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Look at the big brain on Spoo...send him to war college and he becomes the acronym police...what's next, off to the Deid to measure socks?

already a thread in the bar

A long while ago before Kenny Powers even had wet dreams about being a FAIP there was a BFM shootout with 15E's, C's, 16's and hogs. You didn't know what you were fighting til the merge, heaters and guns only. Hogs took 2nd place behind c models. There's something to be said about a 2k turn radius, hi turn rate and 480 flares. Not to mention a gun that has you in a wez when you think it's outside max range.

Not exactly an F-15 suggestion, but along the lines of the post-flight write-ups... U-Tapao, 1974: Pilot (Big John, not Tall John) lands his U-2, debriefs with the crew chief and writes in the forms "Aircraft flies sideways" (actually meaning out of trim and flies with a slight yaw), then closes the book and leaves. Thirty minutes later, back at the trailers where we all lived, the Lockheed tech rep (Travis Mason, I believe, a great guy but not much patience and a poor sense of humor) storms in frothing at the mouth, looking for John, yelling loudly something about airplanes not being able to fly sideways and how can he clear such an idiotic write-up. John was conveniently absent so after about 10 minutes of frustrated yelling he left. I think the maintenance super cleared it by writing " Straightened aircraft" or something similar. I have to add that Big John was not Travis's favorite pilot to start with. Earlier in the tour he noticed several of the older guys wearing similar black watches that looked nice (actually some early Japanese digital watches they got cheap in Bangkok). Upon asking, they told him that they were "Lockheed U-2 watches" given by Lockheed to pilots who had flown operational missions. They told him to see Travis to get one. Of course, there was no such deal from Lockheed, and Travis didn't know anything about the joke, but for weeks John bugged Travis about getting his watch. The other guys told him that Travis did have the watches, but was just slow to respond and you had to bug him a lot to finally get one. Then came the "flies sideways" write-up and the Travis/Big John relationship went downhill from there. Big Jonn didn't really care, but Travis almost wouldn't stay in the room or talk with John by the end of the tour.

air medals aren't inflated we've just been doing this combat thing for 16 years and counting now.