raimius

Can you do better than a 50% base pay pension for 4 years of work, compared to 4 years of another job? Money and QoL

Have you all actually seen progress with "revitalizing the squadrons?" The main thing I've seen is copilot's with less flight time on arrival, and transferring additional duties to the front office--along with more aircrew because we don't actually have any admin troops.

Now...we're doomed...

Interesting view. For an USAF pilot, the straight replacement cost of training is in the multi-million dollar range, even disregarding the morality of trying to protect our people when the tech is readily available. I'm going to disagree with you on this one.

Our Blues/Service Dress/Mess Dress is enough "looking special" for me. In a utility/combat uniform, I don't want to look special! I like the 2-piece overall. It's pretty decent. More normal pants pockets are nice.

Thanks, I was kind of wondering on the timeline as well.

Who needs training when you can graduate them sooner?

Watching that video sucked.

Yeah, the AF is so short on pilots that it just reduced the bonus for some of them... Is $500/yr going to make a huge difference? Probably not, but it certainly sends the message that Big Blue really doesn't care that much about experience retention.

$6k/mo is equivalent to a $72k/yr bonus...without a fixed ADSC. I doubt it! Big Blue would not suddenly give that good a deal. I'd expect stop loss and 365s first.

Sounds like a good time to look for the door. When people ask if I'm going to stay in, I usually answer, "If I get to the end of my commitment, and still like my job." If that answer to that question is a "no," it's time to look elsewhere.

I think they know we have a retention problem. I think they just gave up and decided to "grow their way out of the problem" rather than face the reality of why they can't retain enough experience.

As annoying as it is, there are some missions that need to be practiced to maintain capability, and are not done regularly out there. Hopefully, the guy running exercises will be able to cut the unnecessary ones... As for OREs...yeah, that doesn't make sense.

I strongly doubt it.

At least one of them delivers to the gate, if you call ahead...

1. Personal preference. If you are worried about a magazine ban (with grandfathering), more is better. Otherwise, I'd say however many you would want to use at once times 1.5 or x2, just to cover potential damage. Frankly, there are enough 10-pack Pmag deals out there that one of those would be a logical choice. 2. Again, personal preference. If you would use it for defensive purposes, I'd suggest at least one. Having it in the safe in condition 3 might not be a bad idea, so long as you respect the status of the firearm during handling. Running out the door/back to the bedroom while shoving loose rounds in a mag is not a great idea, despite the guy in TX's results against a mass shooter. If you fear zombie uprisings or just don't like loading mags before heading to the range...more, I guess.

JS, Pmags are good to go. The issue with aluminum "GI" style mags is that any damage to the feed lips can be hard to visually detect, but can cause malfunctions. Pmags are either broken or not broken--the polymer doesn't experience plastic deformation very much. They can fracture, but then you can see it. That said, they are hard to destroy. So, if you are not regularly running them over, stomping on them, or body slamming them against concrete, you should be good. Even if you do abuse them, they are $10-15 each. 7.62x39 is not optimized for the AR system. There are uppers for them, but some have issues. If you are willing to spend a little more, .300blackout gives performance pretty close to x39, runs well in short barrels or suppressed, and only requires a barrel change from the normal AR system (the case is based on 5.56). The 15-22 had some issues a few years back, but I haven't kept up lately. You might want to do some research on that. Alternately, 9mm AR pistols and carbines are gaining popularity.

https://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/your-marine-corps/2018/02/14/marines-are-flying-more-than-the-air-force/ So, who is getting the hours? You guys must have a wide spread (sts) in hours by type.

Probably between 30 and 60% of scheduled lines, as a guesstimate. Personally, I tend to favor 100ft for low-level so I have a little more reaction time for EPs and am less likely to wire-strike an uncharted line. (Lots of 30-50ft lines out there.)

Contracting out all helicopter training...I'm sure that'll work well... At least we know how valuable we are!

Getting loose would be more a function of the mount rather than the optic, in most cases. As for zero, it depends on the model. Battery powered RMRs have to be removed to replace the battery, so they would need to be re-zeroed then. Others, like the DeltaPoint Pro have top-loading batteries. I can't comment too much on longevity, but it seems like the RMRs and DeltaPoint Pros last a good while, from what I hear.

After canceling the "combat demo," I have doubts about the seriousness of this effort.