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Texas, Florida and a few other states are a few weeks into “opening things up” and so far so good. The sky isn’t falling and the death rate has peaked. Far stretch from the doom and gloom we heard about from certain people. If someone has a problem with it then they are welcome to stay at home. Michigan on the other hand? The ‘queen’ there is asking for a rebellion.

You mean an SII that says "stop f*cking up" doesn't actually do shit?

Like midgets!

Just read a description describing the petty bureaucratic imps trying to increase the scope of their powers at the expense of the Constitution due to Kung flu: The Karenwaffe. I'm probably late to the party in knowing of this one, but I laughed out loud just now reading it.

Preview of what’s to come in the first panels... dark ideas bubbling up late at night from the dark corners of a HQ building...

This is the most terrible justification in the entire philosophical pantheon.

I'm triggered by the General's hairline. As an O-4, I find this offensive and indicative of my future (well, not the star).

An excellent resource for any military pilot, and it's been well known (and used) for decades. And it's free. https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/00-80t-80.pdf

I just stole it from that Lt Col on FB I mentioned. So I can't justify it's accuracy. But she was working this issue on staff so I'm dangerously assuming she has some sort of accurate data to work from. I do have at least one female friend who was denied entry to pilot training for height and she never seemed that short to me. Maybe 5'4"? It also sounds like a lot of people were not approved waivers that should have been but that's speculation on my part.

I find that very difficult to believe. I’ve flown with dudes that couldn’t have been over 5’3” all the way up to 6’6”+ in a variety of jets and way more than 40% of the women I know fit within those bookends. Admittedly, I’m from the upper Midwest with a bunch of Viking shield maidens running around, but that figure seems crazy low.

PM sent and my mom said my personality is beautiful and that's all that matters.

Returning soon to the not-so-sensical skies... heroes, villains... and all that makes the Force what it is. Cheers, Zero

I don't want to. That, according to my understanding of being possessed of the gift of American citizenship is enough of a reason. Mainly because I despise being told that I must according to the whims of buearucrats (sp?). Our administrative state is UFB. Our duly elected federal representatives and executive branch have not passed nor enacted a law done IAW our Constitutional system. Therefore, I don't have to. States may vary IF they've passed a valid law IAW their state charter/constitution AND, if needed, the Supreme Court decides in the state's favor.

Sure is a good gig if you manage to be in the group who decides what that greater good is without the citizenry voting to decide that fairly important question. Would suck to be on the outs with that group.

Re-edit: Double post. Self administered Q3 and additional baseops.net training completed.

Beg to differ. Americans have a history of givIng up “freedoms” for the greater good. I’m old enough to remember when seatbelt use became universal. You don’t hear too many people today arguing against seatbelts, but the debate at the time was somewhat similar to what’s going on today. “Why does the government care how I keep myself safe in my own vehicle?” etc. Well, as it turns out, society as a whole is better off when there aren’t needless deaths and emergency room visits. So guess what? You lost your ‘Murican birthright to choose to go unbelted and somehow we managed to avoid becoming a police state. Banning public smoking would be a more recent example of the same concept. If your individual actions have a negative impact on the public as a whole, you shouldn’t be surprised to see those actions curtailed in some way shape or form. Putting on a seatbelt, not smoking in public, and yes, wearing a mask during a pandemic has everything to do with being a polite, civic minded human being and nothing to do with your government going rogue. As far as justification for putting people out of work, don’t throw me in with that camp. I happen to agree with your assessment that we’ve flattened the curve and it’s time to go back to work. I won’t naively argue there aren’t some looking to further their particular goals on the back of a hobbled economy, but I might suggest there are far fewer “libs” espousing that rhetoric than OAN would have you believe. It ain’t just republicans out of work and hurting and the VAST majority of Americans are wishing things would get going sooner rather than later. Maybe my idea of logical thought is different than yours but I see widespread mask usage as KEY to providing the public the confidence to do just that. Regardless of what any politician says, nothing is going to really “reopen” without a public willing to put themselves into bars, restaurants, shops, and airliners (the original topic of this thread). So even if you believe masks are ineffective (and you’d be wrong), isn’t it worth a little “theatre” if it gets people back into public spaces and the economy up and running?

Pretty "*cheap" to keep, from a *certified perspective anyways. I've owned a Warrior II in the past and now own a post-'72 Arrow II (retractable 200hp full back seat version of the hershey bar PA-28 sub-variant) going on 8 years. PM me if interested on more details, not gonna get into the reasons I own the type over other types on here. All that said, I'm no type-cult member. My reasons for owning the type are rather transactional. If your mission is 2 seats or less, I'd forget these spam cans and go experimental every day of the week and twice on sunday. In the interest of brevity I'll digress on the reasons. You can PM me for those too. Good luck!

Zero, you're still one of my favorite military/aviation cartoonists. You always reminded me of the great Bob Stevens (whose most famous collection of aviation cartoons is "If You Read Me, Rock The Tower"), whom I read a lot of growing up in a mil aviation family. Hope life is treating you well.

Look what happens when you actually log in and make a comment rather than just lurking all the time! The Crate died in 2009 when it got hacked and I just didn't have the time to try to get it off of life support and back in the air. I restarted another blogsite over at Thunder and 30mm via wordpress (because any spare money goes to one kid in college and my young 'un in softball, so it's free and that's for me) https://thunderand30millimeter.wordpress.com/ There's a facebook mirror for all things A-10 and CAS specific under the same name as well. The Sandy stories are there, plus a Walking Dead fan-fiction I started (and am trying to get going again) that walks through the initial zombie apocalypse via a group stationed at DM when it all goes down-- there's a small Facebook page for it that has some of the art I did for the story as well. On the Facebook, I've kept some cartoons going via a couple of pages: my personal stuff is over at Crate of Thunder Productions-- some youth sports cartoons and caricatures, and starting to compile my nose art / A-10 ladder door collections. With eDodo going the way of the bird it was named for in 2009 also, I've kind of putzed around with a Dodo heritage idea on Facebook as well (The Dodo Campaign: Underground Commentary, Extinction and Resurrection); some cartoons occasionally going in there, including another hair-brained idea to revisit Stract Wars... as if I've got time for that! So, in short, once the Crate's own site fell apart, I scattered all over the place. But it's free, so there's that. Cheers, Zero

You're going to have to do something more to entice me to come back out of retirement... again.

Honestly this is an extremely common sentiment in this community. Every year I have to have a couple of serious conversations with dudes who broke down at work over some variation of this mentality. The "glory days" of flying your dad experienced are fleeting and today's air force is changing. No easy way to make you feel better but I will say RPAs have some huge advantages: You don't have to deploy for months at a time to get the same mission done. Being able to go home, grab a drink and netflix with your SO every night is an underrated advantage over missing out on your personal life for half a year at a time, even more so if you will have a family. You will utilize new equipment and weapons that actively receive R&D funding...unlike the 20+ year old systems on manned aircraft I used to fly. Unit specific, but you will still face very challenging mission sets and upgrades to train for...I've had plenty of "I should've been a fighter pilot" types completely get their ass kicked in training. I know dudes whose footage was shown to the president, and were part of things that will never be declassified. Their parents are none the wiser, and that's okay.

Really? Last I checked people give up individual freedoms all the time for the “greater good” by joining the military.