Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
Not sure what axe you have to grind, but I see plenty of guys over there who understand the value of ANG pilots with a diverse path into a fighter cockpit.
No ax to grind at all, I post over there as well. It's just any time someone asks a similar question, the most typical response is what is eluded to in your first post in this thread and it's tiring. I'm probably one of the understanding posters you mentioned lol.
Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
Draw me a realistic line between our current 250 hour friend and 1500 hours, an RJ job, indoc, IOE followed by mil leave in the next 20 months. Impossible? Maybe not, but I'd like to hear the plan.
Banner towers and aerial survey guys fly A LOT of hours/month. If we went through an aviation program the mins are only 1000 or a restricted ATP. Easily done in that time frame.
Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
Also, there's the underlying assumption in this discussion that success through UPT and the rest of training is assured. I had a 3000 hour commercial pilot wash out of my class. Prior time sometimes helps in the early stage of training, but I think it's rare to have it matter in the least once into the T-38 phase.
This is also part of the issue I take with some of the typical responses. I waled into ENJJPT thinking there is no way I wasn't going to make it. In fact, that is exactly the attitude I was told to have by my IPs at Sheppard. Why would you go into something like that thinking otherwise? Does one have to caveat every single post they make with "IF" they make it through? Personally, I'll take he guy that doesn't have doubt and won't let anything stand between him and reaching his goal. It just makes me laugh when people bring that up...and it happens every time. In my class 21 started and 20 finished. Every one of us that went fighters made it.
Originally Posted by
Adlerdriver
In my opinion, asking a new wingman or maybe fresh 2-ship flight lead to go part time is a failure on the unit's part. We never did that at my unit and always ensured our new arrivals from FTU had years of full time orders. The one guy who pushed to go part time early was never more than a place keeper in a formation. He upgraded to 2-ship FL after a struggle and stagnated there until he left.
I don't disagree that we want to keep the guys longer if we can, I'm just saying that was the attitude of leadership at the time. They wanted to know that you had a plan in case there were no orders to go around. We don't do 2-FLUGs and every one of our guys is 4-FLUGed by the end of their seasoning, so that's not usually an issue. We encourage them to stay longer, but if they want to go back to their civilian careers, there is nothing wrong with that. We hired them to be part-timers. Between the two sets of orders and using up all their AFTPs/UTAs per FY, it's not hard to have them full time for 2-2.5 years, how are they not 4-FLUG'd by then?