raimius
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Posts posted by raimius
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19 hours ago, torqued said:
I get what you're saying, and I get what joe1234 is saying. I managed to do almost 22 years and never had a position that wasn't flying, instructing, or evaluating and my thoughts have been all over the map on this issue.
There's always been the constants in the Squadron: A few stick and rudder guys that just nailed everything, few GK gurus, a couple deadbeats, and then... everyone in the middle. For whatever reason, I marked 2012 as the year when I saw a notable decline in the middle of the squadron's "give a shit" attitude and emphasis toward flying skills. That's also around the time I noticed a massive increase in complexity of simply being a pilot/member of the Air Force. It was around this time when the Great PC Witch Hunt occurred, more inspections, budget sequestrations/less flying, new finance policies, etc.
After a while, every checkride/training folder began with conversations along the lines of "Hey, I'm just trying to get through this. I've been working on MICT checklists for the past month and have been cancelled for MX/WX/Ops six times." And they weren't lying. So then I go to the SQ/CC with my concerns and he says, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I just got back from a conference and had to jump on a line and seat swap with 2 other pilots last night to get my one to/app/landing for the month. Maybe we should schedule a GK/tactics briefing this week to up everyone's game." Surprise, no one dropped their deployment prep, CBTs, OPRs/EPRs, Wing staff circlejerks, training summary reports, FEF reviews, travel voucher puzzles so Petey Patchwearer could lecture everyone how to calculate a tactical descent profile into Baghdad international.
So I would debrief the flight, I'd try to offer techniques, get in the weeds a little, and they'd rapidly nod while checking their watch. They all had to make slides for the next morning's staff meeting, send an email, meet some sort of deadline for more important matters.
My point is it's a math problem. I don't think the quality/character of the average pilot of the squadron has declined. But if you increase the complexity of the job and therefore reduce the time available to dedicate to improving flying skills, the result is the result. On top of that, the Air Force doesn't require or reward you for being better than you were yesterday in your primary duty. I 100% agree that everyone should strive to be better than the minimum. Challenging oneself and being the best pilot you can be for your country and coworkers should be reward in itself, but it still competes with, and is secondary to, the other time and tasks the Air Force requires.
Checks!
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16 hours ago, Pooter said:
Exactly. People are far too eager to declare a premature victory over this thing and return to normalcy without any semblance of a structured approach. I think it's partly frustration with the lockdown and partly desensitization. Mortality numbers like we're seeing today would have been unimaginable in January, but when CNN jams them down your throat 24/7, eventually it stops being alarming.
Agreed on the first part.
I'm not quite so sure on the desensitized part. Before this, I had not realized we regularly lose upwards of 50k to the flu on a yearly basis. It's one of those things that is the result of working with large population numbers, but you don't really think about the numbers until you try to start comparisons. CNN doesn't go into months of coverage for 48k suicides or 50k flu deaths (not to mention cancer, heart disease, etc). I'd rather say that people DO worry about what CNN et. al. squawk about, rather than what is actually happening or not.
(e.g. people fear active shooters more than car crashes, but one source kills dozens in a year while the other is 20k-30k)
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16 hours ago, torqued said:
When you're flying with a student, how do you define your expectations? How do you ensure they meet them?
I grade to the syllabus, but that doesn't mean I stop there and call it good. A "G" or "3" or whatever the MIF calls passing is enough to pass, but I don't want people whose goal is to barely pass to be my coworkers. I don't expect perfection, but being better than you were yesterday should be the dominant attitude in a healthy organization.
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7 hours ago, joe1234 said:
In the words of The Dude, "yeah well, that's just, like, your opinion, man". I appreciate that you have your opinions on what our professional duty consists of, but so does stan eval, safety, the DO, the commander, the wing king, the MAJCOM, and so forth. And that battle has already been fought, the result being the MDS vol 1/2. Anything above that is technique, and I hope you're making that clear to the guys you're instructing after preaching about professional duty.
Personally I like instructing, and I'll advocate for going above the minimum, but if a guy wants to get vectors for the ILS and then speed off to the airlines, that's entirely their prerogative and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.
I get the whole "If the minimum wasn't good enough, it wouldn't be the minimum" attitude...but that's usually what you tell yourself when you don't do very well.
Personally, I don't want to fly with aviators that want to do the bare minimum at flying. (CBTs, queep, etc?---sure min/max perform that and get back to your real job!...but your actual job? Shouldn't you be really damn good at that?)-
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On 4/17/2020 at 12:57 PM, Pooter said:
Sorry but the F'd up situation is when we have churches convincing their congregations that it's safe to come in person despite all medical guidance pointing to the contrary.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/02/texas-churches-coronavirus-stay-open/
Harvard University epidemiologist Bill Hanage ticked off examples of virus transmission in houses of worship in London, South Korea, Singapore and the state of Georgia and said exempting religious services from shelter-in-place orders is “an incredibly bad idea.”
Also it has never been easier to live stream a worship service to the internet for all to see. This isn't the old days where you have to be a megachurch with tv or radio broadcast infrastructure. You need a cell phone and a youtube account.
That is a weak deflection. The topic is government overreach and the violation of constitutional protections based on "emergency needs," not the wisdom or foolishness of being religious. We can see your opinion on the latter by your condescending posts, but you are using your opinion against religious groups to mask the issue of the government violating numerous civil rights in an inconsistent and (sometimes) non-medically relevant manner (banning socially-distanced activities or "gatherings" of people who already live together, etc).
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If banning church services (even ones following health guidance) even makes it to a judge, we have a F'd up situation. The fact that numerous civil servants thought it was a good idea AND did not reconsider when first called out demonstrates that these concerns are not simply academic hyperbole.
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A cluster all the way around...
Send out a 30+ recipient email with opsec/national security concerns that makes it to the press? Yeah, you are going to get fired.
Publicly denigrate the (popular) CO you just fired to his (supportive) crew and the audio makes it to the press? Yeah, you are going to get fired.-
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It is preferred, but not required.
It is required for TPS.
Probably a lot of old data floating around that is assumed to be current. "You need 20/20 vision to be a pilot." Maybe true in WWII, but not now!-
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1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:
Interesting article on AF culture and resistance to changing it, focusing on the rated force.
SYNCHRONIZING CHANGE AND AIR FORCE CULTURE: MODERNIZATION AND THE DIRTY SECRET OF AIRCREW SHORTAGE
Worth the 10 mins to read IMO.
Crossflowing RPA operators would still get you wingmen/co-pilots, just ones with far better air sense (and closer to retirement). I suppose you could upgrade them faster, but it's not as good a fix as simply retaining your pilots who are already experienced.
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2 hours ago, LookieRookie said:
And? As long as there aren’t training camps
2 hours ago, SurelySerious said:In August 2001 there were, which is probably what he’s on about.
Not sure how much that will happen, but I'm thinking they'll go back to civil war with the Taliban controlling most of the country.
Not sure there is any other realistic outcome at a price we are willing to pay...just kind of sad that it will likely return to status quo ante after 20 years of effort/thousands of lives.
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Under 5 years until Aug 2001 conditions...
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I'll admit that I still like to give some jabs at RPA, fighter dudes, and missileers. That said, they all do important things in the end. You'll probably take out more bad guys than 90%+ of the manned community and/or provide life-saving intel to teams on the ground. If that isn't something to value, I don't know what is.
Now, if your heart and soul is set on flying, you have some options. 1. Fly as a hobby. It costs money, but you get way more freedom. 2. Keep trying to cross-train. There are cool AF flying gigs, and some cross-flow does happen. 3. Get out and fly civilian, when you can.
I'd try to keep a couple things in mind: A. What part flying is fulfilling to you? (physically flying or making a difference to others?) B. Does your job have to be THE thing that you get fulfillment from? (Probably not, but it is nice). C. A lot of times things work out better than you expect. (Certainly has vs what I wanted on my drop night.) -
A toast...
🍺
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On 1/7/2020 at 11:35 AM, M2 said:
Sounds more like either A. The CC wants more control over the masses or B. He doesn't want the blame if someone does something stupid.
Too bad he is willing to sacrifice other's ability to defend themselves for it...😡
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Get some 31-34NRR ear plugs (make sure you wear them correctly) and wear some electronic ear muffs.
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O-4 is down by about $30 at Malmstrom...which was already pretty weak on BAH.
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41 minutes ago, Champ Kind said:
What’s the first year group wholly affected by the BRS only/no pension at 20 years deal? Will people in that year group (or those that opted in) even be motivated to stick it out till 20? I doubt it.BRS still has a 40% pension after 20, last I heard.
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24 minutes ago, zachbar said:
The T-6 can only do VOR/LOC and LNAV approaches.
So, VOR, LOC, ILS, and LNAV...that's not a bad starting set. (I thought it could do TACAN as well?)
Throw in a 15year old Garmin and you'd get LPV too, lol.
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2 hours ago, dream big said:
The idea that MWS squadrons should teach what should have been taught at UPT is going to get people killed. When I get a new Copilot, I don’t need to be teaching him basic instrument skills or airmanship. I need to be teaching him how to land in an LZ, airdrop 19 year olds into hot DZs, defend against a spectrum of threats, operate in a contested environment, integrate with SEAD, CAS, JTACs, be proficient at TDL or at a bare minimum not kill himself and his crew in Afghanistan. If 18th AF/CC thinks we can train in the Ops squadrons then he is directly countering his boss who has made it clear that peer and near peer readiness is a priority.
2!
It gets really freaking frustrating when the ops unit runs more gradebooks than the schoolhouse, and it takes months to get people trained up on things that were taught during IQT previously. The past 5-10 years have seen too much "just make the ops units do it, so we can "graduate" more half-trained aircrew." -
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4 hours ago, Clark Griswold said:
It is one of the more impressive passive-aggressive ways to avoid fielding a fleet of aircraft that I've ever seen.
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RIP 🍺
"Unplanned parachute departure"...is that a chute opening in the aircraft or the harness failing on opening?
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4 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:
Semantics. One could argue the entire process is designed to remove an elected official, not just the actions by the Senate. Six to one, half a dozen to another.
If you think accused and convicted are the same thing, your legal understanding is lacking. House investigations and/or referrals are absolutely NOT the same as a Senate trial and removal from office
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Well, the SDF's PR campaign has definitely started:
Civilian jobs that work closely with the AF/squadrons?
in General Discussion
Posted
There are often admin/support jobs in squadrons. Another route might be in the maintenance realm. I don't know the common pre-reqs for those jobs, but you can look at M1 or Dyncorp for more info.