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A colleague who is F22 pilot for the Virginia ANG had honor of flying a Phantom at Eglin. He flew the aircraft we had at the reunion. Here is the F-22 pilot’s thoughts on flying the F-4: I flew your jet a couple days ago (see attached). I had a little trouble getting the engines started, so I climbed out and shoveled some more coal in the back; after that she fired right up. Ground ops were uneventful, although I couldn’t figure out why the cockpit smelled like body odor, Jack Daniels and cigars…and that was BEFORE I got in it! By the way, what’s with the no slip crap on top of the intakes, it’s like you have permanent icing conditions due to that spray on rhino truck bed liner on top of the aircraft. It’s no wonder you needed so much coal (I mean thrust) to get airborne. Take off scared the sh*t out of me. I lit the burners at brick one and 2 miles and 45 minutes later we were ready to rotate. After barely clearing the tree tops, the gear came up and I climbed away at a VERY impressive 2 degrees nose high. In case you don’t remember, “Trim” is your friend in the F-4 (pretty sure it’s also a good friend on the ground too). Once I got her up to speed and a moderate altitude, we were ready for the G-Ex. Two G-turn’s later and I’m sinking like a rock…the F-4’s energy seems to bleed like Holyfield’s ear in the Tyson fight! After the G-Ex it was time to do a little Advanced Handling Characteristics (AHC) and by “advanced handling” I mean the same crap the Wright Brothers were doing back in 1903…just trying to keep it airborne. The jet flies much like my old man’s station wagon used to drive…You turn the wheel (push the stick) a few inches and nothing happens, then all of a sudden the steering kicks in, inertia takes over, and all HELL breaks loose! You’re pretty much along for the ride at that point and only gravity has a real say in your lift vector placement. “Checking 6” was really quite easy…. because you CAN’T! Scratch that off the list of “Sh*t I need to do to keep myself alive in combat today”. Breathing, however, was surprisingly easy in the F-4 when compared to that of the F-22 (thank you Lockheed)…LOX works, who knew! I think I may have burned my legs a bit from the steam pouring out from behind the gauges. Where are my 6 mini-flat screen TV’s, I’m lost without my HD jet displays (editors note: actually, I’m an analog guy stuck in a digital world too…I really do like the “steam driven” gauges). After the AHC, I decided to take her up high and do a supersonic MACH run, and by “high” I mean “where never lark nor even eagle flew”; but not much higher, a foot or two maybe. I mean, we weren’t up there high-fiving Jesus like we do in the Raptor, but it was respectable. It only took me the width of the Gulf of Mexico to get the thing turned around while above the Mach. After the Mach run we dropped to the deck and did 600 kts at 500’; a ratllin’ and shakin’ we will go…. I though all the rivets were going to pop out. Reference previous station wagon analogy! Very quickly we were out of gas and headed home. As I brought the jet up initial, I couldn’t help but think that the boys who took this thing into combat had to have some pretty big brass you know whats! My first F-4 landing was a little rough; sub-standard really by Air Force measure… but apparently “best seen to date” according to the Navy guys. Did you know that there’s no such thing as an aerobrake in the F-4? As soon as the main gear touches down, the nose comes slamming down to the runway with all the force of a meteor hitting the earth….I guess the F-4 aerobrake technique is to dissipate energy via denting the runway. Despite an apparently “decent” landing, stopping was a whole different problem. I reached down and pulled the handle to deploy the drogue chute…at which point a large solid mass of canvas, 550 cord, metal weights and cables fell out and began bouncing down the runway; chasing me like a lost puppy and FOD’ing out the whole runway. Perfect. I mashed down on the breaks and I’m pretty sure at this point the jet just started laughing at me. Why didn’t you warn me that I needed a shuttle landing strip to get this damn thing stopped? All kidding aside, VERY COOL jet! Must have been a kick to fly back when you were in Vietnam! Just kidding!

The T-38 is TIRED, that is a given, it must be replaced NOW. That being said, I don't think a 9G $30 MILLION trainer is the answer. Having been forced to look at the "numbers" as a OSD staff weenie, I am not convinced a pseudo F-16 will hold up and bear the fruit you want. Most current fighters are programmed to fly 250 hours a year at horrible FH costs (F-16 = $22,000 an hour, F-15 +$41,000 and hour, F-22 = $68,000 an hour), and I truly wonder if this aircraft can sustain 500-600 hours a year. I fully understand that folks going to fighters particularly 5th gen aircraft need to develop the ability to maneuver dynamically under high G, but I wonder is that a function of UPT or IFF? Most of the bomber folks going through UPT track through T-38's, why in the world do they need a 9G trainer other than the cool factor? If I were as you suggest king for a day, I would likely have several aircraft in the mix including a jet like Scorpion that has a 7G envelope and has business jet like efficiency AND reliability. I would beef up IFF and make it longer while equipping them with a jet like the T-50 in a program the truly develops fight pilots, not a top off of UPT skills for everyone. One of the constant bitches I hear on here is guys need time in the seat. You will not surge a jet like the T-50 and we certainly can't afford 1,000 of them to make the numbers good. If we bought something like Scorpion at a cost of less than $20 million that can EASILY fly 1,000+ hours a year at less than $10,000 a flight hour you now have the ability to build airmanship and experience. The other thing about a jet like Scorpion, you can easily put a radar in it and software that mimics what is found in our 5th gen jets. The young SNAPs can now go fly for hours practicing the muscle memory required to employ today's high end capabilities. Think about it, on a standard 5th gen training sortie how often are dudes flying high aspect BFM? And how often are they driving around in the bozosphere at 3-4 G practicing long range employment or air to ground weapons employment. Again, I am NOT saying we don;t need a high-end 9G capable trainer for our fighter folks, I just don't think we need that as part of the UPT program. We need a paradigm shift that allows us to train the best aviators in the world within the economic constraints we are dealing with.

Attention any lurking senior leaders: get your shit together, go to congress, and stand on their desks until they give you $600m annually for aircrew bonuses. That's $100k more for 6k dudes. All of the harebrained ideas above will cost you way more than that; $600m is only enough to get 600 unqualified wingmen/copilots vs getting thousands of experienced guys to stay. Dont make this hard.

Pretty severe G forces associated with FNGs trying to not-crash the BUFF. EW passes out every time.

They let them draw dicks in the sky

Since when has the AF cared about later?

That’s the quintessential SIIC picture, if I’ve seen one. Him him.

So if this abortion of an idea comes to pass, what does or would the FAA have to say about this? While the military is a self-certifying agency there are some basic assumptions between the DoD and the FAA on aircrew training for qualification and certification, that we won't do anything reckless, risky, dumb or that would endanger the public or property unduly. Like marginally training people and then putting them in the control of a jet they by any other standard would not be qualified to operate at their given level of experience and training. I doubt they would be cool with us certifying someone good to fly a multi-engine jet if they had no turbine or multi engine experience, so extend that idea to someone only having 100 or so hours in a high performance turboprop, some sims (not even Class D) and then put in the seat of a supersonic jet. Methinks they would not be ok with that person at the controls in the NAS. How can the Air Staff or AETC Staff seriously bounce this idea around without considering the first incident and then the subsequent investigation, reports, headlines, etc... and not see the AF losing all confidence in its ability to operate? I mean really, look at the Navy right now, they took shiphandling and turned it from a formal course into a stack of CDs for dudes to review prior to reporting to their first assignment, how's that working for them now? https://www.npr.org/2017/09/07/549117911/navy-officials-examine-training-procedures-after-ship-accidents

Of course.

I hear ya, but I think there's two issues at hand, one I agree with you and one I'm not so sure about. I guess I should ask you, what should the TX embodiment look like if you were king? Other than being part of the near-kleptocratic bidding and contracting process of our rent-seeking-contractor-beholden civilian government, I don't see anything obscene or "unreasonable" about a T-50 to replace the clapped out 38. It's not like the JPATS wasn't a blunder, and let's not get into the F-35. All "success" stories as far as the pocket lining they were intended to create. I'm not condoning it, I'm just saying I live in the world of what things are, though I'd love to live in the world of what things should be. At any rate, it's [T-50] largely commercially available already, which means your complaint about timelines would not otherwise exist if the procurement process wasn't broken to begin with. That's not KAI's fault, though certainly Lockheed is complicit. Now, just because it isn't a weaponized mission set doesn't mean we have to eat another underpowered handicapped airplane for a trainer just so the CAF doesn't get penis envy, if that's what you were getting at with the "nouveau-F16" reference. F404 power is not some sort of FWA just because it's UPT. Less of that ethnocentrism would do the organization a bunch of good imo. This week is probably not the best week for me to pipe up about the T-38 replacement all things considered, but it's overdue. That I agree with you wholeheartedly. If the political climate is such that these tragedies actually accelerate the implementation, so be it. I very much look forward to a F404 punching class of airplane in SUPT, and I don't think the world will end if they have to go back to a two-airplane UPT in order to pay for it.

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2017/11/22/air-force-identifies-pilot-killed-in-t-38-crash-near-laughlin-afb/

Welcome to the last 30 year cycle.

Welcome to life before the last 2 years

The PIT syllabus has different tracks for SUPT and CTP. The MIF/Standards are the "same" by syllabus definition but guys going to CTP are held to different standards aka weak swimmers are let through.

The money spent on bringing in an interim trainer is money that should be spent on accelerating the Next Gen Trainer. It's basically what the C-model, PMP, and MB seat were for the T-38: a way to kick the can down the road instead of addressing the issue head on. Personal opinion only.

Why don't we just make this a function of the CDU? Pubs, checklist, etc., and fly with paper or iPad as a backup?

It would be a huge step back as an advanced trainer. And the slow spool from idle to mil (9"-12") will kill a lot of students. I suppose you could get Aero to build us a bunch... but I really don't know where you'd get the number of airframes we would need. I like flying it. And I know the Eastern Euros use it extensively. I just don't believe it's even close for what we expect.

If every CAF fighter pilot is saying this is a bad idea, it's a bad idea. People trying to come up with creative solutions with a "can do" attitude just don't understand the complexity of what we do. It's not rocket surgery but you can't rush the process. The only way to get better is with experience. That goes for executing tactics and general decision making skills. All this for what? Cutting 6 months of the decades worth of manning issues the AF is going to have? Not worth it.

T-38s for u2/b2 are very limited in what they can do .... your argument may not be apples to apples

I’m sure PC types will make sure that gets changed

Yep.

Yup-- the system is self perpetuating and fucked from top to bottom. MX doesn't produce jets so Stan doesn't fly as frequently as necessary to build required skills Stan hooks the rides he does get to fly Stan goes to CR Stan points at frequent breaks in training as the reason he hooked rides Stan gets reinstated Stan graduates with sub-par skills I can't really fault Stan too much in this scenario. Maybe Stan was a weak-ish swimmer, but that is why the UPT syllabus is structured in the way that it is. Frequency of repetition is key to acquiring the skills necessary to graduate UPT. The half-life on flying skills is REALLY short at that stage in a dude's flying career, so if Stan sits for a week or two between flights, or flies the BARE minimum to avoid a syllabus defined break in training it becomes unreasonable to expect Stan to gain/maintain the expected proficiency. All these half cooked "increase UPT throughput" seem to be based on an assumption of iron the simply isn't there. MX is on their ass, and the jets that ARE able to fly are gaining hours so fast that as soon as MX produces a new jet, one of the beaten mule jets that has been carrying a disproportionate share of the flight hours vs what it was programmed to fly goes down and the cycle repeats. There are a LOT of chickens coming home to roost at the same time with the pilot issue.

So, they have to start a bunch of briefings with "I'm the dude who drew the dick in the sky.", then get high fived and free drinks all night.

I flew with him as a young nav and ran into him again as a 38 stud at DLF. I saw him in the hall not 15 minutes before we stepped to fly on Monday and we talked about hopefully flying 4-ship together for old times sake. One of the most gregarious, over the top, talk your ear off for hours larger than life guys I've ever known. F*ck, this one hurts. I'll miss you brother.

I had the pleasure of flying with Paul for 3 years and 2 deployments. He was as good a dude as they come. Rest easy, brother.

Gotta do a full penetration afterwards.

I have an 8-0 undefeated record in the octagon of reg-fu, and 7 of those one round KO matches were with finance, yet they keep insisting on a rematch

Aero App sucks...and NGA wonders why ForeFlight is far and away their number one app on the NGA app store. DOD just needs to pay ForeFlight to make a Mil version of their app and put in all the features we want.

900 days? Holy shit. Side note, why can I say shit but not ? Ops test: ass, , cock, bitch, .

Buddy of mine was a 8 yr AD B-1 Evaluator WSO and has been through the C-130 Nav course for Reserves, is currently deployed with C-130 and heads to UPT next June. Anything is possible. He'll be 36 at UPT.

I've had an IRA with Vanguard for about 10 years. My wife has had one with them for about 8. Very satisfied customers. Expense ratios are the lowest in the industry. Website is easy to use. Once you get over a certain dollar amount (think it is 50K) that do not charge an annual maintenance fee. One potential downside may be the number of options for funds, ETFs, and stocks for your IRA. I have only put money in Vanguard Index funds with Vanguard. Not sure what the fees are if you wanted to do something different than that. Probably worth looking into if you want to do that and are going to put your money with Vanguard.

You're doing very well in regard to your peers. It's good to do this in a forum type of environment, since your neighbors would be jealous and the liberals will want to give it away since it's not fair that you were disciplined for your entire career. All kidding aside, I think you need to look into Vanguard's investment options. Their funds are rated higher than USAA's and most importantly, their expense ratios are lower. As far as diversification goes, I've never been a fan of index funds or CDs, but I follow Dave Ramsey's investment philosophy, which is somewhat limited. I would take some of that hard earned, and well saved money and talk to a very good CFP and let them know what your goals are. These points are all of my own opinions though, and you will never have a shortage of people telling you how to use and invest your money. Good luck and congrats though.