love me or hate me

[jmac12]

The Air Force's idea of a squadron outing is hanging out and singing songs. Oh, and flaring to land is like squatting to pee. Have fun saying head and box.

 

[Pags]

Seriously? That's funny. What was the occasion?

Brett

Road trip up north to get away from Monterey a few years back. My buddy and I got to Medford, and some folks there recommended that we eat and drink in Ashland. It was right before Christmas, so the whole town was all covered in lights. Best town we drank in on that road trip.

 

[STLEngineer]

A funny corollary to that is, I've seen USAF O-5s doing jobs we would give to an E-3. In Misawa, I saw an O-5 doing parking lot attendant duty for some special event (change of command or something). Amazing.

Brett

Is it just me, or does the Air Force have tons of 0-5s and 0-6s?

I did IFS out of Eglin AFB, and I swear that I saw about 10 different Colonels at different times walking around in the Food Court at the MiniBX. Was it just because it was Eglin?

Is there any resource to compare the #s between Navy and AF?

 

[HeyJoe]

I did IFS out of Eglin AFB, and I swear that I saw about 10 different Colonels at different times walking around in the Food Court at the MiniBX. Was it just because it was Eglin?

Doesn't surprise me. Anytime someone goes done on an Air Force base on flightline or elsewhere, a "duty" O-6 shows up outta nowhere. They always have one standing "SOF" (Supervisor of Flying) duty at every air base. I have no idea where they get them. You can count the O-6s on a Navy base (except maybe North Island or Norfolk where there are Headquarters staff supporting 3 and 4 stars) on one hand. Same for Marine bases pretty much.

When I worked AAM requirements with Air Force counterparts, they wouldn't send anything up to Flag/General officers without an O-6 Steering Group (sometimes called the "Council of Colonels"). We would send one Marine and one Naval Officer and usually not an O-6. We'd send the person who was the SME working the issue. We started calling them O-36 meetings because they seemed to be able to produce 6 O-6s for anything that needed to be discussed.

It would be interesting to see how many O-6s they have.

 

[Kycntryboy]

Off topic, but here it goes...

For the Navy, the above is very wrong. ROTC and USNA get an equal amount of slots. OCS was never meant to be a primary recruiting source, so while they do get "what's left," it's used as a stop gap measure, so depending on the numbers for that year, they might actually add slots to OCS to get more bodies through. The short of it is that USNA has no selection advantage over ROTC.

The Navy OCS flight opportunities are small, but very possible. That's what I was getting at.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it was my understanding that all three were allocated slots for each fiscal year. And BDCP was the way to tap into the OCS slots years in advance. Then OCS would be the buffer for the end of the fiscal year.
v/r

 

[corvairdroptop]

Off topic, but here it goes...

For the Navy, the above is very wrong. ROTC and USNA get an equal amount of slots. OCS was never meant to be a primary recruiting source, so while they do get "what's left," it's used as a stop gap measure, so depending on the numbers for that year, they might actually add slots to OCS to get more bodies through. The short of it is that USNA has no selection advantage over ROTC.

I was taught that AOCS had historically been a major source of aviation candidates, the reason being that USNA graduates were expected to at least start out as surface line officers. I've heard this from some older guys...real older. Was this true?


http://www.flyingtigerssurplus.com/c-12-p-136-id-12-next-2.html

A gray ascot for finance?

 

[corvairdroptop]

Is it just me, or does the Air Force have tons of 0-5s and 0-6s?

I was speaking to a Navy Pentagon type two weeks ago. He mentioned that he (an O-3) would routinely give briefs with Air Force counterparts. He would show up alone, they would always bring at least one O-6 who did most of the talking. His opinion (of course) was that the O-6s were generally not well prepared and certainly excessive brass.

He also claimed that the next fiscal year will see a reduction of 300 Air Force O-6s.

 

[Brett327]

The Air Force is nothing but brass and kiss asses who are afraid to make decisions, who ask for permission for everything and call the SOF anytime they have an aircraft emergency. THey push everything up instead of handling it on their own.
O-2s in the Navy make the same decison Air Force O-5s push up the chain...really.
They need O-6 approval for EVERYTHING and Officers don't know enlisted rank so everybody goes on a first name basis.

THe AF RIF for FY08 is going to cut 40k people. Probably to pay for the F-22.

My experience with the Air Force has been: STRATCOM, EUCOM, AETC...so I know what I am talking about.

Concur. After doing 6-7 Red Flags and two OSW/ONW deployments with an AF AEF, it amazes me that they get anything done at all. Their approach to strike warfare is absurd to me as well, but that's for another thread. AF RIF? I say, good riddance to bad rubbish.

Brett

 

[BOMBSonHAWKEYES]

probably not good riddance, because they'll replace those 40k personell with 80k contractors to do their jobs.

 

[Gatordev]

I was taught that AOCS had historically been a major source of aviation candidates, the reason being that USNA graduates were expected to at least start out as surface line officers. I've heard this from some older guys...real older. Was this true?

Maybe a long time ago, but certainly not now.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it was my understanding that all three were allocated slots for each fiscal year. And BDCP was the way to tap into the OCS slots years in advance. Then OCS would be the buffer for the end of the fiscal year.

That's all true, but the OCS allocation can be adjusted if they didn't make their goals. It also, at least in the past, was a minority recruiting tool. Not sure if that's still the case. Wink would know a lot more about all this stuff than I, though.

 

[Intruder Driver]

I was taught that AOCS had historically been a major source of aviation candidates, the reason being that USNA graduates were expected to at least start out as surface line officers. I've heard this from some older guys...real older. Was this true?


http://www.flyingtigerssurplus.com/c-12-p-136-id-12-next-2.html

A gray ascot for finance?

It was true at one time. Even into the '60's and '70's, aviation billets were occasionally limited. Flag officer aviators like Stufflebeem and Zortman were SWO's first via the sea-air option out of service selection.

 

[Gatordev]

It was true at one time. Even into the '60's and '70's, aviation billets were occasionally limited. Flag officer aviators like Stufflebeem and Zortman were SWO's first via the sea-air option out of service selection.

Adm. Stufflebeem's story was a little more complicated than just that, however. NAMI didn't exactly help things.

 

[HercDriver]

OK, for a slightly different (skewed?) perspective:

The Air Force has by far the hottest chicks, the best facilities, and great bonus programs for pilots (hottest chicks is only good if you are in to dating/looking at military chicks, and is double-edged, of course).
I have worked with Air Force pilots (exchange types) and they were very professional, and super prepared pilots, who I had a tremendous amount of respect for.

However...the Air Force never met a procedure that it did not want to attach a half dozen rules to...before a standard trainer on a nice day, the expectation in my unit is you will need 45 mins to an hour to check wx, notams, file, etc. The Air Farce expects around 2 to 3 hours (and if it is an actual mission, add a couple more hours on it). They treat their enlisted folks mediocre...the nickname for enlisted is "sweaties" (dude, don't go to that bar...heard it's sweaty-ville). The divide between an O-2 and an O-4 is deep and wide and formal as hell. Not so, in my neck of the woods until you make O-5.

 

[HueyCobra8151]

Dude, those guys have to wear yellow reflective belts on their cammies at all hours of the day...seriously...

When we had a small det bring their aircraft into our hangar, it blew their minds that we had guys fapped to guard duty and that we had to field day our own shop.

 

[H60Gunner]

Chairforce

One of the best pilots I ever flew with was an Airforce exchange pilot. He was an instructor pilot with HS-10, taught CSAR. That guy could FLY! The rumor was he had something like over 5k hrs and 80% of that was NVG time.

The Airforce P.J.'s and maint. guys I worked with in Kuwait were squared away.

But, they are all SPECOP types, not "regular" Airforce.