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I'd like to present a motion to remove the JQPublic Forum from BODN. I think JQP started out with an excellent mission - an insider exposing the many faults of our great service. However, I think it's very quickly morphed into a for-profit enterprise, with a diluted mission, and a very low signal to noise ratio. And now a pop up to ask for money. Exhibit A: Nothing more than a PA press release Exhibit B: Shameless paid advertising Exhibit C: More shit not worth reading Can I get a second?

I honestly don't see the advantage of the "optionally" manned platform. Jack of both trades, master of neither. Design the RPAs to be RPAs, with zero life support/windows/etc. and therefore extremely long legs and add good sensors/datalinks/comms/weapons options. Let manned platforms be manned and take advantage of 1 or 2 pink brains that can use all those neurons to yank and bank and support the friendlies in very dynamic environments. Trying to merge the two, I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze, mostly because making a manned platform "unmanned" is wasting a lot of the advantages unmanned has by inherently maintaining a design that works for humans. If we stopped burning train cars worth of money during the acquisitions process we could afford to buy fleets of Scorpions/AT-6s/Super Ts/OV-10s/whatever and a next-gen MQ-XX.

Unrelated to above,I am doing sport bitching here, but this is what is wrong with the AF. I got non vol UPT direct to RPAs. So be it, needs of the AF, undermanned career field blah blah blah. Holloman was a shit show, but they are undermanned and over worked, so be it. I have now been at my operarional base for 4 months, with about 15 other pilots/sensors that have been here just as long, if not longer. We have done ONE sim in 4 months. ing ONE sim, no flights. How can you justify sending manned pilots you just spent $1.2 million a pop to train to drones, and having them sit on their ass. Rant off. Back to my whisky.

Shame on all of you for not asking for pictures first! Have you not learned anything since being here?

x2 I just commented on one of the most recent articles. The staff writer contributions are garbage and are written like an eighth-grader's book report.

Article published about seven years ago.......

The Scorpion is an answer for today's war, not the next. This is this reason it will not be funded.

Viper154, does your location rhyme with Schmannon?

POWs started getting burned alive in cages and we became the only country that follows the Geneva Conventions. Also a little harder to justify the risk when doing CAS ISO the Shiite militias.

So, I need to get on here and eat crow. I bitched at length, and repeatedly, about not having Cyber people leading Cyber in my beloved AF. Well, I've had the please of interacting with the new 24 AF CC. He's a zipper suited sun god Viper driver. He's fucking awesome, link to bio - https://www.24af.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/804882/major-general-christopher-weggeman He's applying his experience as an Viper driver to our cyber stuff and it's just...a breath of fresh air. It's fantastic in every way imaginable. No micro-managing, no "meet the deadline or else" BS, he cares what our cyber-operators are executing and will call BS, to 4-stars, if something/one attempts to impede that to turn a checkmark green. He also actually comes off as really liking this stuff beyond a "help make another star" attitude, or a time sink to retirement. The attitude on staff is... I don't even know how to describe it, beyond pretty darn good. I hope that AF doesn't screw this one up and move him out in a year or less. We really need some stability at the top, and I think he's the guy to right us. Shit, if he could run it until we move to Vigilance Command, it might work out very well. News flash: Space Operations ain't. Also someone makes jalapeno popcorn in the "heritage room"... how has this not moved out to the AF as a whole. That stuff is fantastic. P.S. - the vice is a good dude too - https://www.24af.af.mil/About-Us/Biographies/Display/Article/809210/brigadier-general-mitchel-h-butikofer

So, I previously posted on my unexpected disappointment with NBKC. Now, I must admit that was perhaps a bit premature. The day after my less than pleasant interaction with Dan, I received a call from Kirby Hinton, Dan's manager, to smooth things over. Long story short, I think Dan was just having a bad day, something I can relate to considering I had a "bad decade" until my VSP package was approved in 2014 (this is where I would insert a gif or emoji if I had 3 hours to figure it how to do such a thing). Since then, Dan has been great and even emailed me while skiing in Aspen. He's awesome, I'm eating crow.

Its CNC plasma; I occasionally get some access to a laser as well. Definitely looking into more options to improve the products graphically. On a side note, you guys might like this: