Danger41

The one that really seems weird to me is the Cannon OG. Scuttlebutt was that was a lot of processes not being followed, poor admin for flying ops (DNIF flyers, etc), and things of that nature. Not personal conduct. If that’s true, that should really be a case study at PME of how that happens.

IMO that game was more of an indictment of their fanbase for running Kyle McCord out of town and probably robbing their future as well by putting Lincoln Kienholz in an impossible situation. Now the true freshman goes out and lays an egg in his first start and everyone now calls for him to get benched and get a replacement via the portal. Same vicious cycle will continue and hollow out a blue blood program.

Thanks for the inspiration to type that into YouTube. Amazing trip down Memory Lane!

That’s a tough development. Sorry to hear that. Whatever you end up doing, know that the Air Force needs studs at every AFSC. You can make a giant difference in mission and morale by your competence and leadership in support roles. Quick story…WW2 kicks off and my grandpa, his cousins, and brother all left their town of Lakeside, SD (population N/A because it was just an incorporated farming community) to sign up. My grandpa only had a 9th grade education and wouldn’t be accepted by any service but the Merchant Marines as a baker. He was very disappointed but did his best. Fast forward to 1944 off the Philippines when Typhoon Cobra hit (3 destroyers sank, over 700 killed). From his rodeo background, he was one of the only guys that wasn’t violently ill and ended up relaying the orders to help control the ship and save the crew. He was also the POC from the ship to Admiral Halsey and was personally cited for heroism and exceptional performance by Halsey after the typhoon. The whole point of this story is that I don’t know if there can be much more disappointment after Pearl Harbor than being told you’re too dumb to do anything in the military and can only bake bread for the Merchant Marines. However, you never know when your number will be called. Even if that had never happened, baking bread and providing good food for men is a worthwhile and important role that you should be proud of. Whatever you end up doing, it is also a worthwhile role and an honorable profession that deserves your best effort.

It’s not even the way of the future as much as it’s the way of the now in all aspects of life. As everything has become more networked, it gives access to so many things that we wouldn’t have had access to before and is one of those inflection point type things they mentioned in PME. It can do everything from ISR to SEAD/OCA (why send the gorilla package to clear the lane when you just turn off the fuel pumps at the base?) to nearly every other core function of the military. If you have a chance, look at the SOCOM budget allocation for cyber compared to airborne ISR compared to 10 years ago. Our cyber enterprise has a hell of a retention problem similar to pilots because of what you can make on the outside, especially with a clearance.

If you decide to not go the CSO route, give a serious look into Cyber Ops. Hugely impactful career field and will set you up very well for post-AF career.

We would have a bunch of IFS graduates who think they should be flying Raptors go into the portal and left handing out towels. Much like the current transfer portal.

Recruiting is such a strange thing in modern college football. It's always been overrated, but now with transfer portal and everything else, it's insane how if you bring in a #1 class, you now just lost your previous #1 class to the portal. Such a weird phenomenon.

Sorry to hear that. Lots of good advice here. Look up Lewis “Chesty” Puller, Tom Norris, or Chuck DeBellevue if you want some examples of military officers that did okay after not making it through their services pilot training.

Not sure if it's "standard", but I met a guy that went to the Raptor from the EA-18.

At least in the U-28, the fleet was shared between at home units and deployed sites so squadrons never really owned iron in a traditional sense (to include FTU/OT/DT/WIC…all shared). I may have old data but they were actually assigning aircraft more traditionally and the 75 made sense. That probably also assumes GWOT commitment levels so may be a logical fallacy given current time.

What isn’t addressed in that article but I’m convinced is really happening is that other entities with SOCOM didn’t do their due diligence when initial requirements went out, didn’t like the requirements that were set (bell had already been rung), went to the hill and all their fanboys in congress to get their way, and here we are. This program is not a U-28 replacement and they don’t want to lose that capability and gain what OA-1K offers. BL - SOCOM money avalanche from GWOT is done and now the knives are coming out.

Schedule was about done when it was revealed the ADO was non-current.

California and Texas alliance? That’s one hell of a fantastical leap! Probably a smart plot device actually to not make it an easy red vs blue thing.

So first thing I’ll say is great on you for being honest with yourself that alot of your problems seem to stem from poor preparation and/or study habits. More on that later… For the near rocks of getting through this ride, it should be the relatively simple pre-solo stuff that requires very little improvisation and athleticism to fly well. Everything you do should be under the “control and performance” concept where you set a known pitch and power setting and get a known result. If you’re not getting exactly what you’d expect from that setting, then make small corrections from that instead of just guessing the correction. This definitely applies in the pattern and will help control any wild deviations. Whenever you pull closed, pull the same amount nose up, the same bank angle, the same pull to displace you appropriately every time. When you get to that known spot, you make adjustments based on wind for when/where to perch etc. Also, by doing that very rote maneuvering, it will gain you a few seconds of SA to actually assess and get you caught back up to the airplane. A trick I learned back in the day from the F-15 community was “left hand, right hand, sight picture, feel”. It applies to everything and I personally like it because it breaks things down very cleanly and will set you up for success. Try drawing out the pattern or wherever you feel jammed up and apply that mnemonic. Even your GPS thing, look back at that scenario and think what you could’ve done with left hand (power setting), right hand (probably bank back towards the center of the MOA), sight picture (level turn away from a border now eyes go to GPS to push buttons in a sequence), fee (1G unacclerated turn). Once you’re done setting up, what’s next on your lineup card? Same deal to set up for TP stalls or whatever. Lots of words there but the last thing I’ll tell you is that worrying about all your sacrifice and hard work won’t do shit to help you on this ride. “Fighting in the air is not a sport. It is scientific murder” said Eddie Rickenbacker. The airplane couldn’t care less about your personal life. Compartmentalization is massive in this business and learn to leave all that behind you and focus on your left hand, right hand, sight picture, feel. Good luck!

On the transfer thing…I see a bunch of these guys entering the transfer portal and only having practice tape available. Dude…unless you plan to move down significantly in caliber of play, maybe just stay where you’re at. That’s symptomatic of the new recruiting landscape as well where all these kids get told they’re the greatest thing since sliced bread but forget that every swinging dick on the roster from the previous 4 years was told the same thing and has that much more development.

Almost 50% of the guys that enter the portal end up not finding a team. I also don’t know why if someone enters the portal and secured their release from a university, you’d bring them back. Pretty obvious intention there.

From my small corner of College Football (South Dakota State), it's interesting to see what's happening with a lot of top FCS talent. We don't really have any meaningful NIL to speak of, but have been able to keep really good players on the team mainly as a result of culture and proving we can put guys into the league. Current Packers rookie Tucker Kraft was offered high 6 figures to transfer to a couple SEC schools with CFB Playoff experience and he turned it down. This year's team has Current back Isaiah Davis got several offers (including to Washington) after last year and stayed. Current QB Mark Gronowski (1 of 3 finalists for Walter Payton award...FCS Heisman) similar situation. Twin brothers Jaxon and Jadon Janke same. The crazy part about all of that is while it's cool that these kids are proving how talented they are and the level of talent that SDSU has, there is absolutely nothing preventing boosters/NIL collectives reaching into other schools and poaching their players. If that was a coach, it's totally illegal. However, this is the new norm. It's really brutal for FCS teams in the playoffs because when the portal opens, if a kid jumps into it he leaves the team in the middle of a playoff run. Similar to bowl season, I suppose which also really sucks. I'm personally very torn on the whole thing because I think it's BS that schools like Florida could sell Tim Tebow's jerseys and such an make millions but he was personally limited to his scholarship stipend. However, I think it's pretty lame that a kid takes advantage of all the opportunities that a school affords him and just bails with no consequence. Last thing that I'm surprised hasn't happened yet is when a guy goes to a school with big NIL money and then transfers, the NIL collective comes after them legally to recoup their money. I know some Miami kids tried to renegotiate their NIL deals and got told to pound sand, but I haven't heard anything beyond that. Truly wild times.

As of last night, there were 1,096 (625 FBS and 471 FCS) Division 1 players that entered the transfer portal. Wow.

For the Track C T-38 course being a PCS now, I see in there it refers to being able to seek a waiver to make it a TDY that has to go up to SECAF I believe. Anyone seen any luck with getting that approved?

https://x.com/redditcfb/status/1730810645514244432?s=46&t=wK7lf16kTKvcEeA5Al5X4w

Let me educate you with one of my favorite documentaries so you don’t keep embarrassing yourself.

I know several guys that failed these personality tests for one of the majors and got hired by another one. Good system.