USMC TACAIR future

[Hotdogs]

As a -46 to -22 transition, I'd say to go to a legacy platform and get as many quals as you can there. If you're in a community full of senior guys, as the F-35 still is, you will be the assistant to the assistant to the soda mess officer. Get some time and good billets in a legacy platform and wait for the chaos to subside.

I've seen that work both ways. I definitely think going to a legacy platform on the beginning of a sundown is rolling the dice. Your other not so fortunate 46 brethren can attest to that. I think any TACAIR legacy pilot will be fine regardless because we're so undermanned in those MOSs that a transition is a pretty sure thing unless you shit on some one's pancakes in the process. RW guys going from the W/N/E to Z/Y/K is probably a pretty big dice roll right now.

 

[phrogdriver]

That sounds awesome compared to having multiple ground jobs that on their own would be full time jobs... never mind being proficient and tactical or having a life.

When the dust clears and you spent your senior captain/junior major time as the S-5AA, you'll have wished you'd had 5 jobs. That grunt on a promotion board doesn't know the finer details of transition manning, and he'll see that billet and give you the thumbs down.

I'll modify my earlier advice. Take a good look at timing. A new guy will probably be okay transitioning. I'd be wary doing it as a senior captain--by the time you get transitioned, you may have missed your chance for the good billets/PME that will get you promoted. If you're a major who's already had a spin through OPSO/MO, then go for it. You're good.

Timing is 50% of everything in career development.

 

[DocT]

When the dust clears and you spent your senior captain/junior major time as the S-5AA, you'll have wished you'd had 5 jobs. That grunt on a promotion board doesn't know the finer details of transition manning, and he'll see that billet and give you the thumbs down.

I'll modify my earlier advice. Take a good look at timing. A new guy will probably be okay transitioning. I'd be wary doing it as a senior captain--by the time you get transitioned, you may have missed your chance for the good billets/PME that will get you promoted. If you're a major who's already had a spin through OPSO/MO, then go for it. You're good.

Timing is 50% of everything in career development.

I'll echo some of what Phrog is saying here. Transitioning is a tricky thing in the best of times. There's so many things that go into whether you're successful in your new MOS it's impossible to know for sure.

Timing (as all have said) is obviously a huge one. It's not just timing in your own career progression but timing as to where your gaining community is in the transition process as well as where your new squadron is in thier transition. Couple that with attitudes in the squadron toward transition guys (good or bad) as well as whether or not you are able to be a contributor quickly once you get there. It's fucking hard math and the equation changes by community, squadron, and individual. So yeah...transitioning is tricky.

If all things are equal, it's best to do it early in your career or much later. The middle is more dicey.

 

[Rugby_Guy]

So help me with the math problem. I'm in Kingsville and should wing fall of next year, early FY18. I'm prior enlisted, so my 20 year retirement date cozys right up to the sundowning F18 timeframe. So do I

A: Try to go back to F18s (I was an Airframer) and take my prior systems knowledge and such to be the best JO I can be, hopefully being a contributor earlier than if I had went to a different platform that I would have to learn from scratch. Would I run the risk of going on a b billet and just never making it back to the community?

B: Go F35 and be the brand new kid on the block, possibly missing out on some of those better billets, but knowing that my platform won't disappear before my retirement date comes. Also, would being in a new platform limit B-billet opportunities, like being a FAC for instance?

Obviously, this assumes I have some sort of choice and such, but for putting preferences down, which way would you lean and why? I will hit 20 TIS when I have 14 years commissioned time, if that helps with timelines and stuff. I see the pros and cons to both, but I'm not sure I know all the pros and cons and would hate to get my #1 choice and realize I painted myself into a corner, one way or another.

 

[zippy]

Put F35 as your first choice and let the Marine Corps decide... you're looking at 2-3 years until you hit the fleet. The F35 will be getting more mature as a platform and community while the hornet community issues continue to grow.

You don't want to willingly enter a dying community if you can avoid it...

 

[scoolbubba]

You don't want to willingly enter a dying community if you can avoid it...

This. So much this.

Parts. Hours. Money. Attention/responsiveness from 'higher.'

None of that comes easy, but it's even harder if you're in a platform whose shelf life is measured in years, vice decades. Try to go play with the shiny new toy.

 

[DocT]

So help me with the math problem.

The only way you could do the math would be to know things that are unknowable: what squadron you would end up with, the personalities when you get there etc.

Since you can't do that, listen Zippy and Schoolbubba: go F-35s.

Honestly, your knowledge as an f-18 airframer is not going to help you be a contributor as a nugget. In fact it's more likely it would hinder you as you attempted to fall back on prior knowledges as an FNG. It's apples and oranges between working in the barn and being a member of the readyroom.

There's really nothing to gain other than risk by voluntarily going to a sun downing community.

 

[Rugby_Guy]

Well, it seems that the brain trust is in agreement then. Thank you all for the replies and insight. At least this helps iron out my preferences going forward. Now I need to pray to the allocation gods.

 

[Ventilee]

I'll echo some of what Phrog is saying here. Transitioning is a tricky thing in the best of times. There's so many things that go into whether you're successful in your new MOS it's impossible to know for sure.

Timing (as all have said) is obviously a huge one. It's not just timing in your own career progression but timing as to where your gaining community is in the transition process as well as where your new squadron is in thier transition. Couple that with attitudes in the squadron toward transition guys (good or bad) as well as whether or not you are able to be a contributor quickly once you get there. It's fucking hard math and the equation changes by community, squadron, and individual. So yeah...transitioning is tricky.

If all things are equal, it's best to do it early in your career or much later. The middle is more dicey.

Probably the best advice in my limited experience. There are people in my squadron that transitioned at an ideal time in their career and are now well established in the community in terms of quals, billets, etc. while I can think of at least one individual going up to their second Major board with zero deployments in their career(exceptional case, that individual is a great officer who's timing sucked).

Also, are you the type of person that will still be motivated to learn a new platform and start from the bottom of the qual-ladder after 5+ years mastering the F-18? Or are you going to be the salt dog that sits around the ready room and talks about how awesome it was to fly the F-18 and how much the F-35 sucks and how it'll never be as good as the Hornet while simultaneously pissing off every 'pure-bred' in your squadron ?

 

[pourts]

And arent the Marines having older Hornets from the boneyard being upgraded to C+'s? I'm fairly sure this is an ongoing program.

That's A+++ thank you very much! (Maybe I forgot a plus?)

 

[pourts]

That sounds awesome compared to having multiple ground jobs that on their own would be full time jobs... never mind being proficient and tactical or having a life.

The gouge I hear is that guys are working 12 hour days minimum. Particular individuals that were the chosen ones (F-22 exchange, early F-35 patch wearer...) are dropping papers instead of taking the F-35 skipper billet. Tactfully ask around your senior guys that you trust that are outside your squadron and they will probably know who I am talking about.

Stay with the Hornet:
- no flight time
- possibility of going to Centcom to drop bombs on Al Qaeda/ Daesh/ future flavor of the month shitheads in theater
- possibility of living in San Diego
- low manpower community (maybe fleet-to-fleet, low chance you are allowed to apply for ROTC board or stuff like that because of undermanning)

Go F-35:
- make yourself more marketable on the outside to work in the military industrial complex
- more flight time
- way more work (reference Treetop Flyer's comment about a squadron full of patch wearing Majors)
- the dreaded MEU deployment, to be avoided at all
- regarding $ and resources: you are the Air Force of the USMC. "Take it, its yours! Whatever you want!"

 

[Brett327]

Take it, it's yours! Whatever you want!

Is that an Eddie Murphy disguised as a white guy on SNL reference?

 

[pourts]

Is that an Eddie Murphy disguised as a white guy on SNL reference?

No, random coincidence. But that's essentially what I was going for.

That first F-35 MEU is going to be a nut-roll. So glad I won't be there...