Leaderboard

What has happened to self-esteem? Why are people driven to suicide because of what other people say about them? No amount of legislative nonsense is going to resolve this issue. Harassment extends beyond school, and teachers and administrators cannot protect their students on Facebook, the bus, or wherever else it happens. Like Rokke said, all of these laws are "feel good efforts."

Sending UPT grads to UAV's is borderline fraud waste and abuse. I know I am preaching to the choir on this one but it pisses me off to no end. It is shortsighted and an ABSOLUTE CANCER in the CAF. The decision to non-voul young talented aviators to this career field is being upheld by many who have already had an entire career flying fast jets. Where is the integrity and standing up for what is right for the Air Force? Isn't that one of our core values? Doing the RIGHT thing over the EASY thing? The CAF NEEDS an Olds who will stand up for the CGO's on this issue. I am currently working in Afghanistan and see first hand what the drones do on a daily basis. It is completely unnecessary that they be flown by someone with fighter or T-38 experience. What a waste. I am sure all those poor guys flying them will agree with me. We are indirectly killing much of the incentive to apply to the Academy. What incentive is there to roll the bones on track select night and pick T-38's? I just talked to a recent USAFA grad who said that many are changing their mind about UPT after seeing what's going on in the Air Force, especially considering the ten year commitment. If you got rid of the NBA / NFL / MLB, college sports would suffer. Fact. If the Air Force did not have fighter aircraft, I would not have joined. Period dot. I know others have other reasons, but on day one of UPT about 80% of my class wanted to fly vipers/A-10's/eagles etc... I love the States and consider it an honor to serve in the military but that was the initial draw for me. Around 300 new fighter pilots a year. That is what the United States Air Force can make. 300. Four years and 5-10 MILLION dollars +/- later they are experienced. And we are sending these pilots experienced and those on their way to getting there to an RPA?! Not only that, we are doing this in a time where others WANT to fly them and there are budget cutbacks. This hollowing out our fighter community will take the better part of a decade and BILLIONS of dollars in flight hours to fix. Remember when MD didn't put a gun in the F-4 because of our stellar missile technology. The AIM-7 had an 8.9% success rate in the 'nam with over 200 employed. That's where blind faith in technology gets you. Drones fill a niche and they do somethings very well, but they will NEVER replace the fighter pilot completely. Not before they become self-aware.... :-) Afghanistan is an incredibly permissive and forgiving environment for UAV's. We cannot anticipate the next conflict this country faces will be the same. IMHO by FAR the biggest personnel issue facing the CAF is the UAV. The biggest tactical issue (which is about to turn into a collosial strategic one) is the lack of fighter aircraft and flight time caused by getting rid of our 4th generation fighters without enough fifth generation to replace them. If we can't afford any more fifth generation jets it it's time for some damage control with EA / better radar / better missiles / better motors. The reason the CAF used to be so lethal was due to its best trained aviators in the world. It's that simple. We are well on our way to losing that distinction and don't know it because we are untested and look good on paper.

I guess the crew is just lucky they were single ship. If they'd been in formation, they may have flown through their flight lead's jet wash and wound up in a flat spin, headed out to sea.

Or give credit to Obama for the lack of fatalities.

I know who is punished. Nobody. That is why the laws are nothing more than legislative feel good efforts. They lack the clarity to stand up in court, and despite all the anti-bully laws on the books, I challenge you to find any school employee who has been found guilty of violating them. The New Jersey anti-bully law was nearly nullified in March because several school districts challenged it as an unfunded mandate and won. The governor had to throw a million bucks into the budget to fund it, but that probably won't be enough. Meanwhile, school administrators in New Jersey say the law is causing such an administrative nightmare it is counterproductive to its intent and keeping them from doing the kind of hands on supervision actually required to maintain discipline. I'm sure you probably picked New Jersey at random, but dig a little deeper into the impact of its anti-bully law. It proves my point in spades. Government legislation is not the answer. In fact, it has created even more problems.

Yea, they were interfering with the airflow at the inlets in high crosswind situations causing compressor stalls. So they had to be removed to prevent unconatined engine failures

Sorry to plead ignorance but LOE? I'm interested because we were told that it can only be stuff that we have done after we started UPT, which is coincidentally when everyone stopped doing stuff because we thought it would be a good idea to maybe focus on learning to fly. It isn't a big deal for me because I'll be only a year on AD when I pin my wings, so I'll have at least 2 more OPRs before my PRF, I'm just a little annoyed at the fact that they want to start adding all this stuff to the generic training reports and we are 2/3 of the way or more through UPT. Maybe this forum has made me paranoid, but I can see it start to not bode well for guys that come out of UPT with nothing extra on their training reports. That's the message that was conveyed to us, they wanted to start putting things on paper so guys could have more places to pull from for the PRF.

Congrats on the 2000th post in this thread!

A heavy can experience a compressor stall at high power settings during the beginning of the takeoff roll if crosswinds are strong enough. This is due to the fuselage disturbing the airflow to the downwind engines. Specifically, Boeing 707 type airframes have a recommendation for max crosswind with a static takeoff for this very reason. Above about 30 kias, however, there is no way a crosswind could affect the engines.

How come nobody has boob avatars anymore? Is that feature gone?

I am still waiting for CNN to spin the story and make it President Bush's fault...

Concur. Stashed with VFC-12/NAS Oceana in 1992 and wondered about the fact that the build up around the base was starting to increase. 1994, in a T-2 Buckeye on downwind, puts me right over Lynnhaven Mall with a huge flock of birds co-alt and closing with nowhere to go = bad place. My trips back to Oceana to work the pattern in the late 90's and into the early 2000's really opened my eyes, no more farmland to put a jet...it's all developments now. Pax River on the West and North side is starting build up and look like encroachment...but luckily it's all water to the South and East. This is going to be a shit sandwich for the Oceana supporters/base to eat, would be worse if there were fatalities. Kudos to the student/instructor for dealing with the sitation, and the response by the local FD. ATIS

You should just email a CAF squadron directly. Ask Toro about the correct format for your letter.

Photo of dignified transfer: https://www.mountainhome.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123296559

I'm disappointed, I thought this thread was going to display some sexist picture movies for my user ID. Have this fixed!