Former Skipper of HT-8 and current CO of NS Guam; so I think it's a different guy unless he got some good deal follow on orders.
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NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention
- Thread starter ChuckMK23
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I bet one takes those orders to NS Guam circa 2016 and thinks it's gonna be great. Hawaii of Japan, hooters, a few tree snakes maybe, but aces all around.
Six months into 2017 and he's doing CBRN and civil defense drills muttering "Fuck" a lot under his breath before the thrice daily VTC. What the saying? You pays your monies and you takes your chances.
Six months into 2017 and he's doing CBRN and civil defense drills muttering "Fuck" a lot under his breath before the thrice daily VTC. What the saying? You pays your monies and you takes your chances.
Are they WSO or CSO/Nav interchangeable? I get the impression that the USAF seems to want a lot of fighter/bomber types for some staff positions and not necessarily 'other' pilots/navs. Is that accurate or not?
I also think there might be more 'depth' for the Navy when it comes to some of these joint/staff billets, which are often 1XXX jobs that any URL (rated) O could take when in the USAF you only have the winged folks (and a handful of others?) who are rated with a lot more support officers who can't take the staff billets for rated folks. I have no hard numbers for that assumption but just my first and second-hand experience with USAF folks stuck on staffs.
If you are going to try and depend on Congress to fix the issue...good luck! I get the strong impression there are a few things the USAF could do internally well before they got to the point of trying to get Congress to change the law, like the staffing problems we are discussing and a few other fixes that the senior leadership doesn't seem to want or willing to try. It is the same criticism the CSAF got when he met with the airlines, fix your own ship before trying to fix everyone else's.
VTs are not considered particularly career enhancing in the jet world. Yes it's a production job, but it has a big asterisk next to it. FWIW, a high percentage of VAQ front offices are patch wearers. It's something the jet community values and has had around for a lot longer than the more recent WTI programs in the VP and RW worlds.
Perhaps a better question, probably unanswerable by AWers, is: what percent of patch wearers stay in for DH/CO looks in each community? (42?)
RW values SWTI, but anecdotally, a surprising number of SWTIs have said "no thank you" to DH recently.
That's my point, sir. HSC also doesn't really value the HTs, and they certainly don't value the VTs. It's phrased exactly how you said it "yes it's production, but..." - and again, I don't have a problem with this system in and of itself, but at least in the HSC world, we introduce a lot of variables outside of performance, like gender, co-location (previously had been told no way does this help people get a better job, the couple must go to the lower of the two, or take a job in the same location that's off track [as in, husband gets Weapons School but wife gets HTs. They can either both go to the HTs, or the wife can take a staff job in San Diego and be "off-path"] but this doesn't happen in practice - people absolutely get "brought up" by their spouse), race, what squadron you're coming from ("oh, we couldn't possibly take more than 1 per squadron type per coast to either FRS!") quality spread, and timing all go into the mix. So again, my problem with the program is if we are introducing a quality spread into the mix and taking variables into account that are other than performance, then why are we pre-ordaining our Skippers by just assuming the WTIs and FRS instructors are going to make the best ones? Their performance may not have indicated it. They certainly don't get the most hours. Weapon Schoolers don't get any practical Division/Department leadership billets that an FRS or HT or VT guy might get in a more traditional squadron environment. So I am left asking - what warrants it if it's not performance, and that of course assumes that performance was a true indicator of performance and not a function of good timing anyway. (But, I'm even willing to work in the current system if it were to work like it was supposed to: Top guys and gals go to WTI and FRS; then HTs, then VTs, etc., but it doesn't with the aforementioned variables thrown in the mix.)
Just anecdotally from my squadron over 3 FITREP Cycles:
#1 EP: FRS
#2: HT's
#3: FRS (co-located spouse assigned to Weapons School on same coast before selecting)
#1 MP: HT's
Next cycle (and this one seems to be the one with the least amount of "quality spread" to me):
#1: FRS
#2: HT's
#3: VT's Vance
Next Cycle:
#1: HT's (so now, this #1 wasn't selected to the FRS or WTI and the best reason given to him was that too many had come from our squadron of late - so now even though he's a #1, we've screwed him compared to the #1 who went to the FRS because some other factor unbeknownst to us. Was it co-lo? Was it gender? Was it race?)
#2: HT's
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It's what the community has said they value because they think it's valuable. Both the FRS and WTI keep you in grey airplanes and at the forefront of the COMMUNITY. A guy who goes to HSCWSP/L or NAWDC and then is TrainO or CAG Staffer remains in the community for the entire time. That guy may not have been more relevant than the HT guy when they left their sea tour but the WTI remains relevant and current within the community between JO and DH tours. People complain ALL THE TIME on this board how they think the communities should prioritize warfighters over everything else and the communities are doing that by picking guys who stay in the business of warfighting. And then people on this board complain that they don't want to go WTI because "tactics sux" or "I'm tired of the optempo". I'm not sure I can see a lot of fault in the community picking the WTI and FRS guys over a guy who won't have flown an H-60 in over 5years by the time they're a DH.
@Pags, yeah, but... I don't know from helos, but I know when I was in Fleet VAW, I saw Millington's stance on TRACOM IP billets go from 'kiss of death' to 'yeah man, it's all Production and it's all good' in the space of about three months. Mostly because FRS IP billet numbers got slashed and they didn't have enough spots for all their hot-runner pilots in what is, let's face it, a Trunk Monkey-dominated community. It's just fashion. They may have ways of rationalizing why grey airplanes are better than clown jets, but at the end of the day, a good officer and good aviator does well no matter where they're planted. Pretending that you're better or less-better depending on what billets are available to you when the music stops is one of the silly "artificial and everyone knows it's artificial and yet everyone pretends it's not artificial" constructs of the Navy's system.
I agree that the Navy's artificial constructs are artificial but it's what the communities want. Will they fluctuate over time? Absolutely. But right now WTI is the current coin of the realm. Complaining about how they're artificial and that they leave good dudes out because they chose X over Y is just tilting at windmills. Agree that it shouldn't stop an officer from doing well where they're planted because you never know how the coin of the realm may change and what may be a dead end to an active navy fleet career can often times be an opening into other worlds such as FTS, Test, Acquisition, AEDO, airlines, etc. Just because a guy ends up in the HTs and may effectively be dead to the community it doesn't mean that that individual is now dead to the world. My point was that if you REALLY want to stay in the community, currently, you need to stay in the community. Sometimes your career timing may be such that you need to stay in the community to at least DH to take other off ramps due to OCMs releasing you, etc.
To be clear, and I think you're missing the crux of my argument:
1. I understand why we prioritize WTI and FRS folks to get the top billets that lead to Operational DH and Skipper.
2. I don't understand why we prioritize WTI and FRS folks when the people who are selected to go there are based on a quality spread, not just performance.
3. If we can agree that almost all of our Skippers were WTI JO's or FRS JO's, then one must ask the following: Given that factors other than performance go into play, we are choosing our future Skippers based on a quality spread and host of variables that are only a partially tied in with performance. I understand that a #2 MP isn't going to the FRS, but why is the #3 EP going and the #2 EP not? I've seen this happen over and over, board after board. (Apparently HSC is the only one doing this but I find that hard to believe outside of VFA/VAQ land where retention is just so poor. I'm sure that HSM and VP has to be doing this too).
4. I suspect the answer is that you can't just send the lowest / mediocre performers to the HT's and VT's - there has to be some form of quality folks sent there (thus they do a quality spread), but given that they do send some of the top folks there, why do we (effectively) derail their careers because PERS or some arbitrary board or Harry Potter type scenario sends one of the top quality folks to those places?
Imagine if you were a non-aviator on the O-4 board and you're getting briefed as to what to look for in a pilot's record:
"Ok, so we send our top guys to the FRS and to earn WTI. Select these officers as a priority."
OR
"Often, the best go to the FRS and WTI, but we have a somewhat arbitrary system that chooses who goes to which billet. On more occasions than we'd like to admit, we send our top folks to the HTs and VTs as well to ensure they receive a quality spread of pilots and because we need the FRS and Weapons School to fill a diversity quota and, oh, by the way, since they are in fleet concentration areas, they are the most often available commands eligible for co-location. Still, you should select the FRS and WTI folks over all other sources."
That's the beef I have with the system, because the second "board precept" is the one that's actually happening.
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Anecdotal/opinion only:
EP/EP players will make O-4 barring some strange anomaly in their record like a DUI or fitrep gap. MP/EP players will not make O-4. EP/MP players will most likely make O-4 if they haven't gotten a high-water yet in their shore tour due to timing. EP only players due to grad school or some other unusual timing circumstance will probably make O-4. So if you get an EP on your first tour, almost no matter what you're going to make O-4. I think that culls the herd enough for the O-4 board.
The DH board is a different matter, and that's where I think the math becomes a little bit fuzzier. This is where the EP players who went to the VTs/HTs could be forsaken in favor of those EP players who went to the FRS, Weapons School, other "good community jobs", etc. As to quality spread, co-lo, etc, that's why the joke is "sustained superior timing". Complete mouth breathers who went to the RAG will do just fine and good dudes who get quality spread somewhere else will get screwed. Does this happen routinely? Probably not, but it happens. Does the Navy care if it's fair or not? No. This is the classic ducks pick ducks scenario. I "heard" a COMACCLOGWING commodore stood up in front of the DH board and said "what I value above all else is FRS instructor experience". And people with better paper than their RAG IP peers didn't make DH because they had been forced to the VTs.
I think first tour JOs should really understand a couple of things. If you get a high water MP from your first sea tour, no matter what the Skipper says, he is effectively ending your career and there is no recovering from it. They can explain it away all they want, but they know full well they are shooting you in the head and aren't telling you how bad it is just to keep you motivated from becoming a complete no-load. And you have to keep trying, because if they give you a 1 of 1 MP out the door, kiss FTS or possibly even a competitive SELRES community goodbye. If you get an EP and don't go to the FRS, Weapons School, or other such job, you have to be realistic and wonder if there's a reason you didn't go there. Most front offices will try to cultivate good relationships with their community's detailing shop and front runners will probably find themselves the benefit of some phone calls trying to put the right people in the right place. And it's also important to understand the circumstances surrounding some of the boards. For example, VFA DH board this year was non-competitive. Make O-4, make OP DH. Same for VAQ.
Generally speaking, people who've been successful in the system think it's fantastic. People who haven't think it's dumb and get forced out eventually (and aren't put in positions to change it). But at least you get to watch the dumpster fire. If there WERE a retention problem, maybe this is one of the reasons why people are getting out...
I don't know how it works for anyone else but for VFA the SFTI selection process is not a quality spread. SFTIs are essentially chosen by their peers, based on their performance in and out of the aircraft. What a skipper says may have little to no affect on that process.
This is so true. It is pretty rare that a VFA guy is sent to the VTs and I wondered why. It does happen but those cases are the exceptions.
I think timing falls in this same boat. There are lots of tools available to front offices to deal with bad timing. If a guy doesn't deserve it then it's easy to just blame the results on timing and send them out the door.