I'm guessing this is the same 2 star who I heard speak about this back in January. Word on the street at KRND goes in line with the rumor mill out of Columbus, that UAV drops are a matter of when, not if, and when is pointing towards this year. While they will primarily be from the -38 track, drops from T-1 land are entirely possible. As one IP here put it, UAVs "are the way of the future". My gut feeling is this is going to get messy later this year, and like was said, look for people to drop out rather than take 10 years flying a suped up IBM pentium 486, and take with them six figures worth of wasted money, time, resources, and effort.

Not good times, not good times at all. Sad thing is, all of this is easily avoidable.

If it happens, then I agree with your assessment, because they will be a UAV asset for life. I certainly hope it doesn't happen. People will probably do some pretty desperate things to get out of UPT after assignment night.

Maybe the UAV command should model their patch after the old SAC parody patch with the iron fist clutching the testicles, because if you go, they ain't gonna let you out.

Hey folks, we just had a brand new syllabus drop here in T-38 land, it takes effect with the new class that starts 38s in about a week (Class 09-01). There is now a Bomber/ISR track. Essentially, post-assignment night, the last 5 sorties in the syllabus are formation (4-ship and 2-ship) for the Fighter/FAIP track and "composite" sorties for the Bomber/ISR track. These compsoite sorties can be Transition (the new term for contact), Instrument or 2-ship sorties with no Low-Level or 4-ship allowed.

Now, there is no official word yet what the ISR track is exactly but my money says UAV baby!

For the non-AF folks ISR means Intelligence, Surveillance, & Reconnaissance.

When the President signed the FY 08 DOD budget back in Jan it had funding for around 70 new UAVs for the AF. I have read that the FY 09 AF budget will include funding for around 69 UAVs also. Simple math, the AF needs folks to "fly" these things, sounds like SUPT grads may be on their way to UAV glory.

Some of my 38 IP bros and I have discussed what this will mean for the 38 side. There will be a huge drop off of Phase II, T-6 students, that will want to come to 38s. If I was a T-6 student and the 38 side = TAMI 21, U-28, and UAV assigments out of UPT, I would fight like hell for a T-1 or T-44 vs a 38.

Crazy world.

Buzz

This is just plain sad. I think your assessment is right on when it comes to choices at track select. The really sad thing is that I don't think that the leadership realizes what a demoralizing affect this is having on our pilot force. The going advice in the heavy community (from realists, not kool-aid chuggers) is that you need to have an assignment plan as soon as possible in order to avoid a UAV. Unfortunately for some, it hasn't worked. Fortunately for me, it did and I'm still in the cockpit. Why on earth would anyone sign on for a ten year commitment to sit behind a computer screen?

For us non-AF guys following this, is the assignment of a/c aligned with the completion of training and the service obligation?

I went through flight school with a guy who was married to another aviator, and she got winged first. The assignments were coming down and they told him he was getting a plane that was not based on the same coast as his wife. He had 3 or4 more flights left in the training syllabus. He went into the CO's office and told the CO that he could give him a different a/c, or he'd take the one he was given if the CO could work with the detailer to get his wife moved (she had just PCS'd like 6 months prior), or my buddy was going to DOR. In this case his motivation was staying at least on the same coast as his wife for a 3 year assignment. Pretty ballsy, but it worked out for him.

Point is, is dropping out of UPT an option for guys after aircraft assignment?

Is there any talk of dropping back the 10 year service obligation? A 3-4 year obligation would be appropriate for being stuck riding a desk.

AF studs get their aircraft assignments BEFORE they complete training, usually a few weeks to a month prior to winging. There is a big ceremony that is supposed to be a party where each stud goes infront of the crowd, often with family/friends/loved ones in attendance, their flight commander pokes a little fun at them, then the plane (and base) they get is revealed on a big screen. Prior to this, they should have no idea what they are getting (but, as is the case with FAIPs, sometimes they do have an idea of what is coming). Guard and reserve guys, along with Navy E-6 drivers, are the only ones who know 100% what is coming.

If things play out in a funny way, the evening can become very, well, unfun. My Vance class sorta had this happen when one member of my class appeared to get passed over for a C-17 in favor of another class member who everyone was sure was trailing the first guy. He broke down when his classmate's C-17 popped up and he quickly left the party, which dampened what was otherwise a great assignment night. He went KC-135s and apparently is very happy in his job.

I have heard stories of people DORing (AF uses term SIE, Self Innitiated Elimination) after assignment night as a result of what they get. Those stories usually revolve around -38 folks getting a B-52. Long and short, unless they change the system and reveal assignments after pinning the wings on them, they can drop. I pray they do not try this, as I could not imagine the backlash from mom/dad alone should Billy get his wings in the morning and then be told that night he will be operating a remote control box.

We weren't told until after winging (or maybe after the soft winging), and nothing as fun as as what you describe above. We were all taken into a room and then the Senior Marine stood in the middle of the group and pointed at each person and said - your new Delta Chi name is PROWLER, yours is HARRIER, etc....

When I had my assignment night (20ish years ago) they had a "wheel of fortune" type wheel with various assignments on it. Each stud would go up and spin the wheel and the guy operating the wheel would proceed to totally screw around with the guy getting the assignment. Wheel would slow down and almost stop on something you didn't want before speeding up again and stopping on the guys actual assignment. It was great fun, but could be pretty cruel. I remember one guy that was top of his class and wanted F-15s more than he wanted sex. They paused on the eagle, he went nuts, and then the wheel spun back to T-37. The guy stormed off and disappeared for a few days. Wasn't long after that that the wheel went away.

That's a dude who needed to get over himself anyway.

Well, on the surface he had a very legitimate case: He had no checkride failures, solid academic scores as well as daily ride scores, and was well liked, where as the person who got the -17 assignment failed both the transition and navigation checkrides. Had it not been for those checkride failures, I doubt anyone would have noticed, but because of them the decision seemed very awkward.

There were rumors no one could confirm (most of which supported his position that he got screwed) of why things happened the way they did, but I'm not going to go into them here.