SurelySerious

But what does it take to get experienced subject matter experts in the air refueling field ( instructor pilots and instructor boom operators who have done this for years) from the active-duty, guard and Reserves together to hash out what we really need for a Next Generation tanker. People with training experience. People with tactics experience. People with CAOC experience. People who are in the fight right now, not generals who haven't seen a real combat mission in the last 15 years. Get us all together in one big room and hash out what really is important for a new tanker or any aircraft for that matter that we need. Do they not do that? Who sets the criteria for these acquisitions? Hah! Good luck breaking the OSD acquisition bureaucracy.

Yep. In the civilian sector wage growth happens largely from people moving jobs, not from raises with same employer; right now unemployment is low, but wage growth stagnated because people aren’t moving. In the military, obviously for a large portion of your career you are confined to yearly pay raise as your wage growth...when you have the option, though, the military is either doing a poor job or congressionally restrained from making it lucrative via pay increases or that mixture of quality of life in conjunction with pay. If you want the experience, you have to give something, unless you just want manning numbers on spreadsheets.

He was on a roll

I think they might be, heard something about it in a song once.

If the AF wanted more offload capes for a jet of size X, they should have written it into the contract. They didn’t, and that’s why you don’t get aerodynamic elements that improve efficiency/offload. Boeing did everything the AF asked for*. *well, except for all that FOD and floors breaking and...

Boeing designed the airplane to meet the absolute minimum requirements in the request for proposal.

Disclosure: I think the dude was a combatant in the middle of a well known and wide ranging battlefield, and was probably masterminding the things the gov’t has accused him of. However, wrt whether this was well thought out or rash? POTUS is sometimes a bit vain and values his self image, and after railing against endless ME wars during campaign think has taken the recent attacks/rhetoric as personal affronts and personal challenges...leading to a rash decision. Throw what you thought were red lines for IR out, because the calculus has changed a bit. I expect a lot of asymmetric activity soon...

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/column-what-the-killing-of-qassem-soleimani-could-mean-for-iran Pretty nuanced view.

Not firing across the border doesn’t pass the MLCOA/MDCOA test.

Like the 561st JTS? They do the tactics. This sounds like -1 T.O.

Absolutely we did. I cannot fathom what they would be reviewing to not take volunteers. Maybe it’s like when you’re drunk at the roulette table, and you’re thinking to yourself, “it can’t POSSIBLY be red for the 18th time in a row.”

🍺

Hah! I was actually thinking along the lines of Bird Person from Rick & Morty, but anything referring commonly to man as...man/men is of course offensive. Point.

TLDR: military pay raises over the last few years (that don’t typically even keep up with inflation btw) are probably unfounded because it appears we are paying people more to do the same work (if you ignore that they have axed a ton of manpower over the course of that time and it’s constantly “do more with less”). Some people think there should be productivity data to back up pay raises...[in a business that isn’t defined by productivity and is hemorrhaging talent in some areas] edit: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/20/us-troops-may-be-overpaid-new-study-finds.html Found. Also, similar opinion, different think tank: https://defense360.csis.org/bad-idea-paying-servicemembers-more-to-do-the-same-amount-of-work/

Spacepersons

That website feels like, “oh, crap...this is happening? Uhhh, copy-paste...copy-paste. Generic line about being under the secaf sts. Do we have a logo?”

Who is getting ATIS?

It’s a good thing AFPC is so good at this talent management thing that they won’t consider anyone else’s ideas.

Pretty soon we’ll have a thread about paternity leave or lactation rights.

Looks rendered.

My lack of knowledge or SA in having called in CASEVAC 9 lines when brigade commanders couldn’t share? Yeah, ok.

You know who suffers when one brigade commander won’t let “his” air assets assist the brigade next door? A ground commander.

Just no. There’s a reason the air arm was taken away from the Army.

Awesome stuff. Started working my way through the series.

Naive? First off, as jazzdude alluded to, the Army understands aviation to work in the realm of one localized ground commander as his personal artillery (or what have you, based on type of aviation). They don’t play well across the entire AO, and it turns out most air platforms can go across a distance rather quickly and potentially be used to assist more than one ground commander in a somewhat efficient way by weighing priorities and current need instead of hoarding them like sandbox toys. Second, Lawman may have some experience in the matter. Bold call out.