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I get really irritated with the “election denier” claims that are made against people by the media. It’s the end of democracy blah blah blah. Their defense is always to go on the offense. It was absolutely crystal clear during that election cycle that there was interference going on. And it wasn’t the Russians on behalf of Trump like we were told for years and years. The election was rigged by social media, the mainstream media, the Democrat Party and 3 letter agencies of the government. Trump was crushed by the machine while Biden was propped up. All while suppressing Hunter’s shenanigans and business dealings. It’s all going to start coming out starting with what Musk is doing with Twitter. And it’s not like we got anything good out of it. This administration is an absolute train wreck.

You know what would be revolutionary though.. if we actually buy the number of them we said we will

After what Elon released last night (with more to follow today), how could anyone ever trust the government again? The First Amendment is first for a reason. Freedom of speech, one of our most basic rights attacked by our own government and political parties.

I have about as much SA on the B-21 program as the average Joe. That said, I found the reveal to be quite anticlimactic. I’m sure it was an extremely important day for the folks working on this thing, and those involved are probably quite proud this evening. Here is to hoping that it lives up to all of the chest-thumping narration we heard tonight.

That's my view of it, although our analysis and takeaways are probably different. There is a reason people are quite happy with draconian measures. Someone earlier typed something to the affect that being controlled makes people feel safe and comfortable and subsequently those people are turned into Kens and Karens to enforce that control because it is now their duty to make sure others are safe and comfortable. These people do not question the source of the measures, don't think through the logic of the measures, and certainly don't question whether or not there is an agenda tied to the measures. Covid was a very ugly full up display of this. The question is why are people like this? This is where I likely part ways with most of the folks on this forum. I see manifestations of this all the time, in every aspect of life. HOAs immediately come to mind. Like good little citizens, they are named covenants instead of mandates. And god help you of a Ken or Karen catches you violating one. I cannot imagine living like that in a country where you don't have to. In the public school system they are named guidelines or charters instead of mandates. Woe unto the person that uses the wrong door, turns the wrong way in the car line, asks to go directly to the student's classroom to talk to a teacher, or any other number of government mandates that serve no useful purpose. This is the why according to a filthy liar. And this is where I part company with most everyone on this forum. We used to be pioneers. That's an important word - pioneer. We used to push west and deal with everything on our own, or at least as much as a wagon train could handle. There were all kinds of threats. But there was no government to save the wagon train. Then we built communities, institutions, and started relying on a centralized agency to oversee these types of things and to provide essential services. Then we REALLY started relying on this centralized agency to make sure things were available. Little things, like say - food and water. We somehow figured that this was the best path forward. And now we find ourselves in a situation where 85% of us are not even semi self-sufficient and in a situation where we depend on that centralized agency. So when that agency starts taking draconian measures, it is perceived by many of that 85% as not only necessary, but moral to preserve the community. And they would be dead if the grocery store ran out of food. I take a different path, and yes I realize that I'm one of those weird people who live out in the woods. But I don't depend on the government for much, especially on what to do to protect myself. Mask mandates, grocery store quotas, vaccine requirements, etc are ludicrous to me and everyone out here where I live. Again, not expecting everyone to be a weirdo and live out in the woods and be self-sufficient like me, but that is my explanation for the eagerness for some of the 85% to adopt draconian measures. Final disclaimer - I know we're not in the 1800s and plenty of intelligent people choose to live in the city and burbs. In fact, most of them do. But when something bad happens I don't need the draconian measures or heavy government overstep that they might. That's important to me.

My completely uninformed guess is the guy had thousands of hours if he’s flying aircraft like that. I have over 2k hours flying fighters, and only last year I damn near hit someone - misprioritizing a fast rejoin over a safe “it’s not going to happen within these tight time constraints” decision and just not doing it. I’ve done thousands of rejoins, tons of experience…task misprioritization and pressure to “get it done” is a real thing at all levels of flying experience.

Thanks for the reference. I can't speak to what happened in the briefing as I wasn't there and have avoided asking anyone about it that was. Russell has been an Air Boss for quite some time. His dad has been doing it for decades, and is one of the most well known people in the entire airshow industry. I have worked with both and consider them both friends, especially the father. The entire thing saddens me deeply and it's best if I leave it at that.

Was he not -3 rejoining with his formation in front of the B-17s? Looks like he was trying to make a rejoin happen with his element and went belly up and never saw the B-17. And is not having mini blocks standard for air show ops? The report says no altitude deconfliction was briefed.

Been there! Honestly I don’t find airline flying boring, I find it different. Different isn’t a bad thing.

As the Twitter files finally see the light of day it is more and more obvious that Big Tech, the DNC and the FBI changed the outcome of the election...and they continue to shape the social media narrative. January 6th was horrific, a stain on American democracy, but what happened during the election was in fact a stolen election. I don't use those words lightly and I would never want to give Trump more hate to spew to the masses but recent polls about the laptop show that had the voters known the truth about the laptop the outcome would have been different. Several studies and reports have concluded that if the Laptop information had not been suppressed and been actually reported to most voters, Trump would have had 311 Electoral College votes. Others polls are also very telling: 1. 79% say ‘truthful’ coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop would have changed 2020 election. 2. A similar percentage also said they’re convinced that information on the computer is real, with just 11% saying they thought it was “created by Russia,” according to the survey conducted by the New Jersey-based Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics. 3. The poll found 65% of voters believe it is “likely” President Biden was consulted about — and potentially even profited from — his son’s foreign deals. By contrast, 28% say it’s unlikely Biden was involved in Hunter’s business dealings at all. And before we put all the blame on Big Tech lets not forget the FBI was weaponized to change the outcome of an American Presidential election. "Zuckerberg tells Rogan FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship"

A rejoin is a skill taught to UPT students 4 months into training with 6-9 hours of formation flying experience. That's the wrong question. The question is what went wrong that a guy that has done thousands of rejoins in dozens of aircraft suddenly screws it up? And my experience tells me the answer has a lot more to do with human factors (rushing, distraction, medical, etc) than experience or skill.

Hi, notanexpert here, I have a question... To me, it looks like we should be asking how much formation experience one should have before attempting what we saw (join)?

Northrop CEO sure likes to hear herself talk, doesn't she?

Hell yeah it was anticlimactic. A single nose on camera angle angle with intentionally weird lighting to obscure any detail whatsoever.. cmon guys. It's not some giant mystery the ass end is gonna be a cranked kite configuration with heat diffusing exhaust. The windows also looked super weird and matte finish almost like parts of it were still in mock-up form and not the final flying design. The whole over the top grandeur for a single camera angle after dusk came across kindof desperate to me. "Sorry guys we know we were supposed to have flown this thing already but as a consolation prize we'll pull it 6.9 feet out of a dimly lit hangar and show you a front view real quick.. and the whole thing kinda looks like unpainted plastic.. but we promise it'll totally be amazing."

Welp, yes I did forget about that. That sucked. those assholes too and their shithole country.

I don't think it's as nefarious as it might seem. Air Race/Show is simply an established category of "Purpose of Flight" under General Aviation Operations. It's likely as innocuous as the investigator checking boxes on his iPad and this is the one that best fit.

I thought it was interesting that the NTSB report list this as "Air racing/Air show event" I don't think that was an accidental typo.

You don't get Per Diem at Whitman it's a PCS.....

I think this is the first year they are applying all the new scores into the PCSM, so most likely the averages are going to be higher. Im currently rated and its the first time I'm able to apply so fingers crossed. Good luck applying next year, just use this time to retake any tests to really max out your chances and make it very difficult for them to say no! 92 AFOQT/ 98 PCSM/ PPL+ Instrument/ 1/7 strat

PF into LGA yesterday Figure I checked the NOT decidedly boring square for the next year at least.

I sharted putting on my body armor stepping and had to tell my CSO sq/cc the nebulous “I’ll meet you at the crew bus”, crab walk my way back to our dorm, furiously strip my boots, pants, and shit filled underwear off, use a dirty undershirt to wipe, find new pants, and then run to the crew bus. so yes I had to leave that surprise for y’all to find 😂 Good times.

Well, let’s see…I would prefer someone who: 1. Doesn’t want to ban AR-15s and similar type sporting rifles 2. Doesn’t want to require backgound checks for private sales…and essentially then creating a registry 3. Didn’t support Bernie Sanders 4. Didn’t endorse Joe Biden 5. Doesn’t support ending cash bail 6. Doesn’t support raising the federal min wage to $15/hr (pre-covid btw) 7. Doesn’t support forcing businesses to provide for family paid sick leave, etc 8. Doesn’t support “free” college…ie forcing taxpayers to pay someone else’s tuition 9. Doesn’t want forced closure of existing nuclear power plants 10. Doesn’t support “Medicare for all” …I can go on, if you’d like? As for who I would support…ummm, a lot of people over her. Rand Paul? Ron DeSantis? Chris Sununu? Nikki Haley?

I chuckled

The fact that this administration said they are keeping an eye on twitter should scare the shit out of you.

Oh how quickly we've forgotten.....

Yea it's all cost-benefit analysis and that can be hard to do in real time, at massive national scale, when there's no centralized power to act, etc. Every Monday morning QB who thinks they could have done so much better and also convinced ~330m people to actually do what they recommended is almost certainly kidding themselves. Policy is hard and we should have an effective debrief so we can do better next sortie. Shit, ask China how their zero-COVID policy is going right now, and their government already exerts WAY more control of their population than ours! All the hyperbolic responses of both the extremely, weirdly cautions public health folks and the hardcore anti-vax, anti-government folks are missing the mark IMHO. Implementing smart, risk-aware precautions is pretty much always a good idea and both individuals and governments at all levels should absolutely be empowered to do that. At this point though, few anti-COVID measures make sense beyond whatever people want to do voluntarily and encouraging folks to get the vaccines, both against COVID, the flu, RSV, all the things. Each of those is a total bitch...RSV recently worked its way methodically through my entire household and it really sucked for my new baby even though it was fairly mild for the rest of us. Again, China is super heavy handed on their lockdowns but weirdly only like 25% of their elderly folks are vaccinated against COVID...that's a really stupid policy and the exact opposite of what they should be doing, and people there are starting to get pissed. I'm excited about work that's being done on a pan-flu vaccine building on some of the advances we learned making the COVID vaccines, it will be great to have more weapons against all the respiratory viruses out there. Despite what a lot of folks here believe, the COVID vaccines were developed super fast and were very effective at preventing COVID deaths, which is great! Hats off to Warp Speed and the people behind those vaccines. The takeaway from this pandemic absolutely should not be that "precautions didn't make a difference" because like @Pooter said, measuring the counterfactual of "what if we did absolutely nothing" is really hard. There will likely be more pandemics in my lifetime, and I plan on doing the best cost-benefit analysis I can in order to balance staying safe, alive and disease-free with living a free and fun life that's a big part of why being an American is awesome.

A little bit of devils advocate here.. It's very difficult to measure something that never happened i.e. the community spread that never occurred as a result of precautions. So saying "zero point zero" of this had any effect is just nonsense. We all logically know that precautions have an effect and the more strictly you adhere to them, the more effective they are. If you went full bubble boy and had no contact with anyone for the past two years, you likely would not have caught covid. We know respirators are better than n95s which are better than surgical masks which are better than cloth masks etc... So quality and level of adherence to precautions absolutely has an effect. But that isn't the takeaway here. And "precautions didn't do shit" is probably the dumbest takeaway possible. Maybe the takeaway here is precautions come with a cost which should be weighed against the risk. And since everyone weighs risks and costs differently it should *generally* be left up to the individual.

On a UPT Nav cross country, Jan 1987. We parked our T-38 next to the “Texas Raider” a few older gents came by asking for a tour of the -38, and then reciprocated and let us wander around inside the Texas Raider. They even let me climb up on the wing to take this photo. RIP

Or this version, depends on how long you’ve been flying fighters…

The book is by far the best. The original movie is also very good. It’s amazing to me how relevant the book still is as it relates to life in the military and the stifling bureaucracy that surrounds us. I can take examples from the book/movie and directly compare to situations that I have lived through. I swear I could write a “Catch-22 part deux…the desert years” with my own tales of pointless exercises, manufactured crises, administrative frustration, paperwork for the sake of doing paperwork, medical standards buffoonery and overall ridiculousness.

Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Pinned by blancolirio Good to know. This is what I read. Granted it's on a youtube comment but he seems pretty adamant Matt 1 day ago Juan, just to give some further context to your excellent reporting, the Air Boss was brand new. This was his first air show as the "Air Boss" and is the son of the former air boss who had retired the year before after a lengthy career as the Wings over Dallas Air Show air boss. According to pilots that were in the briefing prior to the show that day, they report that the briefing was lacking in various substantive and vital information such as altitude deconfliction yet no one including a FAA representative that was in attendance raised any concern about the inadequatenes of the briefing by this new air boss.