Kikuchiyo

AFPC has just finished figuring out Fall VML assignments. They do Ops assignments and pay the bills (ALO, AETC, FTU, etc) first, then work staff assignments last, which they finished last week. Staff assignments won't be released for another couple weeks while they go thru coord. Most school grads are matched in the summer cycle. Staff matches for grads moving in the summer are made in late January.

sleepynav, Yes, you do need to fill out the RRF. However, if you were board selected to attend UPT, you're probably not in the bottom 5% of all officers in the target year groups. You already made that cut when you got picked above others by the UPT board. Go to the AFPC web site to get all the details about submitting the RRF, but I wouldn't sweat the outcome.

I was at a rated manning conference last week. We got a briefing on VSP and the RIF from AFPC and HAF/A1PP, Personnel Policy. This is just a reporting of what was said. A1PP is the OPR for the force management initiatives, the VSP, RIF, and the rated recall, among others. At the start of the brief, the A1PP O-6 admitted that it was not made clear that not everyone who applied for VSP would be approved. She said she takes the blame for not making that clear. On the difference between the VSP and the RIF, approvals for VSP were based on what "best met the needs of the AF." VSP was objective, using numerical criteia. The RIF will be subjective, giving "special consideration to critical skills," applying the whole-person concept, and looking at quality. It's a reverse promotion board, taking those with Article 15s and other issues off the bottom. The reason they didn't know how much ADSC they'd be able to waive for VSP approvals beforehand was that it was based on who, and how many, applied. If very few applied, but they all had large ADSCs remaining, the amount waived would have been greater. If lots of people applied, and many had little or no ADSC remaining, they wouldn't have to waive much. The cost of the ADSC waiver (in lost man-days) was one of the numerical criteria mentioned above. As it ended up, they waived about 6 months of ADSC for VSP approved rated members. There were a total of about 900 airmen who applied for VSP, about 850 of which had their CC's concurrence. About 540 of the total were rated. About 300 total airmen were approved. 69 of those approved were rated. Most of those not approved had larger ADSCs remaining, long DEROS' remaining, or other quantifiable reasons. The RIF will separate about another 300. No, 300 + 300 doesn't equal 2200. But there are other, ongoing programs, including (but not limited to) the other Force Management boards, Blue to Green, Palace Chase, Limited ADSC Waiver, and the coming O-5 and O-6 SERBs. You may possibly see a targeted Palace Chase for certain rated AFSCs. Rated are currently excluded from Palace Chase, but there are certain areas that the Guard and Reserves are really hurting in, and in which the AD is overmanned. A1 is looking to balance the manning between the AD and ARC within those career fields. More to follow after further detailed analysis.

The official notification window for the Summer assignment cycle is early to mid March, according to the AFPC cycle calendar. Some assignments are going out. Staff assignments have been delayed, expect those to start going out next week or the week after.

No, the NAF and AOC consolidations announced will not affect this summer's assignments. The new manpower documents and rated staff allocation plan have not been written to reflect the consolidation yet.

No, they will not all go out at the same time. Ops assignments should be going out now, with a few exceptions. Staff assignments have not been coord'ed on by the recipient MAJCOM's yet, so if you're released to staff, don't expect to get your notification for another week or two at best.

There's only 9 billets left. LockheedFix mentioned Columbia, Pakistan, and Philippines already. Those are correct, but in the interest of not posting all in the open, the rest are: 2 in Africa, 2 others in the Pacific Rim/Southeast Asia, and 2 others in the Middle East. Each of these locations has one and only one flying billet. The O-6 Air Attache at these locations usually flies also. There are also a bunch of ETSS and TAFT (foreign sales and training) jobs that fly but all those are for Fighter pilots only, and they're not the Embassy C-12's that the OP asked about. DATT is Defense Attache school. It lasts about a year including an intensive language program. There's even cultural and protocol lessons for the spouse. Anyone going to a flying Embassy job will attend DATT. They're an Assistant Air Attache first, and a C-12 pilot on the side if that location has one. The AFSC for the Embassy billets is actually 16F, Foreign Affairs Officer. The assignments officer is in AFPC/DPAOS. They just swapped out people a couple months ago, and I don't have the new gal's name. Your AO on the porch will know who it is, though.

No Locations (# of billets): (NOT including Embassy birds) Yokota (10), Elmendorf (7), Corpus Christi (11), Ft Rucker (AFMC) (3), Dhahran (3), Buenos Aires (a flying Joint Staff tour) (1), "Data Masked" (2). I didn't see anythiing at Kirtland, but I'm limited to looking at manning document billets with the 11MxJ C-12 AFSC. There are also about 9 Embassy birds. You have to apply to be an Asst Air Attache which is an annual process announced via AMS Robot email. Since those are 2-3 yr tours, only 3 or so of the flying attaché billets come open each year. There’s also a C-12 at Andrews to support the Embassy units with Stan/Eval, Mx swaps, and currency during attaché training, etc, but they usually only hire former attache’s. Line flying units rarely if ever submit requisitions that would be listed in the PRD part of AMS (under Search Requirements). You could try calling the units above to see if they have guys leaving in your cycle, or contact your AFPC assignment officer. Depends. Attache duty, no, you can’t be deployed from your attaché gig. Nor Dhahran or Buenos Aires either. Otherwise, whether or not PACAF, AETC, or AFMC chooses to pay their MC-12 bill with C-12 pilots is up to the command. PACAF is required to fill approx. 24 MC-12s every year, and certainly they'll use some of their seventeen C-12 dudes, but they also have entire tanker, AWACS, C-17, and C-130 squadrons, too.

I've been here a year and agree with everything said so far, especially about the bikes. But, neither the bathroom in the TLF apartment nor in our house have room for a transformer. Fortunately, my wife didn't bring a hair dryer, so we bought a 220v one at the KMCC on day one. Her curling iron from Target was already dual voltage. There is room in the kitchen for a transformer. FMO gives you a 220v microwave and fridge. I got a 220v coffee pot with a clock so my coffee's ready for me. I wouldn't want to plug anything with a clock (coffee pot, alarm clock, DVR) into a transformer. They suck a lot of power and they hum all the time that they're on. Check out ramsteinyardsales.com. Summer is a huge move time, so there'll be lots more stuff available than is listed there now. When you leave, you'll likely be able to sell whatever you bought to someone else. If you're thinking of moving onto base later, the base houses have both 110v and 220v outlets in every room, so any 220v stuff you buy will still be usable.

The above line is true, but the situation and timelines have changed. You could quite legally fly after IQT, because you didn't take a Form 8 check from the civilian sim instructors. Then you headed straight from MQT to the AOR after taking your checkride. Folks didn't have a chance to fly their old MWS after their Form 8. But now, guys will return to their base for a few weeks after their check. So the fact that guys flew after IQT and before deploying is not relevant to whether they can fly after MQT and their checkride.

In the table referenced by nunya, Row 16 says: (If) Deployed to a hostile fire/imminent danger pay zone any time after 11 Sep 2001 until present... (For) 181 consecutive days or more... (Then) Give Airman credit for a completed short tour and award new ODSD and STRD to equal date of return from TDY. And note 5 from the table says: 5. The only source document to be used to validate OS TDY is a copy of the paid travel voucher for each TDY claimed.

I heard they're getting silver flight suits. ;-)

All the individuals at the Recall Office are very difficult to get hold of. If you're just looking for updates on your package, call the Contact Center and ask them to check the recall database and make them read you all the comments and dates they have on you. As it stands, the only way for a Retiree to get back into your MWS is if you're current and qualed. There's so little available training already that they're unlikely to use it on a returning retiree who is going to be limited to a single tour anyway. Guys that have gotten to stay in their MWS were for the most part either so recently retired that their checkrides were still valid, or reservists doing the reserve-to-active recall, or special cases. Haven't heard of them giving out many MC-12s to the recallees in the last couple months. Mostly Predators and staff jobs. They're very very short on the staffs and mostly no training required, so it's a good fit. But, as with everything, there's always exceptions.

No, you will not be fluent in 2-3 years of college Arabic. I know, I minored in Arabic, but can't speak a word of it. There's one thing most people don't realize about Arabic, especially as it's taught in colleges. Written Arabic has not evolved since the Quran was written in about 620 CE. The spoken language has changed and developed various regional dialects, but since the Quran was written in Allah's language, it can't be changed and everything else written must be written the same way. It would be like us writing everything in Old English (like Beowulf), but speaking modern American English. So colleges have to pick whether to focus on the written or a particular spoken dialect. If they choose to teach spoken, they will, of course, teach you to pronounce what you see written, but you'd be hard pressed to read and understand even a newspaper. If they teach written, you won't learn anything conversationally useful, and people will look at you funny if you try to speak it to them. If you really want to learn a language, use Rosetta Stone, and pick one that isn't spoken anywhere $h1tty. Is there anywhere nice they speak Arabic - no. Is there anywhere crappy that they speak Japanese - no. Or Swedish, or Italian. German isn't a bad choice, either, but if the military knows you speak Arabic, you'll spend time in the sandbox. French = Africa. Spanish = a drug-war liaison in the jungles of South America. Exactly what I should've done.