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There is an unlimited supply of money for the F-35 due to political and industrial interests. There is very little money for existing weapons platforms only valuable to servicemembers because it doesn't significantly grow stock values. Cutting money from the boring A-10 does create money for some other boring stuff politicians and leaders do think we need, but can't leverage billions of dollars to support. We need that money for SARC briefings, suicide prevention, or cyber security CBT's.

I remembered another one – I went through my log book and realized I totally brain dumped this one. It’s both a shit and puke story, so it’s a twofer. A good deal materializes in an otherwise routine month teaching fledgling Eagle drivers the ropes while stationed at Tyndall. IP cross-country!! Tyndall is having its annual open house/air show over the upcoming weekend. A 4-ship is needed to do a fly-by Sunday morning to kick off the day. Since the field will be closed over the weekend, the 4-ship needs to be elsewhere until needed that Sunday morning. In addition, Randolph AFB needs a flyby Friday afternoon. Tyndall closes Friday for show prep so we have to bug out Thursday afternoon. Our ONLY marching orders: Do the Randolph flyby Friday and make a 1200L TOT for the flyby at Tyndall on Sunday. Easy. The plan: 5-ship (1 air spare for Sunday). 4 – C-models and a D-model. Personal shotguns and golf clubs loaded in bay-5 (behind C-model seats). The jets are clean since we’re in the BFM phase and we decide to stay in the general vicinity of the Southeastern US. We’ll hit Ellington field Thursday night and spend some time on one of the largest sporting clay ranges in the country Friday morning. PM departure to hit the Randolph flyby and spend Friday night at the Auger Inn. Saturday morning on either the Randolph golf course or skeet range (maybe both). Sat PM departure to NAS New Orleans (conveniently close for Sunday flyby). Sunday morning 1100L takeoff for 1200 TOT continuing on to Patrick AFB for Sunday PM bikini contest on the beach. Monday RTB. The somewhat short notice on the whole affair leaves many of the bros without a kitchen pass that weekend and we were unable to fill the pit of the family model. After hearing this, our young, single intel officer (we’ll call him Fred) decides he wants to come along and see what’s so fun about this whole cross-country thing. Since D-models are in high demand at the FTU, Fred’s opportunities to get some time in the pit were few and far between. Even though he does have a few sorties under his belt and he’s never actually barfed in flight to that point, he’s a little concerned about airsickness. So, he grabs a bunch of barf bags, just in case. We load up and depart during the second go Thursday afternoon. We do a little VFR tour of southern Texas and arrive at Ellington that evening. Pacing ourselves that night, we grab some Tex-Mex with plenty of beans and of course several drinks. We spend much of the time advising Fred, who (according to him) is on his ”first real TDY”, to throttle back a bit. It’s going to be a long weekend. The next morning, we spend several hours blasting the shit out of helpless clay pigeons and depart that afternoon for Randolph. Since we don’t have far to go, it is decided that we will drop into Wichita Falls and beat up the pattern on the way to Randolph. The IP leading us is a euro-NATO alumni and thinks the studs will appreciate it. We scoff but get overruled. In order to ensure we have the gas to do the flyby, we skyhook at FL450 up to Sheppard. It’s been a while since his altitude chamber and according to 5-Alpha, Bravo’s digestive system appears to be incompatible with cabin altitudes in the range of FL180. Being a newbie to the single-seat flying world, Fred has done a poor job of shit management and is paying for that oversight dearly. A rapid descent to Sheppard pattern altitude in the Texas summer heat doesn’t help matters. Once the pattern has been suitably beaten there, we climb back up to observe the curvature of the earth on our way to Randolph. At this point, Fred looks and (according to 5A) smells like a giant turd in a flight suit. We get the report that Fred has shat himself over the aux-radio along with a request from Five to “push it up”. The airshow gods must have had sympathy for Fred, because when we arrive ready to do our best T-clone impression for the crowd it’s about 300-1 and the show is cancelled. ILS to a full-stop and when we shut down on the TA ramp, Fred is in full sprint to the Base ops bathroom before the turbines have stopped spinning. As it turns out, it was a minor shit-fart separator failure as opposed to a full up evac. 5-Alpha pulls me aside in base ops and offers me twenty bucks to take the D-model the next day. Fred comes out of the head trailing “eau de-farm animal” and I graciously decline. So, the night is looking up, Fred promises to show up at the club not smelling like a 2-year old and we are beer in hand at the Auger by 1900. Fred is stoked. He’s wearing a (clean) bag in the Auger, two vomit-free sorties under his belt and the whiskey is flowing. Probably as a result of a few hours at altitude and his extreme exuberance over the reality of Friday night in the fast-jet business, Fred overshoots the OBL. We manage to pour him into his Q-room later and decide to let him sleep in while we blast more clay targets the next morning and play a quick 9 before we leave. Fred rallies by departure time but is definitely looking a little rough while we file in base ops. He curls up on one of the couches in a fetal ball and might have had his thumb in his mouth when we woke him up to step. The afternoon flight to New Orleans is very gentlemanly and requires no trips to the ionosphere which is greatly appreciated by Fred. 5-alpha even let him fly for a while and he tried his hand at route formation. Fred would take the jet and immediately start climbing or descending out of formation. The hilarious part was, each time he starts flying, he asks, “Hey, where are those guys going?” The cumulative effects of the weekend so far were starting to have an effect on him, however. He was looking a little green when we landed, but he’s still 0 for 3 on barf bag usage. The marine duty driver gets us to our hotel one block off Bourbon Street and promises he will be there in the morning to pick us up at 0945L for our 1100L takeoff. Keeping in mind, the only reason we are out on this boondoggle is to do the Sunday flyby, we haven’t had to takeoff before noon since we left home station AND we’re in New Orleans on Saturday night, we are all aware of the potential for failure. Everyone promised to set their room alarm clocks while we were sober before we left the hotel that night. We quickly forget our concerns and hit the Big Easy. Fred is a N’awlins virgin and quickly decides he really, really likes hurricanes. Two hours and 6 hurricanes later, Fred is a blithering idiot and his lips look like he’s either a local cross-dresser or a 5 year-old who has OD’d on watermelon jolly ranchers. Since we went with the liquid dinner option, eventually some of the bros get the muchies and decide some craw-dads are in order. The place we went first wouldn’t let Fred in because he was too blotto. Someone had given him some kind of blue drink at the last bar that I’m pretty sure was pure grain alcohol. Think about that – how drunk does someone have to be to get refused service………IN NEW ORLEANS!! After some food, the drinking continued (at least by those who could still walk on their own). Since I wouldn’t trade jets with Five, he directed me to split North and get Fred back to the hotel since we were all rapidly losing any ability to care for anyone but ourselves. Fred was fully established in the “I love you man” phase of drunkenness by this point. By the time we were getting close to the hotel, he had transitioned to the “Crank up the Enola Gay” phase and was ready to pick a fight with anyone who would listen. We stopped twice so he could hurl. The first time, he ejected what looked to me like three whole craw-dads. I started laughing at him because they didn’t look like they had even been chewed. At least the shells were gone. I can also report that even when mixed with stomach acid, primary colors work. The combination of red hurricanes and whatever the blue death drink was did, in fact, make purple. I got him to his room and even remember to keep his room key since it was almost guaranteed he would need to be revived before departure. We got back to the hotel at some point and that’s all I have to say about that. Miraculously, the next morning, all five pilots were conscious and ready in the lobby at pickup time. Fred was back in the fetal position on the lobby couch after being pulled out of bed still in his clothes. 0945L came and went with no sign of the duty driver. Phone calls began shortly thereafter to attempt to find out where our ride was. We had given ourselves a 15 minute buffer, so no need to panic yet. However, as the minutes ticked by, we were watching our potential failure at our one and only mission loom on the horizon. We were finally able to determine that our driver had gotten a late start and gotten lost. We bit off on the “he’s 5 minutes out” for 20 minutes like a bunch of hungover idiots….wait, what? Just as we were about to exercise the taxi option, the driver finally showed at 1030, 45 minutes late. On the drive, individual duties were assigned to each guy and those duties were to be accomplished at the speed of light or faster, if possible. One guy would file, two guys were the bag stowing gurus, the other two would pre-flight all the jets and Fred would strap in. We got the driver to attempt a new land speed record and he dropped us by the jets at 1105L. Screeching to a halt in the parking lot, we scattered to our duty locations looking like an indy car pit crew (on Quaaludes). The rest of the ops looked like an Air Defense Alert scramble but slower. The first engine started turning at 1120 and we taxied quickly after that. Tower let us takeoff to the east and as soon as One got on the runway, he lit ‘em and blasted. The next two hadn’t made it to the runway yet, I (as Four) was just passing EOR and Five was leaving the TA ramp. Time now – 1135L. As I crossed the airfield boundary doing 400 knots and accelerating, I got a boresite lock on One. He was on my nose for about 8 miles with 200 knots of opening Vc. I came out of AB to stay sub-sonic and was able to hold about 650 knots in mil power as we slowly climbed. Range to One – 7.5 miles, 25 knots of closure. You do the math. It took me until abeam Eglin to get inside a mile. I'm sure ATC was highly impressed with this 5-ship of idiots staggered out in a 10 mile long string blasting across the Gulf of Mexico. For those unfamiliar with the amazing array of air to ground computer power available in the Eagle, we could have probably done better with a slide rule. TOT calculations were limited to a basic set up. You could get a “time to destination” in the HUD to whatever point was in the steer to INS window. That time was figured using your current ground speed based on the actual conditions at that moment. Destination “B” was usually home base and as I lifted off and began to try to catch One, I selected that and the appropriate mode to give me the data in the HUD. While I was still accelerating, my heart sank and failure appeared imminent as I looked at the time to destination which read 32 minutes. Time now 1137. TOT 1200. Muthaf…..we are so, totally, totally screwed. As I continued to gradually climb and rapidly accelerate to the little known cross-country, gotta make an airshow tech order climb speed of 650 knots, I noticed the time to destination beginning to look better. By the time I stabilized in my race to catch One, it now looked like we might arrive abeam Tyndall with about 2 minutes to spare. Okay, maybe it won’t be real pretty but we’ll fill the square. Halfway to Tyndall and still about 4 miles back from One, we changed freqs in an attempt to contact the Airboss. For the show that day, the Airboss was a squadron pilot named “Hoss”. Now Hoss was a big fella and a little rotund, filling out his flight suit quite well. He looked more like a USAF version of Friar Tuck than an F-15 pilot. He would be positioned in the SOF truck acting as the ground FAC for the fly by. The SOF truck was equipped with the standard one each, UHF radio as expected. After numerous unsuccessful attempts to raise him after getting airborne, we finally got him. We could picture his round, smiling face as we finally heard his jolly, booming voice come across the frequency about the time we were abeam Eglin AFB. 60 miles and 8 minutes to get there. Holy shit, this might just work. “Eagle 11, Airboss… I’ve been trying to call you for 30 minutes”. “Ah, yeah, sorry about that – long story.” “We have a 15 minute rolex, I say again, a 15 minute rolex”. 5 sets of throttles hit the idle stop at about the same time as we attempted to save some of the JP-8 we had been spewing out the back like a fire hose for the last 20 minutes. Lack of closure problem finally solved. We coordinated with approach to hold in one of the MOAs to the west of the field since the flyby was to the east. Five held high as the 4-ship got into fingertip and tried to fly something that looked marginally presentable. As One was making his slide rule calculations and planning his final turn inbound for the run, we got another call from the Airboss with another 10 minute rolex. During this final 10 minutes, we got some additional info from Hoss about the location of the band, the color guard and the guests of honor. We were getting a pretty good running commentary on the situation and it looked like this would be it. Inside of 5 minutes to the new TOT and Hoss gave us an exasperated call indicating another possible delay… a pause and then….”standby”. Reaching the front of the MOA with no further word, One began a turn cold back into the area. All through this turn, he attempted to raise Hoss. “Airboss, Eagle 11” “Airboss, Eagle 11” Rolling out of the turn, pointing away from Tyndall, he was still unable to raise Hoss. “Airboss, Eagle 11”………..Nothing. Suddenly, a new, female, timid, non-Hoss –like voice came over the frequency. “Eagle 11, uh… this is Airman Jones…..The radio in the SOF truck stopped working and he’s running to a different truck……but, the music has started.” So many, many things flashed through my mind in the next few seconds. First was, of course – ah shit! Second was, who is Airman Jones…she sounds kind of hot. Third, was incredulity as I attempted to picture Hoss running….anywhere. The thought of his round, now red face as he huffed, puffed and pounded across the tarmac toward whatever vehicle might have an operable radio was hilarious. Last, was a little more complicated. You know the hero shots on display in the Squadron or Wing buildings with aerial photographs of the unit aircraft in action? Inevitably there is usually one photo taken on initial from the number two aircraft. Number One has just pitched out and is belly up to the camera, 90 degrees of bank about to bend his jet around to inside downwind. So, it’s a face full of aircraft belly a wingspan-ish away. Cool, right? Well, that’s what One looked like the instant after Airman Jones called. The only major, but important difference was Three and I were looking at the top of his jet, not the bottom and it was coming our way fast. So, not cool. He racked his jet up to get us turned around and I think both three and I saw our miserable lives flash before us as we bunted – hard - to keep living an extra few seconds. The rest was pretty anticlimactic. We flew inbound, never heard from Hoss, descended through an undercast and popped out a mile from the ramp. We did the fly by and never even knew our status. No one said shit to us when we got back, so I guess it was okay. We didn’t feel the need to share too much either. We rejoined with Five and started east. Weather from Tydnall to Patrick was total DS so we split into 3 and 2, got separate clearances and flew over there IMC. We had been so focused on the airshow issue, no one had even thought to wonder about Fred. Since I was leading Five now, I had a few brain cells left on life support and began to wonder how he was doing. I looked over at him and he gave me a thumbs up - so I guess, okay. We had a way to go and if Five felt like I did, the last thing he was going to want was 30 minutes in fingertip in the weather, so I cleared him to drag back to radar trail. That decision was critical for Fred. I’m no expert on the workings of the inner ear, but I can say, in Fred’s case, having another aircraft for attitude reference is a good thing. Pulling the power, popping the boards, deceleration, acceleration, all while IMC and making the aircraft for reference go away?….bad…..very, very bad. I’m sure the aftereffects of his first night on Bourbon street as well as the cross-country up to that point had a lot to do with it as well. Fred was not capable of going cold mic and Five cursed me silently from 2 miles back for refusing the D-model as he listened to every retch. If he had live missiles, it’s possible I may not be here writing this now. Considering none of us had eaten anything since the craw-dads the night before, it was kind of amazing there was much available. Especially since Fred had already made a couple of deposits back on Bourbon street. Unlike my negative-G pal in Germany, Fred managed to make do with just one bag. We finally cleared the weather, rejoined and came up initial at Patrick. As we flew in fingertip, he held it up proudly from the back seat as I laughed into my mask. After we landed and we were heading inside, Fred walked by me carrying his craw-dad surprise. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure the damn thing had a slightly purple tint to it through the bag.

Holy Fvck ygbsm....the F-35 was over budget by $4B last year alone. The USAF is like an obese person who takes the pickles off a Big Mac because they are watching calories.

F-15C, Tops in Blue, all bands but the HAF Band, and 96.9% of anciliary "training". I'll be expecting change with that by the way. The A-10 is dirt cheap compared to other areas where the AF hemorrhages cash.

Don't worry, hardly any of them are cleared for staff duty.