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Biden on the ground in Kyiv showing continuing strong support for the Ukrainians 🇺🇦🇺🇸 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/20/president-biden-kyiv-ukraine-visit-war/

Claw's story is interesting, two Mig-29's in one engagement. Below is a great interview with both Rico and Claw describing what happened. Rico gives great credit to Paco Geisler, a former Red Eagle and legend F-15 Patch in the community. Nordo killed a Mig-25 in a family model, it was also the the first AMRAAM kill.

Trends of the day: 1. Overshooting final. 2. Landing farther down the runway than I would in a Piper Arrow.

For all of you headed to UPT this year, and the hopefuls who will crush next year's app and want to prepare early, check out this UPT IP's YouTube channel for content straight from the syllabus and instructor. If you checkout one thing on this channel, at least have it be the link to the UPT 2.5 training briefings. Or direct link to Google drive. See you guys in the skies.

When I saw the picture, I thought for sure there would be Canadians involved somehow. Maybe it's just my goose hunting upbringing.

The Ukrainians have mastered goose technology…it’s over like when Vince stuck his arm in the rim!

It should probably go in the war stories thread, but I briefed this during the history portion of a roll call as part of the sacrificial LPA. I remember focusing exclusively on the AMRAAM portion but let slip that it was a Viper (which all the bros knew and were waiting) and got shacked, instant justiced, point of ordered, and old/new business into a Jeremiah Weed induced psychedelic journey that I still haven’t recovered from.

Yeah, that would work. Maybe they could have called it “Peace of our time”…since negotiating to give evil what they want has usually worked out pretty well in the past.

Quite ironic when most studs out of UPT in the bottom of their class got "stuck" with the -135. All of a sudden, with a new airplane that is much easier to fly, we need the "cream of the crop"... Sent from my SM-F721U using Tapatalk

Not as heroic as prior posts, but a night I’ll always remember. It was either Jan or Feb 1991, Desert Storm was raging. Took off in my C-141 from Daharan AB on my millionth flight during that timeframe (over 1000 hrs in 7 months). Anyhow shortly after takeoff, a bright flash explodes off my right side, looked similar to a July 4th firework, the cockpit gets real bright for a second, and as I looked to my right, my Co is ducking down in reaction to the flash. After a few jinks, we hear that the base is under a SCUD attack and the Patriot batteries were responding, hence the explosion, but we’re airborne anyway, so we get outta Dodge ASAP. After the excitement is over, I start teasing my Co about ducking down, and we basically had a good laugh about what happened. The co-pilot was a good squadron Bud, named LeRoy. He looked at me and said “I guess those A-rabs didn’t get ole LeRoy tonight” we just laughed and flew back to Ramstein. Fast forward to 9/11….I’m watching the news, and I read on the bottom news crawl that the crew on flight United 93 that crashed in Shanksville PA included my good Bud..LeRoy Homer (the FO) I still remember the laughs we had after that Scud attack, and his words that night were prophetic. RIP LeRoy

Trump has many problems, but our nation is worse off under Joe Biden than him. By all metrics I care about he was a better president than what we currently have. Our nation is more divided, poorer, less free, and less respected internationally now than when he was president.

What does that have to do with the violently liberal shut-up-and-comply agenda that's clearly being implemented by our elected officials...predominately democrats? Trump is a raging twit. Fact. Stop saying his name like it's some kind of defense or excuse for the horrific policies of the current administration. Our current administration has exacerbated or outright caused complete failures in America's economy, foreign policy, military readiness, immigration policy, border security, energy and transportation management, trust in our healthcare system, and faith in our baseline governing civics. The former president had nothing to do with ANY of that.

@argstarted the other thread about Gunships in Desert Storm and I recommended a war stories thread because I’m sure this group has some good ones. I’ll kick it off. Decmeber 2, 2014 Nangahar, Afghanistan Flying Draco out of Bagram and a raid comes down that we’re going to support and run the stack for. We weren’t doing hits every night but by dumb luck, I’d been on a few as we rolled through the schedule. As some of you know, they’re usually a bit hectic at first when the helo lands and then it’s pretty chill as they make callouts and not much would happen so that was what I expected. We brief up, get out there, get everyone checked in and ready to go. We had 2 Vipers, a Gunship, a few RPA’s, Compass Call a ways off, and the helos that had a couple DAPs and 4 60’s. TOT hits, all the sensors are assigned and I’m looking out the window and I see multiple 12.7 and 23mm open up from all along this river bank/village that were covered up until we landed (1). We haven’t even made comms with the ground force yet and it’s a madhouse immediately. I vividly remember seeing tracers crisscrossing the village and then under NVG I can see airburst going off above the Gunship and behind where he was (shooting at the sound). The assault force gets out and are immediately under fire. I had some young guys running sensors and a pretty weak swimmer (that got much better but he was a 1st Lt at the time and somewhat weak) as our CSO who, in theory, should be running the show in this instance but kind of locked up a bit and was overwhelmed. I started directing sensors and getting directive to get people sorting and finding targets. We finally get the JTAC on the radio and I unload the situation to him (overly wordy and crappy comms) and he basically tells me to run it because they’re under fire (gunshots and yelling in the background). I had some very good Viper pilots (2 Patch wearers I come to find out) and had them tracking targets, RPA’s on ADA positions, and the Gunship in close on the good guys. I started working with the DAPs and we would find stuff and they’d kill it. Time goes on, we start thinning out targets, the assault force is clearing the northern village and it turns out to be a dry hole so they start moving about a KM south toward the secondary objective. As they move, it’s more of the same with the sensors except we split to help the Gunship escort the assault force and to find targets for the DAPs with the other. As this is going on, I’m starting to realize that the timeline has gone to absolute hell and we won’t be able to support this whole thing so I call back to our TOC and tell them to wake up the crew that would be flying the first line of the day to backfill us (2). Every jet there worked extensions and Tac C2 worked tanker reflows and all that. The whole team came together to support the guys on the ground and we didn’t get any push back. Incredibly awesome teamwork and proud moment for me as a member of the USAF. While I’m neck deep in trying to secure all that, the ground force is moving to the southern area and enemy fighters pop out of VC style spider holes and engage them from about ten feet. By the grace of God, no friendlies get hit and they kill the enemy and continue to move (3). They eventually make it to the southern compound and start to make call outs IAW the ROE. I’ve got two bingos (one for JBAD and one for BAF) and know I’m getting close to having to leave. I didn’t want to go to JBAD because I knew our MX flow at the time we didn’t have enough airplanes to backfill our backfill (jet happened to be in phase) if I went to JBAD but I couldn’t leave until we had another Draco because everyone else was gainfully employed and I assumed we’d lose the Gunship at Dawn (Spirit 03) and didn’t want the ground force to lose their comm lifeline. Personal thought at the time was that this would take until about noon the next day. About this time, my good friend and his crew that got shaken awake and scrambled check in on comms and I start filling them in. I’m doing a handover and they show up and match sensors and see DAPs killing targets under our sparkle and we hand that off (an easy confirmation haha). As they’re making it, I commit to BAF and know I’ll be landing at min fuel but that’s fine. We are about done and their radios all take a shit and lose crypto at the exact same time that an assault force member gets shot and the ground force calls for an urgent CASEVAC (4). Our backfill has no comms and the ground force is relaying the CASEVAC 9-line in rapid fire to my aforementioned weak swimmers who dropped their nuts and did a picture perfect job and made that happen to get the helos back for the exfil (5). My backfill gets one (of their 10) radios working and takes the stack and the situation over and we get out of dodge. I run the numbers and realize we will be at emergency gas when we land so I coordinate to zoom as much as the mighty Draco can and get into a glide profile to enter a 69 mile right base. I call the SOF (A-10 guy) and tell him to get everyone out of our way and he worked with everyone to clear it out for us. He does it and I get cleared to the numbers and land with 78 pounds of gas. I’ll never forget that number haha (it also went up about 70 pounds when I reset the counter on the ground so I didn’t shut down and get towed back). We shut down, get back to the TOC and things are still happening but long story short, we got everyone back a few hours later (6). I’ve never felt anything like that and I was absolutely jacked and when I landed and came down off of that, I couldn’t sleep for a long time and was antsy hearing about the fate of the wounded assaulter because I assumed he died based on how it sounded over the radio. When I found out he lived, I can’t explain the feeling of relief and flush of emotions that happened. He was sent to Germany and ended up being paralyzed, unfortunately but he’s alive today and sounds like he’s thriving. Anyways, I felt like I earned that 1/20th of an Air Medal. 1. Turns out one of our Afghan allies let his Taliban buddies know we were coming and they decided to try to make this a Blackhawk Down scenario. 2. We didn’t have a backfill and a 4 hour gap from when we would land to when those guys would takeoff for the first line of the day to coincide with sunrise. The LPA and junior enlisted that were awake and running our graveyard ops absolutely killed it getting those dudes prepped, getting them food, etc. I was incredibly proud of those folks that didn’t whine or complain at all and just made shit happen. Draco standard. 3. https://www.army.mil/article/147892/1st_battalion_75th_ranger_regiment_honors_its_heroes The dudes that got the Bronze Star with V were for this part. 4. https://www.socom.mil/fighting-on-to-the-ranger-objective The Rangers that got Silver Stars above in 3 were for this part. True heroism. 5. Army helos were sitting at level 1 at JBAD and were there in minutes. They earned DFC’s for this deservedly so. 6. Later on I heard from that intercepted comms said something like “how are they finding us? They’re killing us and we can’t see them.” Over 25 EKIA and a great mission for SSE overall.

Congratulations!!!

AMC only picks the best for the KC-46. That's the previous Sq/CC as the PF.

Video/Audio of the shootdown and post mission post mission walk around. For those who were around during the No-Fly Zones it was a daily cat and mouse as the Iraqi's flew right up to and at times across the line at speed followed by a quick turn back. There were multiple efforts to place shooters in the right place at the right time with the ability to engage and kinematically get a missile into position to kill a high fast flyer. A bit of a delay and double take confirming clearance to fire resulted in a two mile shot, highest PK possible? Assuming the missile was pitbull right off the rail.

WTF did anyone expect? I mean this administration's primary selection criteria to choose people to run something is what color skin they have, what type of genitals they've got, or what type of hole they shove their 8ick in. Note: Use of the term '"they" in the above is in the old sense of the word. Not the newfangled and imposed genderless nonsense it is now sometimes used to denote.

If you would have all just put on your masks, none of this would have happened! Lol What is a woman? Wear your masks outside! Men can get pregnant! What should we expect from this administration? They are insane and I'm not exaggerating. "Fuck our future! Let's get those pregnant men some more rights!!" - Democratic Party Oh and before I forget "fuck white men! Unless, you used to be a woman". - Democratic Party

Hopefully they try to avoid the poisonous, backstabbing, terrible environment that went with putting a bunch of #1 strat/fast burner types all in the same squadron that McConnell experienced...but doubtful.

James Denton and Brent "Brandini" Brandon were flying an EF-111 proving electronic attack and support the opening sorties on night one of the Desert Storm air campaign. An Iraqi Mirage F-1EQ was attempting to counter the strike package and ended up being engaged by an F-15C. The Iraqi pilot defeated the Eagle's missile shot and as he completed his defense maneuver by chance he ended up on the six of the EF-111. The Mirage launched two R.550 Magic air-to-air missiles which Denton and Brandon were able to defeat. With the EF-111 skimming the desert the Mirage pilot became fixated and attempted to close for a guns kill. Late in the engagement Denton made a hard out of plane maneuver, the Mirage pilot completed fixated on the gun kill didn't recognize the maneuver in the dark and impacted the desert under the EF-111 as Denton pulled vertical. The aircraft 66-016 sits at the entrance to base housing at Cannon AFB, NM. Two days later Jose Rico Rodriguez were tasked to fly DCA in the western sector as the HVACAP. At the last minute he was retasked and scrambled and switched to OCA to support the exfil of a strike package. Rico and his flight lead were engaged by two Mig-29s with his wingman shooting down the lead Mig-29. Rico ended up merging with the second Mig-29 passing just 50' off his wing. A dog fight ensued with Rico ultimately maneuvering to a position where he was about to take an AIM-7 Sparrow shot. The Mig-29 flying at just 300' rolled inverted and attempted an unsuccessful Split S, he impacted the desert giving Rico the second maneuver kill of Desert Storm. Rico would go on the get a second kill in the same tail number (85-114) which is still active and serving at Kadena (although the Eagles are leaving Kadena, we will see where it ends up).

TDS in full effect. Inflation still raging, the SPR at a new record low (see chart below), and our borders wide open with fentanyl flowing across at record levels killing 300 Americans a day. Can you imagine if an airliner crashed everyday and killed 300 Americans because the border was open, there would be outrage. Instead, liberals cheer and enable more illegal immigrants to sneak across our border carrying millions of pills.

Clearly an amateur. Everyone knows you shoot your watch.

Plenty of mid-level AF managers and ROTC wannabe bobs have destroyed careers and morale due to this whole thing. Unfortunately, they’ll most likely never answer for the damage they’ve inflicted on the force.

Somebody had to post it..

Well you said it: bullshit excuses. But at least in my case, I've seen maybe a couple instances of pilots going too far in 5 years. I've seen hundreds of instances of pilots leaning forward, even just considering your examples. The job is very well defined: What you do, what is and isn't allowed, and what the pilots are responsible for within the company. An example (for those not at AA). "Just one ping" means that when something is wrong/missing on the plane, the pilots make one call to the appropriate office, get acknowledgement, then wait. Maintenance call-out, missing catering, fuel increase, etc. You call once, then wait. Often in a chaotic airline like AA that call gets dropped. I can't count the number of times my captain is literally jumping out of his chair to call over and over and over to get the issue resolved. It's not our job. We are not paid to go above and beyond, not are we even encouraged to. Management takes for granted how much gets done on time because the pilots notice it, and so they must be taught. That means people will miss connections, weddings, funerals, etc. Sucks, but that's life. Our job is not a higher calling, it's just a job with a higher emphasis on safety, *not* timeliness. The military guys are usually worse. They talk the same game everyone else does, then immediately lean forward, sometimes literally while complaining about the lack of negotiating progress. It's comical, but also illustrative. We all want to git-er-done. And we are all trained to identify and avoid risk. Great traits for flying, terrible for bringing out your inner longshoreman.

A preface to the story. My daughter was four years old. She had watched me pack my bags for for countless trips . I always came home. While packing my bags for DS she came to me with her favorite little teddy bear and put it in my helmet bag. She said "here daddy he will take care of you". I smiled and hugged her. Somehow she knew something was different. That little bear is still in my helmet bag and I've carried it to this day on sim training and observation flights. People ask why I don't get a new bag because this one is pretty ragged. I can't, the bear is still in there. Your kids know

What interests you about the 146? It’s a fun plane and good locations. But it’s not some super secret platform or anything crazy. It’s a mobility platform 100%. They don’t do airdrop. They don’t have a really robust FARP capability like an MC. They can do aeromedical evac and austere stuff but BL is it’s purely a trash hauler/people mover. And I’d say Draco is the AFSOC step child. The 146 is like that cousin that when he gets brought up people say “oh yeah, I forgot about him”.

Lloyd, I think we're all on the same page. Nobody is advocating for abortion and deadbeat dads. We're highlighting the hypocrisy of this issue in America. A woman can kill her unborn child and go to Applebee's right after. She's not held to the same standard as a man who doesn't want his child. If a drunk driver kills a pregnant woman and her child, they can charge the drunk driver for 2 counts. Why is one murder/manslaughter and the the other not? That is the question.

Stand for something else. Anything else. It can only be uphill. I too hate it when one party walks away from a contract that the other has torn up and abused for multiple generations.

I think a lot of people want to believe morality is static but I really do believe it's relative. There are some inherent problems with static morality including the ultimate conclusion that a perfectly moral being wouldn't have free choice. War is shitty. You so some things that seem right. You do some things that seem wrong. Was raging war on a country for 20 years only to up and leave them with the fallout moral? I dunno...

So what? Men should just remain powerless to the system knowing their entire lives can be ruined by a spiteful or vengeful ex-girlfriend at any time? Did you know you can be ordered to pay child support for a child that is DNA proven not to be yours? Look it up. Also worth noting that selective service registration failed to make it into the NDAA for like the 7th year in a row. Radical feminists' argue for all of these rights but want to take none of the responsibilities that go with them.

The discussions have to happen to deal with the problems. Otherwise nothing is done at all.

Class date set for Oct 24th (or close to that) Columbus....anyone else?

Reminds me of this, not sure why...

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/23/trump-bleach-one-year-484399 https://www.axios.com/2019/08/25/trump-nuclear-bombs-hurricanes https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/james-mattis-denounces-trump-protests-militarization/612640/ clearly one side of the aisle has their shit in a sock 😂