Pooter

I find it very hard to believe that Crozier simply jumped the chain of command including the adm just down the hall without having exhausted other options first. I'd bet most of my money that he tried passing concerns through the appropriate channels to the appropriate people and was met with "press/figure it out/be an athlete.." This is a story we've heard a million times. Leadership won't pay attention to a mid-level problem until A: it becomes so severe they can't ignore it, or B: the mid-level commander forces them to pay attention. Looks like Crozier chose option B to prevent option A. So he decided to send a nuclear bomb of an email that he knew would blow back on him but at least get his crew taken care of. And judging by the crew and big navy's reaction, this seems like the only plausible read of the situation.

Air Force: You are mission essential! You and your job are so critically important we need you to continue to come to work during a pandemic. Also the Air Force: make a face mask out of an ABU sock

Mask fabrication techniques and filtration effectiveness aside, this is just the latest in a laundry list of half-assed mitigation measures put in place by leadership to simply look like they're doing something. Want to hear another one? UPT bases are currently doing two-team alternating day ops with half the IPs/studs flying one day while the other half has the day off. The idea is to mitigate the spread by reducing total pool of people you interact with. Which sounds like a decent idea until you consider the fact that they're all working in the same building, sitting at the same desks, flying the same airplanes, and storing their gear in 6-9 inches from someone else's in a cramped peg room. My buddy's quote referencing this policy: "it's almost like we're doing something.. to look like we're doing something.. while not actually doing anything at all."

This is when it pays to live off base.

Hot take incoming: The song has always been weird and awkward. Forced group singings of said song have always been weird and awkward. I couldn't care less if they change any part of it. I hope this provides the bobs some level of short term satisfaction so they leave whatever traditions people actually still care about alone.

Just the fact that he brings up a platform's maneuverability as the x-factor that autonomy or drones will bring to the table highlights his ignorance on the subject. Hint: there are many reasons a F-35 would spank a SU-35 in a fight, and none of them pertain to maneuverability.

It's mainly good for debriefing in depth on approaches, and enroute flying. It plays nice with stratus until you start going upside down where the GPS track typically drops out past 90 bank.. so not great for grading aerobatic parameters. As with any debriefing tool, using it for the sake of using it is never the answer. Lots of tech for the sake of tech happening in UPT right now, with not a lot of purpose behind it. If you have a good reason to really dig into something that happened in flight, cloudahoy analysis could help hammer home DFPs for more complex errors. I remember specifically using it to debrief trends on multiple patterns, consistently tight leading to overshooting finals etc.. using the black line gods eye view. Same goes for botched holding entries because those are pretty hard for students to remember in retrospect.

In my experience there are two kinds of people in the Air Force: the grass is always greener people and the people who make the most of where they are. The grass is always greener people spend most of their time complaining (often on this forum) and talking a big game about how they're getting out ASAP. But they're losing sight of the big picture. The military flying community, be it manned or RPAs, is an amazing world to be a part of and they are going to regret not enjoying their careers as they unfolded. Half of my pilot training class had an existential crisis at track select. And half again at drop night. But once you get over the initial shock of a mismatch between expectations and reality, the rest is up to you. Life is too short not to max perform whatever opportunity is given to you. Also to echo what others here have said.. the most bonkers strike stories I've heard come almost exclusively from my RPA bros. see you in the stack.

It was this time last year when Capt John "Trojan" Graziano died in a T-38 crash, and a year before that when Capt Paul "Stuck" Barbour lost his life the same way. Don't worry gents, Trojan and Stuck are two of the best men and pilots I've ever met and I know they are giving our Vance boys a royal welcome up there. They're in good hands. Nickel on the grass.

Never heard of somebody calling up the sup/sof to change their ORM score post-step. Is this a thing I'm not aware of?

Thirded. In a world where the computers work reliably and serious back end analysis will be followed through with, I like this idea. But unfortunately that is not the world we live in.

I don't really buy that argument. There are a million altitude restrictions all over Laughlin's departure, recovery, and pattern procedures, and a student breaking one isn't necessarily a failing of their survival instinct. This is where we get into the root cause. Did they bust it because they didn't know it? Did they bust it because they knew it but were task saturated with other things? Did they bust it because they tried to level off and still just suck at leveling off? Did they bust it because they knew it and just willfully disregarded it? This is what I'm getting at. We can ask so many questions about a simple altitude restriction, meanwhile there are so many rules to learn that IPs have a hard time keeping track of them all, let alone a student. I heard about what caused the little ops tempo stand down day a while back. IP allowing a final turn breakout (not a thing) into a formation fini flight coming up initial? Sounds sporty.

Hooking for localisms isn't a factor of consequence on it's own. But hooking for localisms causes IPs to teach excessively to localisms, some of which ends up being wasted time. And with reduced hours in the syllabus, every second counts. And yes, some of the IP cadre is that green. A few IP-caused pattern incidents I've heard about through the grapevine recently truly boggle the mind.

Former IP here as well and I am with you on a lot of these points. I was being a little hyperbolic saying it's all a waste of time. It isn't. There is real value in the RSU pattern and you hit the nail on the head. It is fantastic for ensuring the safety of solos, and it is great for reps. But you and I also know sometimes it's horrible for reps. With 8+ people in the pattern, no one is getting anything productive done except a sh!t ton of clearing and some practice with saturated radios. And if you're the IP who lets their student ask for a straight in.. lord have mercy on your soul at the next roll call. My point was that there is this thing that happens at UPT bases where people get overly focused on localisms to the detriment of big picture aviation training. I totally agree that it's valuable for students to learn how to operate aircraft in an area with local restrictions. But when you have 5 different statuses and associated procedures for each runway direction at your base and aux field, we are getting into the realm of the absurd. We're talking 30+ inflight guide pages! It is not an exaggeration to say that some THE most complicated local pattern, departure, and recovery procedures in the entire Air Force exist at pilot training bases. UPT is a year long (for now) and if we're serious about still producing a good product, IPs need to stop wasting time hammering their students over a mountain of localisms, and start taking them off station as much as possible. Which leads me to my next point: my comment was absolutely meant to be an indictment of *some* of the current IP force. Of course some IPs are out there doing great work, but PIT syllabi are being gutted just like UPT. New IPs have very little idea of what to do from a teaching standpoint, and they have to spend time learning the local procedures just like a student does. But remember, IPs have a lot more time and reps to get good at a local area than the students do. I've noticed as IPs get better at their local area, some of them tend to place more emphasis on it and hold students to an unrealistic standard of knowledge about its intricacies. This is where I'm arguing that time and emphasis is better spent elsewhere.

No, there is an advanced aerobatics solo the T-38 bound students get that the T-1 guys don't. Also the bottom of the barrel T-1 bound guys sometimes get their formation solo waived just to push them through if they still aren't safe to solo at the end of the formation block.

"If you're not ready at the perch, breakout. Except if you're at any airfield on earth that's not called Columbus, Vance, Sheppard, or Laughlin. Then just perch late or whenever tower tells you to, and try not to get drug in." Source: AFMAN 11-248 Chapter 6, Section 9 Paragraph 6.9.6.9.69

^This right here. We spend far too much time teaching students to fly in a local UPT pattern that has way more rules and is far more saturated than anything they're ever going to see in the real world. The rules let us cope with a huge traffic load in the pattern, but the intricacies of local pattern-isms should be the realm of IP knowledge, not expected of students. We need less local pattern nonsense and more off station sorties to get them used to the real world. Not to call anyone out, but I've seen countless students hook checkrides for not being able to find a specific VFR entry ground reference at the aux field or not being able to clear the pattern for the 11 other airplanes doing god knows what. Guess what, half of the IPs don't know where VFR entry is either. It's all a titanic waste of time and poor training in my opinion.

I'm completely with you. I think the confidence gained doing numerous UPT solos is something huge you take with you into your career, especially if you go into the single seat world. As for UPT flying time, mine was 188 in 2014. Crazy that it was basically unchanged from yours in 1997 and we've cut 20% in the last 5 years. It's a slippery slope gents.. keep an eye on your new copilots and wingmen.

I don't see syllabus PA's as a big issue or something that's really happening all that often. Sure you can have a guy who washes out of IFF for something airmanship related, and it's easy to point at a training anomaly a year earlier. But that doesn't mean they are related necessarily. Having said that, when you look at the gradual erosion of the syllabus over 10 years combined with PA's you could easily understand how a general decrease in airmanship is happening. Just speaking anecdotally, when I went through UPT I had 17 solos. 5 in the T-6 and 12 in the 38. Nowadays students get half that. On top of that, there has been a reduction in total flight hours of ~20% in the last 5 years with no added sim time. This is happening because any single syllabus event can be argued out of existence by the good idea fairy. It starts at a syllabus "conference" when someone says: "students don't learn anything new from that second T-6 MOA solo anyway. We'd make a few days up on timeline if we just get rid of it." And before you know it you've lost half of all student solos, ELPs, fix-to-fixes, T-38 form-solo O&B, wing work up to 90 degrees, over the tops in ET, perch setups, VFR nav leg on XC, formation sim, advanced contact and formation for all T-1 bound students, and the motherf-ing chandelle. Okay maybe the form sim was useless, but you get my point.

A few things about PTN: - PTN is not a watered down version of UPT with fancy toys. Because UPT is already a watered down version of UPT. If you look at programmed syllabus hours per student right now in UPT, it is 20% less than it was 5 years ago. That's across flights, sims, and academics. So the question should not be "why has PTN cut all this time out of pilot training and trying to pass it off as okay?" Instead it should be: "the time cuts are already happening at an institutional level. What can we do to maintain some semblance of quality?" We can b*tch about timeline guidance that comes down from on high until we're blue in the face, but that won't change anything. In my opinion, PTN is the only part of the pilot training enterprise that has that has actually made PROACTIVE attempts to maintain quality with reduced timeline. - If the students were handpicked, how is this experiment valid or scaleable? Valid question, and I'll do you one better. The instructors were handpicked too, and I'd argue that's even more important. If your entire squadron is made up of experienced spec ops, fighter guys, and high time faips, the quality of instruction is going to be better. The youngest instructors at PTN had 600+ hrs, which would be considered medium to highly experienced in a normal UPT squadron. UPT is having a crisis of instructor quality right now, and it absolutely needs to be addressed if/when this gets scaled up. - I hope people can recognize that PTN doesn't need to be declared an absolute victory or an absolute failure. The air force seems to be airing in the direction of absolute victory while everyone else (mainly online) is in the schadenfreude failure camp. If we're mature about this we should realize that there's a mixture of good and bad. We should take the good and scale it to UPT as a whole, and also be willing to call a spade a spade and not cling to the stuff that didn't work. - The opr system is broken - We should have bought more raptors - I'm not that drunk.