The airforce is cheap?

[Good2Golf]

The thing with protecting units from HHQ professionally is that you can't formally beef on HHQs without eroding vertical loyalty.  The mess.....that's another thing.  Having worked Op-level and Tac-level HQ as well as unit ops, I can objectively say there is a lot of stuff that gets filtered out before it hits the units.  Although my personal opinionsof each may vary, there isn't a single Comd 1 Wing who didn't look after the best interests of his units....I have seen things that would really make you wonder what some folks are thinking.  I'm sure it's the same as Strat and Joint as well...

Cheers,
Duey

 

[Scoobs]

I'm sure that 1 Wg HQ stopped some tasks, but in my opinion not enough.  If we were deployed for 6 months, I know that we would not have received as many tasks as we did when we were on the 12V. 

Loachman, I'm not speaking just about what techs or myself thought, I heard this sentiment from some pilots as well.  Also, when a unit cannot do their 600 hr inspections and need to put 6 a/c into storage in order to have enough techs to attempt to maintain some serviceable a/c, then I believe that the unit is overtasked.  At that time, 427 had two main priorities and I know you know which two they were.  I asked directly to 1 Wg HQ which was priority.  The answer: both.  Both?  That isn't usually good for a unit to have two main priorities.

I have no doubt that any 1 Wg Comd woudn't look out for for his units, but I still believe 427 Sqn was overtasked due to the unique situation it was in with the two main priorities.

Also, I kept these opinions I had to myself and did not express them to the techs.  This would have eroded loyalty and I knew which way was the proper way to question what was going on.  That is why I asked 1 Wg HQ and didn't ask the techs on the floor.  I formulated my opinion based on what I saw personally (O and T meetings, morning prayers, daily experience) and from listening to the techs and some pilots.  Note I said listening, not agreeing with, but part of a SAMEO or D/SAMEO's job is to listen to what is going on in his maint org in order to gauge the moral of his/her section.

 

[Loachman]

It's all in your frame of reference, Scoobs.

While each Sqn may have slightly different circumstances at any given time, they're all just variations on a theme. Everybody's struggling to do more with less and nobody's really any better or worse off than anybody else.

I hear it all of the time from everybody when I go hunting for avn support for somebody/something - and I know exactly what I'm going to hear when I phone, even before dialling. Exercise in futility or not, I still have to call, though - it's my job to do so even when I know the answer.

Being caught in the middle isn't much fun, anymore than being caught at the end of the chain.

The problem is CF wide.

When the White Paper was slashed in 89 and things started to rapidly go downhill after a couple of years of build-up and promises of more I began saying that "five years from now these will be the good old days" and that line's held up well. That may be changing, but it's still going to take years before we get back up to that high point. We've fallen so far.