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I’ve done 100s upon 100s of form landings. Not once was it actually required. I never had issues with them in any jet...but... That being said, in my 19 yrs and 3500+ hours, the closest I ever came to (perceived) dying in an aircraft was a T-38 form landing on the wing where the lead student flared high and slow and my student tried to follow. IPs took the jets and both of us went around in AB, I tried to just keep the gear from going through the wings and touched down, the other jet stayed airborne but veered towards us almost hitting us. Really scary, we both came in the sq white faced. I just don’t find the juice worth the squeeze on this. Form low approaches to closed in sequence.....90% of the training...6.9% of the risk. Valid and smart trade-off. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Don't get suckered. You are here:

They all go back to the mothership at some point Going to a point in the article referenced above on the backstory and the mid 2010's effort to divest the A-10, I watched the exchange between McCain and and Welsh: https://www.airforcetimes.com/video/2016/03/03/mccain-slams-usaf-chief-welsh-on-a-10-effectiveness/ I understand Welsh's point that he really didn't get a chance to make as McCain was cutting him off, we have X dollars total in the Dept of the AF appropriation, that X is always less than missions/things we need to do or buy, so some don't get done or bought. He should have turned that into give me more and I will save it, BCA be damned. If you're not going to give me more money, give me more authority over the AF appropriation to re-program resources and fix the glitch. You're a 4 star chief of a branch, you're not going anywhere but to retirement after this, fight the good fight and even if you don't win, you'll make great TV making a politician squirm when you retort to his sophistry with a solution.

Those F-35s aren't going to sell themselves here or abroad...

California is so stupid

We can, leaders just won't make the decisions to cut the bullshit deployments.

So how do you get people to stay in (or join in the first place)? Can't reduce ops tempo. Can't increase bonuses. I guess you could kick all the dependants to the market for healthcare to save money. You could also cut BAH so it no longer covers renters insurance and only 95% of the expected housing cost and make the member pay the rest out of pocket, while divesting yourself of maintaining base housing and contracting it out to the lowest bidder. You could cut retirement and make the member take on market risk for their retirement.

A couple aspects of this whole debacle that still needs some daylight. I'm not a lawyer nor have I stayed at a Holiday Inn express but A) a form is required to request unmasking and on that form a reason must be stated. Samatha Power, US Ambassador to the UN testified under oath that she knew nothing of unmasking is shown to have made 7 unmasking requests. Why did she lie and why did she make the requests? Why did Biden make a request 8 days prior to leaving office? B) 2 FBI agents conduct interviews. One agent asks questions and the other FBI agent makes notes during interviews and those notes are documented in something called a 302. Only the note taking agent, normally, making the notes edits the 302. However, in Flynns case, other agents, inluding Strzok, and his paramour, the Lawyer Page, apparently made edits. Where is the original stating they didn't think Flynn was lying and who made edits?

Flynn was not charged nor plead guilty to perjury. He was charged with making a false statement to FBI agents. But the false statement is only a crime if the underlying reason the FBI was interviewing him had a basis in fact for such an investigation. Which it did not. According to FBI documents and personnel engaged with this at the time. That info was never revealed to Flynn or the court, despite it being mandatory to do so and the judge specifically ordering DOJ to provide any such. Then DOJ scoffed at the notion. And then the material was released last week. It was revealed that Flynn's interview basis was not material, therefore the lie (which the agents said they didn't think he was, btw) to the FBI doesn't matter legally. If he lied to Pence, that's between them. Both sides agreed to drop the case. The judge is now making up a charge of perjury to the court because Flynn pled guilty to the court. Twice. The judge seems to think that's perjury. Not a lawyer, but I'm fairly sure that this isn't the first time a defendant has made a guilty plea only to seek to withdraw it later. And the de facto prosecutor that the judge has appointed was a co-author of a very anti-Flynn and DOJ op-ed in Monday's Washington Post. Doesn't seem to be a disinterested party. Shenanagins on the part of the judge and most likely to be stomped on at appeal.

I get it, but the execution was piss poor. I had just PCSd to EGUN just before Christmas 2013 and got a phone call telling me to show up the next day for a CC call to announce the AF would cut 36,900 people ASAP. There’s no real way to win other than being honest with the troops. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Welsh spoke to all the SNCO’s at Altus when I was there back in 2013-2014. It was just him, Chief Cody, and the SNCOs. He flat out said he loved the A-10, it was the first fighter he flew, but he couldn’t afford it. Every career field he had manned over 100%, he had to pay for out of hide, which is why he did the Great Hunger Games, Congress told him to STFU that he was keeping the A-10, getting the F-35...so the only thing he could do was cut personnel. Pretty tough place to be put in, and a good example of how one can be the CSAF and still be told by civilians to STFU and color on how their branch was goin to run.

Also, the same Judge that did the following back in 2009/IAW AG Eric Holders Holders orders (long); Executive Summary The investigation and prosecution of U.S. Senator Ted Stevens were permeated by the systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated Senator Stevens’s defense and his testimony, and seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government’s key witness. Months after the trial, when a new team of prosecutors discovered, in short order, some of the exculpatory information that had been withheld, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) moved to set aside the verdict and to dismiss the indictment with prejudice. New prosecutors were assigned after U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan held two of the previous prosecutors in contempt for failing to comply with the Court’s order to disclose information to Senator Stevens’s attorneys and to the Court regarding allegations of prosecutorial misconduct which were made after trial by an FBI agent who had worked on the case. Judge Sullivan granted the government’s motion and dismissed the indictment with prejudice on April 7, 2009, finding that “There was never a judgment of conviction in this case. The jury’s verdict is being set aside and has no legal effect.” On the same day, Judge Sullivan appointed Henry F. Schuelke III, the undersigned, “to investigate and prosecute such criminal contempt proceedings as may be appropriate” against the six prosecutors who conducted the investigation and trial of Senator Stevens. The investigation lasted two years and required the examination and analysis of well over 128,000 pages of documents, including the trial record, prosecutors’ and agents’ emails, FBI 302s and handwritten notes, and depositions of prosecutors, agents and others involved in the investigation and trial. https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/325801/court-report-on-stevens-ethics-case.pdf

Treason...

It warms the cockles of my heart to read that many of you know how to decline SIDS/STARS. I'm proud of your written and verbal communication skills with Air Traffic Control. Well done. In the future, how about just saying "I'll take a descent to below FL180 and Cancel IFR" ? Works every time and no one give two shits about what you filed. VFR really isn't scary. Try it some time. However, I didn’t start this thread to discuss that nonsense. I started this thread because I was very interested to continue the discussion about the value of wing landings after a very tragic incident. To Hawg15, MotoFalcon, YoungNDumb, Brabus, et al… I get your point. You don’t do wing landings in the CAF, and you see it as “increased risk with no benefit”. However, from a “risk management” view… and from a “training viewpoint”… I don’t support nor agree with you. You’re not wrong. I just don’t agree with your "risk threshold". A few thoughts: I just googled “T-38 Road to Wings”. It was the first time I’ve perused that in quite some time. I don’t see jack-shit about wing landing mishaps in there. And in all of my years of being around the T-38, I don’t recall any Class A mishaps on wing landings. Road to Wings seems to validate that. There sure are a lot of mishaps on low-levels, single-ship landings, etc… Do we still do those? Now we have the FIRST Class A fatal on a wing landing, and overnight it becomes a prohibited maneuver after 60 years? Does having a fatal outcome on a maneuver disqualify that maneuver as a good/important/valuable item to be accomplished by a military aviator in training? To my way of thinking, it is not whether formation landings are “practical”, though I believe they are. But it is also about learning a skillset of precision… control… discipline… precision… and some mastery… of something I would expect a top-notch military aviator to be able to show some competence in. Much of what is done in UPT is done to instill confidence and aggressiveness. “Aggressiveness”… is that bad word now? Should we stop flying wingwork with 3G’s and 90 degrees of bank? It appears that isn’t a “CAF maneuver”… but as mentioned elsewhere, the skillset is valuable. How interesting. “Training for a skillset”. What a concept. Yes, we need to mitigate risk. Got it. However, the nature of the beast is that we cannot eliminate it. Flying can be dangerous. And we will never stop having mishaps. I’ve done dozens… and probably hundreds… of formation landings in the T-38. I was PIT IP when we did formation touch & go’s. I was there when “leadership” got rid of formation T&G’s because they felt it was too risky. I recall pilots telling me how formation T&G’s were a dumb idea… and yet they had never briefed, flown, or debriefed one. Getting winged as an AF pilot should be challenging. And it should prepare you to fly not just within the “heart of the envelope”, but also toward the edges. And when those items are flown toward the edge, we put an IP in the jet to mitigate the risk. Those newly winged pilots will use those lessons and skills when they go off to their F-35 and B-21. If wing landings are honestly “too dangerous”, then knock it off. But are they really that dangerous? Pretty much, I’ve taken 600 words to say what Hacker said in 60. But I ask you: what else would you cut out of the UPT syllabus because “the CAF doesn’t do that?”. Reap what you sow.

I get what you're saying, and I get what joe1234 is saying. I managed to do almost 22 years and never had a position that wasn't flying, instructing, or evaluating and my thoughts have been all over the map on this issue. There's always been the constants in the Squadron: A few stick and rudder guys that just nailed everything, few GK gurus, a couple deadbeats, and then... everyone in the middle. For whatever reason, I marked 2012 as the year when I saw a notable decline in the middle of the squadron's "give a shit" attitude and emphasis toward flying skills. That's also around the time I noticed a massive increase in complexity of simply being a pilot/member of the Air Force. It was around this time when the Great PC Witch Hunt occurred, more inspections, budget sequestrations/less flying, new finance policies, etc. After a while, every checkride/training folder began with conversations along the lines of "Hey, I'm just trying to get through this. I've been working on MICT checklists for the past month and have been cancelled for MX/WX/Ops six times." And they weren't lying. So then I go to the SQ/CC with my concerns and he says, "Yeah, I know what you mean. I just got back from a conference and had to jump on a line and seat swap with 2 other pilots last night to get my one to/app/landing for the month. Maybe we should schedule a GK/tactics briefing this week to up everyone's game." Surprise, no one dropped their deployment prep, CBTs, OPRs/EPRs, Wing staff circlejerks, training summary reports, FEF reviews, travel voucher puzzles so Petey Patchwearer could lecture everyone how to calculate a tactical descent profile into Baghdad international. So I would debrief the flight, I'd try to offer techniques, get in the weeds a little, and they'd rapidly nod while checking their watch. They all had to make slides for the next morning's staff meeting, send an email, meet some sort of deadline for more important matters. My point is it's a math problem. I don't think the quality/character of the average pilot of the squadron has declined. But if you increase the complexity of the job and therefore reduce the time available to dedicate to improving flying skills, the result is the result. On top of that, the Air Force doesn't require or reward you for being better than you were yesterday in your primary duty. I 100% agree that everyone should strive to be better than the minimum. Challenging oneself and being the best pilot you can be for your country and coworkers should be reward in itself, but it still competes with, and is secondary to, the other time and tasks the Air Force requires.

I’m sorry, I guess I missed the part where Flynn didn’t admit to lying, then admitted again to lying during another pre-trial hearing to the judge during the plea inquiry? Even when he wanted to change his plea to not guilty he still never said he didn’t lie. What was he fired for again? Something, something, lying to Pence? You can do three things when law enforcement is “interviewing” you: tell the truth, lie, shut the fuck up. I recommend doing the latter. I don’t really want to hear about “entrapment” coming from a career military officer, who was a commander at various levels throughout his career, which meant he probably “interviewed” and gave Article 31 right advisements to people suspected of committing a crime. Since Barr is Trump’s personal lapdog, the dismissal isn’t surprising. It was either that a pardon. I expect to see Roger Stone’s pardon by the end of the year.