Not trying to be argumentative, but just finished talking to my next
door neighbor who completed his check ride today. He finished only his
BMC and still has another 2-3 months of training with the 34th before
they will consider him CMR. I lived this problem for a year as one of
the maintenance officers for the 9th. It was an absolute fight to
provide enough sorties to keep the overmanned copilots from regressing.
Throw in upgrades it was tough. Even when we had the highest ever FMC
rate for the Bone.

Big of the problem was that our FTU got so backed up that we had to cut
down the syllabus and fly weekends to get caught up. All this did was
to push the problem on to the combat squadrons.

Cheers,
Michael Kelly, Bone Maintainer

Hmm, I'll take your word for it, but I know that at one point (IIRC around
2000) the Bone FTU was graduating FMC crews, it was the reason why the BUFF FTU
had to begin doing it. Maybe the cut back in syllabus was the reason they
stopped doing it? Wonder if the BUFF FTU could get away with the same excuse?


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"