This board was complete and utter insanity.
The PERS 43 detailer is freaking out, XO's and Skippers are floating conspiracy theories and blowing up Millington's phones, and guys are refusing boat orders that are about about to PCS this month.
I'm hearing reports of numbers like "only 2 guys on the whole carrier made the list." A lot of guys were on their second look and now they find themselves out on deployment and being told "hey buddy once we pull back into port, you're out of a job a month or two later" - they have 7 months from the release of the board results and finding out they are FOS x 2 and being forced out.
As for myself, I got 2 EP's leaving my fleet tour, a #1 EP on my tour as a flight instructor and took shooter orders to a deploying carrier. My name was not on that list. In fact, I only recognized less than a handful of aviators who did make it.
This board was a bloodbath. If you break the numbers down aviation community specific, it gets even worse. The rate for VP selectees was around 32%.
For the last 2 years everything we've been told from CNAF and MPRA is about a "JO retention crisis" and that they "can't even fill DH spots." They pulled people up, offered the bonus a year early, did all these surveys to figure out why nobody is sticking around yet they effectively have just ended the career of half of all senior JO aviators across the board.
On the surface, it's pure madness. Nobody has any answers.
The results of this board will have enormous, profound and far-reaching consequences, both directly and indirectly. The only question is: are the consequences calculated or unintended?
If you take a look at in-zone selection rates for pilots over the past 6 years:
FY09- 78%
FY10- 83%
FY11- 79%
FY12- 83%
FY13- 66%
FY14- 61%
FY15- 53%
The board precept set by SECNAV was 70% and the board met it to capacity for overall URL at 69.99%...
...but for some reason, SWOs and Subs selected at overcapacity around 94% and sucked up all the spots, leaving aviators to fend for the scraps.
The general consensus of PERS43 and aviation commanders right now seems to be "we don't know what happened here, but this ain't gonna work."
The direct consequences are that in the next year or two, there will be a large number of vacant DH billets across all aviation communities unless something is done, i.e. opening the floodgates on Above Zone selections next year or a major restructuring of the zone list.
The indirect results are that people a year or two behind me are looking up at me and seeing "the guy with 3 EP's and a shooter tour didn't make it so why try?" People behind me are already scrambling like rats from a sinking ship.
The board has just torn a gaping, sucking chest wound into the heart of naval aviation.
Anyway it's looking like by this time next year, I'm going to be out of a jerb.
Anybody need their lawn done?