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Aviation instructor career path
- Thread starter FormerRecruitingGuru
- Start date
I’d tell an NFO joke but I don’t know any.You're so acerbic tonight! So... personal. I'm touched.
What else you got?
I don’t want to be too pessimistic, but after reading the backup slides on this, it was pretty clear PERS wasn’t gonna let anyone touch LTs for this program because they’re already hemorrhaging them as is. Hence targeting pot committed LCDRs. So it’s self defeating because the people clammoring for an alternate career path are JOs who don’t want to be DHs. Whoops.
The messaging to the JOPA is the head scratcher to me. Is this to entice us to take DH orders in hopes four years later we can be #2 DHs and apply in four years?
Oh and 30 billets for a population of 10k 13XX folks is a rounding error. Same for CIP, tours with industry, etc.
The messaging to the JOPA is the head scratcher to me. Is this to entice us to take DH orders in hopes four years later we can be #2 DHs and apply in four years?
Oh and 30 billets for a population of 10k 13XX folks is a rounding error. Same for CIP, tours with industry, etc.
Have you heard of HR? If you haven't then I would caution you against the career manpower/staffing person. They tend to be completely disconnected from what the Navy does day to day and that tends to turn them into good idea fairies that leave the rest of us wondering what happened. Who do you think is coming up with all the GMT in the Pentagon?
I never thought I would meet an O-6 without a community-specific collar device or a warfare pin but they're out there...
Wait, is anyone seeing PFI as anything other than a bribe to keep enough LT’s in to man OP-DH billets?
Pretty sure that’s how I see it.
Pickle
Pretty sure that’s how I see it.
Pickle
It is...but it won't work. Who wants to sit around for 2 more pain tours just to end up stuck in the Navy at a terminal rank...and who's to say the program won't go away later leaving you stuck in the normal sea to shore as-much-fun-as-putting-your-dick-in-a-pencil sharpener non-select rotation?
Get out, go to the reserves and the airlines, have a better chance to keep flying and promote AND get a seniority number.
This is another idea from the halfwits who came up with the flying warrant program. I suspect it'll be just as successful and last about as long.
The problem with the military is that it doesn’t need to turn a profit, obfuscates answers to its Board of Directors/clients (the American people through their elected representatives), and high ranking officers really do believe that they’re the best/#1 at everything (believing their fitreps): “My genius has gotten me this far...why should I listen to anyone now?”
I’d submit to you that what the Navy needs in terms of aviator detailing is more continuity, less turnover, better accountability and a clear vision. The only reason HR people have gained so much power is due to poor CMA-type leadership.
Yup, I love the idea of the program, but as already said, needs to be for the LTs at the height of proficiency. The DHs I know that are interested are mainly the prior Es. I’ll be done with my DH tour at 13.5 YCS. Not throwing away O-5 retirement at this point to avoid one potential shitty O-5 sea tour for 2 years, especially as an NFO who can’t build airline hours anyways, especially after doing the DH asspain.
This is similar to my argument against the program with @MrsPickle ...
The saying at all airlines is “You only have to be junior once”. I would never give up a day, hour, minute of my seniority. It is literally your life. If you really enjoy Orange and White just SELRES.
I’m sure this puts me in the minority here and I mean no disrespect- but, that description of the importance of seniority with absence of merit holds no appeal to me. (I’m NOT saying that the military does well at rewarding competence or merit with seniority.)
I’m glad there are folks that works for. That’s what helps the world go around.
Yup. PERS is so blind. "Nothing to see here, move along, move along!"
Of course. But unfortunately there's no pencil pusher at PERS going through each and every 13xx record to ensure they got theirs. Instead, they divined that we shall all be on ye olde goldenne path and be "due course." Essentially, they cast a huge filter on everyone vis-a-vis a broken system which is capable only of picking ducks. We discussed this recently somewhere else on the board, but suffice to say I think we are our own worst enemy.
To a point, I can understand why @Brett327 says he would theoretically give the #1 EP to the #2 because #1 said he wants NPS (for example) and #2 says "I want to be a CO." While I understand where he's coming from, there's inherit problems with this. First, you're asking the #1 guy to be honest with you knowing full well that because he's honest, he gets screwed. But then you expect the #2 guy to also be honest. There's a dark side to that coin as well -- what if he's not? What if #2 is playing the game and knows the magic words are "I want to be a CO"? When then? You cannot assume with people that they're all going to tell you what they want up front.
When you give the #1 to the #2, you're really fucking everyone:
First, the Navy loses out on the #1 guy continuing to serve because we just told him we don't value what he values -- in other words, we tell them if you want to go off the path to NPS, Sayonara! Which means #2 becomes #1 simply because they were in the right place at the right time or said the magic words, regardless of actual intent.
Second, this essentially means the CO lies to the board about who their best officer is. What happens then? The #2 guy picks up because he looks good on paper and fast forward and you have a squadron/ship/etc being run by the #1 loser. Out of all the people who came up short, he was #1 in that category. Instead, we told the real #1 to fuck off and took the next least worst.
Third, we denied the #2 guy the opportunity for self-improvement. People don't usually dig deep and improve themselves when everything is great -- there's no incentive. If you got the #1 and didn't know you didn't deserve it, why would you do anything differently? At least Goose and Mav knew they were the #2 and struggled through things to get better. Instead we're telling the #2 guy he's #1 with little to no feedback and down the road we hand him the keys to hundreds of lives. As an organization, we usually get away with it and things generally work out, but only because the quality spread among #1/#2s is usually small -- until it's not.
Sir.....no. Just....respectfully...no. This program is asinine. First of all, in order to be competitive for even the stupidest of Navy programs, we all know you're going to need to have a good record. Down-Right-Down, EP highwaters, "sustained superior performance," etc. Which means if you don't board with the #1 EP (because you were honest with Skipper A and in turn they don't "waste" the #1 on you), you're going to compete with the guys who did get the #1 EP from Skipper B who either supported the decision or was blindsided because Skipper B's #1 didn't tell him/her their true intentions. And then your #1 gets screwed twice.
Which brings me to a couple of points about trust. You said earlier in this thread that you would consider that situation a breach of trust. To be honest, if that's happening between a CO and their officers, there was never trust to begin with. No EP Pilot worth a damn ever lays out their cards on the table for a CO they don't know if they can trust. If there's even the slightest shred of evidence that the RS can't be trusted, they're going to keep their mouth shut and work hard until they figure out what to do about it, until time reveals more one way or the other, until they can snuff out their CO's true colors. Doing otherwise is just dumb. Don't you see the conundrum there? You want your EPs to be foolish and tell you what they're thinking regardless, but you also want the best and the brightest to be your EPs. One of these precludes the other, so unless we want to promote a bunch of dumb asses, hotshot Naval Officers across the globe will continue to hold their cards close to their chest until the correct moment.
Trust has to be earned. I'm not going to trust my CO if I watch him play this fuck-fuck game with the guys a year ahead of me and take the #1 away from the pilot who really deserves it and instead give it to the #2 because of all the reasons you mentioned earlier. And while @Brett327 might take my #1 away, I can point to other Skippers (like my current) who reward me for the hard work I put in, despite my long-term goals. That disparity right there, regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, is why guys are leaving. Because when the O-4 or DH list comes out and we see LT Dipshit made it, it's incredibly disheartening. But by all means, let's give LCDR Dipshit keys to the clown car to train the brand new kids who are most likely to kill you.
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Hahaha. Perhaps, but it's ok to disagree. We can have a discourse and not all come to the same conclusions. All I think JOPA asks is for him and like minded individuals is not simply to say their piece, but to also HEAR us. Because I hear them, I understand them. But all too often it feels like a one way street.
Dismiss us at everyone's expense, unfortunately.
I hear you, but hasn't the model long been to- generally speaking- send #2 EP or lower JOs to CNATRA? I realize there are exceptions, but to assume that every, or even most of the DHs who would apply for the PFI program are dipshits seems awfully harsh.
I'm not a fan of PFI, because- just like the updates to ACIP, it does nothing for the individuals who we need to retain the most: senior JOs. The message seems to be that senior JOs aren't valued unless they stay on for a DH tour. That's tone-deaf mismanagement of talent, or shortsightedness at the very least.
In addition, I'd say there are a LOT of #2 EPs that would have made better COs than the #1, and not necessarily because of the COs choice. Let's not forget that timing plays a leading role in our rating system. The best individual doesn't always have the best timing, and it's often not through any fault of their own.
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