Originally Posted by
Evalu8ter
With three active duty Generals flying them........a bit more "in touch" than most of ours.....
I'm sure our star ranks would jump at the chance and I used to enjoy flying with the VSOs back in the day. Funded hours for the brass disappeared many moons ago, as did routine refresher flying, fully-funded hours for all flying station commanders, OC Operations, group standards posts, sim instructors, flight safety posts etc etc.
Once all the meat was excised from the bone we started cutting flying for instructors, then students, then frontline execs and frontline aircrew to levels below that achieved by the Warsaw Pact.
The only recent exception I can recall is when Torpy decided that he was above all that and allocated himself a short Typhoon course - just before joining BAE Systems…. what a happy coincidence for him.