Leaderboard

A toast to all who helped find and pop this son of a bitch. 🥃 Well done all!

Yes. IDIQ contracts are more flexible and have a ceiling which is at the high end. As conditions change on the battlefield over the next 7 years the this allows the government to change/add options/weapons/capabilities which may cost more (or less), without re-neogtiating the entire contract. In a recent exercise Sky Warden flew a 9 hour sortie and landed with 600lbs. As Danger pointed out the mission dictates a different CONOP more akin to rapid reaction austere employment. It will fit in a C-17 or C-130 which can rapidly deploy it to the other side of the world in less than 24 hours. Four hours after landing (or less), it is ready to conduct combat operations off dirt or grass strips. Three sensors (which can be federated to the ground party or others), a metric crap ton of weapons (APKWS, Hellfire, Gun, GBU, and CLT delivered munitions), it will offer a smorgasbord of options to the warfighter.

Well it's a disease primarily spread through gay sex, so those three states and the associated metros will cover many/most of the hot spots. Throw Miami in there for the full set. It is curious that during the covid emergency, dating was just one of the many normal human activities that was strongly discouraged by the government, but not protesting... And during this emergency it seems like no one is willing to discourage anonymous gay sex, which is the primary vector of spread... It's almost like public health is just another institution that's become subordinate to progressive social ideology.

A few days later (after the Thud scab, still on reserve). I get another call for a trip and it’s one of the “get to the airport as quick as you can” situations. Trying to help the company out that’s on its ass after 9-11, I give it the college try. They’re apparently out of FOs in DC, so I’m supposed to deadhead to IAD, layover and operate out the next morning. As I scramble to pack my shit and get out of the house, my mindset is – no need to check the scab list, there’s no way I’m getting two in a row. That’s never happened to me. I make my way to IAD as a single. The captain is IAD based, so we’ll meet at the airport the next morning. The van is late in the morning and I get to the terminal at show time minus 15, :45 prior. I’m in terminal C where our a/c is located and Ops is in terminal D. At the time, the only way to get between terminals was a “people mover” otherwise known as a “mobile lounge”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_lounge So, I call over to ops and get the captain. I suggest we meet at the airplane rather than me wasting time coming to him on the people mover. He’s down with that and we meet up after my walk-around with about 20 minutes to go. So, I’m in the soda straw and it’s a bit of a scramble to get going but we leave on time. It’s a pretty quick flight to the NYC area, but we have a little time at cruise to shoot the shit before we get busy. Since I just flew with Captain Napoleon on my last trip and had no speaking opportunities, I’m eager to hear some other opinions on security and how we might change things moving forward in this new airline world of higher threat terrorism, etc. So, I make the following statement: “Hey, I’m pretty curious to hear you views on security. The last guy a flew with was a fucking scab, so we didn’t have any opportunities to talk about that.” Now, when the words, “fucking scab” came out of my mouth, I noticed a stiffening of the spinal column on this guy that caught my attention. It wasn’t an immediate “light bulb” moment, but I started to step back and expand my scan of the situation because it seemed notable. The typical scab MO was to avoid ops, as I had mentioned previously. The normal UAL tradition at the time was to ID one’s self as an ALPA member with a pin on the tie. Usually, guys would add an ALPA pin to their ID so if they were jump-seating, there was no question about their status. So, some of the scabs liked to put some “chaff” (one-off wings from wherever, Navy or USAF wings, etc) on their tie hoping to make it look like an ALPA pin. Absent that, they would just hang their “slick tie” on the opposite side of the cockpit and go tie-less for the flight hoping we wouldn’t notice. So, after the “reaction” to my scab comment, I start looking around. I notice the slick tie hanging with the ID lanyard off the window lock. I also notice the lack of an ALPA pin on the ID. Muthaf……….!!! YGBSM!!! Two in a fucking row??!!! We’re seconds from top of descent and I scramble back to my rolling bag in the back of the flight deck area where I have my scab list stored. I pull that bad boy out and flip through it in record time. There he is. I’m such a low SA dumbass!!! Why the fuck didn’t I check??!! I jump back in my seat and complete the flight. Once I settled down, I was actually kind of okay with the way things turned out because I got to say “fucking scab” to a fucking scab and there wasn’t a thing the prick could do about it. Fuck ‘em. The other notable thing about the flight was we were given the usual clearance (at the time) to fly direct to the Statue of Liberty and then up the Hudson on the west side of the city. No idea if that’s still the normal clearance. We flew right over ground zero. From my side of the a/c, I could see the former tower’s location still smoking, debris on the tops of adjacent buildings, etc. Pretty damn sobering, that’s for sure.

America, fuck yeah! 🇺🇸 I only wish I could have pulled the trigger personally 🍺 Fuck that guy.

I found BQZip’s mom on a corner in the Bronx but I couldn’t zoom out far enough for a screenshot.

First flight at United (for me) after the 9-11 halt to flying. Being a local living in base, I’m on reserve hoping to get some paid days off. The tradeoff is reserve makes it more likely I’ll get stuck with a scab since guys sick out of their trips when they know they’re flying with one. How do they know? We all got issued a book by ALPA with every scab’s name, employee #, DOH, birth date. Normally one only speaks to them when necessary and for checklist responses. Unfortunately, the 1985 strike puts many of their seniority numbers in the left seat of the 757/767. Bottom line is I wasn’t surprised that my first trip back after the attack was with scab. Yayyyy 🙄. On a related subject, while we were grounded, UAL bought a bunch of tasers and planned on equipping the flight deck of each aircraft with two of them. We received a day of training on their use, cockpit self-defense and overall security, etc. The general consensus of the experts was use of maneuvering tactics or depressurization was not valid for a variety of reasons. That was communicated to all pilots and FAs during the training. BTW, the taser thing never came to pass. I get to ops and as usual, the scab has already signed the flight plan and gone to the airplane. They hate hanging ops with the normal pilots since they are quickly identified and publicly shamed. Usually by someone (or multiples) using “clickers” like the pit bosses in Vegas calling the cocktail waitresses. As soon as a scab walks into ops, the “popping” from the clickers starts as the guy does the walk of shame to the flight plan desk. So, I head to the aircraft, do the walk around and find Napoleon sitting in his seat getting ready. 5 foot – nothing, tubby little former Thud driver with a “slick tie” (no ALPA pin). He's spun up because we have one flight to MSP, very short layover and an early go the next morning for a long day. He want’s a later van time in the morning so we don’t have to wake up as early. Whatever. He makes multiple calls to scheduling and eventually decides to take care of it at the hotel. It’s an airport hotel because of the short night so we’re on the shuttle that runs every half hour. WTF was gonna change about that hot-shot? Based on our departure time, we either get to the airport 1:15 prior (too early) or :45 prior and rush a little. “Let’s get the later 05:30 shuttle” he says as he slam-clicks and we head to bed. Next morning I’m in the lobby at 05:20. No sign of fearless leader. 05:30 and I’m holding a full van of hotel guests while I check with the front desk. “Oh, he already checked out and took the 05:00 shuttle”. YGBSM! Yup, I get to the jet and he’s already in his seat again. “05:30 shuttle? Did I misunderstand?” “Ah, I just decided to get out here early.” Says the clown who spent at least 30 minutes on multiple calls the day before trying not to get to the airport early. You’re never surprised by the shit the scabs pull. Never. Now we start with a flight to DEN and we’re turning to somewhere else. After arrival in DEN, I come up from doing the walkaround and he’s standing in first class, trying to see over the tops of the seats and brief the new batch of FAs we picked up in DEN. Since I’ve haven’t gotten to the aircraft with him and been part of this briefing yet, I stick around to listen in. Within a few minutes he begins to describe how, in the event of another 9-11 style takeover attempt, he will be depressurizing the aircraft and maneuvering it as required to “make it tough on the attackers”. The senior FA raises her hand and say, “They told us you guys weren’t going to do that.” “Oh, well it’s happening on this plane, honey. But honestly, if it gets to that point, I don’t think you’ll care because you’ll probably be dead.” My eyes get big. 😲 Holy Shit! That’s gonna go over like a fart in church. She grabs her bag, spins around and says, “Ok, I’m out of here” and heads to the phone on the jet bridge to tell scheduling she’s not flying with this clown. Little Hitler heads back up to the flight deck. All the other FAs file off the aircraft, never to be seen again. I go up, sit down and let him know – “All the FAs are gone.” 😒 “That’s their call, I really don’t care.” Great…. Long day is gonna get longer. I’m pretty pissed about his plan, so I start with: “You managed to arrive at the aircraft before me on our first two legs and brief the flight attendants without me. We’re about to fly for the third time and I’m just now finding out about this. Do you think it might have been a good idea to inform your FO that your plan was to depressurize and maneuver the aircraft contrary to all the guidance we’ve been given?” “Oh, yeah…..well, I would have told you if it came to that.” As I’m thinking, when? When we were in a “4G-negative dive” (Mav?) sucking rubber with a cabin altitude in the 30s? You’re an idiot and I can’t wait for this trip to end. A little while later, a shadow appears in the doorway of the flight deck and I turn around to see a guy in a suit, with a UAL pilot ID on his lanyard. “Hi, I’m Captain Somebody, I’m the Denver Chief Pilot. I understand we have an issue with some flight attendants?” I just point to the little guy and say, “You need to talk to him. “ Then I take a little initiative and suggest, “Maybe you two want to discuss this in private.” The Chief Pilot says, “I think that’s a great idea” and I gladly excuse myself to let them sort it out. In hindsight, it might have been fun to watch the discussion but at the time I was full. They found us some new flight attendants and the trip continues reasonably uneventfully because nothing else comes to mind. The scabs were always the ones you got completely unexpected shit from. If someone did some off the wall shit and you hadn’t bothered to check so see if they were on the list, 99% of the time, they were there.

Not much need to test and certify a crop duster much higher. With a new mission comes new test and certification. Nope, but it does have oxygen and a hose so it is legal to FL250. Not yet, but there is a plan. Luckily the 802 platform is very open and robust. 100% with a fully integrated Garmin avionics/autopilot suite.

What about straight butt-stuff?

Catchy meme not withstanding, I was involved in this thing for a couple years straight and it was pretty damn rigorous.

Big blue doesn't like the ambiguity of platforms that require anything approaching "art" to employ. It doesn't fit with the algorithmic thought process to war planning. What they want is the ability to run an equation: A aircraft x B munitions x C sorties = we win. Basically an operational level JWS. I suspect that is the actual root cause, but also influenced by shrinking training dollars and some other stuff.

I’m happy for all my friends at L3 who will be working hard to deliver a great product and for all my Draco fam who will ride this mighty crop duster into combat 🇺🇸

I'm going to take a wild guess and say a lot of folks on here are too young to remember these guys.

What if I wear a mask on my butt?

That’s how I found it. Literally slammed on my brakes as I drove by it to go back and look.

Just a heads up the 115FW/176FS is sending out confirmation emails of packet receipts. They said they will be getting the paper packets some time this week. No clue on response timeline though.

A Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has been caught flying over farm fields in the Midwest by Google Satellite cameras.

Props to the men and women of the 73d & 54th AS! Maybe this can help save their wing from being shutdown. Yea, that's not how these missions work. We get DIPs just like everyone else does (well, kinda).

I found a AT-802 manual that says the service ceiling is 12,500'. Did they add a pressurization system? What about icing protection? Can it go into IMC?

Is this a second or third time he died? https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13251511/al-qaeda-leader-ayman-al-zawahiri-dies-asthma/

Sounds awesome, I’d love to fly that…but for less than 9 hrs!

For the sake of equality, all butt stuff will be banned until further notice.

Inquiring minds want to know!

The 570's are a pretty strong group at UAL. Good on you, Springer. I was bored at breakfast and looked over my pilot list. As of today, there are 7 active L-UAL scabs at United... the last of which retires in 2025. And there are 88 L-CAL scabs at United... the last of which retires in 2028.

I was a UAL "570." May 17, 1985, Day of Infamy. Didn't cross and went elsewhere.

Would be horrid but for those of you who didn’t know, they don’t count a non-taker as: -Anyone who separated in ‘22 -Anyone who set a separation date So basically it no longer accounts for a bunch of people who might have otherwise stayed meaning these stats are complete sh-t.

Can you imagine playing hide-and-seek for nearly 21 years???

Careful on listening too closely to “experts”. They do things like put B-1s in CAS stacks and say F-35s are just fantastic at CAS. I can saying having flown 3 types of A/G fighters, the A-10 is hands down the most suitable to support ground forces. That’s only if the pilots are well trained. Ukraine probably needs artillery more than anything else.

The public (Textron amplified) announcement of the MTC for the AT-6 happened almost exactly 24 hours prior to their quarterly earnings call, in which the execs talked up the FMS potential and were ‘looking forward’ to the contract award.

They got a contract with the Thais a few months back that was external to the AOW stuff.

Wack a mole, who's next?

Decent thread here. I've read the bill & don't see any pork. (I'll edit this post & stand corrected if someone else sees it.) Puzzling why it didn't pass round 2 tbh.

The timing seems interesting. Wonder if the AT-6 is slated for some FMS contract as a runner-up prize to armed overwatch.

Lol wrong is wrong, glad to see that AFSOC went with a solid contender.

Seems like a pretty standard contract award, $170 mil to kick off the contract execution, with work to begin immediately and running through 2029, leading to delivery of up to 75 aircraft. However, do these kind of contracts usually include a "maximum ceiling value," and is it always this high? $3 Billion seems a lot for fielding less than 100 aircraft.... Related, wonder what the ferry range is on these (couldn't find it online). Saw some mention of the ease of disassembling, loading into a C-17, and reassembling. Was air to air refueling considered in AOW? Did any of the contenders consider it, or is it silly to consider air to air refueling for an aircraft with this kind of mission?

I know it’s scheduled for 10 am Friday but that’s all I’ve got at the moment. The POC’s number is posted on their Bogidope page though and he’s been pretty responsive!

I didn’t want to answer you until it was officially released, which it looks like you found. AFSOC was surprisingly tightlipped so well done to them, but things do leak from other places.

For once I'm not let down by Air Force decision making.

This is a growing sickness in our system. The ability to produce an excellent product or provide a great service seems to die with the founder. Then whoever the shareholder-elected board installs to run the company bleeds it dry one CEO at a time until a shell is left. Each pays themselves in stock options, takes on corporate debt to buy back shares and boost the price a few pennies, then quietly leaves a hundred million bucks richer while the stock works it's way down to zero. And when the consequences of their shitty management finally manifest, they are either long gone or pulling the handle on the golden parachute. Just look at Boeing. Capitalism is being raped by the modern financial system while everyone else argues over bathrooms and abortions. The Democrats have declared war on meritocracy and individualism, both prerequisites to a capitalist system, so that leaves the Republicans to save us. I'm doubtful. Tucker Carlson gets it, but he's a bit quick to embrace a conspiracy and his foreign policy views aren't playing out well either. Who will be our hero?