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What do you think of a MAJCOM that only wears the minimum number of pieces of flare?

And 18 hours after the best news I've heard in a long time comes the first complaint; aircrew standard. This is why we can't have nice things.

THAT is funny.

I heard AETC rescinded it through a friend. No supporting references though.

Here's something to consider, and I'm going to be really blunt and tell you something I would rather say privately, face-to-face (sts), not because I'm an asshole (actually I probably am), but because you need to understand this. When you said you dumped your girlfriend to get your foot in the door, that seemed kinda shitty because you essentially screwed over someone who you should've cared about. It's good to be ruthless in combat, but not against the people who are supposed to matter to you and it's indicative that you might screw over bros to get ahead in the future. I'm sure there's more to the story and lord knows we don't want to hear it, but thats what I gathered from the way you explained it. Also, it does seem like you're trying to do/be whatever impresses the board the most. This won't work because they'll think they just met your 'representative', not you, and they won't have a clue who 'you' really are. This is a big deal if they're going to have to hang around you for another 20 years. It also reeks of insecurity because it means you don't think your true personality is good enough. And maybe your true personality isn't a good enough match right now, I'm not going to sugar-coat it. There are literally hundreds of people applying for this job, and they're going to find someone who truly is what they're looking for instead of someone whose putting on a show or trying to be what they think the unit wants, and every unit is looking for a different personality. But that's why it's so important that whatever you do, you do it for your own enjoyment and not for anybody else. If you love flying, great! Do that. But if you think you might regret the money or time invested in flying an aerobatic glider if you don't get hired by the Guard, then you might be doing it for the wrong reasons. I don't know you at all, but I do think that the above guidance can help you and whoever else reads this in the long run.

Well done Gen. Welsh. And well done to Gen. Fiel for acting exceedingly quickly WRT AFSOC policy. to you sir.

Executive order 9877.

It's over, sort of. Policy implementation now delegated to MAJCOM/CCs. AFSOC ended the policy effective immediately.

But then we wouldn't have gotten to read it.

Funny, that was my response as well. The military's abstinence-only approach to sport bike riding just doesn't work. I told them to contact me (as they asked) at the end of the survey as I would love to assist in developing a meaningful, practical and safe program to sport bike riding but haven't gotten any response. edit: On an unrelated note, anyone been to Hallett Motor Racing Circuit about 80 miles east of Vance AFB?

This is what I imagine I look like whenever I adjust the bottom zipper on my flight suit:

Attempted Suicide should be punishable by death. That'll teach 'em.

1. Shut up Nav, go plot a course with a sextant or something equally as worthless and leave the strafe debriefs for the adults. 2. That was from almost 5 years ago.

Cheesy website aside, she seems like a tough-ass chick who's done well for herself. Good for her.

Almost as significant as the battle of Mid Way...

I won't get into the amphib V/STOL argument right now (there are valid arguments on both sides, although in an era of fiscal austerity I have serious issues with paying for a "nice to have" capability for the navy's army's air force when other services are cutting their core capabilities especially when we aren't going to deploy an ESG into a region where it faces an air threat without a big deck CSG to provide overwatch), but if we're going to have an honest conversation about the land side of this we need to define "austere" base. As the OP identified, the main LIMFAC for austere bases is logistics, to include maintenance support. Do we as a military have a need to operate out of extremely austere bases? Absolutely, and we have the logistical ability to support operations from these bases (within reason) provided they possess a runway large enough to get a C-130 in and out (assuming the base is forward enough that we don't have reliable, secure, and regular surface transport for stuff like fuel and ammo). Of course, this raises the obvious question of, "If we can get a C-130 in and out why do we need V/STOL strike aircraft?" There is "austere base with limited available support that can support conventional fixed wing operations," and then there is the definition of "austere" that V/STOL proponents use, which refers to operating out of locations that are only capable of supporting V/STOL ops. Harriers have operated in combat out of austere bases that nominally couldn't support conventional fighters (more on this in the next paragraph) but the reality is that these were more or less publicity stunts to attempt to demonstrate V/STOL's relevance. During Desert Storm the Marines operated Harriers in a V/STOL manner out of an abandoned airbase (capable of STOVL only operations) in northern Saudi Arabia (it's popularly known as operating out of a soccer stadium due to them setting up admin support in a soccer stadium next to the airfield). Despite the Harriers being marginally closer to the FEBA, a similar number of USAF A-10s were able to generate more sorties carrying more ordnance with fewer logistical bottlenecks by operating from a forward airbase capable of supporting conventional fixed wing operations. The Marines tried a similar thing during the invasion of Iraq, and have done similar things in Afghanistan (setting up a FARP outside Marjah a year or two ago, for example, to support Harrier operations out of Kandahar). The dirty little secret with all of these is that while they netted some impressive sounding metrics for the USMC and V/STOL, the cost that wasn't counted was the logistical effort necessary to keep these bases supplied with fuel, ammo, and maintenance support...as one example, one of the things that the Marines tout as being a benefit of V/STOL ops is reducing the burden on tanking support required by setting up FARPs closer to the action. That's all well and good, but you'll forgive me if I find it hard to believe that it is smarter/safer (forget cheaper) to truck fuel tankers overland outside the wire to a FARP on a road or parking lot somewhere instead of adding a few jets to the tanking support requirements for the day. The fact is that fixed wing aircraft (including USMC Hornets) were able to operate in the same areas more effectively and efficiently than Harriers doing V/STOL in each of the instances listed above, and this was due largely to the logistical burdens imposed by operating out of V/STOL only capable locations, which is why I think it is important to define what we mean when we talk about "austere" bases. And all of the above ignores the very significant differences between the F-35 and Harrier: cost (if you think the raid earlier this year on VMA-211 was bad, imagine it with F-35s being the target...putting your hundred million dollar+ stealth fighter within range of any asshole with a mortar seems like a very poor cost-benefit tradeoff), LO maintenance, increased fuel requirements, the increased heat footprint of the F-35 compared to the Harrier...all of these things further count against it from operating out of an austere V/STOL only location. I should be clear, this isn't an attack on Marines operating fixed wing aircraft, or the MAGTF concept...I think both are vital components of the way the Marine Corps does business, but if we're going to assess an idea's value we need to be honest about all its limitations, and the idea of effectively operating F-35s out of a truly forward austere base where they can only operate V/STOL is a pipe dream.

Then AFSOC better watch their memory so they don't run out of it!