What's wrong with the Air Force?

[brabus]

It could be the quality of recruits, but I could also see it heavily being the non-rated world discourages free thinking/critical thought while encouraging binary thinking and zero mission ownership. This is not a problem in at least portions of other services. Hell, the USMC officers I’ve worked with from the “shoe clerk” MOS have more mission-focused/get it done attitudes than the entire non-rated AF combined. 

[Majestik Møøse]

Pilots succeed at things because that’s how they became pilots in the first place. Take the top 40% of USAFA guys, the top 20% of ROTC/OTS, keep stratifying them through track select and drop night, re-flow the FTU washouts, give the remaining top 6.9% millions of dollars of high speed decision making skills, knowledge, and experience and then spend more millions to upgrade the best ones of those to IP and Patch…and then let them separate and fill their old staff positions with the aforementioned bottom 60-80% guys. The Air Force spends $20M each to produce guys that have survived 12 years of stratified tiers and is willing to let them walk away because they think they can replace them with non-pilots. Incompetence at best.

[Swizzle]

When it comes, stop-loss gonna' get ugly...quickly, because that button will get pressed when an option if in present rated status. Then the next 'intellectual' round begins. Stay frosty friends.

[Guest nsplayr]

11 hours ago, brabus said:

It could be the quality of recruits, but I could also see it heavily being the non-rated world discourages free thinking/critical thought while encouraging binary thinking and zero mission ownership. This is not a problem in at least portions of other services. Hell, the USMC officers I’ve worked with from the “shoe clerk” MOS have more mission-focused/get it done attitudes than the entire non-rated AF combined. 

It’s this 100%. The AF gets top talent across AFSCs when compared to the other services or especially the general population, but the system most non-rated folks are operating in beats any innovation, mission-focus, or adaptability out of the vast majority of folks.

I know several highly competent lawyers, engineers, loggies, etc. who have succeeded & thrived in dynamic jobs in the civilian world after leaving the Air Force because they could not stand the BS their career fields shoehorned them into for 4-7 years. 

Edited June 20, 2023 by nsplayr

[dream big]

17 hours ago, brabus said:

It could be the quality of recruits, but I could also see it heavily being the non-rated world discourages free thinking/critical thought while encouraging binary thinking and zero mission ownership. This is not a problem in at least portions of other services. Hell, the USMC officers I’ve worked with from the “shoe clerk” MOS have more mission-focused/get it done attitudes than the entire non-rated AF combined. 

I wonder how much of that is engrained in their culture “Every Marine is a rifleman”; not to mention all officers go through the basic infantry school. I’m not advocating that non rated go through pilot training but there has got to be some middle ground. More ops focused Wing Kings that drive all groups towards common operational objectives would be a start. 

[Bigred]

16 minutes ago, dream big said:

I wonder how much of that is engrained in their culture “Every Marine is a rifleman”; not to mention all officers go through the basic infantry school. I’m not advocating that non rated go through pilot training but there has got to be some middle ground. More ops focused Wing Kings that drive all groups towards common operational objectives would be a start. 

It totally is. They get the kick in the junk of essentially ‘mission first’ from the very get go. As buddies of mine put it ‘the rifleman is the focus and has the support of the entire Corps’

As much as it’d stroke our egos even more, imagine how the AF would run if we had something similar ‘the pilot is the focus and has the support of the entire Air Force’.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Bigred

[Skitzo]

It totally is. They get the kick in the junk of essentially ‘mission first’ from the very get go. As buddies of mine put it ‘the rifleman is the focus and has the support of the entire Corps’
As much as it’d stroke our egos even more, imagine how the AF would run if we had something similar ‘the pilot is the focus and has the support of the entire Air Force’.

Right, but how do you operationalize that? I think it would require a huge shift in BMT, we’d have to get Airmen in aircraft, flying, in simulators etc. That would be extremely resource intensive.

In my sq/cc tour to Africa I got to see the USN, Army and the USAF all in new light and have to say that I don’t think any one service does it “better.”


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[Bigred]

57 minutes ago, Skitzo said:

Right, but how do you operationalize that? I think it would require a huge shift in BMT, we’d have to get Airmen in aircraft, flying, in simulators etc. That would be extremely resource intensive.

In my sq/cc tour to Africa I got to see the USN, Army and the USAF all in new light and have to say that I don’t think any one service does it “better.”


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Even more difficult than resource, it’s be a culturally intensive shift for the Air Force. I actually think that’d be the more difficult hurdle. 

[Dogs-N-Guns]

I thought about this before. Every airmen a pilot. Voluntary, but give every airmen $5K-$10K towards PPL costs. Bring back Aeroclubs. Too bad none of this will happen. I completed my PPL at the aeroclub on base and was selected for UPT on an active duty board.

[Majestik Møøse]

Tough problem. This forum has lamented “every airman a warrior” before because the perception was that services were just as important as Ops. Perhaps a shift to “if the jets you see taking off and landing can’t find and kill the ballistic missiles, they will kill you and your friends, so we need to make sure the force generation is smooth and efficient” might work.

[frog]

On 6/19/2023 at 10:49 PM, brabus said:

It could be the quality of recruits, but I could also see it heavily being the non-rated world discourages free thinking/critical thought while encouraging binary thinking and zero mission ownership. This is not a problem in at least portions of other services. Hell, the USMC officers I’ve worked with from the “shoe clerk” MOS have more mission-focused/get it done attitudes than the entire non-rated AF combined. 

The problem circles right back to rated leadership. In 18 years as a CE officer, wing commanders have rarely asked about work happening on the airfield or major infrastructure. I am never asked about CE deployment capabilities or readiness, which is the primary purpose of uniformed engineers. I do get asked about making the grass look better on an almost weekly basis. What message does that send to your organization?

One thing the Marines and Army have done is mostly civilianize their installation support activities (think CDC, fitness center, etc), which allows their support echelons to better focus on how they support the no kidding primary mission.

2 hours ago, Dogs-N-Guns said:

I thought about this before. Every airmen a pilot. Voluntary, but give every airmen $5K-$10K towards PPL costs. Bring back Aeroclubs. Too bad none of this will happen. I completed my PPL at the aeroclub on base and was selected for UPT on an active duty board.

Great idea. I feel like my PPL experience, while nothing like that of military trained pilots, provides significant context for what is important and why.

[brabus]

@frog You’re not wrong, but also being a truly mission-focused wing/cc who calls out failure and demands ops-like performance out of the MXG/MSG gets shitcanned in 6.9 sec in this AF. So they ask about the grass instead. Ultimately your rated leadership failure is happening at the O7+ level. Of course there are careerist douche wing/cc who stand on their own lack of merit, but hard to be a stand out warrior leader at the O-6 level and not get fired when you’ve got the crop of GOs that exist today.

[Danger41]

Another example of the frozen middle, in my opinion. The GO’s are pushing ACE, empowering junior Airmen, etc and then young bucks want to run with it, but they get stymied with the aforementioned crap. I hate it and personally have never bought into the narrative that support functions are so inept and only aviators are worth a crap. It’s nature vs. nurture where as young pilots you’re constantly bludgeoned to make decisions, be the HMFIC, meritocracy via performance with assignments, etc. Support O’s are told to follow regulations and not fuck up, all while in a very resource constrained environment. It’s going to produce different outcomes.

Ive always been a fan of the Marines TBS. I don’t think the AF needs to go that extreme, but even something cheesy showing how a days frag is filled in a combat environment and how all the various pieces tie together. Get the young Finance O out on the flight line for a day helping the hydro guys in an MC-130 in 100° heat for 12 hours and that’ll help contextualize why pay issues are important.  Have the rated guy go around with a CE crew fixing random shit and how they prioritize while under strength in personnel to fix what will help launch those sorties etc. 

And don’t make it ASBC 2.0
 

[CaptainMorgan]

I thought about this before. Every airmen a pilot. Voluntary, but give every airmen $5K-$10K towards PPL costs. Bring back Aeroclubs. Too bad none of this will happen. I completed my PPL at the aeroclub on base and was selected for UPT on an active duty board.

Double edged sword. It might make some have an appreciation for what Winged pilots do. It also might make some think “I’m a pilot too, what they do is nothing special that I can’t do just as well!”


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[brabus]

8 hours ago, Danger41 said:

Get the young Finance O out on the flight line for a day

I did have a wing/cc once who said everyone who gets an incentive ride will shadow the entire 12 hr day prior for mission planning, etc. And on execution day would be there the entire 12 hr day. For all the time they couldn’t be with the pilots due to lack of vault access, they would shadow the SARMs, AFE, go out on the flight line with MX, etc. 2x 12 hr “average days” was a massive eye opener for everyone who went through. 

[Biff_T]

9 hours ago, Danger41 said:

And don’t make it ASBC 2.0

Dude, I loved ASBC.  As a prior E with 9 years AD under my belt, 6 of which were spent as a boom.  ASBC gave me a chance to restart the liver after my stay at OTS. Lol.  I taught my class what was important, binge drinking through the non flying bullshit TDYs lol.  

[Biff_T]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

I did have a wing/cc once who said everyone who gets an incentive ride will shadow the entire 12 hr day prior for mission planning, etc. And on execution day would be there the entire 12 hr day. For all the time they couldn’t be with the pilots due to lack of vault access, they would shadow the SARMs, AFE, go out on the flight line with MX, etc. 2x 12 hr “average days” was a massive eye opener for everyone who went through. 

This.  Especially shadowing mission planning for a fighter sortie or something else as complex.  

They learn you just dont hop in a jet and go fuck around...unless its on a Friday XC day or something lol.  

 

[FlyingGasAttendant]

It's hard to believe that the Air Force is facing a pilot shortage when promotes to major have been abysmal. My squadron was at 50%, a friend of mine in AWACS had 33%, and a friend of mine in a KC-135 squadron had 25%. Base wide, our promote rate for the guys hitting the board a second time was 0%. AFPC what are you smoking and can I have some? 

[dream big]

22 hours ago, FlyingGasAttendant said:

It's hard to believe that the Air Force is facing a pilot shortage when promotes to major have been abysmal. My squadron was at 50%, a friend of mine in AWACS had 33%, and a friend of mine in a KC-135 squadron had 25%. Base wide, our promote rate for the guys hitting the board a second time was 0%. AFPC what are you smoking and can I have some? 

The Air Force doesn’t really have a pilot shortage, it has a rated staff shortage…as well as a rated 0-6s qualified for Gp and Wing/CC shortage. Once one connects those dots then everything else, to include your statistics, makes sense. 

[CaptainMorgan]

It's hard to believe that the Air Force is facing a pilot shortage when promotes to major have been abysmal. My squadron was at 50%, a friend of mine in AWACS had 33%, and a friend of mine in a KC-135 squadron had 25%. Base wide, our promote rate for the guys hitting the board a second time was 0%. AFPC what are you smoking and can I have some? 

The Air Force forgets that to get those pilot wings in the first place you had to be in the top 69% (I’m sure the actual number is higher) of your ROTC class (or get into the Academy, or however OTS works). Bottom 1% of the 69th percentile is still the 69th percentile. When I got passed over for O-5 I was pissed but shrugged it off. I had figured I was a coin toss to make it. When I saw the list and saw some of my more deserving friends missing from it, I realized the whole system is fvcked. The Air Force does not value its pilots; Welsh and Goldfein made that much clear, and CQ has done nothing to reverse course.


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[08Dawg]

On 6/18/2023 at 8:17 AM, ClearedHot said:

Slife the non-combat knife now doing extreme damage to the Air Force Writ large instead of just AFSOC.

 

New Vice Chief: Slife Nominated for USAF’s No. 2 Job (airandspaceforces.com)

 

Saw this in the morning news blast

[SurelySerious]

What could go wrong?

[herkbum]

Is this the dude you guys from AFSOC have slammed here at bo.net?


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[Danger41]

1 hour ago, herkbum said:

Is this the dude you guys from AFSOC have slammed here at bo.net?


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He’s definitely not well liked/thought of by the majority of AFSOC.

[Danger41]

Slife to me is a textbook case of the importance of referential power and reputation. He was a hardass when he was the wing commander at HRT and didn’t make any friends. Fast forward when he came back as AFSOC CC, so many people that knew nothing about him had negative views of him based purely on WOM from his earlier tenures.

I understand the man in that everything is black and white and you need to follow those processes or face the consequences.  He handles business harshly which also doesn’t make many friends. He had some good ideas and some bad ideas but based purely on that reputation, it didn’t matter what it was the force was resistant.