Leaderboard

Uh, Prosuper, I uh, talked to the pilot. He was smoking, he was coughing, he didn’t smell very good and he was wearing a tight blue flight suit. He didn’t speak much English but I think he said they would be leaving on time.

But it *is* a specific aircraft silhouette -- a Flanker -- and even if it weren't the front-line fighter of our peer-state enemies, it would be in violation of the "rule" in that it *does* depict a specific airframe. It should have never made it past the initial design review for that to begin with. Of course it wasn't intentional, but the fact that the mistake made it through multiple levels of review is what is disturbing. Even worse, the apathy shown toward fixing the error (and, bizarrely, the doubling down on the mistake and digging in of heels to *not* fix it) is a *real* cultural problem, yes. In a culture that is steeped in symbolism -- as in, nearly everything the military does has symbolic meaning -- having an organizational emblem with Flankers overflying the graves of dead American soldiers and a folded American flag is a Russian or Chinese propaganda victory if there ever was one. We should *all* find that disturbing and offensive and massively disrespectful to those who've given the ultimate sacrifice, the very people that organization purports to treat with dignity, honor, and respect. Would you be okay if, say, the "mistake" was putting a folded Chinese flag on there instead of an American flag? Or if a casket came back with a Liberian flag over it by accident? Ludicrous. I guess "excellence in all we do" is just as empty a saying as "Dignity, Honor, Respect".

My suspicion is it wasn't an issue on the manufacturers part. The exact silhouette shown (depending on your browser / search engine) would often be the first response on a search of "fighter jet silhouette" The issue is laziness and a lack of effort from the Air Force Historians, Air Force Historical Research Agency, and The Institute of Heraldry. Each of which had a role in creating this propaganda...albeit, I suspect unintentionally. As Hacker said - their defending of the patch now is the larger issue. Like whining in a debrief. There should be no tolerance for defense of such ignorance.

Just tell mortuary affairs that you are a lesbian former Russian transgender male who came to America to transition to a dolphin and the sight of that patch triggers feelings of oppression to your gay/trans/aquatic lifestyle at the hands of the Russian patriarchy and it’ll change in about 5 minutes.

if you think that with how much the left HATES trump that they WONT DO ANYTHING TO DEFEAT HIM (mail in fraud), then you're an idiot. truly. sending a mail in ballot to every registered voter in the country has never been done. there is no STUDY. absentee voting is not the same as MASS mail voting to every voter. Americans need to get their ass to the polls, stand in line w/ their masks on, 6 feet, and vote.

Plus, there's this great vis-recce powerpoint making the rounds. pa_vis_recce-2.pptx

It’s a few years old, but I finally got around to watching the Senna documentary on Netflix (I believe?) and it was well worth the 2 hours of runtime. Good insight into the transition that F1 went through during the late 80’s, early 90’s.

I’d say it just adds to the list. Some Lt Gen just sent me another survey to fill out; I love more material. I actually think the cultural “only pilots need to know if that’s a Russian airplane” is equally disturbing.

yeah nice try bud, not two months before a presidential election. people are easily capable of standing in line to vote.

To be fair, she get's a pass...

Isn't this the same post office that advises people not to send cash via the mail because it's not safe?!?

There’s a disorder called Face Blindness that keeps people from recognizing different faces. These people (maybe including brickhistory) simply have Flanker Blindness and don’t understand why the rest of us would care. edit: someone please post the Facebook link

No, it was a generic "you", not *you* specifically. Really I meant "The AF". This has been the organizational emblem of USAF Mortuary Affairs Operations since 2014. Is 6 years not long enough for the AF to un-fornicate a logo? Is it incompetence or apathy? Or worse? Literally a symbol of "what's wrong with the Air Force."

Should have been the triangles, triangles with the triangle notch cut out in the back, or even the ANG-style generic aircraft. YGBSM that multiple Intel weenies can’t even deal with WEFT. We’ve been ing teaching it for decades...

In other news. Orange man not only stealing mailboxes but cars and roads so people don't vote!

agreed. but you're asking for it with a mass voter mailing program. much harder to commit fraud when most americans go to the polling booth. also, i haven't heard one compelling reason to change the voting process with two months to go since the election. COVID is a known entity at this point and we know how to NOT catch it. Masks, distancing, open air spaces. easy.

This. The federal government will not relinquish control over the entire election process once they have it. Add it to the list of programs that the federal government mishandles on scales that are hard to measure. Like the USPS... The Dems will get what they want on this one. But, it is going to bite them. It will be a complete clusterfuck just like Trump has said. We will not know the results for months and the mistakes, miscounts, lost ballets, fraud and the rest will end up in the court system being litigated for years. Trump will then be accused of not wanting to leave office. I can't wrap my mind around smart people here actually advocating for the federal government to take control over our voting rights. IT IS THE PROCESS THAT PROTECTS US FROM THE GOVERNMENT. How can anyone seriously think they can pull this off regardless of your political leanings? There are endless threads on this very website detailing many of the things that the federal government mishandles. They won't get this one right either. It will be a disaster of epic proportions.

Ammo? No.

True story, I'm at OAMS and I have a new guy I send out to C-5 to ask a pilot if everything is good and if they will be leaving on time. He went out to a IL-76 . Yes knowing the correct MDS is important, you can't park 4 KC-10s in the same space as 4 KC-135's.

Just because a process has "worked" on a small scale, does not give proof that its a secure model. Just because it has 'worked' has ZERO correlation to its susceptibility to fraud. "It worked" does not mean "it cannot be taken advantage of to win by any means necessary". Self checkout lines work. Is that going to stop a desperate crowd from stealing shit when the time comes?

They've already taken a knee....right after stealing (raiding) usps's coffers

First, this exact thing is done in several states and has been done successfully for decades. Second, few new states are conducting all-mail elections in 2020. Most are using existing absentee voting systems, which the President likes and personally utilizes, to allow more people to vote via absentee ballot given the raging pandemic. Four new states are doing all-mail elections this year, and only one (Nevada) is even remotely a battleground state. So you’re in luck! The thing you are against isn’t happening almost anywhere meaningful in terms if who becomes the next President. Some states are mailing absentee ballot applications to voters or allowing more groups to assist voters in obtaining absentee applications, which again, is different than all-mail voting. The President seems ok with this too, or at least his campaign is...see this example of Trump campaign materials from North Carolina, which includes an absentee ballot request form.

Considering how many dead people got stimulus checks...I'm not sure just shotgunning ballots to the last known address of registered voters is a winning strategy.

states are responsible for voting. not a mass federal voting program.

According to Mort Affairs and PA, that is just your privilege showing

Here's an email that was previously sent back in January to a number of different recipients, both at Dover, the AF Historian and heraldry folks, as well as CSAF. Apparently none of those folks are concerned about the symbolism of Flankers flying over our military dead and our folded flag enough to fix it.

*super angry that a 14N can’t tell a USAF single engine from Russian twin-engine*

Probably the formation of Flankers at the top. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I wish they bring back Warrant Officers to be filled by the E-6 who is shit hot on the flight line, knows his job inside and out and makes the right decisions that produce sorties. The problem with the good troops is that a E-8/E-9 above him knows he is the go to guy and they keep him that position making money for the wing and move the has been's to other jobs that allow them to career progress and somehow get promoted to E-9. In the enlisted world job title counts more than war fighter when it comes to their board score, the more job titles the better it looks. Doesn't matter they fired you from all those positions and moved him somewhere else, and nobody wrote the guy a honest EPR. I'm used to be standing tall in front of the CC desk after writing honest EPR's for guys I moved to the snack bar, mops and brooms, and is assigned to every aircraft wash. I was foolishly thinking being honest would keep these disasters from ever getting into a slot that would make other good troops miserable. I was wrong. This allows a TSgt a career path that a E-9 can't torpedo because if TSgt leaves his life gets harder. When I was in MSgt was tested for and I studied my butt off to make it, I hear it is now a board score and you got play the game. Being a WO1 these good troops would be where the AF needs them training and supervising young Airmen while forgoing the hyphenated American pray breakfast face time and backstabbing for the Senior Rater endorsement. But we all know the AF will not do it because enlisted Jesus doesn't want to salute these guys.

The AF finds new ways to screw me! Thanks Obama!

So i spoke to a Maj at Randolph (I think he is the director of training) but he did confirm that those not going to IFS will be issued uniforms once we get there. He also pretty much said that they were not ready for 2.5 (no finalized syllabus, no info to incoming students, etc). He also told me that if there were any questions he wanted us to call them and ask because there is a good chance it is something they haven't thought of. For example, he just found out today that no one has received reporting instructions so those should be going out. He was just speaking of Randolph, but maybe some of it could be applicable to other bases

Low level flying in the supersonic B-58

As soon as someone explains where this rampant voter fraud the orange one rants about is coming from.

*Cliff Claven voice to ON: As a former reserve USAF historian, official unit emblems/patches cannot display specific MWS (there are historical, and approved exceptions from WWI/WWII). The no specific aircraft rule is why we have the goofy triangular thingie on various badges, i.e., ABM badge and wings, et al, and on various squadron patches. Most likely, this isn't/wasn't designed with specific silhouttes of a Flanker, just either a bad drawing sent to the manufacturer by the unit originator and/or a bad production of said design. Is this really what we have to worry about today in "What's wrong with the Air Force?"