Pooter Posted Thursday at 01:13 AM Posted Thursday at 01:13 AM I think we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone in senior leadership is concerned with actual skillsets or experience. What is happening is very simple: We can't maintain the jets we have and we can't acquire new ones in a reasonable timeframe. At the same time we must keep the slides green at all costs. The only answer left (short of offloading the entire operation to the civilian world) is to retcon what a UPT grad is. It costs AETC nothing to churn out crap and dump it into b-courses across the other MAJCOMs. B-course instructors will still wash out the weak swimmers, but at that point finding them a new home is an ACC/AMC/AFSOC/AFGSC problem. AETC's hands are clean (on paper) and the brass at Randolph have figured this out. They can even pitch the UPT cuts as #innovation and cost saving to keep the (even more out of touch) GOs in the Pentagon happy. 1 1
Clark Griswold Posted Thursday at 03:38 AM Posted Thursday at 03:38 AM I think we need to stop kidding ourselves that anyone in senior leadership is concerned with actual skillsets or experience. What is happening is very simple: We can't maintain the jets we have and we can't acquire new ones in a reasonable timeframe. At the same time we must keep the slides green at all costs. The only answer left (short of offloading the entire operation to the civilian world) is to retcon what a UPT grad is. It costs AETC nothing to churn out crap and dump it into b-courses across the other MAJCOMs. B-course instructors will still wash out the weak swimmers, but at that point finding them a new home is an ACC/AMC/AFSOC/AFGSC problem. AETC's hands are clean (on paper) and the brass at Randolph have figured this out. They can even pitch the UPT cuts as #innovation and cost saving to keep the (even more out of touch) GOs in the Pentagon happy. This is very easy for me to say from Retiredville but it may take several whistleblowers (IPs and recent grads) who contact media, sympathetic congressional leaders for top cover and inform the public, civilian leadership that what the GOs are selling is just bullshit.For whatever reason, the people who should be and should have been skeptical of all this nonsense have let them get away with it, like 60 Minutes and the F-22 guys telling their story, someone(s) is going to have to risk their career & give an unvarnished, plain language explanation of the problem.Public shaming of the AF at this point is probably the last thing that could be done.It could be what I listed above but also a public advertisement(s) in appropriate places (military news sites, aviation news, etc) comparing recent historical UPT/SUPT to the recent iterations and comparisons to what allies and enemies are doing.Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1
WheelsOff Posted Friday at 03:39 AM Posted Friday at 03:39 AM (edited) On 8/13/2025 at 10:38 PM, Clark Griswold said: This is very easy for me to say from Retiredville but it may take several whistleblowers (IPs and recent grads) who contact media, sympathetic congressional leaders for top cover and inform the public, civilian leadership that what the GOs are selling is just bullshit. For whatever reason, the people who should be and should have been skeptical of all this nonsense have let them get away with it, like 60 Minutes and the F-22 guys telling their story, someone(s) is going to have to risk their career & give an unvarnished, plain language explanation of the problem. Public shaming of the AF at this point is probably the last thing that could be done. It could be what I listed above but also a public advertisement(s) in appropriate places (military news sites, aviation news, etc) comparing recent historical UPT/SUPT to the recent iterations and comparisons to what allies and enemies are doing. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Sadly, this is the way. This is likely the only card we have left to play at this point to shed enough light on the problem in order to turn things around enough so that we don’t get our cheeks clapped in WW3. Edited Friday at 03:48 AM by WheelsOff
Clark Griswold Posted 4 hours ago Posted 4 hours ago On 8/14/2025 at 10:39 PM, WheelsOff said: Sadly, this is the way. This is likely the only card we have left to play at this point to shed enough light on the problem in order to turn things around enough so that we don’t get our cheeks clapped in WW3. Yup So it’s about 175 flight hours (not counting sim time) that we’re talking about here and that’s 75 shy of an FAA commercial instrument certificate, 75 hours, in the grand scheme of the things that’s not that much. That would have to 75 QUALITY flight training hours but the point is there, it’s not that much. If there is to be a public campaign, it needs to show the penny wise pound foolishness of this whole situation. No pilot would legally be allowed to operate for hire without the requisite minimum amount of training/experience, why is the AF allowed to cut corners? Now, if the Air Force wants to argue that it can’t afford a platform only used as a multi engine trainer, ok, I think that’s hard to believe but if you want to run with that then create a program that you build to have operational capability that you use also as an experience builder before other MWS assignments in AMC, AFSOC, etc… AETC pays for the type training, AMC flies / instructs these newly winged pilots in this short tour then onto their career assignment. There’s always a demand signal for light airlift from/to major bases, ex KSUU, KSAT/KSKF/KRND, KDOV, etc… pick any major base/concentrated military presence and there will be valid movement requests, buy an affordable, small regional airliner (CASA 295 for example) that can serve as a utility transport for regular pax, cargo and medivac missions. Air Land only, no other specialized training, experience and reps while moving pax and cargo is the objective. Fly them for six months+ or so there, then move on to the assignment awarded out of UPT. That easily exceeds the missing 75 flight hours in their training, likely gives them 200+ hours in a transport category aircraft before operating a more complex, expensive mobility aircraft in a demanding training program and serves as an extension to the UPT system, thus keeping pilots from wasting time just waiting for an FTU.
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