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Newly released view of the inside of the cockpit of the advanced companion trainer for the B-21.

Vizzini concurs.

Disregard all rumors, news, innuendo, internet conspiracies, about what metal is on which ramp; new metal is just a rumor until you step to fly one that is sitting on your ramp. If your unit has a board coming up, submit your application, interview, do well. There's units that have announced they will lose their metal in the next few years: they are still hosting boards and sending students to UPT. There have been students in the middle of UPT who found that they had no airplanes left on their home ramp...they typically get taken care of, find other units that are happy to have them, etc. Opportunities: if the unit down the street offers you a UPT slot but your unit has a board next year...probably best to take the slot.

I thought Seymour Hersh said we did it? And the Danes said the Russians did it? The Germans said Ukraine. The Russians said UK and US. That’s some serious international cooperation.

I believe you can as the injunction nullifies the ATF ruling. Of course you never know when said injunction may be overturned. In practicality though, even if that happened it wouldn’t immediately affect you - you’d just have to not take that ”now illegal” firearm into public to avoid potential LEO interaction (e.g. a repeat of what already happened pre-injunction).

Is AFSOC handing out some kind of cool berets or something? *I know cool beret is an oxymoron.

The funny part about this is with a LSCO fight we keep forgetting about our opponents SOF and what they will be doing. It is entirely possible we will need a heavy dedicated asset to remain behind the forward line of troops in the support zone both to keep an eye on whatever strongholds we bypass, as well as be there to smack the shit out of whatever irregular forces they try and hit us with. Nobody wants to brief that as their chosen mission set because it’s not sexy. I for one would feel a lot better in a division combined arms rehearsal or target decision board if we weren’t standing around a table but simultaneously worried about Charlie jumping the wire while the MPs are busy picking their noses. The murder bus being overhead for persistent security would help solve that. That would be the Gunship truly going back to its roots in being the overhead persistent ass whooping for any ground troops in Asia. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yum.

Concur but one can still argue on BO for it and other lost causes… Light capabilities in general are needed for MOOTW (dating myself with that term but it captures a lot of what we do now and likely in the future) Light air mobility, light fighter, low footprint high endurance RPA, ACE light logistics, etc… just my retired guard bubba cents but this could doctrinally fit into the Guard or AFSOC (sts) with the right leadership seeing that we will be deterring and occasionally fighting in places other than the SCS against the forces of chaos with capes that require not a sledgehammer but a small hammer Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can’t wait to see who A&M over pays for next just to go 8-4 every year.

Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Machiavelli all share rule #69 - "Never fight a land war in Asia."

It's complicated...😎 The ATF finally reviewed it about a month ago (around 160+ days) and said the serial number was incomplete. They also claimed I put the wrong model number down (I didn't). They also didn't like my reason for creating a SBR (to be fair, I was a bit of a smartass about it!). Any legal response should be accepted as there is no requirement codified in law as to the allowable reasons to build a SBR. Plus, the ATF really doesn't have a "say" in the matter. Unless the reason is an "illegal" one, it should be approved. It's just the ATF dragging their feet on approving applications... To be honest, I was tempted to put "to finally make this thing legal!" A guy on a local gun forum claims his son got a Form 1 approved which had “zombies” as the reason! I did mail a revised hardcopy form to Portland (before the latest injunction) and it arrived on 1 Nov, but I am not sure if I am going to continue with the process even if it is approved.

Like this one?

@M2 Please tell me you’re still waiting on that Form 1!

SEAL of the Sky berets.

"No bucks, no Buck Roger's"

Concerning the spike, the rest of the college football world isn’t going to have much sympathy for one of the historically dirtiest programs/fan bases in NCAA history. Sucks to suck. Bring on the down votes.

So apparently the pistol brace rule has been tossed. It seems the common opinion is that if it was registered, the form 1 is still valid. Attached is a link if you second guessed your decision to get the form 1. https://thereload.com/federal-judge-blocks-nationwide-enforcement-of-pistol-brace-ban/ https://www.nationalguntrusts.com/blogs/nfa-gun-trust-atf-information-database-blog/removing-an-sbr-sbs-from-the-nfrtr-and-then-reregistering-the-sbr-sbs-process

F-35C would be my bet...

Nothing like lumbering up to the KC-10 on a Pacific crossing and taking gas to "165ish"...throttles bent, toboggan immediately, gimmie the second pump!

I do not understand why AFSOC thinks it’s a good idea to fuck with something that has proven to be excellent for the mission set it’s made for. China is our #1 priority, and that doesn’t mean every piece of hardware/community will play. Gunships are not for China, but they are for a hell of a lot of other scenarios. So what happens when many of us are posturing (or worse, actively fighting) China and some shit goes down in Indonesia, Africa, etc. where we can utilize capes like Gunships. It’d be real dumb to not have them, or have them all loaded up with SDB and sans guns. Bottom line: Some can and should adapt to changing threats, but others will only worsen by just blindly jumping on the bandwagon headed towards something they have no chance of being effective in.

It has been my limited experience that "30 minutes of straight misses to eventually have an MQ-9 do it", does not typify the gunship community I was a part of for 20+ years. You are certainly entitled to use your observations and experience to form an expert opinion, kind of like when I heard about the C Model dude screwing his Crew Chief at Kadena, that obviously means all Eagle Drivers (past and present), swing the other way... I like you bro but the plank holders from your community are old friends (many from my community), and they hold the #1 moniker. As you can see below I've given you a more appropriate designation. It is one of the most maddening observations one can make if you dedicate your life to this endeavor, as good as we are we constant run to the latest crisis and in haste we forget the lessons of the past. 14 short years after the great aerial battles of of WWII the mighty F-4 launched on it's first flight, sans a gun. As a reward for forgetting that history the lads initially paid a heavy price over Vietnam. The AIM-7 had a sub 10% kill rate, in total 452 Sidewinders were fired during the Vietnam War, resulting in a Pk of 0.18. Years of gun pods to get them through until the E model came along with a gun...we will never repeat that mistake right...here we are in 2023 and Fat Amy Charlie does not have an internal gun. I am guessing you don't know how this went down. This whole thing started not because the SOCOM masters wanted out of the CAS business (quite the opposite), but because Slife was harvesting manpower from Ops squadrons across the command to man his pet project. When Slife tried to cut the gunship crew further he was stonewalled by the Gunner union and A1. Keep in mind that community already paid a price when another herbivore was at the helm (Wurster), and convinced Congress he could cut the gunship crew from 13 to 7 in order to replace 8 H models with 16 J's and keep it manpower neutral. Think I'm kidding, go look at page 23 of the 2009 QDR, actual airframes and numbers are rarely called out in a strategic document but it is there in black and white. When the union said "No" to Slife he immediately replied, "Ok, get rid of the 105MM". There was no analysis on employment history, just a shoot from the hip response. There is much more to the story, I feel bad for the folks that continue the day to day in that toxic HQ building. Keep in mind, this was NOT a Big Blue decision. I REALLY wish the system worked as you think it does but SOCOM is a different animal. In the history of the command there as been exactly one Airman running the show. Slife badly wanted the job but was denied and sadly survived long enough to worm his way into the VCSAF job (god help you all). Because this was a SOCOM decision and the CC is a ground pounder, the boss looks to his air power experts to shape his decision. Keep in mind the proposal is coming from his air power component commander so he turns to his USAF aviator SOCOM/CV for expert advice and validation. Said SOCOM/CV is a Slife's puppet, he is an herbivore who wants the AFSOC/CC chair next (and gets it), does understand kinetic airpower and most certainly does not push back. Again SOCOM is different and components get a vote so when this idea surfaced the component commands representing the ground parties pushed back VERY hard, but if you know SOCOM you know the components fight each other for resources. The Purple Pot battles get ugly and if you think USASOC is gonna give AFSOC support, especially when the TF is fighting to resource 160 rotors of their own that are running around with guns and rockets...they will quickly stab a brother in the back to get $. Big Blue could give a rat's ass, they are completely focused on China so there was no debate or actual thought put into the impact this decision will have. Well done, but as pointed out above just a bit different from the fight I was in. I would also point out that because last days of AFG differs from the early days does not mean fights like the early days will never happen again...thus I would actually prefer to have BOTH options. The gunfight I ended up in was far more typical of Al-Fallujah, supporting a team fighting a crap ton of bad dudes literally across the street. Chaos everywhere as the bad guys tried to flank, got on the roof to throw hand grenades, popped in and out of windows, doors and alleys. Thank god both guns were humming and we were able to shift fire in a second or two to stop every attempt to over run the good guys. PGMs would and the time it takes to employ them would have been useless in that particular fight. Point and click CAS is cool and offers another tool in the container but it has limits and dangers all it's own. Professionally I would ask you keep in mind the actual definition of CEP...it means HALF of your munitions will fall within those parameters, there are consequences when they land outside that circle. 26 years of flying and a little bit of combat time, the most focused and SCARED I've ever been (including two MANPADS guiding on me at the same time), was when I pushed that button that close to the friendlies. 8 seconds TOF felt like an eternity and I will freely admit some quite moments of reflection the next morning over some bootleg brown liquor. There was no chest thumping, just a quiet thanks upward that I didn't F it up...and I say "I" because it was me that had the A code, it was my decision and my responsibility. I recall a training sortie as an O-6 when I was flying with the W's working AGM-176 employment on movers. Obviously I won't get into tactics but it was an exercise in frustration as we tracked farmer brown driving his truck around Clovis. Numerous turns over a 10 minute period repeatedly tumbled gyros tumbled as the crew rode the struggle bus trying to reset the LAR. I could not watch them hump the bowling ball anymore and finally said "Shoot TWO if you want a high Pk, but for the love of god shoot something before he gets away." Point being, there is a benefit of deep magazines. A couple Griffins is cool, a crap ton of candy corn is even cooler and useful in big fights. I am not trying to be a dinosaur, I was actually an early adopter and advocate for SDB and incorporation on on the gun pig, but as a whole I see USAF and AFSOC forgetting our history and drifting away from core capabilities like CAS. I have great concern when we take away the 105MM (and maybe the 30MM...yes it has been discussed), and retire the A-10...the two greatest CAS platforms that have existed, all in the name of a pivot to peer near-peer. God help us if we do these things and end up in another dark night over Jalalabad and all we have is Fat Amy with 181 rounds and some PGMs.

Nah you’re overthinking it…. It’s more like the movie beerfest. Just a giant drinking competition to decide who gets selected or not

From everything I’m gathering, they are scoring this like an Enlisted Force Distribution Panel (EFPD) - refer DAFI36-2406. Board members will have wiggle room to place value on the different grading criteria(leadership/adaptability&potential/aptitude). For example, board member 1 could place more value on WG/CC ranking, while board member 2 could place more value on awards/decs/OPRs. So the same package these two board members grade could be a few points different. Needless to say, each applicant will get an overall score (combined from each board member’s score), important piece here are ties that are right on the cut off line. Those packages will be discussed to split the tie, meaning the board will come together and review and determine who makes it. Board members will explain why they scored the package the way did, and eventually come to the conclusion on which applicant should make the cutoff. just my experience sitting in a few boards. Take it with a grain of salt.

if you don’t get picked up, we’re all screwed lol

My wife has yet to put any of my tools back in the correct spot either.

He's lucky to have such supportive fathers!

I just watched one of my sons graduate USN bootcamp. He shot expert! He's off to Coronado for SWCC training. The navy did a good job with the graduation. All of the people in attendance were super stoked that their loved ones were now sailors. All walks of life were present. Very cool seeing all different types of Americans being happy together and serving this great nation.

My take: you're waaaaaaaaay overthinking this.

Of all the countries named, the leadership of which is least likely to be around in a year? This problem has to be explained, and it's a problem the Biden admin needs to solve. They also know they're gonna give Ukraine the finger and let them drown. They've served their purpose. Not one real investigation has said Russia did it. We're obviously not going to blame any of our European allies. So WaPo published and explanation that a Ukrainian "special forces" officer who is currently (and conveniently) jailed in Ukraine for "abuse of power"... rented a sailboat and some scuba gear and blew up the pipeline. So it's all explained and nobody that matters gets their feelings hurt.

looks like i did have it figured out. kiss the ring.

i thought all the ukranian fan boys said putin did it

Pawnman and his sock best-22 downvoting as usual. Love to see it ya two beta bois