Re Post 50
Please provide URL to blog. Should we just delete 50???
Thanks,
Dick
Posted on 09/09/2004 11:57:05 PM PDT by litany_of_lies
The two memos refer to a flight physical and a flight review board, both IAW ("in accordance with") AFM 35-13. But that would stand for "Air Force Manual" 35-13, and manuals are guidelines only. They have no regulatory authority. No one takes a physical exam, flight or not, IAW a manual. Manuals relate to operational procedures, not enforcement of standards. Especially would a "flight review board" not be convened IAW a manual. Enforceable regulatory authority in the military derives only from two sources: the Uniform Code of Military Justice and orders. Regulations are a type of written order issued under the authority of a flag-rank officer. (In the Army, for example, regulations are issued under the authority of the Chief of Staff down to installation-commander level.)
What governs official procedures or requirements for physicals is a regulation, not a manual, because a regulation is an order and a manual is not. A regulation has much the same effect as law. Regulations are governing documents that must be adhered to, not advisory publications that permit ad-hoc deviations, as manuals do.
So I browsed over to the Air Force's official web site for its publications, http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/. There I searched for AFM 35-13 without success. The intelligent search engine recommended using only the numbers, so I searched using only 35-13. Result:
35-13 has been rescinded or superceded by another publication. Additional information is available at Obsolete Publications.
So I went there and discovered, sure enough, that there was an Air Force Regulation 35-13, but no AF Manual 35-13 is listed. AFR 35-13 was superceded in 1990 by AFI36-2605 (Air Force Instruction, i.e., the same as a regulation).
So I Googled AFI36-2605 and voilá! Here it is.
This instruction implements Air Force Policy Directive 36-26, Military Force Management, and Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 7280.3, Special Pay for Foreign Language Proficiency. It prescribes all procedures for administering the Air Force Military Personnel Testing System and Foreign Language Proficiency Pay (FLPP) program.
Which is to say, this publication has nothing to do with flight physicals.
From all this I conclude that the Killian-signed documents are forgeries, forged by someone without a very good knowledge of military correspondence or Air Force publications or procedures. Based on the Air Force's own online library of current and obsolete publications, I conclude that there never was an Air Force Manual 35-13, although there was an AF Regulation by that number. But a lieutenant colonel would never have made such a fundamental error as using "AFM" twice when he meant AFR.
Furthermore, it is likely that whatever AFR 35-13 governed, flight physicals wasn't it. My contention is buttressed by two points:
A. AFR 35-13's successor publication is a personnel management instruction (regulation).
B. This online copy of a senior NCO's routine reassignment orders, dated 1954, which cites AFR 35-13 as an authority for the transfer. A publication governing personnel assignments doesn't also govern enforcement of flight physicals.
So the forger said the physical was to be done IAW a manual, not a regulation, and named a manual that never existed anyway, and used a numeric that belonged to a personnel-management reg, not a flight-standards reg.
Update, 9-10: It seems there really was an AFM 35-13 after all. Scott Forbes comment-linked to a page that reproduces orders from 1970 that cite AFM 35-13. Also, Cecil Turner comments about how a manual could be relevant to this matter.
So it seems now that citing a manual could well be valid. But that doesn't overcome the style and format errors that are numerous and obvious, to say nothing of the typeface problems.