Forum: Off-topic

I've heard much about him - Robin Olds is one of my heroes. But things are different now. In WWI pilots would take a plane up whenver they wanted and go "hunting" by themselves. Try doing that today....

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No one's saying that you can't fly past a certain pay grade Skyhigh, only that your flying schedule becomes much more reduced as you progress in rank. As Greek said, it was a different time in Robin Olds' day. That stuff doesn't really happen anymore.

BTW, Olds' mission callsign was a play on what his name happened to be. The other flights included "Buick", "Chevy", and "Ford".

Sometimes you do see General officers fly a mission or two downrange during their time in a certain position, but they don't go up very often at all. Lt. Gen. David Deptula was still flying ONW combat missions from time to time as a Brig. Gen. He's currently serving in a non-flying billet as the DCS for Intelligence.

The point I was trying to make from the previous page, however, was that if all you want to do is fly, and not play the officer game, then you won't progress past Major.

You mean if you're an O-6 or higher, you have to balance your time in the cockpit training your juniors in mock dogfights and in the staff billet at the Pentagon, or other military-related building, right?

O-6s and higher aren't IPs. They fly WITH IPs, because they don't fly often enough to maintain their proficiency. When you're at the Pentagon, you are in a non-flying assignment (typically 3 years).

Forum: Off-topic

Retirement from flying combat missions