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NEWS UAV 'Combat' Flight Time?!

Uncle Fester

Robot Pimp
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
As a former Shoe CO once told me: morale is for the enlisted guys.

Anyway, the current Navy 'everybody gets a pin' trend started when one of the previous MCPONs (West, I think?) advocated a policy that everybody should have earned their warfare qual before making First, like the sub guys do. A lot of the specialties didn't have pins (like the Seabees and SWCCs), and others were effectively but not technically warfare quals (NAC, for example).

Nobody asked me, but I kind of liked the old Navy way of doing things were a pin meant you'd qualified to do something - dive a submarine, fly a plane, what have you - not just finished a PQS. Qualifying as a UAV operator or payload operator would seem to fall under that category. It's a different skill from flying a manned aircraft, so a different badge would be appropriate. At the very least, NAO wings would suit for those who qualify as AVOs/MPOs and don't already have NA/NFO/NAC wings.
 

phrogdriver

More humble than you would understand
pilot
Super Moderator
yeah my logbooks show green for combat, red for night, all printed from SHARP. Must be a difference between us and the USMC.

Let me get this straight. You are actually using data calculated directly by a computer for your official records without using an ops clerk with a pen, pocket calculator, and a DGAF attitude as an intermediary? Your squadron lives...dangerously.
 

CommodoreMid

Whateva! I do what I want!
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
The paper log book (with data entered from SHARP monthly) is beneficial whenever someone decides to go full retard and baseline your hours for whatever reason. Checked into my new command, dude who did our SHARP baselined my stuff and then suddenly my hours had doubled. Fortunately, with my paper log book as a backup, I had the SHARP skillz to know what I'm doing to unfuck the situation. Did that and had to teach everyone else whose SHARP got fucked how to do the same.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
The paper log book (with data entered from SHARP monthly) is beneficial whenever someone decides to go full retard and baseline your hours for whatever reason. Checked into my new command, dude who did our SHARP baselined my stuff and then suddenly my hours had doubled. Fortunately, with my paper log book as a backup, I had the SHARP skillz to know what I'm doing to unfuck the situation. Did that and had to teach everyone else whose SHARP got fucked how to do the same.
There is no reason to baseline anyone's hours unless you're accounting for (increasingly rare) time in a unit that doesn't use SHARP. Hopefully the miscreant was, umm, "counseled and remediated" before actually sticking the SHARP printout in anyone's logbook.
 

DanMa1156

Is it baseball season yet?
pilot
Contributor
There is no reason to baseline anyone's hours unless you're accounting for (increasingly rare) time in a unit that doesn't use SHARP. Hopefully the miscreant was, umm, "counseled and remediated" before actually sticking the SHARP printout in anyone's logbook.

As readiness officer, I saw it routinely happen that the SHARP file sent from the FRS for CAT "Others" was baselined and all sorts of messed up. One O-4 of mine also didn't have his Weapons School time in or something if I recall correctly, so his SHARP file was just atrocious.
 

Gatordev

Well-Known Member
pilot
Site Admin
Contributor
All of my baselines were done from orange and white land, which was a huge help to have them in SHARP. There were some small issues, but the guy doing it knew what he was doing, and since I work a few doors down from the SHARP guy, fixes are easy.

What did screw me up was when a det that I joined half-way through deployment years ago used me as a place holder for one of the crewman when I wasn't there. It took Greg and I a couple of days to figure out why my total time was so high, and why I had so much SCREW time. No doubt it was AWs looking for a quick fix so they could go back to their XBox and porn.
 

CommodoreMid

Whateva! I do what I want!
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Yup, there are a time for baselines, and checking into a new command (unless coming from one that doesn't use SHARP like the VTs) is not one of them. We also had a ton of fun in my squadron during P-8 transition. Our SHARP was shut down and our profiles sent over to VP-30, where half of us received new baselines for whatever reason. Then when we got our SHARP back it was a nightmare.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
This came up today while I'm playing Navy this week, a Navy guy who recently did a CAOC tour mentioned that the USAF had started giving Air Medal points to UAV types. Can anyone confirm?
 

robav8r

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
The "R" device seems OK to me, at least on the MSM, AF Com & Achievement medals. The LOM is a stretch though. Tracking "R" time instead of Combat/Air Medal points seems like the appropriate way to go though.
 

Swanee

Cereal Killer
pilot
None
Contributor
Some new guidance came out about the "R" device within the last few days from SECDEF.

It's only an impact award for someone who directly controls a weapons system or "other military activity" that has immediate and direct impact on a combat operation, but that person was outside of the enemy threat envelope. It's not just for UAS. FACs/JTACs, Arty types in the gun line or FDC, employment of a surface-to-air weapon that shoots down an airplane, etc...

I guess a bunch of dudes in headquarters elements were giving themselves awards with an "R" that really didn't rate them.

Here's a MARADMIN if anyone wants to know more.
https://www.marines.mil/News/Messag...o-merit-the-r-device-on-personal-decorations/
 
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