We've been at Barksdale for about three years now, which unfortunately in Air Force land means it's time to start fending off the VML (vulnerable move list). The Air Force ideally rotates you to a new job or base every 3-4 years. A news article a year or two ago made a big hubub about how the new standard is 4 years now, meaning more stability for people and money saved from moving. But somehow, we all seem to be following the 3 year cycle. Basically, three times a year, the Air Force Personnel center (AFPC) tells each base how many people they need and what slots are available. Then the base chooses who their going to pick to fill those slots. You can put in your preferences through an ADP (Airman Development Plan) online, but in reality it just comes down to your Squadron Commander knowing what you want and deciding how much you're needed for the squadron compared to other eligible people.
I've been consistently trying to let my leadership know that I want to stay with the B-52 (and Barksdale) as long as possible. Up until recently, I thought that would go over pretty well since most pilots who come to the B-52 are stuck in the dream of flying a T-38 at pilot training or trying to move "upwards" to the B-2. While those could both be fun and challenging options, I personally just want to stick with the BUFF and keep working to better at the job I'm in. But for some reason, it seems like when the VML finally caught up with me, everyone in my year group (all the pilots I work with who are eligible to move) wants to stay in the B-52 too. So even though this cycle had a lot of pilot training instructor slots available (T-6 or T-38), everyone said they'd rather stay here. Our base fought AFPC to have less slots for moving and then they managed to find enough people to volunteer for pilot training or UAV (drones) or staff tours. Basically, I got lucky this round.
There's no telling how many slots they'll need to fill on the next VML cycle, or the one after that, or the dozens to follow for the rest of my time in the Air Force. The overall result is it just sucks feeling like you have to compete against your peers to stay in the job you're in when you trying really hard to do your job already and it seems like there's lots of coworkers who complain about having to be here. The people who want to stay get moved and the people who gripe about staying get stuck here over and over. The Air Force needs to figure that one out.
But all that ugliness aside, I've been enjoying being a new Aircraft Commander the last few months. I've been doing pretty basic flights (short ones too unfortunately - bad for hours, which means bad for the potential of upgrading to instructor some day). But I've been faced with some good challenging situations. One night, we had a hydraulic problem that wasn't very clear cut so I had to make a judgment call about if I would treat it as a real emergency or just a gage failure. That same night our bomb doors had a malfunction and wouldn't close all the way (not such a big deal, but the only indications in the cockpit are when the doors are closed all the way, or not closed all the way - so for all you know, they could be wide open). Then another afternoon, the weather was really bad here and our instrument systems were broken. So I got to shoot an instrument approach to the runway at the bare minimum cloud and visibility numbers (you're in the clouds until the last second and then you see the runway and transition to a landing). I've still got some training to redo as an AC (stuff I did as a copilot) before I can be labeled "Combat Mission Ready". And unfortunately, until I get that label, I can't participate in the cooler "real world" missions. But we do have a Red Flag exercise coming up, so that should be pretty fun. It's the kind of challenge that I enjoy, since it's the closest we get to come to a real combat mission (yet with all the benefit of training rules that keep it safe).
I'm typing this blog from our new computer. Although it's nice, we actually had to get it more out of necessity than for fun. We had left our last computer on for a pretty long time without turning it off (basically never). And when we finally did turn it off, it didn't want to turn back on. So I've been doing a lot of tinkering and open-computer surgery to try to fix it. I was able to replace the power unit, but it seems like it had caused deeper problems with the motherboard. Fortunately, I was able to take the hard drive from the old computer and add it to our new computer. So no files were lost. I was proud of myself for still being able to mess around with all the computer stuff and not break anything since it's been a while since I did that. Now I'm selling the old computer for parts. And once we get our office cleaned up, I'm going to find room to set up our dual monitors (sweeeeet).
One of the highlights of the new computer is a TON of hard drive space. Our pictures and videos of Theodore quickly overloaded the last computer. So now we've got room to keep shooting. There's also a new camera on the horizon that I've been scoping out, but we'll see how that fits into the budget...
He's picked up rolling over from back to front and he's just been practicing it over and over. Unfortunately, he seems to have forgotten how to get back over onto his back. But I'm sure he'll get crawling and sitting up soon enough. He's gradually getting more vocal, but definitely no words. Ellen has next week off from school so she said they're going to have lots of conversations to make up for my quiet influence. She's probably going to be angry when she reads this since she's been trying to save all his landmarks for the monthly Theo update posts. But hey, it's already been leaked on facebook. And everyone says they want to see more pictures, so here's a few to please the crowd (his face is really looking like a little man these days)...
No comments:
Post a Comment