Leaderboard

SOS is where pilots learn how inept *most* of the AF really is and why everything outside a flying sq is a dysfunctional sh-tshow.

I roomed my my FE on our first deployment; he’d make a paste from Pepto-Bismol and crushed ambien, then brush it onto cigarettes and smoke them. I never tried it myself, but it did appear to create substantial effects.

It's really stunning the amount of infrastructure that has been dismantled or otherwise hobbled in the pursuit of so-called "green" agendas.

I 7-day opted out of SOS. Big Blue wouldn't let me go, but I got "orders" to SOS and it had the 7-day op at the bottom. I checked the box, and it somehow sailed through.

I think I remember loving SOS, but I’m not 100% sure. Everyone else said I had a great time though. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Well it won't matter. The economy is tanking, and it won't be long before the airlines start to furlough. Then the AF will have "solved" their pilot retention program for a couple of years. No need for civilian IPs at that point.

There are of course multiple issues playing into the cost of gas prices, but the lack of effective leadership on the issue means that people are still going to keep looking back at Biden as prices keep going up. The 9,000 unused permits or whatever is a misleading talking point. Just because there is a permit to drill doesn’t mean that land has enough oil or gas to effectively be drilled. That claim is akin to saying to a prospector in 1849, “you have 2,000 acres of land in California, how are you not finding gold!?” The Department of Interior is already working to increase the royalties the government collects on federal land drilling. The permit process is exceptionally slow and makes it very difficult to get permits approved for drilling that may actually be cost effective. Not to mention the generally hostile position towards fossil fuels from this admin, including cancelling pipelines, etc… All of this is going to impact the market, on top of the Ukraine-Russia problems. Can Biden wave a magic wand and bring gas prices down? No. But just like everything else that happens during this administration, there is a complete vacuum of leadership. This admin obviously wants to eventually move America away completely from fossil fuels. I don’t agree with that position at all, but if I were this admin, here is what effective leadership might look like. “American people: my goal is to continue to move this country towards the green and renewable future of energy. But it’s clear the American people are hurting right now. In response to this I am sitting down with US oil companies to find out what we can do to improve US oil production and supply. In addition, I am working to immediately suspend the DOI’s plan for increased royalties and directing them to streamline and trim the existing permit approval process. It’s my mission to make sure American people are able to fill their tanks today while we continue to work towards an alternative fuel future.” Instead, we get told, “fuck you normal people, these prices are all part of the plan to make you switch to something else for your transportation needs. Boo hoo, you’re going broke right now, not my problem. Oh, and btw, quit your whining, I’m going to go beg to the Saudi’s for more oil.” It’s no wonder people slap “I did that” stickers on gas pumps. Has this admin genuinely faced some tough circumstances? Yes. But effective leadership is marked by how you handle those circumstances. You can’t just keep pointing blame at other things and people, take no action, and then expect the people your leading to not start to look to you for why things are so shitty.

You’re trying really hard to ignore the obvious: Trump oversaw a great economy & Biden wrecked it. Regardless of personal feelings on either individual or administration, my simple statement is just clear as day to anyone living here the past 24 months.

I don’t even think it’s important. The GWOT invalidated those schools and the officers they produced. None of their advanced education brought anything worthwhile to the GWOT. Our successes were tactical, and produced by guys & gals in the trenches flying the daily line figuring out a new way to expedite authorities, move stuff, pass gas, engage high speed cars, track squirters, etc. Guys like you. Making the only thing close to a win by pure grit & attrition. Whereas our numerous GWOT failures were produced (militarily at least, I’ll sidestep political finger-pointing) by inexperienced commanders overthinking relatively simple problems. Attendance at these prestigious schools and their prerequisite Exec/ADC jobs is a time demand incompatible with double digit line flying deployments. When these graduates finally showed up down range, it was always in a leadership position however their lack of operational experience and credibility resulted in leading without confidence or operational context; their knowledge of war was theoretical. They didn’t trust their captains to provide that experience, were crippled by a lack of confidence, did not understand how to intelligently take calculated risk, were fixated on irrelevancies while mischaracterizing captains who prioritize mission and ignored irrelevancies as undisciplined, and stuck to poor command decisions out of pride. You couldn’t talk to these people. They just wanted to make it to the end of their tour without anything happening. They despised initiative. The elite IDE/SDE schools and fellowships are no longer prestigious. They produced graduates who simply cannot win, and stifled those who could.

Gas has always been more expensive in Europe. European nations are not, and have never been, energy independent - we have been. The US has all the energy we need within our own borders, and we have historically been a net exporter of energy. We purchase from others for good strategic and other economic reasons. ALL of the Trump stimulus was bi-partisan, and ALL of the shut down happened under Trump. COVID was under control when Biden took the reigns. Biden's stimulus was fully partisan and had zero support from the right - it was a democrat giveaway. Here is an economist credibly arguing that inflation is about double what it would be, save for Biden's extra stimulus: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-inflation-economy-what-you-need-to-know/id1570872415?i=1000558019343 Agreed, but our current economic conundrum is not solely due to the COVID crisis. There were other mistakes dating all the way back in 2008 (i.e. not allowing a full crash to happen). Latent effects from that event have still not fully cleared the system, and someday they must, lest we continue hurtling down the economic black hole we're staring into. Banks had (and have) stopped foreclosing on properties that defaulted during the 2008 recession. What is the net effect of this??? Spoiler alert: inflation. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-bubble-era-home-mortgages-are-a-disaster-waiting-to-happen-2019-02-25?mod=article_inline "In 2012, just 2% of all these delinquent borrowers had not paid for more than five years. Two years later that number had skyrocketed to 21%. Why? Mortgage servicers around the country had discontinued foreclosing on millions of delinquent properties. Homeowners got wind of this and realized they could probably stop making payments without any consequences whatsoever. So they did." https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-ghost-of-the-housing-bubble-still-haunts-the-home-mortgage-market-2020-01-15 "By mid-2010, mortgage servicers around the nation had a strategy of supporting housing markets by not placing expensive foreclosed properties on the active market. They had also begun to take the next step of cutting back on foreclosing long-term delinquent properties." "As I have reiterated many times, mortgage servicers have consistently maintained this strategy of not foreclosing on jumbo mortgages. What seems crystal clear is that the vast majority of long-term delinquent jumbo mortgages have not been foreclosed and are still outstanding. Many jumbo borrowers have not paid for years. As a result, the jumbo-mortgage market now is a ticking time bomb."

Well, we’re below when Trump was last president… Is Biden to blame, partially. Is Trump to blame, partially. But here’s the problem—Biden is president and the Dems have full control over the federal legislation process. So what is their plan?

SOS is a joke. I was in the “married” flight, and we placed #2 overall despite nobody giving a shit. Flight got 4 DGs and two went to nonners (In a majority pilot flight) because our nonner Flt/CC despised pilots. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's more than just gas prices...

Can’t wait for the shitstorm in 24 months as everyone there takes a 50% pay cut. No one in their right mind should stay there over a spot at the big 6, or even Spirit/Frontier/JBlue.

Heard from a Marine fighter pilot - "A no-go pill, a few beers, and a couple of smokes and you're in a whole other world."

How about that new contract at the AA WOs that signed this week…pretty substantial pay increase for a regional bubba, even though it’s apparently only good for the next 2 years. Some seem to be of the opinion that it’s a brilliant chess move by AA management—trying to stem the bleeding of its regional pilots to other carriers, while simultaneously hedging the bet that if they file BK in the next 2 years it’ll void the contract anyways. Others seem to focus more on the “rising tide raises all boats” theory. Not an expert, so am curious to hear what some of the airline folks on here think about it. Have a CJO with them and plan to live in one of their domiciles so obviously I’m watching this situation pretty close. Could either be a brilliant move, or could be the catalyst that causes its regional side of the business to eventually implode if they file BK. Either way, seems like a bold (er, risky?) move.

Negatory does bring up valid CFs, and perhaps his annoyance stems from people ignoring those CFs in conversation (intentionally or not). But the RC absolutely is Biden and his policies. He has fucked up royally, but it’s disingenuous to say nothing else has contributed to our economic problems and helping increase the effects of Biden’s fuck ups.

Yeah, except these were the gas prices under Trump, so I'm not buying it...

Another well informed take that boils down an entirely flawed economic policy among all us government since 2001 into simplistic red vs blue. It’s everyone’s fault here. How much of gas prices are due to domestic economic policies dictated by the executive branch? Is the US President causing gas to be $6-9 across Europe as well? Oh wait this is global? That’s not good for my narrative or funny gas pump stickers. Or is there a potential that a war in Ukraine + restarting a global economy after a massive overreaction due to COVID + a literal cartel (OPEC) have a lot more to do with energy prices? Also, reminder that there are a surplus of drilling permits (about 10 years worth) available by the federal gov that are unused. What’s the policy you think that would solve this? https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/spending/articles/a-look-at-gas-prices-around-the-world Second, how much of inflation is due to quantitative easing? Reminder that the Trump admin effectively printed and threw over $3T into the economy in 2020 to prop up the stock market. 2 of the 3 stimuluses came from GOP leadership, but giving that free socialism money to everyone probably had no effect on inflation. At least no effect we should talk about. The bottom line is that neoliberal economic policy, which both parties fully support, is driving us off a cliff. Unlimited economic growth in a limited society (actually approaching contracting) isn’t possible. It’s time to raise the interest rates to 6-9% and deal with our poor decisions we have made thinking we could avoid natural economic cycles. The real marker in failure economically was October 2019 when the government saw that quantitative tightening (the right call) made the stock market go down and abandoned all logic to maintain the illusion of a green DJIA. Then COVID happened and the whole of US government lost their collective minds.

I could give you my own opinion but I wouldnt do it as well as this guy who is an actual attorney and works on use of force cases. There are several facets of Ashli's killing that are irregular with contemporary norms for use or force. https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/569827-justified-shooting-or-fair-game-shooter-of-ashlii-babbitt-makes-shocking/amp/ My point with the comparison to BLM, is if we are going to scrape through the dirt every time an unarmed person is shot by police I support of a democratic narrative, we need to do that in all cases. Not just ones that support our political party.

Meg Ryan was the hottest chick in the orginal

Fixed that for you. Nobody fired randomly into the crowd. A reasonable, and quite forgiving, threshold for (proxy) self-defense was established by the officer and she found herself in position to be first to test it out. She was very deliberately targeted and she alone suffered the appropriate consequences. Nothing random about it. A completely disingenuous comparison as there is no reasonable expectation of threat to life. Do our enemies know that they can just waltz onto Whiteman and steal a nuke because SF can't actually do anything about it? It's just trespassing and theft, right?

Wasn't she part of the same crowd that: Wanted to hang the vice president Physically assaulted capitol police in order to gain access to the capitol. Sprayed bear spray/pepper spray at police trying to keep them out Failed to comply with instructions to stay back/disperse with law enforcement who are sworn to protect the capitol grounds and members of Congress/staff. Tragic as her death is, the police were doing thier job.

They let flight attendants use KCM … so why not

As an Air Force reservist and veteran he has a responsibility to ask about what happened with Ashley Babbit, and I've yet to see one person on the commission ask why a woman/veteran was murdered by a federal entity on capital grounds and no justice was served.