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Sweet. My 78 should keep me safe. Fat Bastard like a boss.

Decent article on why we should not intervene in Iraq. The Case for Doing Nothing in Iraq. I am trying to see the other side of the argument. I still think that a limited campaign is probably the way to go, just enough to keep the al-Maliki government from falling but not enough to do anything other than that. Bailing him out will change nothing on the ground and keep the Sunnis / Kurds ostracized and pissed, thus kicking the can for a later date.

Chuck, I typically agree with your posts, but I've seen this line of discussion from a number of officers. "We cannot afford to be the worlds police." I understand the sentiment, but it fails to ask the cost when peace breaks down. We rely on the free flow of world trade to support our economy. The news is already starting to ask if events in Iraq will effect gas prices. Its important because "every $10 increase in the price of oil shaves 0.5 percent of global growth." When global security breaks down, it comes with a cost. I believe that the cost of ceding our leadership and security role will exceed what we save on decreased military spending. Beyond that, I am not sure I trust another nation to enforce a world order that would still be favorable to our way of life.

Isn't nav school pretty much just 20 dudes in the back of an airplane alternating between sleeping, scarfing on cheetos, and LARPing?

They really did that? We really are getting to be a worthless bunch of pussies.

The A model has the same boat anchor fuselage as the B model....which is the problem that drives everything.

Got this from a friend today, posting here as a follow up about my PT score comments in the Master's degree thread. I laughed when I saw the message.

No one is saying obtaining an advanced degree is a bad thing, but checking boxes (careerism) is a bad thing. Beating a dead horse ---> The problem is "military leadership" advancement opportunities are/were largely based on junior officers' degree completion date regardless of degree program and academic institution. A degree completed early shows AF loyalty to the "leaders" and you are worthy of O-6 and the 20 yr retirement. This adds nothing to the mission and takes time from your family if you are married. This also takes time away from job focus/mission at a time when the junior officers need job experience/proficiency and with reduced manning/budget. (now it seems like we are just replacing the master degree box w/ volunteering and PT scores) AAD is still required for certain AF jobs (TPS/RAS/ROTC) so go get that degree if you want to be competitive for those opportunities, but Gen Welsh's message is that you should not need a useless degree to make O-4.

It was already supposed to be 4 yrs. Until your functional PCSs everybody at the 3 yr mark to ensure they have 3 assignments prior to your majors board. We've had guys PCS with less than 3 years.

Who the hell said flying was hard? Flying is the easy part, the hard part is being so damn good looking. Some people...

Everyone else took VSP or PC and they need anyone left who's qualified to fly the mission...

People whose aircraft have tactics to fight other people trying to kill them may have more to study than loading an FMS and reading magazines.

Pierre Sprey = Co-designer of the F-16. Laughable statement, and the blog owner loses all credibiltiy from the get-go making it. Sprey has long ago gone off the deep end on his own self worth, and has become his own biggest fan. Let's look at the other aircraft Sprey has railed against: - The F-15 (I guess having a 100:0 Kill ratio has done enough to validate how WRONG Sprey was when he was so against it from the early 70s on) - ANY F-16 beyond the Block 10 A-models. Radar? AMRAAMS? EW gear? HTS Pods? ALL wastes of fuel in Sprey's opinion. Like it has been said before, he wants BFM machines only. And lots of them to fight the Mig-15 hordes he still expects to be in the fight. - The F-22. Enough said. The man had one good idea at the right time (the need for a lightweight day BFM fighter to counter the AF leadership desire for a "strike-fighter only fleet"), and he's been living off that reputation ever since. Dude has lost it since....

The problem is that we only talk about **individual** integrity when we say "Integrity First." However, **institutional** integrity is more than just the sum of individual integrities. It's institutional integrity that we lack because we don't treat it as it's own objective. Gen Welsh means what he says, and the next CSAF may well mean what he says if he decides to change it back. Neither would be violating their personal integrity, but the next CSAF would be violating the Air Force's institutional integrity. If we're going to build institutional integrity, commanders and staffs (read AFPC) need to realize that sometimes they're going to need to help other people keep their promises, even when it means doing something they might not have otherwise done. That can be a new commander keeping the word of the previous one, a senior commander standing by the decisions of a subordinate commander, or simply throttling back on change for changes sake. We need to make that an articulated goal if we're going to stop making liars out of honest leaders and build more faith in Big Blue.

Not SFS, but I caught two maintainers fucking in the boom pod of a -135. Had the APU on for power and the ladder pulled, which was weird to begin with. When I went back to Ops I made sure my crew never flew that tail.

Yes

This attitude is just as bad as the "get it done or else" attitude. Maybe he wants to do the master's to further himself and his knowledge, not to check the box? I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but being an aviator is NOT that hard. I worked on a no-shit engineering master's while in Nav school, finished my PPL, and still managed to be #2 in my class. I know, I know, I'm not a pilot and being a pilot is soo much more demanding I just don't understand. No, you just don't know how to manage your time. BTW, I didn't do that master's to check the box, I did it because I wanted to. I'm not suggesting everyone do that, and if you have a family to take care of, even less so. But I'm tired of all people saying "don't do that because you need to focus on your job, and by god, NO ONE can do all of that at once and still be good at flying an airplane!".

You guys are so predictable. Yes I knew every one of those reactions and comments were coming, but I still felt it was worth saying. If only there were a mighty pilot humble enough to admit that flying an airplane is not the hardest thing in the world to do. But we all know that's not going to happen.