August 21, 20196 yr 25 minutes ago, Orbit said: When did the Air Force decide it hates airplanes? When incidents in a GA airplane that's part of an aero club counts against the wing commander's safety record.
August 21, 20196 yr 32 minutes ago, Bergman said: Alarming. He’s right on the money. 78 Suicides so far this year 😡 Random anecdote, but my wife's suitemate committed suicide in the dorms during my wife's first year of enlistment. Clamoring for attention paid to toxic SNCO leadership was and continued to be a common topic among her enlistment, which she smartly capped at one term. Her suitemate of course wasn't so fortunate.
August 21, 20196 yr 45 minutes ago, LookieRookie said: When incidents in a GA airplane that's part of an aero club counts against the wing commander's safety record. So you are saying that we need to change the rules so the queep stops crushing good things that people enjoy. Might make a small difference with the upward trend in suicides.
August 21, 20196 yr 4 hours ago, Orbit said: So you are saying that we need to change the rules so the queep stops crushing good things that people enjoy. Might make a small difference with the upward trend in suicides. There's a quote that goes something like "A life without risk is no life at all." How many Air Force programs and policies that are aimed at reducing risk are making us miserable?
August 22, 20196 yr 10 hours ago, MCO said: The global hawks here at my overseas base are parked next to the base aero club hangar... Same as it was at Beale... easy setup that was a decent selling point to attract volunteers, no accidents, incidents or violations to my knowledge for the Global Hawk Companion Training Aircraft Program to my knowledge during its run. 9 hours ago, Orbit said: When did the Air Force decide it hates airplanes? From my perspective, about 5 minutes after I graduated SUPT. Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex. Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree? Yup Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)? Nope Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. What's wrong with the Air Force? Many things but trying to reduce it further down to root problems... model career progression/paths envisioned decades ago and the credentials/education considered necessary for said old models and not really updated for today's reality, would be my choice for today. Edited August 22, 20196 yr by Clark Griswold
August 22, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said: Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex. Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree? Yup Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)? Nope Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. Shack.
August 22, 20196 yr 13 hours ago, Clark Griswold said: Same as it was at Beale... easy setup that was a decent selling point to attract volunteers, no accidents, incidents or violations to my knowledge for the Global Hawk Companion Training Aircraft Program to my knowledge during its run. From my perspective, about 5 minutes after I graduated SUPT. Second order effect of the on again off again credentials arms race that has only gotten worse with the advent of online master's degrees and the growth of the Professional Military Educational Complex. Data block on your surf showing likely worthless Advanced Academic Degree? Yup Data block on your surf (if aircrew) showing Advanced Primary Operational Skills (Instructor/Evaluator/FCF cert/etc.)? Nope Think about that, Academic credentials (masters and/or pme) matter more in the great scheme of things than actual Operational credentials and hence experience/ability. What's wrong with the Air Force? Many things but trying to reduce it further down to root problems... model career progression/paths envisioned decades ago and the credentials/education considered necessary for said old models and not really updated for today's reality, would be my choice for today. Wait, what? I have SEI reflecting AIS. Other quals are shown multiple places, like K prefix on AFSC and duty title.
August 22, 20196 yr Wait, what? I have SEI reflecting AIS. Other quals are shown multiple places, like K prefix on AFSC and duty title.Legit critique but as an institution we have used said AAD and PME indicators as discriminators for military rank promotion, just my opinion and experience they were given more weight (incorrectly) than K, Q codes or SEI. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
August 23, 20196 yr On 8/20/2019 at 11:00 PM, HuggyU2 said: Semantics. It's a function of whether they want to allocate the $$ or not. But the money is there. For a number of years, the AF paid for the RQ-4 pilots (which included some Nav/CSO's) to fly the Aero Club Cessna 172s. Great deal for them... dirt cheap for the AF... benefits were readily quantifiable. But it was cut. I remember one of the many attacks on the Beale T-38's. Around 2005 time frame at Nellis, and F-22 crew chief allowed a gear pin to get sucked into the engine. The resulting damage to that F-22 engine was more than it cost to fund 3800+ flying hours in the Beale T-38A companion trainer. Yes... 3800+ hours in the T-38 were cheaper than the F-22 FOD'd motor. Huggy, are you saying that the DoD could do a markedly better job at managing its almost trillion dollar annual budget? Does anyone have the shocked Pikachu meme handy? Maybe I'm biased due to my own cynicism. I agree with you and Clark in theory. In practice, even if there were one or two Flags that wanted to make that happen, it's not enough to turn the ship around. It's like Chuck Spinney said, "You can't simultaneously have high tech tinker toys AND have a high operational tempo." To bring this full circle: What's wrong with us? We're bankrupt of leadership. The people making the decisions on our behalf need to account for the fact that historically, even with a lower budget than we've got today, we were able to keep dudes flying 5 days a week.
August 23, 20196 yr 20 years of global force projection plus a need to modernize to stay ready for peer/near peer conflict makes it difficult to balance the budget Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app
August 23, 20196 yr 4 hours ago, pcola said: 20 years of global force projection... Coming up on 30, actually. My old U-2 squadron has had guys deployed continually for over 29 years to the Middle East, starting with Taif in 1990. It's not like there is another squadron that they can trade off with.
August 23, 20196 yr The book Superpower: Three Choices For Americans discusses the faults of America's overconfidence that as the only superpower it could do it all; police the world and maintain a strong domestic system. Worth the read.
August 23, 20196 yr Coming up on 30, actually. My old U-2 squadron has had guys deployed continually for over 29 years to the Middle East, starting with Taif in 1990. It's not like there is another squadron that they can trade off with. Same with Rescue.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
August 24, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, slackline said: Same with Rescue. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Same with RC-135s.
August 24, 20196 yr Ok 30, my off-the-cuff number was off the mark by quite a bit. But my point stands. We’ve broken the force, and subsequently eroded our position of dominance in trying to do too much but without full commitment to anything. Some would argue that it’s the inevitable end to a unipolar system. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app
August 26, 20196 yr what's wrong with the Air Force? It failed to commit the first crime in space. Credit will now go the Army's Apache community. Perhaps this post also belongs in the "what's right with the Air Force". https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/first-space-crime-nasa-astronaut-denies-hacking-spouses-data-during-iss-mission/articleshow/70836191.cms Edited August 26, 20196 yr by CharlieHotel47 spelling
August 26, 20196 yr 51 minutes ago, CharlieHotel47 said: what's wrong with the Air Force? It failed to commit the first crime in space. Credit will now go the Army's Apache community. Perhaps this post also belongs in the "what's right with the Air Force". https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/first-space-crime-nasa-astronaut-denies-hacking-spouses-data-during-iss-mission/articleshow/70836191.cms shots fired!
August 27, 20196 yr Got turned away from a PT test today for signing my FSQ at the FAC day of. Apparently it takes 3 airman dieing to arbitrarily enforce a stupid AFI that would have done nothing to prevent said tragic deaths. FYI: FSQ must be signed 7 days prior to your PT test. WWWTAF? (I'm having flash backs of the Black Socks Nazis now as well) Edited August 27, 20196 yr by FLEA
August 27, 20196 yr 2 hours ago, FLEA said: Got turned away from a PT test today for signing my FSQ at the FAC day of. Apparently it takes 3 airman dieing to arbitrarily enforce a stupid AFI that would have done nothing to prevent said tragic deaths. FYI: FSQ must be signed 7 days prior to your PT test. WWWTAF? (I'm having flash backs of the Black Socks Nazis now as well) Gotta convince your squadron commander to take back PT tests. I can take one with a same-day text and my PTL will bring all the paperwork to the gym for me.
August 27, 20196 yr 1 hour ago, pawnman said: Gotta convince your squadron commander to take back PT tests. I can take one with a same-day text and my PTL will bring all the paperwork to the gym for me. I would except I'm on a staff right now and they have zero interest in going to unit tested. Also, I found out some bases demean the policy of squadron testing by still requiring squadrons to submit FAC augmentees from their PTL pool; even if they test internally. This makes some /CC's hesitant to go internal because now it doubles the burden on their airman. (They have to test everyone in their squadron and still take 1/month a year to test everyone in everyone else's squadrons) Not saying that is specific to my case but I was interested to learn that.
August 27, 20196 yr 5 hours ago, pawnman said: Gotta convince your squadron commander to take back PT tests. I can take one with a same-day text and my PTL will bring all the paperwork to the gym for me. Yeah, but that doesn't come for free. When you last minute schedule a test, you randomly take an hour away from that UFPM's day.
August 27, 20196 yr 3 hours ago, Wicker said: Yeah, but that doesn't come for free. When you last minute schedule a test, you randomly take an hour away from that UFPM's day. I don't know how it's worked in your units, but I'm mine it's been "hey bud, when do you have some time? I need to do a PT test." "Sure, how about X day at Y time?" "Great, see you there"
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