I agree, I think the potential of failure is not with those coming in, it is in the fact that we may not be training them right as a whole - that's where I think we need to step up - and I wanted to see if this was a common thought.
In the old days, if you were an Eagle driver, you were an Eagle driver. Now, if you want to opt out of the "can't say this word or that word" game - no problem. Not willing to hang with the bro's after hours - whether a partaker of spirits or not - your choice. If you just want to fly the airplane and not live the life - have at it. Of course, those that preceeded us knew that morale and unit cohesion were built with such practices - now we don't care. And, of course that had nothing to do with the fact that when I took off at night heavyweight with 3 bags, shredded a 4th stage compressor blade and from the indications inside couldn't tell which motor was the one spitting flames out of the back - my wingman wouldn't rejoin close enough so he could see which motor was burning for fear of his safety. But we had the unit cohesion such that I could trust him to poke his nose into a fight to save me?
Any heavy driver can tell you of at least one person who did not warrant upgrade to aircraft commander - the Sq leadership would never let them take a jet around the world on their own. But everyone is "owed" an upgrade - so they went to the school, got the stamp, then were promptly sent to a UPT base to be an instructor of that newest generation. And nothing against FAIP's, but 50% or more of T-6/T-37 IP's being FAIP's is wrong. You have no operational experience, and no matter how good of an instructor you are, you can't honestly tell me that you wouldn't be an even better instructor after 1 or 2 operational tours. Do your IP tour, but do it after seeing why we do what we do - I did mine after 3 operational tours. You are training USAF pilots, not T-37 pilots.
Our future combat capability is affected by how we grow them. Ask any air refueling receiver pilot (as opposed to the tanker pilot) who has the better reputation - the AD guys or the ANG guys that converted from fighters in the last few years. I have - The ANG guys win hands down. Of course they take a distinct interest in selecting and training their pilots correctly and exactly how they want them - they will be around for a while. In the AD unit, they son't polish their LT's quite as well. Also, I don't think the ANG units write their gradesheets for the lawyers - if you are an AETC IP, you know what I mean.
Anyway, our senior leadership is failing us with how they man our ROTC dets, how they man our UPT bases, how they tie our hands in building up our newest generation, etc - basically every task involved with molding our newest officers. I step up to the plate when I see the need - but when I stated to our Sq leadership that I wanted to address the ROTC group as a whole, I was told that I was wasting my time. My exact quote was "if I can keep one of them from becoming a SNAP, it will be worth it" - still no go.
If you are seeing these things, also - it isn't just you. It is more widespread than we think. My hope is that the majority of us "middle management" see ourselves as the last line of defense and we start to live up to our responsibility. When someone says they want to address the SNACadets, the rest of us don't say how it's a waste of time. When some obviously young LT posts borderline OPSEC/COMSEC material, among others as that F-16 RTU student did on that other website about his detailed LFE experiences, someone speaks up and the rest of us back him up vs. defending his right to post such material. When somone wants to be fly an F-15, but not be an Eagle driver - we explain to them the importance of mutual support and how it is developed. When we sit on the TRB and the Ops O or CC says that we need to upgrade that guy when we know that he/she has not earned that upgrade by developing their flying skills - we not roll over so easy and we unite with our peers to bring sanity into the upgrade selection process. And when we see that Major who has 11 Q-3's in his FEF (don't worry, I've seen it), we ask the CC who isit that is going to accept the responsibility and consider an FEB vs. sending him to the schoolhouse for his IP upgrade (which he did not pass - of course).
In the old days, if you were an Eagle driver, you were an Eagle driver. Now, if you want to opt out of the "can't say this word or that word" game - no problem. Not willing to hang with the bro's after hours - whether a partaker of spirits or not - your choice. If you just want to fly the airplane and not live the life - have at it. Of course, those that preceeded us knew that morale and unit cohesion were built with such practices - now we don't care. And, of course that had nothing to do with the fact that when I took off at night heavyweight with 3 bags, shredded a 4th stage compressor blade and from the indications inside couldn't tell which motor was the one spitting flames out of the back - my wingman wouldn't rejoin close enough so he could see which motor was burning for fear of his safety. But we had the unit cohesion such that I could trust him to poke his nose into a fight to save me?
Any heavy driver can tell you of at least one person who did not warrant upgrade to aircraft commander - the Sq leadership would never let them take a jet around the world on their own. But everyone is "owed" an upgrade - so they went to the school, got the stamp, then were promptly sent to a UPT base to be an instructor of that newest generation. And nothing against FAIP's, but 50% or more of T-6/T-37 IP's being FAIP's is wrong. You have no operational experience, and no matter how good of an instructor you are, you can't honestly tell me that you wouldn't be an even better instructor after 1 or 2 operational tours. Do your IP tour, but do it after seeing why we do what we do - I did mine after 3 operational tours. You are training USAF pilots, not T-37 pilots.
Our future combat capability is affected by how we grow them. Ask any air refueling receiver pilot (as opposed to the tanker pilot) who has the better reputation - the AD guys or the ANG guys that converted from fighters in the last few years. I have - The ANG guys win hands down. Of course they take a distinct interest in selecting and training their pilots correctly and exactly how they want them - they will be around for a while. In the AD unit, they son't polish their LT's quite as well. Also, I don't think the ANG units write their gradesheets for the lawyers - if you are an AETC IP, you know what I mean.
Anyway, our senior leadership is failing us with how they man our ROTC dets, how they man our UPT bases, how they tie our hands in building up our newest generation, etc - basically every task involved with molding our newest officers. I step up to the plate when I see the need - but when I stated to our Sq leadership that I wanted to address the ROTC group as a whole, I was told that I was wasting my time. My exact quote was "if I can keep one of them from becoming a SNAP, it will be worth it" - still no go.
If you are seeing these things, also - it isn't just you. It is more widespread than we think. My hope is that the majority of us "middle management" see ourselves as the last line of defense and we start to live up to our responsibility. When someone says they want to address the SNACadets, the rest of us don't say how it's a waste of time. When some obviously young LT posts borderline OPSEC/COMSEC material, among others as that F-16 RTU student did on that other website about his detailed LFE experiences, someone speaks up and the rest of us back him up vs. defending his right to post such material. When somone wants to be fly an F-15, but not be an Eagle driver - we explain to them the importance of mutual support and how it is developed. When we sit on the TRB and the Ops O or CC says that we need to upgrade that guy when we know that he/she has not earned that upgrade by developing their flying skills - we not roll over so easy and we unite with our peers to bring sanity into the upgrade selection process. And when we see that Major who has 11 Q-3's in his FEF (don't worry, I've seen it), we ask the CC who isit that is going to accept the responsibility and consider an FEB vs. sending him to the schoolhouse for his IP upgrade (which he did not pass - of course).
