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Making sure you are flying before you raise the gear isn’t a technique.

It’s amplified in select-hire organizations. The beauty of being able to pick dudes who share your values comes with the curse of homogeneous values: right or wrong.

have we ruled out whether he was task-saturated with getting ATIS yet?

Come on Bashi, 5 minutes in a T-38 sim and you're an expert? Smarter people are telling you what is up, accept it and move the fuck on.

We lost a great one this weekend, Chris “Hook” Dupin. He was a board member here (although not active for awhile). Hook was a an F-15 WSO, TPS grad, and about to separate to the Reserves (I don’t think it had been finalized yet but I could be wrong). He owned a flight school in Destin and was really building it up, which was one of the reasons he was separating. Hook was flying with a student in his RV-12 (I actually flew with him in it the day after he bought it for the company) and crashed shortly after takeoff. He survived the crash but succumbed to his injuries a few hours later. I’ve been at a complete loss for words since I found out a couple days ago. I didn’t know him as well as many (and it’s obvious from the posts on Facebook about how loved he was), but I knew him well enough to know he was one of the best officers and men that I knew. We started a charity together a couple years ago to help send vets to flight training that some of you may remember us posting about here. He loved flying more than anything (other than his wife, and even she questioned that!). Sometimes I really hate airplanes. https://www.nwfdailynews.com/news/20181119/victims-identified-in-niceville-plane-crash-photos Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Apparently rotation + 20 kts

For their reading/educational pleasure. https://www.aircommando.org/sites/journal/ACJ Vol 6 Issue 2 Allied Force Sep 2017.pdf

What's a CSS? Bendy

I don’t even know what the you just said. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

It's not like this one came down to a split second mistake...his decision to rotate at 120 etc etc was apparently made long before the day of the mishap.

Magnitude of fuckup? You’re kidding right? Hoss my point is this: no matter how fast or slow something happens pulling the jet off the runway and raising the gear below flying airspeed is inexcusable. Chalking it up to “it happens faster than you think” doesn’t pass the sniff test. Sounds like the CAF could use some “getting back to basics”. Which is ironic. But I’m not a fighter pilot so clearly I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I'm just a helicopter pilot, but aren't you a Nav?

I'll disagree with you here. Kicking them out would be wrong, but nobody owes you a promotion. Want to get promoted? Check the company boxes. Being a passed over Major is probably what a lot of guys wanted anyway....just with less pay. BL: a record without IDE is not a great record, regardless of how "useful" IDE is.

Delta?

Like many others have said, you're in the on-deck circle when many haven't gotten that close. I have spoken to a couple folkss in my (pretty limited) travels in getting a slot that were hired as alternates and got the spot when one of the main picks split to another offer (perhaps more of a round nose world thing, but still, it happens). Don't take it personal that they say "we like you; we just like this guy a little better." Them's the digs. Keep asking for feedback from anyone you've spoken with at your visits and you may catch a morsel in there that you've missed or that they're hinting at they would like you to do better. It could be something out of your control: maybe you're super young and they feel like "you've got time?" Or maybe you kill the interview, but you're not trying to talk enough to guys outside of it during the meet and greets? Or maybe you're hitting the booze a bit too much during the socializing, or not bringing booze when you go? It could be any number of little things that get you almost there, so try to find out what you might be able to do better. Either way, you're at least getting a chance that most of the others that come interview aren't and you're close to the promised land. Keep your head up and keep trying. Good luck!

I'm just glad one member of the '05 year group didn't do it. Means my odds just got a skosh better.

I hope he gets promoted. ACSC in correspondence is USELESS.

*Pushes glasses up* Well actually.....SLATE 46A was rescued in 1991. The first CSAR since Vietnam by non-SOF forces was VAMPIRE 31 in April 2003.

To pile on, the net loss of pilots is only part of the story. In my mind, the even graver issue is the hemorrhaging of highly experienced pilots--which has been ongoing for some time now. A reasonable proxy for experience is looking at how many Command Pilots and Master Navs the AF has; after all, it ain't that hard to reach that milestone, if one has even a remotely ops-credible flying career and bothers to stay in until the min 15 yrs of rated service. Per the data in RAW, we had almost 2,800 Command Pilots at the end of FY08; ten years later, we have barely 2,100. In the same time, the number of Master Navs dropped from 1,300 to less than 600. If you go back a little further, in FY04, we had almost 3,700 Command Pilots and 1,900 Master Navs. Clearly, we've had a massive brain drain over the past decade and a half or so. So, doing math in public, we have as many as 2,900 Senior Pilots and/or Navs filling command, staff, or Wg/OG flying billets that a decade and a half ago would've been filled by more deeply experienced Command/Master aviators. Conclusions? (1) You shouldn't be surprised by questionable rated management decisions, when AF commanders and their staffs are largely devoid of experience (2) To the extent that recent mishaps are due to crew inexperience, you can count on things getting even worse. Commanders gotta have their flyers on staffs; units will continue to get robbed of experienced aviators, leaving flying units ever-younger TT

Harley knows what he speaks oF... I’m like bing through some of it now, having PCSd from a large wing with great staff and access to everything required. now I’m in a wing construct where only the exec has access to certain things.... access doesn’t go any lower. It’s perplexing

One more...just a few days ago Hook posted this video to Reddit. I’m sure you’ll all appreciate it! [emoji482] Hook! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If I'm the DO or commander of that fighter squadron, I'd rather deal with a gear overspeed than an aircraft settling onto the runway on its fuselage. Also, everyone is saying how difficult it is or how fast it happens... Yet Lts manage to do this day in and day out, right out of UPT. I get that it may take some skill and concentration... That's why you get flight pay, bro.

Lol.

(Yup ... and I wasn’t really replying to you) its a fighter, if you need burner you plug it in and use it. No idea what the plan was for that video, or if it was a mil or AB takeoff. AB takeoffs use a LOT of gas ...

And I should clarify. Im not trying to be a raptor apologist. Im trying to provide a little context for the folks that think rotating 20 knots off speed is absurd or poor Piloting or gross negligence It’s not. It’s a radio call ... it’s cross checking something inside the cockpit for a glance ... it’s seeing movement in your peripheral vision and glancing over to see if it’s a bird or another aircraft .... it’s less than a second. The dude fucked up. He had the wrong told. He had bad techniques. It’s a community issue. Criticise that. He didn’t have a crew of 3 or 4 people up front, with at least 2 of them doing nothing else but staring at the airspeed indicator nor the luxury of time. That’s the crux of my issue

No dog in this internet slap fight, but this made me laugh. Thanks for that! Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

That’s a total cop out and bull shit.

I’m not saying this dude didn’t fuck up, he did. And likely while shining his ass, which is worse. But yes, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Taking off isn’t any harder or more critical than the other phases of flight ... but it also isn’t done by committee with time for discussion and deep meaningful introspection between V1 and VR

please tell me how difficult it is to rotate correctly without over speeding your gear in the CAF. sounds hard...thank you for your service experts in rotating at flying airspeed and not settling our jets gear up on the runway! shit i never knew the hardest part of a fighter pilots mission was the takeoff! hey hoss....maybe if you're worried about over speeds you dont try to keep her on the deck at 10' and maybe you increase your pitch a little bit...what do ya think big guy? or am i not qualified to talk about BASIC airmanship cause im not a fighter pilot?

I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse.

So, now the base is making quality of life worse for the dairy owners? Please, someone say to the dairies, "if you don't like it, you can leave."

I have a tough time believing that designating units on a temporary basis is as effective as having units whose primary mission and OT&E functions are dedicated to making it work. When the taskings are more numerous than the units or the rescue missions go sideways, is designated really as good? Corporate knowledge does count for something. ...and yeah, I don't think people here are questioning the line-AFSOC dude's willingness to do rescue. It's more about the organizational side and resource allocation.

Man, you should've heard some of the arguments of my Navy bros on this very thing. The dudes shouting "First actual CSAR since Vietnam" couldn't really explain why/how it was so dangerous when some dude in an ice cream truck parked on the side of the road was live streaming the pickup on Youtube.

This is a ploy somehow for the AF to get more money for something. Present a self induced crisis to Congress and say the solution is more funding.

I get irritated when I hear the Air Force talk to the airlines about a problem big blue created

I'm sure the voucher got kicked back a few times...

Culture difference I suppose...I've met a few good dudes who were SEALs, but by and large I much prefer working with the Army and other agencies. They're all good at their jobs, but SEAL-level "shit show" seems to be rarely matched by other teams. The only thing I can think of is it comes back to their culture and what they value/think is OK.