Rated pipeline.

[Buddy Spike]

I wonder how this will fit in with the current POM discussions.

[Cap-10]

I must be taking crazy pills...mother AF cuts the amounts of fighter cockpits we have, then they start dropping KC-135's and C-17's to T-38 students. Then they start to realize they are short on 11F / 12F's, but they allows them to apply to VSP, then they RIF some. And now the CSAF publishes his guidance for plusing up the fighters and making more fighter pilots..........WTF, YGBFSM!!!!!

[B.L]

What does this mean for dudes graduating from T-38s after 1 Dec? Will it take effect immediately, or is this going to be a slow roll type thing?

Lud

[dream big]

What does this mean for dudes graduating from T-38s after 1 Dec? Will it take effect immediately, or is this going to be a slow roll type thing?

Lud

Not even the CSAF could tell you that. No one will know. My class tried to figure out what drop we would get and who would get what; until we realized we were wasting our own time so we resorted to drinking more beers instead.

[I don't exist]

I think your chances for a fighter just went up significantly. What's not clear is what this means for TX slots. I've heard rumblings that TX slots may actually be reduced because the focus is 278 B course slots... Don't forget that this is from the wonderful folks who brought us TAMI.

Not a concern of mine, since I got the boot before I was considered experienced. I'll take that B-course slot to get back into a fighter.

[Kikuchiyo]

Danny Noonin - To address your concerns over red air flying as experiencing, perhaps I misspoke to say that "they can learn to fly and fight there (as wingmen most of the assignment anyway) as well as they can in a regular squadron." You're absolutely right, they won't come out as bomb-dropping, NVG, blue-air 2FL's ready to "fight" in a regular squadron. My phrasing could have been better.

Think of it more as akin to how the MAF uses C-21's (this is an analogy - not a perfect parallel). They season guys in C-21s where they get a lot of experience, but in a limited portfolio. They understand certain aspects of airlift, crew management, pax handling, etc, but not everything they'll need to be successful MAF fliers. No, they're not immediately ready to command a large crew in a C-17 with AR across the ocean to a multi-ship airdrop. But they're way ahead of a fresh UPT grad. A C-21 guy then becomes a copilot in a C-17, but upgrades significantly more quickly. (For those MAF guys reading this, I'm not going to go into the differences between direct-to-left seat, first pilots, and copilots. Suffice to say, they're not flying as a C-17 AC on their first trip, and it takes some amount of time before they take their OME.)

Danny, the intent is similar. Use the iron that's currently not available to absorb. Take these guys into red-air sq's, get them experienced in some, but not all, aspects of flying fighters, and then send them ops-to-ops to bring them up to speed fully.

Hope that helps clarify.

Under-utilized Iron.....what? Better flow some crew chiefs and support people to the ANG/ARC or it won't matter.

Agreed. They know they will need to send Mx and other support folks, too. That part is being worked in parallel.

[Kikuchiyo]

For those wondering about how this will affect them or the timelines to effect these changes. This will not affect the Summer VML. It will not be in place to affect anyone coming thru UPT right now.

To put it in perspective, we spent an entire telecom 2 weeks ago discussing what office at HAF or which MAJCOM would be the OPR versus OCR on only about half these items. Staffing these to execution is going to take a while. Then getting POM funding, moving the iron, setting up units, changing manpower documents, etc. These aren't quick fixes. Even the A-10 crew ratios will take a year to execute, cause the affected commands need to find the manpower dollars and rated billets to put at the A-10 units. And only after that's happened can AFPC send people.

The thing that could execute most quickly of all them (the speediest turtle is still a turtle) is the UPT grads-to-aggressor initiative. But, even that will require guys to leave those units, and those units to notify AFPC that they're ready to accept UPT grads. So, not the next several drops, anyway.

[Guest CAVEMAN]

You get rid of all of your experienced tactical experts and bring in totally new pilots. Combat effectiveness goes up, it's science.

As far as the AF is concerned, the officers that were RIF'd were at the bottom of the barrel and that is how they will sell it to the rest of DOD to include OSD.

[di1630]

What does this mean for dudes graduating from T-38s after 1 Dec? Will it take effect immediately, or is this going to be a slow roll type thing?

Lud

Easy answer.

1. More t-38's guys will get fighters in a kneeejerk reaction to the numbers.

2. Fighter FTU's will not be ready to handle the extra people.....Students will enter an extended BIT status awaiting IFF/FTU.

3. More IFF slots will be needed, proposal to open up sq's at Laughlin/Vance for IFF leads to 1-star OPR bullets.

5. After 3 years of flailing, the numbers will start to match what this document wanted, but the AF will have changed due to budgets/requiements.

6. 4-star sends memo stating overproduction of fighter pilots, FTU sq's closed, IFF shut down.

7. T-38 guys sent to heavies.

8. clusterf-ck continues each 3-5 years due to lack of foresight and leadership.

[buenavista]

New career goal, F.A.G.....First Assignment Gomer

Edited November 10, 2011 by buenavista

[PirateAF]

For those wondering about how this will affect them or the timelines to effect these changes. This will not affect the Summer VML. It will not be in place to affect anyone coming thru UPT right now.

Kikuchiyo - I'll second the thanks for the excellent posts. This is exactly why I check these boards from time to time, to hear the up-to-date info from someone in the know.

Out of curiousity, was there any discussion about where the Mobility side of the house is sitting? I can't really understand what the CSAF indicated in his memo if the MAF is healthy or if we're also seeing shortfalls down the road.

[Magnum]

Out of all the bad ideas I've heard in fixing the fighter issue, sending dudes to the Aggressors right away is the worst. Not because of experience or whatever else but because that is going to kill someone. If you send a new wingman to the Aggressors right out of the B-course, they will absolutely require a TX before they go to their first ops unit. Why? Because 60% of the B-crs is A/G and the Aggressors fly 0% A/G, TGP, CAS, OPSAT. All of the skills that new wingman learned will atrophy and need to be relearned. So then there's the option of not wasting a B-crs slot and send them from UPT to the Aggressors. Great idea. There's a reason why AGSM is such a high emphasis item at the school house. It's because GLOC happens a to a lot of new students. So now we will send inexperienced dudes to clean Vipers that only fly A/A? Or maybe we'll send them through a modified B-crs and kick them out the door. They can't instruct BFM, let alone fly it proficiently. They won't have a clue what is happening on the blue side of a Red Flag to influence the learning. Red air isn't hard to fly, but it's the SA to stay safe in an LFE and the experience to facilitate blue learning why the Aggressors take experienced dudes.

[Kikuchiyo]

Correction to my previous post. ACC has stated that they will NOT take B-coursers straight to the Aggressors. They will instead start manning some of the billets with guys who went from the B-course straight to Korea. This reduces the number of billets at the Aggressor Sq's that require a fully experienced pilot, opening up some iron to finish absorbing the Korea guys. It's a compromise.

[pcola]

I must be taking crazy pills...mother AF cuts the amounts of fighter cockpits we have, then they start dropping KC-135's and C-17's to T-38 students. Then they start to realize they are short on 11F / 12F's, but they allows them to apply to VSP, then they RIF some. And now the CSAF publishes his guidance for plusing up the fighters and making more fighter pilots..........WTF, YGBFSM!!!!!

Big blue has gotten inside of its own OODA loop.

[RescueRandy]

Not the first time they've gotten inside themselves... won't be the last.

[Vetter]

This was all confirmed by Gen Welsh on Monday to some USAFE fighter pilots. The biggest thing he said was that after looking at all the information he recieved about the looming fighter pilot shortage, it was a production problem, not a retention problem that was causing the shortage. While that may be true at this time, once we open the flood gates for the inexperienced guys, we are going to have to send those experienced dudes somewhere else. That's going to turn it into a retention problem when all the experienced dudes no longer have cockpits to fill and decided to leave. Am I totally off base here?

[Guest timewilltell]

What does this mean for a guy just entering UPT

[Danny Noonin]

What does this mean for a guy just entering UPT

Nothing. Because the plan will change again before you're done with UPT. It will probably change again next month at this rate.

Just do your very best at UPT and put yourself in the position to get what you want if it's available. Don't waste brain cells at this point worrying about the rest because there is nothing you can do about it.

[brickhistory]

Stupid question time:

In reading the MFR, it states "increase F-16 FTU throughput as much as possible by reducing the syllabus without reducing combat skills (paraphrased).

So, is there fat during FTU? If so, why is it there and why has it been allowed? (I suspect not)

If not, what will get cut and how can it not affect combat capability?

Won't this method throw more of a training burden on the line F-16 squadron when the newbie shows up?

If so, who gets blamed if the accident rate goes up?

Edited November 16, 2011 by brickhistory

[Jaded]

The biggest thing he said was that after looking at all the information he recieved about the looming fighter pilot shortage, it was a production problem, not a retention problem that was causing the shortage.

I guess there goes any hope that our quality of life might improve to increase retention.

Anybody have any recent info on how the take rates have been on the last VML or 2? Has retention been good?

[joe1234]

I guess there goes any hope that our quality of life might improve to increase retention.

The problem with that statement is that guys need to improve their own quality of life, instead of hoping that the Air Force will do it for you.

[dream big]

Any word of cross flowing 38 track guys who went heavies, like back in the day?

[Ram]

Stupid question time:

In reading the MFR, it states "increase F-16 FTU throughput as much as possible by reducing the syllabus without reducing combat skills (paraphrased).

So, is there fat during FTU? If so, why is it there and why has it been allowed? (I suspect not)

If not, what will get cut and how can it not affect combat capability?

Won't this method throw more of a training burden on the line F-16 squadron when the newbie shows up?

If so, who gets blamed if the accident rate goes up?

Good comments and questions. The words about changes to the Viper FTU really stuck out to me as a "let's do more with less again" mandate.

I didn't notice a lot - if any - fat in the Viper FTU when I was a Luke stud in '08-'09. The syllabus had just changed from an OPSAT focus to a more TGP/CAS/SCAR focus due to what most of the CAF Vipers were doing in CENTCOM. Because the TGP/NVG top-off course had been incorporated into the B-course syllabus (it was previously a 2-month add-on), the overall length of the B-course had increased. However, since an NVG/TGP top-off wasn't there anymore, there wasn't a net change to the "CAF-ready" timeline.

Given the very wide range of Viper missions in the CAF/USAFR/ANG, I don't see any stand-out places to trim the syllabus. Viper studs need to see a little bit of everything just to ensure they're not dangerous or incompetent when they get to their CAF squadron and begin MQT.

My opinion is that anything trimmed from the B-course syllabus just gets shoveled into the CAF squadron's MQT burden...which is already fairly high. Combine this with reduced flying hours/RAP requirements CAF-wide (for Vipers, at least...I can't speak for others), and something's got to give.

The fighter generals know that we need to increase our manning numbers, yet we don't have the ability to increase how much iron is on the ramp. I'm sure they know the simple math involved, but I don't think they have much choice...decisions had to be made.

[ViperStud]

So, is there fat during FTU?

...

If so, who gets blamed if the accident rate goes up?

I've been at Luke long enough to say there is not much fat in the syllabus. Cut an AHC/TR ride and 1 or 2 SA/DT rides? OK. Remove O/D/HA-BFM demo-prof rides (rumor only at this point) and make them PTT for ACM? VERY bad idea, particularly because it makes it harder to bust dudes that need more looks. Cut 5 rides and you get less of a full-up round, no way around that. Plus, when you cut several rides you also need to cut SSRs like NVG rejoins, radar recoveries, SFOs and time spent in a CAS wheel, all of which have contributed to fatalities recently. Would one more square filled have prevented them? Who knows, but fewer exposures is not the answer. Bad timing for said cuts considering that CAF units want to trim their MQT syllabi so they don't have to have a dude spend two months in MQT before being a CAS wingman.

I think they know they are sacrificing quality. They didn't say "more capable wingman" but rather maintaining "key combat skills," even though it sounds a LOT like more with less. Tough to tie future mishaps to any specific syllabus change, which is why we will continue to whittle away at training and call it an acceptable risk. Hell, by that time said generals will be either long since promoted or clogging up the local commisary in their retiree-isue Buick, so no sweat off their balls.

Bottom line - the CAF bubbas will continue to make it happen, even if it means sacrificing training. No way around it though, the quality of the product goes down.

[Learjetter]

Any word of cross flowing 38 track guys who went heavies, like back in the day?

Hellzyea! Heavy to fighter cross flow was the heat in 97-98...bunch of good dudes went and tried out the little jets...a lot of them loved it and excelled. Take a couple hundred excess herc/Buddha co-pilots, run 'em thru '38 checkout then allocate to fighter FTUs based on performance..,worked well last time...go for it Big blue!