dream big
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Posts posted by dream big
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When will these freaking bean counters realize that throwing money at the problem isn't going to do squat? Thanks for the $50 pay raise, but it isn't stopping me from bailing for Delta/UA/AA etc with a $200+ potential. Do any of these "leaders" have the cajones to solve the deep rooted leadership problems in the Air Force? Some of the solutions and answers are complicated but some are easy fixes: separate promotion boards for rated, homesteading instead of PCSing every 3 years, pure flying track/eliminating up or out, get rid of 99% of the CBTs.
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On 1/10/2017 at 4:09 PM, congressman said:
Hey guys, after a little break from Baseops, was checking back in with you all to see what stuff I need to be aware of. Are there issues out there you think I need to know about or concerns, etc? Im not going to engage in debates or complaints about votes I have taken, but was curious if there is anything I need to be aware of. I'm still flying in the guard so I know about many of them, but wanted to see what was up
Feel free to PM if youd rather, cant guarantee Ill be on often but Ill take a look occasionally.
Hope everyone is doing well.
Congressman, first thanks for coming on here and honestly soliciting feedback. Not many bag wearing pilot types on Capitol hill these days.
It has been mentioned before, but one of the biggest qualms us lowly operator types have is the "do more with less;" whether that is a reduced budget, less flying hours, antiquated equipment, etc. I've seen numerous mishaps (some unfortunately fatal) where one of the root causes was lack of proficiency. The worst day of my Air Force career was to see two of my squadron buds crash a perfectly good airplane. One of the pilots had just deployed out there and had hardly flown the new airplane because of sequestration. Without making this a red v blue arguement, it boils our blood to see so much money wasted on "foreign aid," social programs etc. only for war fighters to be asked to go to the deepest sh*tholes of the world without the money or resources.
My old airplane was 1970s made, broke all the time; how the heck are we supposed to go to a real war with ancient equipment? Not to mention the even older bomber fleet. How much money have we wasted in the acquisition process of the F-35? We must do better.
Most of us on here love serving our country, would do it again and will continue to do so! We just wish our elected officials would have our backs. 16 years of war takes a toll.
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4 hours ago, Danger41 said:
Sounds like "deny, deny, deny, counter-accuse, demand an apology" is in order? Or don't go to AMC?
See the "how can I get a fighter" UPT threads..
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1 hour ago, NKAWTG said:
This is just a culture thing within the MAF. If you bend metal, everyone associated with the flight gets a Q3, irregardless of the facts or if you could have prevented it. This is same command that tries to track down aircrew for ASAP reports when self reporting a breach of flight discipline, or court martials a pilot for an off DZ drop. Non AMC MAF units like LTS can make smarter decisions, but rarely do since the leadership is drawn from AMC.
The answer might be blatantly obvious and leadership (or lack therof) 101...but what does a commander have to gain by issuing a Q-3 in a questionable situation versus turning it into a learning point? (Assuming no pressure from the OG.) Surely commanders are not graded on how many Q-3s they hand out?
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3 hours ago, lloyd christmas said:
Gypsy,
Fellow load here. Curious exactly what happened on the flight in question. Sounds like you were tailgating troopers and had an issue. Curious what aircraft. If you are a Herk guy, was it an H or J? How did the aircraft get damaged during retrieval of static lines or while dropping the dudes? What statement on the Form 8 was false? Wondering if there is something we can learn from the flight. PM if you need to.
As a 130J guy myself I am also curious. Feel free to Pm.
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7 hours ago, pawnman said:
Self-inflicted wound by your unit. I've been a UDM before...you only have to be current the day you set foot in the AOR. The only exception is Information Assurance, because the forward location will yank your network access if that one expires.
I thought so, why do we shoot ourselves in the foot? Our WG/CC also wants us to be 100% semi-annual complete before we Deploy...by end of August.
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Well can he hurry up already? I was asked to come in on my day off to finish my religious freedom training CBT and green dot even though I accomplished these less than a year ago but need to be "current thru my deployment and 2 months ," you know because if we get extended two months and a day I might make fun of people's religion and sexually harass someone...and General Rand you wonder why people are leaving in masses.
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4 hours ago, pawnman said:
Interesting, considering I've had peers told "you've done too many deployments, you need to find a job outside the ops squadron if you want to get promoted".
What's old is new and what's new is old. 50$ says masters will become unmasked for 04 promotion within the next decade.
One of my buddies passed over explained it best: "I just got passed over, I have 2 days to write my PRF for the next board with zero feedback, and am somehow expected to perform up to a secret set of moving standards that the board members decide are the flavor of the year."
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6 hours ago, osulax05 said:
I wasn't a part of this exercise but it sounds like a lot of lessons observed from other large scale exercises.
ATC can withhold IFR release for congested airspace and controller manning. I don't think it is because they are unionized. They have to have a certain number of controllers on shift to handle the number of aircraft flying. Note I said aircraft. If you have a 20-ship formation, their manning has to account for those 20 as if they were single ship.
Nellis isn't a suitable fix for next go either. The NTTR is always at max capacity with Red Flag/DOE/USAFWS. LFEs at Nellis require ATC coord ahead of time to get folks into and out of the airspace efficiently just like any other location. Planners need to simply solicit feedback from ATC and adjust their flow in/out of TCM accordingly. A telecon 2ish months out never hurts either.
Fair assessment. What about Alaska? The controllers were awesome to work with for RF-AK. My comment wasn't a stab at unions- but rather showing who is going to win at the end of the day (unionized FAA workers or DOD.)
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The shoeclerks at AFPC and the managers who sit on the board who somehow got eagles on their shoulders don't give a F about things like TPS, WIC, your instructional ability, or how many air medals you earned while their execs were sitting at home station polishing said manager's you know what and earning the top strats. Heck many of them may not even be able to tell you the difference between a B1 and B2, or ever stepped out of the MSG building, but they have the biggest influence on who leads the Air Force.
If this mentality changes it will take a while. In the mean time, most of my peers and I will do what we believe is right: be good in the airplane, enable the flying mission, make the young guys better and go hack the mission. If we get promoted, great. If we don't, well Delta/AA/UAL/SW, the guard/reserves could use a few people.
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25 minutes ago, Spinner said:
That was before that happened, I'm talking Day 1 flying. And yes, the internationals did bust airspace, which could have been avoided if they were given an airspace brief like every other flying exercise I've been in.
I'm not sure if the AFREP was contacted for assistance. The SeaTac ATC telecon on D+3 was interesting though.
They were briefed thoroughly by the MPC, and every international unit complied minus the Koreans and Pakistanis (at least on the 130 side.) The Koreans are notorious for debaucherry in every exercise I've interacted with them, to include causing two separate formations to go beak to beak a few years ago.
The coordination with ATC was an epic fail. The way it was explained to me was that because SEATAC ARTCC (like many civilian aviation entities) is unionized, that they could simply refuse to give IFR releases and the USAF could do nothing about it. They were having us file flight plans contrary to both FAA and USAF regs.
Next time we need to have this exercise in Alaska or Nevada, with the abundance of commonly used MOAs and an existing relationship with ATC.
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3 hours ago, Spinner said:
They did. However, the long range planners failed to secure (didn't do one) a LoA with SeaTac, and that reflected 6-9 months later whenever the masses arrived and started doing something different out of KTCM.
There was one overly obnoxious controller who was trying to violate everyone he could, especially the internationals.
Well that wasn't hard, after the Pakistani C-130s violated every airspace in Washington and dropped off DZ and were subsequently restricted to airland missions only :).
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While we are on the topic, Mobility Guardian just ended (thank god.) Seattle Center almost shut the entire exercise down because they didn't like how flight plans were being filed. There were about 60-70 sorties out of TCM a day. We literally had to turn in those freaking 175s 3 times: once to white cell, once to center, and once as the crews stepped. We are screwed as a fighting force when 6-7 hours of a 12 hour MPC shift are spent on flight plans.
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Wow! Did the pax stay conscious ?
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12 hours ago, the g-man said:
Cool. I am 99% sure I have read the story you're referencing now.
Quick cliffnotes version of what happened?
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On 8/1/2017 at 3:36 PM, carminsandiego said:
a lot of upt studs in the 38 side seem to be labeling the viper as the "lame jet" since it lacks the (advertised) bells and whistles but if you're interested in a multi role mission, I highly suggest you talk to IPs who flew the viper.
There's nothing quite like being able to do air to ground and air to air missions in a single seat jet without a mouth breather in the back draining your SA (no offense, Mudhens)
That's interesting, if I exhibited opinions like that in 38s, I may have gotten choke slammed and put on permenant corn duty.
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17 hours ago, SPAWNmaster said:
One thing I haven't seen in this thread or the original discussion in Track Select is the fact that this is already being done by the RPA Guard unit in Syracuse, NY. I have a buddy who was hired by them and was sent through UPT. I believe he went through the heavy track and now that he is rated is going to RPA school. Those guys are dual rated to both fly the RPA bird and also fly the chase plane (DA42?). I don't know much about it but it seems like a practical application of the dual qual concept.
The chase plane is not an MWS, it is probably fairly simple to fly. Also as for guard/reserves being "dual qualified" with their airline airplane; when most of them are at their unit, they just show up, fly, do the required training and go home. They aren't chief of <x> and I doubt they spend much effort on OPRs, etc. Get rid of all my additional duties unrelated to flying and I maybe could have time to be dual qualified.
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One of the only valuable part of SOS was the promotion board excercise. Taught me how and why pilots with perfectly clean records get passed over during a pilot shortage. I also learned that your record could be looked at by someone in the med group who won't tell the difference between a copilot/wingman and a weapons officer. It is why I strongly believe that we need to have separate rated boards.
The fact that a few games of dodgeball, some obstacle courses and war gaming has the biggest influence on your career potential as an Air Force officer speaks volumes about what is wrong with the Air Force. I met some cool people from different career fields and enjoyed the southern culture from an overseas base but overall, a screwed up program.
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17 hours ago, RTB said:
Exactly. What a ridiculous report. Apparently according to the authors, because there won't be many of them, the costs, when compared to the total force, will be small, so therefore inconsequential. Except they don't really mention how it will impact the units where they're assigned but barely work due to all the shenanigans required to appease their confusion about reality.
I also love the recommendation that the military should create transgender SMEs and "Gender Advisors" for commanders. Gender Advisors. Because apparently Gender is so complex and variable that we need specially trained advisors. GMAFB. What a joke and complete waste of time.
The military should take that suggestion and tell RAND and Obama to shove it up their a$$es. Instead, let's use that time and resources to make more weapons officers. That way when we actually go to war we won't get our a$$es kicked since we have become such a PC society. Good lord, I can't believe we are arguing about the feasibility of accomodating dudes who want to be girls or vice versa in the military at the expense of the tax payer and another Airmen that must deploy in their place.
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7 hours ago, Duck said:
This is bull$hit. I mean all 7 of those people now can't join. Thanks a lot Trump.
To be fair Guam is sneaky like that
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No no and no! Maintaining qualification and currency let alone proficiency in any USAF MWS is a full time job....the ground duties/admin queep is a second full time job. Being an instructor/flight CC/commander is arguably a third. Oh I also like to spend time with my family and get time off.
We aren't going to assume another full time job because the Air Force has royalty mismanaged its rated force and shot itself in the foot due to its own incompetence.
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On 7/5/2017 at 3:40 PM, matmacwc said:
I keep telling my liberal friends not to get wrapped up in collusion crap because when the networks finally admit its nothing, they will be let down like they were the day after the election. They are turning themselves bipolar.
It's a specific disorder that's swept this part of the world recently, while still in the research phase, neurological experts have given it the name : TDS
Trump Derangement Syndrome
Said experts warn of its contagious effects. It is highly advised not to attempt to treat said individuals with common sense and logic, you may be labeled a bigot, racist, white privileged patriarch.
edit: returned from acronym school, thanks nsplyr; point still stands though.
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9 hours ago, ViperMan said:
This solves nothing - as a "solution" it will only exacerbate the problem. For the reason identified below:
Shack.
I see what you're saying, but it would mitigate the problem or at least delay the shortage of RPA folks? At least it may perhaps boost morale in the RPA squadrons since you're filling it with people who want to be there?
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1 hour ago, viper154 said:
Since the MQ-1s are being retired those UPT Ds are going back this winter/spring. I was one of the first UPT D guys from this latest round that got a 9, I was told to expect a fall 2018 PCS. That would exactly 3 years from assignment night and 2.5 on station.
FWIW, the initial 18x commitments are up next year, and 95% are not staying. My squadron will literally loose every eval/instructor we have before 2019.
The RPA community is going to face a similar exodus to civilian RPAs (which pay much more) that we are facing in the pilot community. It's time for enlisted RPA operators. For Fs sake, if we can trust a 19 year old Army E2 to take a 50 cal to the head of a terrorist then we can train at least some USAF NCOs to drop some hellfires from MQ-9s. I know some enlisted have already started cross training but I don't understand why this isn't a bigger push. I could find you dozens of enlisted folks sitting at a computer all day that would kill to fly RPAs and do well at it.
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Flight Pay increases
in General Discussion
Posted
Ideally, everyone would be on the same (be good at your primary job aka flying) path until majors board at which point people would split off into a leadership v flying track. The flying track would include only squadron level and some group level necessary flying jobs (OGV.). These would be your WOs, ADOs and they would top out at 0-5 max and as DOs.
Leadership track would play the Air Force game and go to school, work staff and command. I think there should be opportunities for flying track folks to jump over to the leadership track and those on the leadership track to jump over to the flying track when circumstances dictate.
Not sure I would go for it for 20 years but I would seriously think twice about staying in longer.