Leaderboard

Can I do the pt test as a female and then transition back after lunch?

My prediction is that this will be one big nothing, just like DADT repeal. We all do a one-off CBT and get back to work. Can't figure out someone's wacky pronouns ... try Rank LastName or callsign. We're looking at something like 1/3 of 1% of servicemembers here, I have a difficult time seeing how there will be too much fuss.

IMHO, if we are executing CAS in a high-threat environment, we are misapplying airpower.

It's too bad Secretary Carter doesn't understand that he can't fix the fighter pilot shortage with Eagle pilots alone.

Yeah, but they're not part of the social justice movement. They need to prove they are being denied due to socioeconomic disparities and cultural bias.

And yet we have people who can't get Lasik because the boss won't approve the 6 month DNIF.

Ability to do it and willing to do it are what separates fighter pilots from the rest of the paste eaters. I can train a monkey, I can't teach you how not to be a pu$$y.

I don't want to ride one in either but I don't think you or any other pilot of a LAAR aircraft would be facing a significantly higher probability of that in a semi-permissive AOR, like Eastern Syria - Western Iraq or Afghanistan. Manned ISR has been operating in AORs like this for years with only one loss I know of, Iraqi Cessna Caravan shot down by 57mm AAA in open source, and that was / is an unpressurized aircraft not capable of operating out of the WEZ of a 57mm or above AAA. A Super T, AT-6B, Scorpion Jet, etc... would still offer more than enough performance to operate quietly, safely and reliably well above 15k and X miles away to avoid most threats / detection while being surveilled prior to going kinetic and if CAS is required for a TIC, it is built for that also. Is it the same an A-10? Nope but for the fight we are in and the modernization efforts we say we want to do, we have to consider costs. Ultimately it is the TOA of the AF and all the different pots of money that add up to that, that determine whether we can get new toys by not spending all our money in current ops. Bar napkin math for hypothetical B-1 deployment to the Died I came up with for a year with 6 jets, crews, support, and tankers was about 1.1 billion and for a Super T deployment replacing the B-1s with 20 Super Ts and flying 3 sorties for each B-1 sortie was 52 million. You could double my estimate for the Super T deployment and cut my estimate for deploying the B-1's in half and sill save in the neighborhood of 500 million per year, serious money. This aircraft/mission/capability would be a good fit for a Guard/Reserve unit with specialized group like the CAS integration group being stood up at Nellis being the lead unit or FTU for it, Call on it as needed and put it back on the shelf if the world somehow becomes more peaceful, not holding breath... Just my two cents again but the AF has a terrible delusion that it believes it is really only going to fight big Desert Storm or Allied Force style campaigns and that these missions in the Arc of Instability are not going to be the norm or at a minimum a large portion of our likely operations. For the past 15 years they have been the norm and a guess but 15 years from now we will still be doing lots of ISR, kinetic action on dynamic HVTs and targets with a high CDE concern and low destructive effect desired. I don't think we should be completely focused on CAS / Low Intensity conflicts but keeping something like 10 - 20 % of our air assets geared towards that seems a balanced approach to having a capability to eliminate 3 terrorists in a Hilux for about 10k per mission vice having a capability that costs probably 600k to 700k per mission to deliver the same effect at not really any greater risk.