successfully that require significant political involvement and clear, consistent military strategy. I also don’t have a ton of confidence in our Generals ability to handle entire campaigns beyond the initial actions. This video from Tom Ricks discusses how relieving Flag Officers in WW2 was much more common and not a career killer. It was based on performance. My $0.02

I’ve seen this happen a few times over the years about not wearing the squadron morale shirts, Friday patches, even the OG at Kadena is having Eagle Drivers not wear their Eagle Driver patches (you know, as their jet with nearly 5 decades and 104 kills worth of history goes away and they are all thrown into thrash). I legitimately don’t understand the impulse to take that away. Does anyone have a compelling answer? And I know most of you are rabid retards that hate the Air Force and are looking for any reason to complain, but I’m curious for a legitimate answer.

That dude just needs to bail on that relationship now because you know with her feminine logic she will blame him for a Tiger mauling for the rest of his life.

For the FBF stuff, are they going beyond the "Heat to Guns" exercise and doing actual rate/radius fight mechanics with perch set ups or what? We did heat to guns during the UPT syllabus at EN but I remember the other base guys did those as part of IFF. I know EN still does that and has plenty of non-fighter IP's teaching it. FBF going to include range ops?

This statement brought up a funny story for me recently... No shit, there I was a punk ass ENJJPT student back in the day when we had just switched from the Tweet to the T-6. Everybody referred to the T-6 as "the jet" and the biggest douche I've ever met as an IP (Dutch guy) would go out of his way to make the point that the T-6 wasn't a jet. He even always had the wikipedia page pulled up where he would contribute "not a jet" on the bottom of the page. Everyone that flew with him (including me) had a God awful sortie and got absolutely abused the entire sortie. I even had to no shit do an ICE-T calculation on a whiz wheel during an instrument eval with this guy. ANYHOW, I recently stopped at Sheppard recently as an O-5, DO, Weapons School Instructor and this fucking guy is back but now flying the T-38. It shook me. I was immediately transformed back into a scared B flight student trying to remember the pattern references. I felt exactly like Sara Connor in Terminator 2 when she's breaking out of the mental institution and Arnold comes around the corner. Truly one of the most jarring moments in my career because it was sooooooo unexpected. Or maybe I'm just a pussy.

Good advice and 100 different strategies for her, but the one that gets missed most often is that if she does a full 20+, she will get 2% of base pay per year instead of 2.5% like the old system. So she won’t make as much in check form, but if she does the contribution matching, chooses right fund etc, she could do better. And if she doesn’t retire, she’ll have that TSP that can be rolled over once into a civil 401k type plan. Congrats to her on entering the AF and thanks for her service. Hopefully she has as successful career as her Dad.

Does a prenup do anything if you don’t have anything?

They probably (like most of Europe/NATO) just know the US will keep them safe. We (American tax payers) just bought them a squadron of F-35’s so why not? Mostly sarcasm there but sigh… https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-buy-25-more-f-35-stealth-jets-3-bln-deal-2023-07-02/

Oh man…get that dude to drop back in on some of the political threads to really get the blood up.

Gotta love the comments section. Which one you guys is this BAMF?

The F-15C is on the way out and being replaced by either the F-35 or the F-15EX. For now, Portland, New Orleans, and Fresno will get F-15EX. Barnes, Jacksonville, and Klamath Falls will get F-35. As a result of Klamath, I'm assuming that Seymour Johnson will pick up the EX training mission but that's purely a guess. I don't know if Klamath will be continuing as a B Course but I assume it will (similar to San Antonio) to help absorb training capacity.

“Fighting spirit one must have. Even if a man lacks some other qualifications, he can often make up for it in fighting spirit.” -Robin Olds

I’ve got zero issues renaming this place after a dude that flew B-29’s in WW2, got out of the AF Reserves as an O-5 (and gave up an airline line number!) to be a W-4 in the Army. He then earned the Medal of Honor doing 15 evacuation flights to save 29 ARVN soldiers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Novosel

Some Air Force guy at CGSC is rock hard reading these posts.

Take it from a father of 4…your kids and wife will be fine if you have a solid relationship and are clear on expectations. It sucks being gone but if you make the time you have count, it’ll be fine. If you can’t square that corner and want to be a stay at home dad, just SIE now, finish your career as a finance OIC, and move on to something else. Spoiler alert: Whatever you end up flying, you’ll be gone a lot. Even FAIP’ing you’ll be working your ass off 12 hours a day for years.