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Two place cockpit is a must for most potential foreign sales and IMO a plus. Not sure if they offer or have even designed a single seat variant, doubt it. Other branches of the military and most foreign buyers want a second crew position, give the customer what they want. On the single or dual seat argument with COIN aircraft, historically and currently, COIN aircraft had and have two seats as the workload from operational experience has demanded it. It has been mentioned in these forums before and I will steal the thunder from another member that we sometimes confuse manned ISR with CAS, I'll extend that idea that this mission I call LASO (Light Attack Surveillance Observation) is not CAS, where fires are delivered more readily than in the LASO mission. In the LASO mission because the fires are harder to deliver effectively, it lends itself to a multi crew platform. The fires or effects are not likely to be delivered against a readily found/unambiguous target; they require time, effort and coordination to action them. Two or more crew members managing sensor(s), multiple frequencies/playmates and potentially a long loiter over a target area with likely changing GFC priorities can do this efficiently and reliably, so can a single seat platform but usually only as a two-ship, so really it is not a one man job. The US has previously operated COIN aircraft and they usually had two seats, the OV-10 & OV-1, both true COIN aircraft (low cost, technically simple, light kinetic capable, observation focused, etc..). Almost all the other coin aircraft actually flown or dreamed up had two seats for the reason that fires in COIN / Irregular Warfare are not necessarily easily delivered and the operations tend to need two craniums, divvying up the chaos, developing SA and then delivering whatever air to mud effects are needed.

BLUF: lots of text here. Feel free to skip. Merry Christmas. I'll check out of this thread for a while and let others have the floor...PM me if you want to discuss further. M2, First of all, I'm not sure where that graphic is from, but it is not an accurate representation of the county-by-county Presidential election results in 2016. Hillary won Dallas county, Harris and Fort Bend counties (Houston area), Bexar county (San Antonio) and Travis county (Austin) among others. I may not be the Texas expert you are, but those counties are not depicted as blue in your graphic. Jefferson and Newton counties are also depicted as blue despite the fact that Trump won those counties. Honest mistake I'm sure, but I encourage you to check your sources more carefully if you're gonna come off the top rope claiming to be some kind of expert on the state and calling me out. You said there were no born-and-bred and proud Texans that voted for Hillary and challenged me for some facts. My initial argument is that 3.8 million people voted for Hillary in Texas under full GOP control in terms of setting up and running the election...I assumed that was proof enough. But if you wanna go into the weeds even further, let's do it! Look at what's been called the most Republican county in the whole United States, King county, Texas. There were 159 votes cast in King county in the 2016 general election, and Donald Trump received 149 of them. A total ass-kicking indicative of the county being extremely conservative, no doubt. But Hillary received 5 votes in King county, not zero. Five votes in a county whose election process is almost certainly run by extremely conservative republicans who would not be inclined to allow for errant Hillary votes to be counted. The state also has a voter ID requirement. Are you telling me there were 5 people who cheated your Republican-run system in King county on election day? In a county where everyone almost certainly knows everyone? If you think that's the case, you should probably contact the election officials from that county. While you're making phone calls (or a road trip!), maybe it would be more productive to see if you can find any of those 5 Hillary voters in King county and talk to them, see where they're coming from. Are they illegal latinos on welfare looking for a handout like you implied? Maybe hold-out Johnson Democrats who've been voting blue for their whole lives? Or young people rebelling against their Republican parents? There's one way to find out for sure, and you're much closer than me. My entire argument is basically this - Trump voters in blue states are not all racists who wanna grab America by the pussy and punch Muslim refugees; Hillary voters in red states are not all welfare queen illegal transgendered people who want their own special snowflake bathroom. Try to understand the other side, work on a positive political message, build more coalitions and do less identity politics. I was hopeful that might be a more broadly agreeable message even in deep-red territory like BO.net. On Texas being one of the most conservative states in the U.S., in many ways that you pointed out, you're right. But in terms of Presidential electoral politics that simply wasn't the case in 2016. Texas was the 15th closest state in terms of the margin between the winner and the loser (Trump +9.0%). There were 20 other state more Republican than Texas in terms of Trump's margin. So yes, Texas is quite Republican and a 9-point victory is still a solid victory, but you guys should check your 6 down there the same way that Democrats should have checked ours in MI, WI, and MN and ME (all states in the top 8 closest that Hillary won [minus MI that she lost] yet are not normally thought of as "swing states"). Look, I'm trying to forward a message that the both parties need to do a better job of representing all of their voters and all Americans in general. I want the Democrats to pay more attention to the non-college educated white christian men from the south, midwest and rust belt who feel alienated by some of the liberal cultural war issues and left behind by the modern economy. Not a lot of those voters voted for Democrats in 2016, but some did and others maybe would have with a different message and candidate. Democrats need to stand up for and speak for those Americans. By the same token I want the Republicans to pay more attention to young voters, people of color and religious and ethnic minorities who feel alienated by some of the recent GOP rhetoric on immigration and civil rights in particular and who feel scared by the incoming administration. Not many voted Republican in 2016 (some did), but I would encourage the GOP to try to better represent those Americans too. if you made it this far and still give a damn.

Since you have a habit of talking about things you're not knowledgeable on, I'll do you the favor and correct you on this one as well. I see you're trying to justify the votes your girl got in this state, but I can tell you as a resident that no cowboy hat-wearing, truck-driving Texan placed a vote for her and I challenge you to back up that claim with facts. If you look at the popular vote in Texas, the only blue counties are mainly those along the Mexican border and can be attributed to the large illegal population that resides there. The rest was overwhelmingly Trump. Texas was a conservative Democratic stronghold for many years. For approximately 100 years from after Reconstruction until the 1990s, the Democrats dominated Texas politics. Now Republicans control all statewide Texas offices, to include the governor and both houses of the state legislature, and have a majority in the Texas congressional delegation. This makes Texas one of the most Republican states in the U.S. Urban areas like Dallas, Austin, Houston and San Antonio are still largely Democrats; but suburbs of these cities remain heavily Republican. So your claim that "cowboy hat-wearing, truck-driving Texans" voted for Hillary are pure fantasy. It's the typical liberal and welfare-recipient votes that supported her in many other states.

This is a solution looking for a problem.

As someone who lives 5 miles from west Texas I can promise you no cowboy hat wearing, truck driving, Texan voted for Hil dawg. Banner that's been hanging in the center of town since June and still proudly flying. Stereotypical truck included.

Just want to bump this thread to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and all the best in 2017! As one who hung up the uniform over ten years ago (but still works within the DoD), I also want to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those serving. Your sacrifice is appreciated, and if by chance you are separated from friends an family today, may you stay safe and return home soon!

This one did (after voting for Bush 43, McCain, and Romney in turn)... But I sold the F-250 some years back so maybe doesn't count.

Yep... definitely reverse cowgirl.

But it does have an oversized cow catcher front bumper...

Of course not. I get it dude, spent plenty of time working with 2-ships. Never thought they were as good as multi-sensor platforms, at least for my mission set. So I guess that's the question: what exactly do we expect the mission set of this thing to be?

Single seat doesn't mean you're out there working by yourself. Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

If the mission systems were setup like a Viper or a Hawg, you could fly it by yourself. But with dual-FMV sensors that lack some of the more automatic lasing tools present on true targeting pods, other INT systems, Vortex and other datalinks that aren't exactly "pilot proof," plus flying the jet itself, you need more than one person. Not that one or the other is better (ok...I think more than 1 is better but then again I'm a nav...), but the systems have to be designed with the crew in mind. You can't fly a gunship with a crew of 1, it just can't be done. Same here based on how things are currently architected. The mission systems could be designed for a single pilot, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that in this case they are not, and flying solo with more gas would inhibit you from performing the ISR/strike mission to the full capes of the systems.

It looks like something a third world country would build.

Why wouldn't you want a CSO? Or have you only flown simple missions where a single human could handle the workload?

I think the popular vote argument would hold more water if the candidates had been trying to win that. Campaigns to win the popular vote would look very different than campaigns to win the Electoral College vote. The GOP just got handed the Presidency, both Houses of Congress, 33 Governorships, unified control of 32 State Legislatures and partial control of 5 more. If that isn't a mandate, the word does not have meaning.

Do you acknowledge that this is exactly why the EC exists? 2016 wasn't a fluke, it was the EC working exactly as it was intended to. I don't understand why people keep talking about the difference between the EC and the popular vote when the EC exists to protect against the popular vote.

What we really need is a legitimate push for a Convention of States to help reign in the out of control federal government. If we can pass amendments to limit executive overreach, decrease excessive bureaucracy, limit the out of control spending, and limit the Supreme Court's impact back into what the framers intended, then it won't matter who is elected President in the future. Executive power has been expanded so far beyond what the Constitution intended that our government is now dysfunctional. I'm looking forward to putting Constitutional mechanisms in place so that it won't matter which lying jackass is elected by our uninformed populace. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'll offer more advice as a 4th year ROTC student with a pilot slot. ROTC is an excellent opportunity for college and becoming a pilot. Let's start with college. 1) It's possible to receive an in college scholarship as a 2nd year cadet (which you'd be, should you join a detachment), though, depending on the year, the pickings can be slim. A couple years ago they only offered scholarships for certain majors; more recently scholarships have been offered for any major. The results, however, have been the same -- the students who really, really wanted it worked their butts off, worked with their cadre, nailed the PFA, and were ultimately awarded with a scholarship. 2) Commissioning: Should you successfully complete AFROTC you'll enter the Air Force as a 2LT (not including med school/JAG/etc since it's not pertinent). The career you'll have, however, is not guaranteed. You'll need to have high marks in several areas to receive a pilot slot (commander's ranking, gpa, pfa, field training ranking, TBAS, etc). Some of these are in your control: gpa, pfa, field training ranking*, while the others are not. Work super hard at what you can control and, in my experience, the others will follow. Personally, my TBAS wasn't great, but the rest of the pieces were pretty high and helped my score. It also depends on the year. For instance, this year they handed out quite a few pilot slots nationally and I think everyone at my det, save a couple, who wanted a pilot slot got one. *you can kind of control this -- be the best wingman/cadet you can be and your ranking ought to be fine, but you don't literally decide your ranking. The bottom line is, as everyone here has said/will say, you've gotta work hard for it. Luckily, you'll have over a year to prepare/train/keep your gpa rising for the selection board (which meets... January of your third year, if I remember correctly). Feel free to PM me for any specific questions if you have any, good luck!

Even further complicating the issue is that most of the 11Bs who do go reserves are min-participating TRs and fly their 737 or A320 more than a Buff or Bone. Good on them, but bad on us for not doing what's necessary to make it worth their while to stick around on a more full-time basis. I know the AFPC functional, and I trust his intentions are good. The intent isn't being met at the OG level. We had two inbound instructors picked off for other on-base assignments just recently. FTU Priority 1, right? Not so much, it seems...

Especially since they located the B-1 Reserve at Dyess. I know dozens of people who don't want to live in Abilene for the rest of their lives, but would have jumped at the chance to live in Rapid City permanently.

They're called RAFSOBs. Regular Air Force s o b. And you can smell a RAFSOB a mile away by his proficiency at MICT and his zipper up to his neck. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bullshit. No born-and-bred proud Texan would ever vote for Hillary. All her votes came from those California rejects living in Austin, or illegals wanting free handouts. You're just quibbling.