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DirkDiggler

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Posts posted by DirkDiggler

    Promotion and PRF Information

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Unfortunately, in today's Air Force, being tactically savvy and leading from the front plays second best to those execs who are nibbling at the teet of the SQ/OG CC....

    I can tell you that where I am at, the Exec is a secretary and known as the worst pilot in the SQ with poor leadership skills.

    I'm in school now, didn't do my exec job till after I was a select so I don't think that statement is accurate across all communities

    Promotion and PRF Information

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I was an OG exec. It was a shit ton of work, but I gained more "leadership" experience from that job than from any other job I've had. Giving direct feedback to squadron commanders as a Captain can be a challenging leadership experience. It's also interesting to see how decisions are made and implemented at all levels. My former boss is now a GO, so that doesn't hurt either. I don't know how other organizations work, but I've never seen an exec picked for secretarial experience. In my experience, squadrons typically nominate quality people for execdom. I know that's not the case everywhere, but damn people sure are cynical about execs around here.

    I gained more "leadership" experience from leading a crew in combat and MSN/CCing TDY ops in multiple countries than I ever did in my exec job. To each his own I guess.

    • Upvote 4

    Save the A-10: Give It to the Army

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    They probably didn't, but they were enormous dickhead prima donnas. I get Lawman's point - they hindered mission accomplishment all while saying, "###### off, we're above you" to all the Army bros. I have many reasons for joining the AF instead of the Army, but I think you can only go so far with the "well you made your choice" when it comes to something like this.

    Checks

    KC-46A Candidate Bases Announced

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    No hydraulic fluid, deice/anti-ice fluid on the sighting window. Nothing like trying to make a contact with a A-10 or B-1 at night and not being able to see out of the window due to it being covered in hydro fluid, hoping you don't hit the canopy/window. According to the test guys in Seattle night AR will be IR. The ability to see completely behind the tanker with the multiple camera angles and views.

    The biggest change for -135 Booms is sitting up, not having to fly the boom around while in contact. A majority of -135 Booms have neck, shoulder, or lower back problems due to the 1950's era ergonomics.

    Yes. It actually has stick shaker built into the system (ALAS, Automated Load Aleviation System) to shake if inadvertent input are made to the control stick.

    Thanks for the info, sounds like its a solid tech advancement for you guys.

    Little Rock info

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by DirkDiggler

    Stupid question pause in the thread:

    Nav to pilot, ok, not uncommon.

    Heavy to fighter - back in the day, was possible (saw it once from E-3 to F-15C).

    F15E to C-130 after only a few years? Injury (saw it once F-15E to E-8, "no more ejection seat for you!")?

    No disrespect or insult intended for either community, just not part of either community and it looks 'different.'

    He was a nav in slick C-130s before going to pilot training, tracked F-15Es out of there and ended up having some sort of med issue/loss of ejection seat qual leading him back to pilot -130s.

    FY 14 Force Management Program (RIF, VSP, TERA)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    I know SECAF says we're done...but we also have to cut another 4,000 people somewhere. Any insight on how we're going to cut 4,000 people with no VSP, TERA, or involuntary programs?

    Well, my community brought back a WSO after almost a decade due to WSO manning. He's an O-5 going back through initial qual. At the same time, we RIF'd three O-4 WSOs, including an evaluator with six deployments, qualified in the new glass cockpit aircraft. So...worked great, I guess.

    Basically what 11F said above. He (the general) was didn't really answer most of the questions posed to him directly so I don't have any other info to offer.

    FY 14 Force Management Program (RIF, VSP, TERA)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Chang is trolling people here, nothing more, nothing less. General Cox came and spoke at our wayward school by the river; he wasn't nearly as chipper about how the FY14 force management programs unfolded. The personnelist in my flight openly espouses that the planning, messaging, and execution of these programs was a complete goat rope. On the positive side, it seems like the involuntary drama is done and a decent amount of people that wanted to try a different path outside the AF are getting the chance.

    Torture! (Here we go)

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    Excellent discussion on Hannity tonight (I don't watch often but happened to be flipping through).

    The discussion included a taped radio segment with Justice Antonie Scalia (had the opportunity to debate him 1v1 in an academic environment...discussion for another day but a wicked smart dude), in this segment Scalia posits an extreme case where you capture a person who you know for sure has information about a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles that WILL kill millions of people in a short period of time...he wonders then if people would still say torture is terrible. Immediately afterwards Ken Roth from human Rights Watch chimes in and says that is a straw man argument. Roth then goes on to classify the Scalia scenario as a "hypothetical", "I live in the real world."

    Hannity then hits Roth with a scenario about his children being kidnapped and he catches the person that has his kids, "What would you do to get the information about where your kids are"....Roth answers, "well as a prosecutor I've found it effective to establish rapport with the person I was interrogating." UFB!

    This scenario is taking the question out of context. I don't think anyone on this board would resolutely condemn an individual for, in the heat of the moment based on intensely personal emotions, attempting to protect their children. This directly translates into heat of battle decisions In any war, you'd have to be completely naive to believe that prisoners are going to to be treated with kid gloves by the soldiers that initially capture them. Field interrogations discussed by other members of this board aka my buddy just got blown up by an IED, where's the next one or I'm kicking the shit out of you are going to happen with any military regardless of the level of discipline. Its a consequence of war and I'm not gonna judge guys for actions like that taken in the heat of battle.

    The difference here is that these enhanced interrogation techniques, torture, ass play, whatever you want to call it aren't being conducted by operators and soldiers in the field. They're being conducted by three letter agency personnel far removed from the battle field and combat. That's the equivalent, in Hannity's example above, of you capturing the guy who has your kids and then turning them over to the cops to get tortured. The government has screwed up my pay, travel arrangements and countless other things in my short 11 years in the military. Do you really want them given the authority to conduct these sort of actions, mostly without oversight from other parts of the government?

    I don't know about anybody else, but I sure as shit don't want to live in a country that officially sanctions shit like that. There's lots of countries across the globe where the government and police forces routinely torture and abuse both their own citizens and citizens from other countries. Countries like that make me glad I was born in America. There's a recent article on stripes that I'm too lazy to link that shows all the military JAGs that were consulted about enhanced interrogations had serious reservations or were downright against their use. McCrystal in Iraq was vehemently against stuff like that as well. If you want to say that terrorists aren't afforded the protections of the Geneva Convention that's fine, I'll buy your argument even though I strongly believe in continuing to kill them where we find them. Then we treat them like criminals and prosecute them. The last time I checked, even the worst criminals in our prison system aren't tortured. If these activities were so acceptable then why didn't we bring captured terrorists to Leavenworth and string them up by their arms there instead of doing it in countries like Poland, Romania, etc?

    The simple pendulum swings both ways. After 9/11, there was a lot of fear and a lot of uncertainty; I personally believe some mistakes were made. I think we're good enough as a people and a country to admit when we've ed up. Continuing to argue that torture is a viable and justifiable method to get information is only going to hurt us as a country.

    • Upvote 3

    Aviation Continuation Pay (ACP - The Bonus)

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    If those of you who aren't 11Ms, you might wonder why you care. You might want to check who's filling ACC, AFSOC, etc., staff billets in lieu of short-mainned 11Fs and 11Ss.

    [/quote

    The majority of AFSOC rated guys aren't heading to staff billets these days, they're flying the line or pulling a MAJCOM staff tour while simultaneously still flying at Hurbie.

    Promotion and PRF Information

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    The AAD elephant is institutional and its going to take a while to change people's way of thinking. Example, I recently did a career day where OTS cadets get to talk to someone in their AFSCs for a while about what their job will be like. A cadet asked whether he should start a masters degree now before he got to pilot training since "he had some time" (was going to be casual for several months). My answer was no way, the CSAF said that's not important and if you're worrying about a masters going through UPT your're ing up. All 3 O-5s in the room told him it was a good idea to get it started and his thinking was good. Its gonna take awhile, I just hope that Welsh can position a successor that has similar ideas to his about whats important in the AF.

    AC-130 AFSOC Questions

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Go with the mission and aircraft you think you're gonna love. Don't sweat anything else. Anywhere in AFSOC is gonna give you an awesome career puttin the hurt on bad guys, you'll be surrounded by some of the best people you'll end up meeting in your life.

    • Upvote 1

    Decline of Baseops.net (aka The Wrath of PYB/Mods gone wild)

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    You ever notice how every one of USAFPilot, PYB, Cannoncrashpad, whatever flavor he's calling himself this week's posting always ends up going personal (sometimes intensely so) when people on this forum don't listen and agree with his bizarre ranting. Its like watching someone with Alzheimer's forgetting that they already got in the same fight over and over. Funny, but also kinda sad.

    • Upvote 2
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