dream big

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.

See the "how can I get a fighter" UPT threads..

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?

As a 130J guy myself I am also curious. Feel free to Pm.

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.

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.

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."

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.)

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.

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.

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 :).

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.

Wow! Did the pax stay conscious ?

Quick cliffnotes version of what happened?

That's interesting, if I exhibited opinions like that in 38s, I may have gotten choke slammed and put on permenant corn duty.

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.

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.

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.

To be fair Guam is sneaky like that

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.

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.

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?

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.

Likely, but could also be a fighter, bomber, recon, helo squadron...toxic leaders are everywhere. AMC does seem to have a special breed of CYA managers though.

Ah the quintessential passive aggressive commander, my favorite. Tell him to get the dildo out of his behind and express his words like a real man. Seriously, is a little bit of light hearted sarcasm that offensive these days?