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Because Slife has REPEATEDLY floated the idea...OFFICIALLY! Slife hates the gunship guys, no shit thinks they are stone cold killers without any morals. When the rest of USAF was standing down for Wokism training the gunship community had another stand down to reflect on all the killing they've done. He is also floating the idea of making the all the gunship kit roll on roll off so he stick in on an MC and they can do CAS on demand. What could possibly go wrong. This is what happens when you put a non-combat cud chewers in charge.

I listened to that 911 call, it's still no evidence the copilot deliberately "jumped" from the airplane...

If you want a good read on the risk and how to mitigate it talk to any AG Flying company out there. Out in East Arkansas a company many years ago used to give a "check ride" that consisted of watching someone do high speed ground runs up and down the strip (to see how they handled the aircraft on the runway) with some take offs and landings thrown in. Most of the AG strips were asphalt parallel to grass. Take off heavily loaded from the asphalt and land on the grass. Grass was more forgiving on landings and WAY better mitigating tire wear given the number of take offs and landing inherent in that business.

South Park FTW

Absolutely no one cares if pilots are T1 vs T38 trained regarding AO transition. It’s interesting to me this would even be asked, but I’m old. I recall being young and UPT was all consuming. Here’s my advice: if you find yourself in a community like SOF which takes from multiple tracks, the moment you arrive nobody will ever care again where you came from. All opportunities are equally available and 100% depend on how you perform starting now. It’s beautiful, embrace it. There will be additional training required to convert pilots into a single seat mentality, but this is a surmountable challenge. CSO ratio question is a nascent problem I expect to grow.

So T-1 dudes will go to the 802 because staffing, not because T-1 training is the right training for a single-pilot mission. We'd be better off leaving them in T-6s longer and giving them T-6B/C training. We could call it UPT 2.5. Oh, and not only will the AF have to compete with the airlines at the end of pilot commitments, they'll have to compete with SEAT and ag jobs. 😆 CalFire and its subs thank you for your 2000 hours in type.

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

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.

Well, he picked that battle… Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Dude deserves to get that flute shoved so far down his throat that it kills him.

Agreed The controllers were quoting the pilot who landed, but there’s a lot unanswered; jumped, fell , pushed, etc. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

That sounds like the perfect mission profile a newly-minted Lt (with no mutual support) who just went through a gutted UPT syllabus…what could go wrong?

Boom.

Damn, this guy nailed it 13 years ago.

How long until they sell out then?

185th in OKC is hiring CSO's if anyone reading this is interested.

What about straight butt-stuff?

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

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.

According to DAL’s chief health officer (impressive med background), the new strain is weaker than the traditional flu. So yeah, everyone move on with life and stop buying into the bullshit.

Had the 'Rona for what I believe was the first time about two months ago. First signs were ear infection type symptoms with a low-grade fever (99ish) by late night. Tested and was negative. Had a hard time sleeping between sweats and chills. The next day I felt weak, exhausted with chills every once in a while. Took Nyquil that night to sleep. Day 2.25, felt noticably better without fever, but then felt tired again by night time. Day 3, felt exhausted again with a mild fever again. All symptoms were controlled alternating Tylenol and Advil. Decided to test again; positive. Day 4, felt like a million bucks with no symptoms. Never really got a cough. Symptoms never came back. My wife's parents both got it on Day 3 and Day 6, assuming from me, and were over it in about 3-4 days as well. My FiL is 86. Overall, I have felt worse with some colds and the flu.

That’s taking the “Captains I don’t want to fly with” list to the extreme!

I don’t know man, how many threads on Baseops lately have devolved into garbage political pissing matches. Was kinda nice to have one dedicated to other funny shit.

Our country is where it is because Mandy votes.

Funny you should post that. Years ago, I'm at Carlos Murphys West in Tucson for a 4th of July soiree. I'm with another A-10 dude and somehow we end up taking to this liberal couple. When they find out we are Hawg drivers, the liberal chick says, "How can you gun down women and children." Well, if ever a softball question was tossed my way, that was it. Just like the movie quote, I replied "It's easy, you just don't lead them as much." The shocked looks on their faces was absolutely priceless. We also ended up drinking with a midget wrestler who was the regional distributor for Coors but that's another story.

I loved AIS and took a lot of good lessons from it back to the community (mainly cold weather altimeter corrections and MAJCOM approved procedures for austere ops). Just like most courses in the AF in that you’ll get out of it what you put into it.

Man, those invites must had had super high scores or there were other factors, I thought my scores were competitive Pilot 99 and PCSM 96 and still got a TBNT, but my undergrad GPA was a 3.2. I feel you, I live in the SE too, a few hours from the 157th FS. It's a huge sacrifice to uproot your life to move closer to base, but it just depends on how bad you want it. It doesn't hurt to apply every where you can, you could get invited to rush and meet some really cool people that might sway your hesitation.

I saw the most recent list of selectees for the AFRC board. There are ALOT of ETPs (they mark each person with an age limit waiver with asterisk) and I even saw one for a fighter squadron. They are rare but do happen if you have good rapport with the squadron.

Really? How many times have You tried to sneak one pass the goalie? He just had a different take on blow jobs. it’s also CA sooo it anything goes.

Why is posting about financial systems trolling?