Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Three of the four pictures won't show, but I get the gist of your post is that Marine jet guys won't transition to the F-35. What do you see happening instead?
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Harrier pilots to F-35 transition?
- Thread starter Top_Gun_101
- Start date
Three of the four pictures won't show, but I get the gist of your post is that Marine jet guys won't transition to the F-35. What do you see happening instead?
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Ok. If your point is that the transition execution will be much messier and painful than The Man leads us to believe, then yeah.....I agree. It always is to varying degrees.
A large percentage of my flight school IPs were A-6 guys who were too senior to transition (or just flat didn't fit into the plan) and too junior to retire. They either got out and flew the friendly skies or got MBAs and got real jobs. I'm sure that a few of them didn't have a chair at all when the music stopped.
It's a challenging problem.
The More Things Change...
FWIW, the VAQ community took the lessons from the VA sundown and has, thus far, conducted a pretty smooth transition WRT people staying in the community. I know it's a little different with the 46 community, as I get the sense there wasn't a 1 for 1 replacement platform to transition to, but it can be done.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Sounds like it, but I'm sure that many of the few left out (there have to be some right?) feel like they got screwed anyway. Isn't your perspective from a "got selected for the transition guy" level? I honestly don't know.
It's an imperfect process. The breaks of Naval Air and whatnot.
Typically those left behind become the most vocal critics. I remember hearing how "shitty the Hornet was" because it had "no gas". Same with the phrog/osprey.
I remember hearing all kinds of ridiculous allegations about the Osprey that later turned out to be bullshit. Grass fires, can't land in zones, heats up/melts carrier decks, etc.
I've been keeping informal track of the bullshit I hear about the F-35. It's pretty entertaining to hear people with obvious bias talking out of their ass about a program that they weren't selected for (for a variety of legitimate reasons as identified earlier).
Doesn't matter to me. No dog in this fight anymore aside from being a taxpayer.
I have not transitioned yet (if I screen, then that will happen as PXO). I rotated out of a squadron (and into my DH job) right before the old squadron transitioned. Only one aircrew was not allowed to transition and he was a problem child who wasn't hacking it in the jet. I know there are ones and twos here and there, but everyone who remains upwardly mobile in the community will eventually transition.
Next year ???
So it's more of a filter than a pump. Or maybe it's a broken pump that only wants to work when it wants to work.
-ea6bflyr
If the screen groups hold steady.
That was in the squadron, I know quite a few quality guys who lost out on the DH boards when selection was about 25% for NFOs in some YGs.
They used the DH screening as part of the transition process though to cut down on the numbers though so not completely seperate.
I'm not sure that makes sense to me. Same number of squadrons, presumably the same number of DH slots, so unless you're talking about the year where the screen was pilot heavy...? We're still only talking about a handful of people. The three I'm thinking of also didn't have pristine records, however "good" they were, IMO.