Leaderboard

(to the panel Chief quoted above) Well Chief you're probably right, only a little morale comes from wearing a colored T-shirt and showing unit pride on Fridays. It is the last of any morale and pride left in units these days. Lets just do away with unit pride altogether...squadrons shouldn't even have colors. Standardize all flight suit patches so they are the same color...squadron patches can just be a big white patch with bold black letters (insert unit here) so people know which squadron you're from. We'll make name patches Air Force blue so everyone looks the same (although you'd probably f*ck that up trying make a "rule" to determine which shade of blue to use). You're obviously disconnected from your "troops" if you can't understand how important a little bit of unit pride and morale (regardless of how small) means to a squadron in which morale is lacking because of all the BS they have to put up with on a daily basis...and yes, that is part of a bigger problem that you're too disconnected to see. We've been wearing squadron T-shirts as far back as I can remember (wasn't 'against the rules' that whole time)...and in 35 years I don't remember Amn Snuffy ever being confused about breaking rules regarding which T-shirt to wear until you made all of these stupid rules to follow. If you are worried about Amn Snuffy being "confused" about breaking rules because people are wearing colored T-shirts, then yes, we have bigger problems that standardizing T-shirts will not fix. I would put more focus on making sure Amn Snuffy is familiar with rules and AFIs that apply to his job so he can do it more efficiently and less focus on what you think Amn Snuffy will think just because I'm wearing a yellow T-shirt on Friday. How can you trust Amn Snuffy to do his job if he can't follow the small rules? I really hope that shiny boots and clean sideburns is not how you determine if you trust Amn Snuffy to do his job correctly. Good luck Chief...we're all counting on you!

No shit! However, this will probably be treated like a bad WX day on a Friday: it's obvious that no one will turn a wheel the entire day, but rather than utilize the time to get everyone together and get necessary training done, and then push to the bar early, we drag the schedule out to the bitter end,... and still not fly anything. And of course, no one gets home until 1800 either. In this case, all these Raptor pilots could already be doing something beneficial somewhere,... but no, we need them ready to go "just in case the WX breaks in the next 10 minutes".

Most of this shit wouldn't be against the rules if we didn't create literally thousands of needless rules in the first place. I can still remember raising an issue about procedures flying around in Kuwait with non-TCAS aircraft that fell on deaf ears while the leadership was out measuring sock height and prowling for reflective belt usage. As for the article where the chief is asking the question of "if you can't take care of your sideburns how can I trust you to fly a jet"...well chief, if I up the flying part, I die. If I up my sideburns, I just look funny. Most people with common sense can figure that out.

While I agree with it personally, I think the cliche Robin Olds argument is like trying to make a moral case against abortion to an atheist. Robin Olds lived in a much different era and the argument falls on deaf ears. While most pilots would argue those were better days, the reality of today: there is a 99.9% chance people will return from a mission in any aircraft (fighter, UAV (ha), heavy) in one piece. SOOO, as many have said before, we get to fight a long-term war with a peace time standards environment. I am done trying to change the Air Force. It is a huge bureaucratic mess...basically a social security system with wings. I say take it or leave it...serve your time and get out, or stay in and deal with the exponentially increasing bullshit. Do we really think a post on af.com is going to change their behavior in any way. Hell, I applied for VSP, and after all that upheaval up and down the chain after the results...what changed? I am still in the Air Force...I think our only vote is with the good old feet and I plan on using them in a few years.

I'm glad we've started being a little less stingy with these things lately. They're certainly not something to throw around but early on in OEF/OIF there were a lot of awesome dudes doing awesome things and they didn't get the MOH when maybe they should have although certainly they didn't care whether or not they got it, tribute to how awesome those dudes are. Everyone who's been awarded it recently has fully deserved it.

He does know that ABU belts don't double as reflective belts right #fail

11-07's drop: Buff C-130- Elmendorf C-130- little rock AC-130 nav - Cannon Buff C-130- little rock JSTARS F-15 E EC-130 EWO F-15 E RC-135 Buff Buff F-15E AWACS AC-130 EWO- hurlburt Buff Buff RC-135 F-15 E MC-130H EWO- Kadena C-130- NY ANG Good drop. Lots of eagles. Their mafia was out in force tonight.

Let's hope the Chinese match the specs to the "t" in their reverse engineering!

"On, Normal, Normal....######, i mean on On, Max, Normal, Good Blinker...shit i'm hungover"

I came across this for all you SAC guys who flew KC-135A's in late 60's and early 70's. NKAWTG.

Jake Herring passed away today. He was 89. He was raised on a tobacco and hog farm in nowhere North Carolina. He was drafted into the Army Air Corps, later Army Air Forces, trained in electronics and the then top-secret world of radar. Assigned to a signal aircraft warning battalion, he shipped out for Australia, then on to New Guinea. He did combat landings on the islands of New Britain and Biak (first wave of troops on this one), where he operated as part of an early warning net, using a vacuum-tubed 1st generation ground radar that broke down into two duece and half and a jeep loads. The gas-fired generator put out a blue flame exhaust that drew Japanese snipers multiple times. Moving on to the Phillippines, he finished out the war there assisting in one radar-controlled confirmed P-61 kill on a Betty bomber, returning to the North Carolina farm at the end of the war. Later, he walked a US Postal mail route, about 18 miles per day for nearly twenty years. He had a voice like a country-fied Richard Burton; pure joy to hear a story told in that voice. Godspeed, Uncle Dick, godspeed.