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The 40 hour work week has nothing to do with socialism. Zero. No one here is talking about work hours and child labor when they refer to socialism. Socialism is easily summed up by the old Soviet mantra, from each according his abilities; to each according to his needs. Another simple socialist concept is an equality of outcome (not to be confused with equality of opportunity). They are not fatal due to the evil intent of their promotors. They are fatal due to their irreconcilable conflicts with human nature. Remember, there are no flawed political philosophies, only flawed human characteristics. The success of a political philosophy is measured by how well it mitigates and minimizes the effects of those human flaws. Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I know it’s tragic, but it should be emphasized that these guys delayed ejection specifically to protect those innocents on the ground from having a flaming ball of wreckage dropped on their houses. Heroic. Just wish they both could have made it out... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I get that's a common sentiment in order to show gratitude to the departed, but that's not at all how it went down in reality. It's also not the first time I've buried a co-worker where the folk tale gets pressed that there was a heroic suicide for the sake of the people on the ground, later to reveal a more simple and less flamboyant answer (spatial D and mental unwillingness to get out, as was the case with my UPT SRO and his Hornet crash). You don't have to rub it in the surviving's faces at the funeral. But for us who still remain and do the job tomorrow, damn right we owe the departed some roasting, if we are to honor the legacy of his sacrifice, and learn a god damn thing or two instead of repeating it. The conversation about collateral damage in the jet was to me, simply ancillary to a suspension of disbelief that stemmed from the fact they (and I am also not above reproach in that fallibility) did not immediately internalize the absolute nature of loss of control once dual hydraulic failure ensues. The common urban legend is that you can steer with windmilling hydro when the engine fails but windmills. First of all, not true enough to warrant consideration. BUT, this is worse than merely windmilling hydraulics, because the gearboxes were severed and thus there would have been actual zero input to the pumps. That means no shit, other than the engines effecting pitching moments of little consequence as they throttle jockeyed, the aircraft was immediately ballistic. The decision to delay ejection was neither the correct one nor one that saved lives on the ground. It may have actually killed the deceased, if one is to conjecture that he would have had extra time to gather enough presence of mind to get his sh*t together, un-f*ck his own seat from the way he left it on takeoff, and punch. But this is conjecture since we will never know if he failed to punch himself out due to incapacitation (due to the incorrect sequence selected, and the FCP seat blasting him with the rocket) or inappropriate reaction to stress (aka frozen by panicking). As to the latter, the SIB had some insights into that question which now the AIB sort of refutes, and paints the survivor in a not so positive light. I'm a little bit disappointed by this reversal in findings, but that's for the survivor to live with. Never miss an opportunity to STFU when it comes to USAF interviews is all I got to say about that one. I also don't trust the safety process enough to open my trap, but that's my bias. Exactly. And you're being kinder than I. Generally the checklist now allows for anywhere before takeoff. Most people either stow them in the hammerhead, or all the way back before pulling chocks. I do the latter, but sometimes I break order and do it in the hammerhead. And I'll challenge anybody here who flies these things come and assert they've never forgotten to arm their seat until they get to the MOA and go "..oooh shit...*muffled cllllllick* ". I only say that so people don't misinterpret my criticism for the complacent CRM in the conduct of a requal sortie that was conducted with a CT atmosphere (they all are) as some sort of gratuitous aspersion, when in reality we have all been guilty of it at one point or another. The lesson learned for me is exactly that: treat CT rides with respect. And treat requal guys like idiot UPT students. Sure, don't verbalize that to them, but treat them with the same skepticism. The fact is, we don't as a collective. I also don't agree with the shortened "feed the fight" figther-centric thing we got going on at the schoolhouse, with shortening the callouts. Not so much because it's somehow blasphemy, but rather because the UPT bases, Red Bulls in particular, are actually going the opposite direction, precisely because of this accident. But I'm preaching to the choir here. Stay safe out there.

Counterpoint - I don't know what the purpose of the pin is since the lever should be sufficient (and easier to use and no "dropped pin/FOD" hazard). To be fair, the ACES II in the viper/eagle/hog has both an arming lever and a pin, except the pin is in the lever (not at the base of the ejection handle) and only prevents the arming lever from accidentally getting knocked down into the "armed" position (the pin in the new MB -38 seats prevents the lever from being armed AND prevents the handle from being pulled a la T-6, should the lever mechanism fail). Also, removing the pin in the big boy jets is a maintenance function (it is pulled and stowed before the pilot gets to the jet). When I was at RND I forgot to put the pin back in the -38 seat (arming lever was in "safe") and maintenance made me go back out to the jet to put the seat pin back in - they said they would not touch the pin (even though the seat was safed) and either the pilot or someone from egress had to put the pin back in. No idea why, just a stupid empire rule that didn't seem worth fighting. Its too bad that they harp on the pin so much, because a) it's unnecessary, and b) without it that lever can be quickly slapped down to arm the seat and then handle pulled. Not sure if it would have helped here, but maybe.

What a bullshit statement. Execution rate? GMAFB. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/ Summary: Unarmed White Men killed by police: 24 (2017) and 17 (2018) Unarmed Black Men killed by police: 19 (2017) and 12 (2018) Yes, there are more White Men in the population than Black Men. But to draw some type of tyrannical conclusion that the 700,000+ police officers in the country are on some kind of black citizen "Execution" spree with 19 unarmed black deaths compared to 24 unarmed white deaths is just ridiculous.

Having your card show up on someone’s slide as unpaid is the best way to get someone to kick finance in the ass to pay your voucher ...

The problem is that there no accepted definition of "too far" for the left. For the Right it's easy: racial superiority. Hitler, KKK, etc. But the left has no obvious "too far." For the educated, it's quite obvious: socialism. No political philosophy has a body count approaching the horrors unleashed by socialism. But your average voter is not aware of history, and even the educated are unaware thanks to who controls the curriculums of college campuses. I don't care how great a politician seems. If the word socialism falls from their lips, they are a threat. Useful idiots at best, evil megalomaniac at worst, but still a threat. Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I love how the President was implicated in a felony by his lawyer, who pleaded guilty to multiple felonies including ones related to the 2016 election, on the same day that his former campaign manager was found guilty of multiple separate felonies, and like 24 hours later we're posting links to the body count from Stalinist Russia. Great pivot guys! Truly masterful.

Let's remember that the T-38 was designed as the first supersonic trainer back when the century series fighters were out. Not everything about designing aircraft for trans-sonic and high-Q flight was well understood, but one of those issues was flutter of flight control surfaces. The common answer was to only have surfaces actuated (and thus held rigidly in position during flight) by hydraulics. We didn't have the electronics technology that we do today to have self-isolated hydraulic servos to move flight controls that can be actuated hydraulically, electrically, or mechanically.

Every day in college you could find no shortages of idiots advocating Marxist principles handing out some flyer in the student union of my campus... You could not find KKK or Skin heads or any other far extremist idiots doing the same at any point in time. There is an acceptance by the left and academia of what they label “post modernists” which are nothing more than wolves in sheeps clothing advocating for the same stupidity that killed hundreds of millions of people across the 20th century and across swaths of geographic/religious/racial boundaries. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Really humble dude. He would study with us in the flight room after he got back from his deployment while we were still fairly new in 38s. I had a really good one-on-one convo with him during our naming ceremony that still sticks with me today. I saw him the day before at his spot in fam camp. Tough read I was putting off. To stuck 🍺

Well when the average democrat senator isn’t yelling for the abolishment of ICE then I might believe you. And the darling of the party right now is a self avowed socialist that can’t even articulate what her views mean in an interview. Yep, that’s who I want running my country. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Perjury is not the issue. Campaign finance laws are.

IMHO the best way to get a unit to push an age waiver package is for them to pick you in the first place. And for that to happen, they really need to know you. Not just a random package arriving in the mail. You really have to invest time and money hanging out with the squadron and getting to know them and them to know you for a unit wanting to stick their neck out for the waiver. They have to consciously decide that a 30 yr old is a better option than the 22 yr old. And if you guys look the same on paper, the unit will absolutely choose the younger option. Just my guess.

The SIB had a pretty good discussion on the decision to delay ejection.

Just like a personal credit card, every transaction is coded behind the scenes by Citibank and paired/labelled to a category (ex. Dining, fine dining, entertainment, club, ___-merchandise). Ever seen a USAA spending breakdown? Automatically Citibank flags certain codes (certain establishments) and categories and can provide the report to Finance at some level for manual screening. From there...who knows and who knows IF it gets screened/caught. I know for sure certain establishment's vendor codes throw a HUGE visible red flag, categories not so much accuracy. Some savvy business aren't labelled by credit card companies by what they actually do!

That was a tough read...I solo'd him out in T-6s. Talk about a great dude with an even better attitude. I felt nauseous reading that.

I love when finance holds up operations when they didn’t do their job. I’ve been on back-to-back TDYs with a small interval in between being told I would not have the funds released for the second TDY since my first travel voucher was not paid yet. I asked hold long it takes finance to do that and was told 2-3 months. After mentioning that they will have to explain why I would not be leaving on the next TDY to the Grp/CC, magically the funds were freed up. Still took two more months for the first travel voucher to be paid though.

You can't for a second believe that if it hadn't been a democrat administration in power that she would have gotten off scot free as she did. Let's not even talk about all of the questionable deaths surrounding the Clintons in their years in politics, because I'm sure their machine is a lot more corrupt than a guy trying to cover up his affairs that he had while a private citizen. Here's more proof that this is about Trump and not about "the law." https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/16/politics/settlements-congress-sexual-harassment/index.html Remember, these are the same people who think ILLEGAL immigrants should be allowed to continually and without punishment ignore the laws of our nation. They support mob rule in vandalising and destroying monuments they don't like. If they are so about the "me too" movement, why has there been no serious inquiry into who these Congressional settlements were paid out for? Hint, it's the target they're after not the moral victory.

If this is the case, I see the 20 aircraft being used more for the FID Advisor mission than the ACC CAS mission.

Stark would be best served if he remains anonymous rather than revealing himself. There is nothing to be gained by Stark becoming part of the solution: he made his points in his articles, an even offered proposed solutions. His job is done. And now leadership can get on with doing their f'n jobs with the issues identified. They shouldn't have needed an anonymous public input "from the trenches", but since they did, the least they could do is actually display some of that leadership skill and take action to fix the identified issues...like they should have been doing all this time anyway without proving Stark's hypotheses true. My favorite part of the article: If you look at the three (or is it four, now?) "Dear Boss" letters that have been made public in the last 40-ish years since Capt Keys' famous letter, you'll note that they ALL cover essentially the same territory and have the same types of complaint. So, how is it that Goldfein thinks that "we got better as a service" as a result of that letter? Is that what it means when people keep bringing up the same problems year after year, decade after decade? Good call, Fingers. Keep your skull down, Col Stark, and keep fighting the good fight.

Remember...Chang was outted as a long term troll

This is important! While Welsh bears some of the burden of the issues we face, let’s remember the regieme in charge at the top at the time (not necessarily the most military friendly.) Not to mention sequestration, a recovering economy..all that matters.