F-15 Story in the news: super bummed pilot flys home on a commercial flight

[///AMG]

Well, I think that's part of the problem -- do we really know he did 'something dumb', any more than the guys in the pattern you describe did 'something dumb'?

Fair enough. I was taking the news description at face value, which is probably not always good form. But it sure sounded from the story, that the guy was beating up some random neighborhood. Can I think of a time when this could have been the inaccurate perception of folks on the ground? Of course

 

[ryan1234]

In the situations Ive seen, the initial parts of the system seemed to work well. IE- initial investigative boards, etc. The problem comes where the decisions of that board have to be ratified or approved by a Flag officer in the chain of command of the accused, normally at the Numbered Air Force level or sometimes at the MAJCOM level. This is where problems occur due to potential agendas of the particular Flag officer. If that officer doesn't agree with what the investigators came up with, regardless of if the evidence they've uncovered and validated fully supports their conclusion(s), that Flag officer can disapprove their findings, or even reverse them. That's where the problem comes.
.

Unfortunately results in a very, very good officer and pilot being ostracized... an officer that, say, had an exemplary career and served with distinction in combat... over something that was a non-event and certainly would have been the status quo 30 years ago.

Excerpt from an interesting speech given at West Point not too long ago by William Deresiewicz:

That’s really the great mystery about bureaucracies. Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back. Jumping through hoops. Getting along by going along. Being whatever other people want you to be, so that it finally comes to seem that, like the manager of the Central Station, you have nothing inside you at all. Not taking stupid risks like trying to change how things are done or question why they’re done. Just keeping the routine going.

I tell you this to forewarn you, because I promise you that you will meet these people and you will find yourself in environments where what is rewarded above all is conformity. I tell you so you can decide to be a different kind of leader. And I tell you for one other reason. As I thought about these things and put all these pieces together—the kind of students I had, the kind of leadership they were being trained for, the kind of leaders I saw in my own institution—I realized that this is a national problem. We have a crisis of leadership in this country, in every institution. Not just in government. Look at what happened to American corporations in recent decades, as all the old dinosaurs like General Motors or TWA or U.S. Steel fell apart.

 

[Soku39]

I would add on to what Hacker said but he left nothing on the table. I am at 19 years and 8.5 months in the military and I can assure anyone that if any SOP, regulation, rule, etc is broken or even if it's thought of being broken, not adhered to, etc., we are punished. I'll give an example, we had a pilot lead a division form back into the break at 6 knots fast, grounded for a week. The Skipper was in the flight. Not going to break the plane, but our SOP says 350KIAS and he went 356KIAS. Not kidding either.

Please tell me you're joking. What on earth did I get myself into.

 

[ComplexHiAv8r]

I grew up in Coastal north carolina and always remember the F15s (with glow boosters) flying overhead, rattlin' windows, heading out to the ocean.

The wussification of america continues. No rattlin windows and no Twinkes.

You should of been around when the F-4s were at Cherry Point. 8)