What's wrong with the Air Force?

[Lord Ratner]

On 7/14/2025 at 12:55 PM, dream big said:

Boot height, really? Also in ranks inspections are an utter waste of time

For pilots. 

 

We forget that the rest of the military isn't officer heavy with the ability to filter for only the highest performing enlisted troops. 

 

Talk to a marine recon officer about the type of shit they deal with, and the discipline side of the military starts to make a lot more sense. Saw a lot of it in Moron, and it was eye opening. Trying to control and motivate an 18-year-old who got his brand new girlfriend pregnant because he heard you make a little more money is an all together foreign experience for most Air Force pilots. I sure as hell didn't have to deal with it.

 

That's not to say I would have been on board with the changes, I'm a contrarian by nature, but the aviation wing of the military has always been the exception, not the rule. 

[FourFans]

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Trying to control and motivate an 18-year-old who got his brand new girlfriend pregnant because he heard you make a little more money is an all together foreign experience for most Air Force pilots. I sure as hell didn't have to deal with it.

Obviously you're not a mobility pilot.  You sound more like an eagle driver who's only interaction with E's was when you yelled at your crew chief.  Another swing and a miss.  Many AF pilots are intimately familiar with actively leading 18 year-old aircrew, maintainers, and support troops.  Talk to any AC who's taking crewed aircraft on a 3 week trip or any major who's been a detco for weeks on end.

Your experience is not everyone else's.  Maybe come out of your echo chamber.

I've worked indepth with many marines.  They agree: Open ranks inspections are worthless outside of boot camp.  They pursue discipline in far more functional and useful ways.

Edited Tuesday at 10:41 PM by FourFans

[uhhello]

Terrible TOT for All Star game flyover 

[HuggyU2]

16 minutes ago, uhhello said:

Terrible TOT for All Star game flyover 

Where?  What kind of aircraft?  How late?

[Sua Sponte]

1 hour ago, FourFans said:

Obviously you're not a mobility pilot.  You sound more like an eagle driver who's only interaction with E's was when you yelled at your crew chief.  Another swing and a miss.  Many AF pilots are intimately familiar with actively leading 18 year-old aircrew, maintainers, and support troops.  Talk to any AC who's taking crewed aircraft on a 3 week trip or any major who's been a detco for weeks on end.

Your experience is not everyone else's.  Maybe come out of your echo chamber.

I've worked indepth with many marines.  They agree: Open ranks inspections are worthless outside of boot camp.  They pursue discipline in far more functional and useful ways.

He was 100% a mobility pilot. We were stationed together on KC-135s.

[uhhello]

33 minutes ago, HuggyU2 said:

Where?  What kind of aircraft?  How late?

Graphic said 2x 22 and 2x 35 but  I only saw 3.  Solid 10 seconds post anthem. 
 

okay. 10 percent rule. 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:02 AM by uhhello

[FourFans]

1 hour ago, Sua Sponte said:

He was 100% a mobility pilot. We were stationed together on KC-135s.

Fair enough, allow me to amend my statement:  Clearly he's not an airlift pilot.  I know many tanker pilot that I like.  I also know for a fact that airlift and tanker mentalities are distinctly different.  They both go push hard to hack missions, but they hack very different missions with very different users.  Airlift pilots (my perspective being as a 20 year C-130 guy) interface daily with all ages, all ranks, and most services.  We get to taste the how and why of pretty much every corner of the military with few exceptions.  That allows the opportunity to gain a broad perspective.  Granted not all of us take that opportunity, but it's there nonetheless.

From an airlifter's perspective, our community was screwed over by more than one tanker pilot commander trying to run airlift units like tanker units...(which incidentally was the only time I ever experienced an open ranks inspection after basic, thanks two tanker O-6's who's names I shall not repeat, but I digress)...which has left a long-standing scar tissue in the memory of many a herk driver.

In the end I said what I said.  Ratner sounds like he thinks his perspective as a pilot is one we all share, when in fact it is not.  It's been a trend these past few days over several threads: The air India crash was caused by a bad FO, then pilots should shut down motors in response to events they can't even physically see, now pilots need to understand the importance of discipline because we live in a bubble and don't understand the rest of the military.  

Wrong on all fronts.

Three times is a trend.

Edited yesterday at 02:01 AM by FourFans

[Lord Ratner]

4 hours ago, FourFans said:

Obviously you're not a mobility pilot.  You sound more like an eagle driver who's only interaction with E's was when you yelled at your crew chief.  Another swing and a miss.  Many AF pilots are intimately familiar with actively leading 18 year-old aircrew, maintainers, and support troops.  Talk to any AC who's taking crewed aircraft on a 3 week trip or any major who's been a detco for weeks on end

You have a habit of being wrong in this thread, but at least you're consistent.

 

Never been accused of being a fighter pilot before 😂🤣

[Boomer6]

Are you sure you're a herk dude? All the herk dudes I've known weren't  BALBA's...🤔

[dream big]

13 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

For pilots. 

 

We forget that the rest of the military isn't officer heavy with the ability to filter for only the highest performing enlisted troops. 

 

Talk to a marine recon officer about the type of shit they deal with, and the discipline side of the military starts to make a lot more sense. Saw a lot of it in Moron, and it was eye opening. Trying to control and motivate an 18-year-old who got his brand new girlfriend pregnant because he heard you make a little more money is an all together foreign experience for most Air Force pilots. I sure as hell didn't have to deal with it.

 

That's not to say I would have been on board with the changes, I'm a contrarian by nature, but the aviation wing of the military has always been the exception, not the rule. 

I hear you, but I’ve supervised, rated, and commanded hundreds of enlisted of various AFSCs; while there are definitely some tards out there, most of them were solid hard working Americans. Some needed time to mature, some needed mentorship, but most just did their job and kept their nose down; in ranks inspection isn’t going to move the needle on the underlying issues with the junior enlisted. 

[grasshopper]

Multiple decades, multiple platforms, communities, MAJCOMs, and GCCs. Have watched our support functions go down the drain across the board and the burden continue to be delegated to the ones on the pointy end that actually need the most support to do their jobs, take care of their families, and execute the Service’s core missions.

But it wasn’t until leading hundreds of enlisted Airmen across scores of AFSCs that I truly felt the “what are we doing here” hit me in the deepest parts where I’d previously managed to keep alive that spark of pride of service. Showing up late, leaving early, doing the bare minimum and often not even that… some not even able to wear their uniforms, no interest in the actual mission (sometimes lip service and often complaining, but no motivation when given opportunities to participate)… an unhealthy focus on unearned awards, decs, inflated EPBs, and “good deals”…

Get off the flight line for a tour or two into a job where enlisted outnumber officers by 100:1 and you’ll see.

But at the same time I can’t blame “the enlisted”. It’s culture. It starts with accessions and boot camp, tech school, senior enlisted, and the officers that lead them. That is not to say a single officer can make the changes needed — despite higher leadership edicts and Dunning-Kruger-officer platitudinisms to the contrary.

That may sound bitter, but I’m not passed over or at risk of not promoting again. It’s watching officer peers promote with half the motivation, half the understanding of the mission, half the time in service (when weekly input/output is considered), and embodying all of the same “enlisted” issues highlighted above, at senior grades, that is crushing… but they checked the boxes.

It’s institutional, and maybe we should start there.

[Lord Ratner]

4 hours ago, dream big said:

I hear you, but I’ve supervised, rated, and commanded hundreds of enlisted of various AFSCs; while there are definitely some tards out there, most of them were solid hard working Americans. Some needed time to mature, some needed mentorship, but most just did their job and kept their nose down; in ranks inspection isn’t going to move the needle on the underlying issues with the junior enlisted. 

I was obviously unclear in my point, which is my mistake. I was not arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to Air Force enlisted. I was arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to the enlisted in the army and the Marines, which are an entirely different animal than enlisted airmen. What is required to motivate, discipline, and control enlisted airmen is not the same as what is required to motivate, discipline, and control soldiers and grunts. 

 

That's not from personal experience, obviously, it's from the experience of friends and family who were in the army and Marines. And it's from observations made of the absolute daily shit show that was the Marine Recon unit in Moron. And the army/Marine units in Bagram. 

 

If you think the enlisted communities between the services are the same, then we just have to agree to disagree. Different jobs, different applicant pools, different acceptance standards, and different expectations. 

 

Maybe @Lawman or @VMFA187 could chime in with more first-hand experience than I have. 

 

I don't think in-ranks inspections are coming from an Air Force perspective. It's coming from the bigger services and the AF is going to be along for the ride.

[Prosuper]

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

I was obviously unclear in my point, which is my mistake. I was not arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to Air Force enlisted. I was arguing that Air Force pilots do not have exposure to the enlisted in the army and the Marines, which are an entirely different animal than enlisted airmen. What is required to motivate, discipline, and control enlisted airmen is not the same as what is required to motivate, discipline, and control soldiers and grunts. 

 

That's not from personal experience, obviously, it's from the experience of friends and family who were in the army and Marines. And it's from observations made of the absolute daily shit show that was the Marine Recon unit in Moron. And the army/Marine units in Bagram. 

 

If you think the enlisted communities between the services are the same, then we just have to agree to disagree. Different jobs, different applicant pools, different acceptance standards, and different expectations. 

 

Maybe @Lawman or @VMFA187 could chime in with more first-hand experience than I have. 

 

I don't think in-ranks inspections are coming from an Air Force perspective. It's coming from the bigger services and the AF is going to be along for the ride.

Being retired enlisted in a huge maintenance squadron OMS, AGS, or AMXS, pilots do not get or very little exposure to enlisted unless they fly a heavy with loadmasters/boomers, Flight engineers or flight mechanics. But that is a small exposure just to get todays mission done. They don't deal with the personnel issues such as EPR's, training, or discipline. We have junior mx officers with a MSgt Pro Super tied to them to keep them out of trouble before a O5 SQCC makes their life a living hell. My neighbor is a retired Army Apache pilot who was the MX officer in his unit, he flew all the OCF/FCFs before a line pilot flew it, totally different culture. It's been a while since the USAF had rated Mx officers and awhile MX was assigned to Ops squadrons. In the early 90's many OPCC's flew their jets into the ground not managing acft  hours telling the MX officer and Senior Es to shut up and color. Try being in those squadrons with a bunch of whiney ABM's.    

[Sua Sponte]

16 hours ago, FourFans said:

Fair enough, allow me to amend my statement:  Clearly he's not an airlift pilot.  I know many tanker pilot that I like.  I also know for a fact that airlift and tanker mentalities are distinctly different.  They both go push hard to hack missions, but they hack very different missions with very different users.  Airlift pilots (my perspective being as a 20 year C-130 guy) interface daily with all ages, all ranks, and most services.  We get to taste the how and why of pretty much every corner of the military with few exceptions.  That allows the opportunity to gain a broad perspective.  Granted not all of us take that opportunity, but it's there nonetheless.

From an airlifter's perspective, our community was screwed over by more than one tanker pilot commander trying to run airlift units like tanker units...(which incidentally was the only time I ever experienced an open ranks inspection after basic, thanks two tanker O-6's who's names I shall not repeat, but I digress)...which has left a long-standing scar tissue in the memory of many a herk driver.

In the end I said what I said.  Ratner sounds like he thinks his perspective as a pilot is one we all share, when in fact it is not.  It's been a trend these past few days over several threads: The air India crash was caused by a bad FO, then pilots should shut down motors in response to events they can't even physically see, now pilots need to understand the importance of discipline because we live in a bubble and don't understand the rest of the military.  

Wrong on all fronts.

Three times is a trend.

As someone who spent time in the 61 AS probably before you were in the USAF and 16 years as a KC-135 Boom Operator I’m trying to figure out the different age, ranks, service you interact with that tanker aircrew don’t? I’ve carried Army, Marines, SOF, three letter agencies, done AEs, loaded the same amount of pallets a C-130 can carry, delt with ATOC, done HR/dignified transfers, etc. 

If you’re referring to Rat, he’s a -141/-17 guy. His touch-and-go in tankers was to get command time, he hates tankers. He’s an airlift guy. There are retards in all MWS’s, Ratner wasn’t and isn’t one.

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Sua Sponte

[Khruangbin33]

@grasshopper Truer words have never been spoken.