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So on Memorial Day weekend, CBS decides to honor American war dead by focusing on a tragic accident, and using it as a soapbox to turn military personnel, veterans, and the public against one another. Couldn't find any MOH or Silver Star types to hold up as examples of sacrifice and patriotism? Couldn't talk about the kids who made the valiant choice to take the fight to the enemy in OIF/OEF instead of crying in a closet on campus? Couldn't talk about the brass balls it took to fly into downtown Schweinfurt, Route Pack 6, Belgrade, or Baghdad? Couldn't just honor the sacrifices made on behalf of the American public? I guess that would have been too hard. You stay classy CBS.

Damn, it’s almost as if CAS is the detailed integration of Ground and Air forces to avoid fratricide when forces get “close” and are fighting requiring a specialized skill set and weaponry. Shocking that a low level supersonic nuclear bombing platform asked to do the job had issues. Now some will say these are dickhead comments but I’ve tried CAS in a crewed B-1 type environment and it was tough. Need a hillside leveled in the Stan or some BOC, B-1 is great. Have a complex deconfliction problem requiring CAS and CAS weapons, you probably want a CAS aircraft with good vis, those weapons etc. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Highwaymen on Netflix was pretty damn entertaining. Costner does a really good job at being an old dude with a gut, and the ambush scene on Bonnie and Clyde is freakin aggressive.

If you can conduct CAS from a box in Creech you can do it in a B-1. With just the info from the story, the JTAC passed bad/confusing grids. That’s the root cause. I’m guessing the crew trusted the JTAC to much/wanted to help asap and didn’t question the confusing/wrong grids. Seeing IR strobes would have probably helped the crew realize they had bad grids but it’s not why these guys died. Lot of similarities to the AC-130 incident with the doctor without boarders incident in the ‘Stan. If you fly something that makes things go boom and don’t think you could get caught up in the heat of battle and make a mistake you are dead ass wrong. Just like the Swiss cheese analogy for aircraft mishaps these frat incidents can be looked at the same way. And ya, shame on CBS, run this story another week, so many better stories they could report on for Memorial Day weekend.

It is UFBelievable to me as well. I knew this type of stuff on my first night TGP sortie as did everyone else but then again in a jet with a basic CAS friendly design (being able to look outside) you could match your IR pointer on the pod to the flashing IR markers on the ground and even if you’d never been told, it’d be 100% obvious in 1 second. Again, root cause was sending a airframe not suited for the scenario because we got complacent in having anything bomb capable slinging a PHM and declaring it an awesome CAS asset (Thanks Welsh) I remember my first time running a TGP in the back of a Learjet, daytime trying to find targets coordinating with the pilot and another guy in back while getting SA from the small window outside. Complete sh-tshow and my hats off to the bone guys that can do it but drove home that even at 100%, it’s a limited concept. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

What’s shocking to me is the fact it apparently was never done in training, in the ~33 year Ops history of the B-1, or 15+ year history of the Sniper. Or if it was, the inability to figure this out in an operational training scenario... and debrief it... before it gets tried in combat is shocking. The continuing inability of the Services to communicate and employ together as well as they should falls square in to the lap of General Harrigian and others of his stature (in all the Services). The AF puts Patches in the key leadership positions for a reason. I’m sure it’s better than it was 10 years ago. But that’s not good enough. We've been killing bad guys in the Middle East for almost 30 years. How was this information not known? Disgusting.

Dude, the honest answer to that is that was probably one of the very few times a B-1 has ever had to deconflict “close” fires in a complex situation and it went bad. 100% of the tine I saw employment was either BOC or a BOT well away from any friendlies with no time constraints. I’m not knocking you guys. You do a helluva a job with what you can. You are just SEVERELY limited by your airframe in any slightly complex CAS scenario. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Hey guys, I was totally ready to sign up for 9 more years of OPRs, PT tests, PCSs to shitty places, deployments to shitty places, a useless 365 resulting in missing seeing my kids grow up, crappy leadership, crappy support agencies, flying falling apart aircraft that are twice my age, creating trackers to track the other trackers, hustling strats to make O-5, 1206s, POCing some change of commands, getting chiefed for morale patches, commanders calls, SAPR briefs, resiliency training, my wife putting her career on hold for just another decade, my kids needing to go to 9 schools to graduate HS, sitting Sup/SOF, being forced to volunteer for BS to fill up OPR blank space, and some other crap I don’t want to think about. I was totally gonna keep doing all this shit. But then I heard another pilot say STS 6-9 times. So I’m getting the fuck out now.

Tell the shoes to fuck off.

I'm an old retired fart, but I had a great Air Force Experience a couple of weeks ago. A client of my wife found out that this couple had a kid who was all ate up about flying, flew flight sims for hours, but had never been in the cockpit of a real airplane. So I volunteered to give the kid an incentive ride in my might Piper Warrior. It turned out he was a junior in college, majoring in mechanical engineering. He wanted to know all about the Air Force and wanted to hear my war stories. Of course I cleverly managed to never get shot at, but I shared some 'peace stories' with him while we stopped for a hundred dollar hamburger. Anyway, my Warrior is based at Austin Bergstrom (KAUS), and we get a lot of military transient airplanes. As we were putting the Warrior back in the hanger a black T-38 showed up in the pattern and flew a couple of overheads and then landed. As we started to walk back to the Signature terminal the Black 'BB' coded T-38 was parking right in front of us. My pax asked me if he could take a picture of this T-38. Of course I knew that nobody would care if someone took a picture of a T-38, but I said 'Why don't we ask the pilots'? So I walked over as they were climbing out of the cockpit, introduced us as 'once and future Air Force guys' and asked if we could take a picture of their jet. It was a looker I'll say that. To make a long story short, the crew were two U-2 pilots. Of course they let us take all the pictures we wanted, but more important they asked my young friend what he wanted to do in the Air Force, and he told them he wanted to be a pilot. They spent about 15 minutes telling him about pilot training, suggesting the best paths to a commission for him, and in general talking up the fun of being in the Air Force. I'm sure the guys were probably a bit tired, and in a hurry to get to Sixth Street, but to this young person they were heroes bordering on Living Gods. I really appreciated the time they took and their enthusiasm for my young friends dreams. It reminded me how cool it is that the Air Force sometimes would give you the keys to a jet plane and a gas card, and tell you bring back in one piece next Monday!

Nah, just being a cynical asshole and talking about a program that I assume is not even in the works...I could have really inserted any known issue we have going on right now. I hadn't heard about the program you're dealing with, I'll hit up my contacts in comm to see if that's something they're expecting. Given that they're understaffed and just got tapped to fill a 6 month to the desert (or two) I doubt they'll be rolling out such a program any time soon.

The phrase "accused of said allegations" must have totally escaped your vernacular? You know what accused means and I surely don't have to point out the definition of allegations either right. If you think you are correct, sue the writers of the articles from Military.com and AF Times in court and see how that turns out in front of a real judge. Tell AF Times, Military.com, and the countless other online sites to remove their articles. You're just preaching to the choir on your soapbox of righteousness.

I copied the allegations directly from the Military.com article in my Google feed. AF Times just posted their story today. The source was the USAFA who put him on blast as pointed out in the original post by "the school said Thursday." Didn't care to post the link yesterday, but since you asked: https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/05/19/special-operations-pilot-faces-charges-raping-child-under-12-years-old.html https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2019/05/21/academy-major-accused-of-rape-molestation-faces-article-32-hearing/ AF Times “It must be emphasized that charges are merely accusations, and the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty,” the release said."

I have dudes walking into my office with family problems. I tell them I cannot execute the mission without their family affairs being in order. Your family does play a role in executing the mission. I need dudes who can delegate and punch at COB, not one minute late. If you have to leave early for your kids activities, that's okay with me too. If you are having family problems, let me know and I'll give you a day to recage with the wife especially. I should be the last person to leave the office. I have to tell dudes to get out of the office on a Friday afternoon and go home to their families. When I see people staying late, it's for promotion purposes in my opinion. I tell those individuals I need leaders who are about efficiency, getting tasks accomplished earlier so you don't stay late, and who believe in family first. If you're a workaholic, then you are going to lead the same way. The CC and Super determine who gets submitted for strats for enlisted. The 3 dudes who stay late I noticed, none of them were submitted. A MSgt was asking my NCOIC if there is more he can do. I heard my NCOIC telling him what I need you to do is go home to your family.

You are speaking from an officer perspective, speaking of which you are vastly out of touch. Don't speak for everyone. Most enlisted live paycheck to paycheck. Additional income is necessary at times. As a prior, you can save your ass off and still not get ahead. I'm not even married.

Great story! One reason I came to AETC was to share my flying stories with students and encourage them to fly. I saw my first air show at Mathis Field while attending tech school. My tech school had a booth set-up for food at the air show. Ironically, I obtained my PPL from Mathis Field. Got to take the mighty T-6 there x-country too. And I had to divert to Mathis Field in my MWS aircraft. I'm surprised students know what pilot wings look like because they inquire about them and so do their parents. I had a TRS/CC during a staff meeting ask me what my badge meant when I first arrived. Talking about an awkward silence in the freaking room!