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He’s an idiot Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

I think everyone would have been better off if he had resigned. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

You know part of me wondered if this was a case of pilot finding copilots line badge in his wife's underwear drawer.

From the article " I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military." That quote belongs in the hypocrisy thread

Here's one of many ways to handle a typical USA Hag: At McDonalds This Morning. 'I know I shouldn’t have done this, but I was in the McDonald’s drive-through this morning and the lady behind me leaned on her horn and started mouthing something because I was taking too long to place my order. So when I got to the first window I paid for her order along with my own. The cashier must have told her what I'd done, because as we moved up she leaned out her window and waved to me and mouthed "Thank you.", obviously embarrassed that I had repaid her rudeness with kindness. When I got to the second window I showed them both receipts and took her food too. Now she has to go back to the end of the queue and start all over again.'

Your position is reasonable except maybe the “most, if not all” part (otherwise I agree completely with your statement). Reference two posts later… Seems there is no shortage of citizens willing to flock to the fringes these days.

I keep hearing the term "word salad" with regards to the current VP. That video was a word salad bar with no sneeze guard.

No. That was super douchey to watch.

Not buying it was a suicide jump. He just happened to wait until they had a gear issue to decide to end it ? More likely is he fell out trying to see the gear especially since he was brand new and didn’t know what he was doing.

I highly recommend this book to get an idea of what China has been doing for the last 23 years: unrestricted.pdf (oodaloop.com) Unrestricted Warfare, written by two Chinese Colonels back in 1999. I call this a "no respect bunt." After coaching youth baseball and softball for the last 10 years, I see two scenarios where teams bunt-- the classic move the runner into scoring position by sacrificing your batter, or the "no respect bunt." In other words, I know you can't defend this, so I'm going to keep doing it and putting my runners on. These two Colonels believe that it doesn't matter if they lay out their strategy-- we can't defend against it. The kicker is the date that this was published... realize that they've been executing this gameplan for two decades. "I'm going to TELL you that I'm going to bunt... and you still won't / cant stop it." Whether you agree with it or not, it's a very interesting read-- elements of Sun Tzu's "know your enemy..." They've done their homework on us for sure, and I would argue that they know us far better than we admit to knowing ourselves. For me, the most eye-opening part of this book is that they appear to have taken a strategy from our Cold War playbook, and I'm honestly afraid that we're unwittingly playing right into their hands-- spending ourselves into irrelevancy. They discuss the dependency on technology extensively, and that's coming from a late-90s perspective when we were still discussing Desert Storm as the game-changer of warfare. The argument can be made that one of the tactics we successfully employed in the Cold War was forcing the Soviet Union to collapse under the weight of its attempt to keep up with us militarily and economically. Trying to keep up with us militarily ultimately collapsed them because their economy could not keep pace with our ability to spend. The opposite perspective can come into play there as well in that we saw a perceived (or actual) advance in their capability, and we were able to out-produce them, which seems to be a common play today. We see China produce a handful of "fifth gen" airplanes (let's call it 7% the size of our 5th Gen fleet), and our military industrial complex spins into high PRF and proclaims that the sky is falling and we've lost our edge, leading for new calls to "outspend" our adversaries. That's not just the AF-- I've seen many articles detailing the "fact" that China has the largest navy in the world now. But when you look at those numbers, you see that they only have 3 carriers, none of which are nuclear powered and must be refueled every six days. I'm not discounting them outrightly, but I am contending that there's A LOT more than just numbers. But it depends on what your agenda is with respect to how you interpret those numbers. There are hints in this publication that this is a deliberate strategy on the part of Chinese to get us to succumb to our own tendencies. Remember that one of the tenants of Sun Tzu is to win without fighting. They don't NEED to beat us militarily, but if they can get us to collapse under the weight of our own natural tendencies, that's perfect for them. The CCP sits on a precarious perch of their own, as has been discussed extensively in this thread. Unrestricted Warfare shows that if they can engage across the spectrum, and you can take this battle plan and see that they've done just that for the last twenty years, then they can attain a significant advantage without competing toe to toe. China also has the advantage of playing the long game-- that's culturally significant throughout history. We update our approach every four years, and you can make the argument that we have a difficult time of seeing past the next election cycle, be that one or two years depending on the level of office.

This war and the number of casualties Russia is sustaining will change their society for years to come. Latest DoD estimates released yesterday and reported in the Washington Post suggest Russian has sustained 80,000 killed or wounded in just SIX MONTHS. As a frame of reference the United States suffered 160,000 casualties (58,000 deaths), over TEN years during the Vietnam War. Russian casualties from their invasion of Afghanistan were at 15,000 killed and 35,000 wounded, again over ten years. Afghanistan losses caused great debate in their society which ultimately caused them to quit and leave. It is important to keep in mind Russia's total population is about 1/3 of the United States and these losses will impact a far larger portion of the population...even as Putin tries to cover up those losses. More and more it looks like Putin has bet his future on the outcome which I hope we and others are using as we calculate and employ our strategy and response.

How he and Lloyd still have jobs after the global embarrassment that was our NEO of AFG is beyond me. If the 2024 Republican nominee doesn’t play reels of Afghans falling off the C-17, 24/7, they don’t deserve to be President.

Clearly she’s referencing the end of the Sun’s lifecycle when it collapses from a red giant into a black dwarf. And I’ll be damned if I’ll ever support a politician that subscribes to the brown dwarf theory!

"you searched my safe? after I specifically asked you not to?" - Michael Scott - DJT

FIFY

I mean even if at this point it’s just pulling together some boneyard parts birds, this is the kind of thing we (State and DOD) should be trying to put into effect. If we had commonality of equipment I’d be all for letting the Ukrainians run up an owe me tab in the AMARC. We don’t, so let’s play the you be friends to my friends and I’ll be forever appreciative card, and make some deals. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not A-10s but maybe Su-25s… https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/ukraine-situation-report-rumors-spin-around-macedonian-su-25-delivery?fbclid=IwAR1-s2XyICYO5qZz0ZP03_U1f35In4kXv8z_rhmIDpViV-AKsRX718PgTj0 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Well if your pre-op astigmatism is listed as 3.25 by your surgeon, then you would need a waiver to be FC I qualified, but that won't kick in until you get re-evaluated by the AF. Until then, it's just between you and a LASIK/PRK surgeon if that's the way you choose to go. Happy to help. Keeps my old brain going in these retirement days. Cheers, Steve

Yeap. There should be a ticket system to get released in a swap. Kinda like at the BX barber shop. Or here is a good idea. Don't go to Russia with illegal drugs. Homie (Vlad) don't play that. I really don't know what happened to our "leadership" but it definitely feels like the priorities of our Federal government are out of touch with reality. What exactly do we get for them? How much money are we spending trying to get them home. How many homeless people took a dump last night on the streets of So Cal (mucho if you're curious, those aren't beans). I don't know what happened to pronouns. Apparently those are a big deal too. I'm not cool anymore. 😕

Top Pakistan Taliban leader killed in Afghanistan roadside attack (msn.com) Maybe "something" fell off a Reaper landing at the side of the road. "Now that would be shear artistry"

I’m sure the average tax payer couldn’t care less. We as a nation stopped caring about fiscal responsibility a long time ago. Watches are a drop in the bucket compared to the other crap the DOD wastes money on. Think we are ever getting those HIMARS launchers back from UKR?

Congrats dudes!!!

Months, not years.

"Inflation Reduction Act"

I’m sure the taxpayer is thrilled.

Related to my current situation:

It's almost as if man-made climate change is nothing but a made-up boogeyman to keep people distracted from the real ills of the world.

Posting boomer political memes (left or right) is highly correlated with your friends unfollowing you on Facebook. Nobody wants to see that shit, go back to rooting for a sports team or get a retirement hobby. People tying their egos to the actions of a politician will destroy America. Hate China instead.

Had a good buddy at UPT that was Guard SIE (self-induced elimination) and he ended up staying with his unit but just just in a different career field. Knew of another guy in our Reserves batch that got almost to the end (or might have even gotten wings; can’t remember exactly), but never found a home (he was unsponsored) unit. Think he just walked away, but no idea if he was put on IRR or not. As @brabus said, talk to your squadron and see what your options may be. If you’re a Reservist, your hiring squadron doesn’t technically own you (the 340th FTG does) until you’re through PIQ, so I think it likely requires a little more work and coordination. Either way, it’s a lot of moving pieces, but can usually be somewhat flexible, depending whether you’d rather stay or go.

Good video Clark— thanks for posting. It’s nice to see actual experts discussing the big issues instead of some computer-voice-overs created by DCS gamers claiming to be credible sources of information. One major item missing from the discussion, as always though, is actual A-10 expertise and experience. Here are my thoughts on the video, for what it’s worth… this discussion and a couple bucks will get you a halfway decent cup of coffee… this is gonna be a long read, so you might as well grab a cup of joe before settling in… Carrol and Herzinger hit on a key concept in the discussion of transferring ANY aircraft to Ukraine— the proficiency and ability to sustain the assets logistically. Even if we’re discussing F-16s, which fit the billet of multi-role needs of that nation, comes with a hefty price tag in terms of ground-based requirements. They jokingly refer to a HAZMAT program to deal with the hydrazine, to which the Ukrainians would probably scoff, but those are long-term, very real considerations. Do they have fuel trucks that can hook up to these fighters? What munitions are you giving them? How many crew chiefs and specs are you sending to get trained in the US? ANY transfer of aircraft in terms of hardware of this caliber will not produce an immediate effect on the battlefield, and in fact, as I mentioned briefly, can very well be a net DRAIN on their forces as they try to sustain something that is 100% foreign to them. Multi-role works best for smaller air forces— they HAVE to live in that realm. Hell, multi-role is a cornerstone of our programs, but I don’t believe that EVERY aircraft needs to be born and employed under that mantra. We have that luxury as a force that we can have specialization— though the budgeteers might disagree, we as an American Air Force have that ability whereas others do not. You could say the same for our approach to CSAR— we have the luxury and budget to dedicate such forces to the mission. “Give us an aircraft solution similar to the HIMARS.” That’s just not going to happen with western equipment for the reasons listed above and in their presentation. Now, back to the A-10. These guys are qualified experts in their field— Carrol world-renowned. But not in the A-10. If you think that MANPADs make brick walls and close off airspace to A-10s, then you’re not familiar with the Hog’s current suite of defensive systems, tactics, or weapons availability. If you throw out pics of KC’s battle-damaged A-10 and say that this proves the A-10’snvulnerabilities, then you don’t know the context of that situation. Anyone know how many passes that formation made prior to that hit? 5. Down the same ‘chute, same angle, while carrying 4x Mk-82s. Well that doesn’t sound smart now does it? It’s what they had to do. US forces were pinned down across the river by Iraqi forces under a bridge escarpment, and the only way to hit those Iraqi’s was to come in at a relatively low angle, from one direction, multiple times trying to get gun and rocket passes under the bridge with effective effects based on that battlefield terrain. A-10 defensive systems were not automatic at that time, and they became predictable due to the requirements of the troops on the ground. That hit aligns pretty well with the historical averages going back to Desert Storm— no A-10 has ever been hit on its first pass, and it’s usually around that fifth or sixth attack in the same area that gets them. The jet wasn’t carrying precision munitions that might have allowed for more standoff at that time either— they were A-10As, and precision engagement wouldn’t start for a few more years. The point is, in every discussion about hits that the A-10 has taken over the years, there’s A LOT of context required. The experiences over the Republican Guard in 1991 come up often in this realm, but without getting into that right now, the discussion needs to start with the question, “Why were A-10s operating in that environment at that time that led to those losses?” It’s a great story that adds so much more to the understanding of what led to those hits. William Smallwood does a great compilation in his book, “Warthog—Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War.” A stat you don’t see thrown around often— did you know that we lost just as many F-16s as A-10s during Ops Desert Shield and Desert Storm? Which brings me to the point of the SU-25s getting their “asses handed to them,” so why would anyone want something similar? I haven’t seen the numbers lately, but during the first three months of the war, SU-25 loss rates were comparable to all other fast-movers. If you classify the Frog as its own entity vs all other fighters, you’ll see that more traditional fighters were lost than -25s. Personally, since such a distinction is made between the Frog and all other fighters in terms of survivability, I think this is a fair comparison that proves that the Frog is being lost at a slightly lower rate than other, faster fighters. I also am not impressed by the tactics, training, or the apparent lack of effective equipment on the Frogs for that matter. If you read up on the SU-25SM (Russia’s “best” Frog), you’ll see that it boasts some pretty impressive equipment— on paper, it looks like it’s on par with US gear. But videos of Frogs in action shows that either this equipment (such as automatic counter measures) either doesn’t work, or the pilots don’t operate them correctly. So I think that it’s a natural attempt, but ultimately incorrect comparison between the battlefield employment of SU-25s to A-10Cs. The quote that the A-10 was “deemed unsurvivable in the 1980s” just shows the lack of familiarity with what upgrades have been done to the jet since then. I honestly think that many of the “pundits” commenting on the A-10 think that all she does is employ the same tactics, with the same suites and weapons as she did in 1984. While we’re still VERY good at those tactics, the envelope, effectiveness, and survivability has grown exponentially since then. If you want an interesting read, check out Douglas Campbell’s book, “The A-10 and the Close Air Support Debate.” There are passages and quotes in there from the 1980s that I swore were date-stamped 2013 the last time we had this discussion. Carrol makes the point that you can’t have an air threat and do CAS— I agree. In fact, that’s written in the JPUB. I do NOT agree that you need a limited MANPAD or even SAM threat, particularly when you’re talking about what would REALISTICALLY be associated with front-line units in a CAS fight. Carrol and Herzinger both hint at the cynical nature of this original discussion— a desperate long-ball to try to affect a final solution on the A-10. That knife kind of cuts both ways when you’re offering it to someone else, and you kind of get caught talking out of both sides of your mouth. “Hey, this jet isn’t good enough for us, but I think it’s just what YOU need in the same fight that I just said it wouldn’t be able to fight!” WTF? Let me close with this (the old man will stop yelling at clouds for the day). There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about the A-10 who don’t have the familiarity with what the airframe can actually do. I’m reminded of a story from about ten years ago when a VERY senior civilian DoD member who was actively advocating for the divestiture of the A-10 was given a tour by one of the Hog units. Upon learning about the defensive capabilities of the Hog, this VERY senior civilian was shocked—this person had no idea about what upgrades and capabilities the aircraft actually possessed. And yet here that person was repeatedly professing the lack of survivability of the aircraft, advocating for a solution without being given the full information. We just shook our heads then as we do now. If you know, you know.

Ugh, that’s horrible. So how was Kiev?

0400 takeoff for a 7 hour block flight, with a 2-man crew...that does sound pretty bad. This ain't Vietnam, there are rules and we're not barbarians! Hell, I get upset when I get a flight over 1.5 hours in my current jet. Nothing worse than seeing > 60 minutes to top of descent when I reach my cruise altitude of FL280 🤣. Though I can't top Weeds story, I've ran across the same types. One 330 Captain spent the entire trip to Rome, trying to convince me to go to Kiev with him to bang chicks. I mean full court press, time share sales pitch, trying to convince me I should join him. Want to see more of this in action. Watch dudes lose their minds when São Paulo or Singapore either leaves their fleet or gets cancelled all together. Watched that happen when they moved São Paulo to a different base (same fleet). Dudes lost their shit. Of course they bid over to the new base on the next bid. Their Brazil families must have been pissed for those few months lol.

Former workmate (MQ-9 pilot on staff), 5th look at O-5, was picked up. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

This should just become the entire hypocrisy thread... My favorite hypocrisy of the day from yesterday is the DUI arrest of Nancy Pelosi's husband. Despite lawyers and multiple freedom of information requests good ole California is refusing to release his booking photo, the bodycam video from the officers involved and any records whatsoever related to the arrest. If it was a member of the GOP it would have been pushed out to every network as breaking news.

This just gets weirder and weirder... https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/my-copilot-just-ran-out-the-back-of-the-plane-chilling-audio-from-aerial-incident-near-fort-bragg

Yes, allow the class politics to only see the world through the most distorted of lenses. Tucker Carlson would be proud of you guys 🥹I would also discount the whole of science based on a funny article about a super minority of one political side! I guess if we’re doing sweeping generalizations that have no basis, it’s those damn religious Republicans who are destroying the world and lying about it with false, untenable pretenses. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kenneth-copeland-jet-inside-edition_n_5cf822fee4b0e63eda94de4f/amp In reality, it’s rich vs poor, plain and simple. I was gonna ask why you all don’t believe climate change is a real threat to humanity, but then I realized that this forum gets their opinions straight from Rush Limbaugh reruns (RIP). By the way, it’s possible for there to be more than one ill in the world.