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“Its website lists six right-wing personalities, including Dave Rubin, who has more than 2.4 million YouTube subscribers; Tim Pool, a podcast host with more than 1.3 million YouTube followers; Benny Johnson, whose YouTube channel has nearly 2.4 million subscribers; and one user on an obscure military aviation forum whose members haven’t been cool for more than a decade.”

I look at the 4 years of his administration as compared to the 4 years of this administration, and there is no doubt who I am voting for in 2024. I honestly have serious concerns for us as a country if we have to endure 4 more years of this administration-actually I believe she would make it even worse. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

Could you imagine if we had 80,000 Afghans who fought the Taliban as hard as they fought to get a ride out of Kabul? We'd have won the war in 2005.

New woman working in the office. She whores around with the CEO and gets promoted. She’s now in charge of HR. She fired a bunch of people who failed drug tests, later bragging and laughing about doing drugs herself, highlighting her lack of integrity from the get go. New CEO is a halfwit brain dead crackpot, told my the board his new VP needs to be a woman of color. He hired said woman as she checks all the boxes. Everyone hates her, she has a new assistant every week. She’s put in charge of the company’s cyber security, the company basically goes into lockdown because she was so incompetent at that task. Company’s stock in the gutter and they are about to file for bankruptcy as other competitors blow them out of the water. Now the board wants to hire said woman as the new CEO. (You are here now) I’ll vote for Trump ten times over than that affirmative action California tramp who said idly while the rest of our world burns (literally, how did you like those pictures from Kabul). Unless you were a deadbeat, 2016-2020 were some of the best years for this country.

Hats off to the good detective work. I can imagine Det Lennie Briscoe showing up to the party and drop one of his famous one-liners, like, "I guess the Macarena wasn't exciting enough for them." (actual show quote)

Two teenagers …. 19 and 18. those are adults!

E-9 Mafia. The irony is she has a Master’s degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Information Security and Digital Management. https://www.surfpac.navy.mil/Leaders/Biography/Article/3152697/cmdcs-swexwiwaw-grisel-marrero/

While I agree with the overall premise, these people volunteered to help us on the promise we would see the war through (like with Japan and Germany). We didn't.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/navy-leader-demoted-after-conspired-chiefs-run-illegal-wifi-network-warship-prompted-secur Not a commander, but still. Seems like a light punishment. Navy has gone soft since keel hauling was outlawed.

40 years ago today, 4 Sep 1984, Rockwell International revealed the first production B-1B Lancer (tail number 82-0001) to the public. About 1,500 people attended the rollout (pictured here), where they heard a message from President Reagan, and then listened to a speech from Rockwell Chairman Robert Anderson. The celebratory occasion was somewhat darkened by the crash of one of the B-1’s prototypes a little over a week before, on 29 Aug 1984, which killed Rockwell test pilot T.D. (Doug) Benefield and prompted the Air Force to ground the last flying B-1 prototype. This first production aircraft (82-0001) would eventually get scrapped in the mid-1990s at Ellsworth AFB in compliance with the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). B-1Bs still fly today as long-range, multi-mission bombers for the U.S. Air Force. (Photo: USAF)

Just talked to a buddy who is casual at Laughlin who told me that any T38 grad going to a fighter will do a year in a heavy before going to the b course in an effort to reduce the FTU backup. Thoughts?

Such a brilliant mind. Couldn't even make the network not public.

LOL!!!

Western intelligence estimates over 600,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine Staggering numbers.

They had an obligation to fight, and they didn't. There were certainly individual acts of valor and individual members who were invested (one dude was shot down, disguised himself as taliban and walked 90 miles back HKIA and continued fighting; he's now a sensor operator for a firefighting company in Montana). But in aggregate, GIRoA and the ANA/AAF were not good faith partners. And not just in some ethereal policy level strategic sense, I mean at the member level they'd use A29s to bring honey back from their bee farms in Fayzabad instead of sitting alert for TICs. And when the city was invaded they left their families to the fates, stole planes and fled. Can you imagine doing something so cowardly yourself? Guessing you'd struggle to even comprehend that level of douchebaggary. I typed a long response and realized I remain to angry about the situation to have a constructive discussion. Suffice to say 1- 3% of people evacuated meet your above criteria; the vast majority were criminals (purposefully bussed from prisons by the Taliban to flood the airfield), AWOL military members, government bureaucrats, and randoms. Imagine watching 50 commandos throw down their weapons and run from 3 guys in a truck and I'm not allowed to shoot the truck... WTF. Same thing happened in Mosul when ISIS invaded in 2014 (large & well equipped Iraqi army threw away weapons and ran from a minimal enemy force) although this one was more dramatic and at scale. I feel nothing but contempt for those people, and certainly no obligation to bring them CONUS.

80 years ago today, on 5 Sep 1944, Lt William H. Allen became an “ace” in one day when he shot down five enemy aircraft in just a handful of minutes. Flying a P-51 Mustang (like the one pictured here) named “Pretty Patty II,” Lt Allen and his flight of P-51s (all from the Eighth Air Force’s 55th Fighter Group, whose emblem is also pictured here) attacked a Nazi airfield north of Göppingen, Germany. As the German airplanes took off one after the other, trying to get airborne, he shot down his five targets. Together with the other members of his flight, they took out 16 enemy aircraft in total. Between 3 and 11 September 1944, the 55th Fighter Group took down a total of 106 enemy aircraft, which earned them a Distinguished Unit Citation. The 55th’s heritage was inherited by the 55th Operations Group, today at Offutt AFB, Nebraska. (Photos: USAF; NMUSAF)

No, Yes of course, not sure I know this, the whole world watched us F that situation away. If you were an emergent regional power and you saw that, how much faith would you have in the United States? It’s no wonder you are seeing the rise of coalitions like BRICS. We have become a laughing stock.

I was waiting for Bashi to come up in this

I have a controversial take on this, so I’ll just ask: did we ever have an obligation to evacuate them? Did they have an obligation to fight for their own country? Why did anyone have the impression we would take them to the US if they failed to secure their own country?

https://www.wired.com/story/right-wing-influencer-network-tenet-media-allegedly-spread-russian-disinformation/

I’d wager to bet it’s more the “why” behind how that meme happened. 1- The armorer or whoever supplied that weapon knew damn well the scope was on backwards. 2- The Good Capt was such an asshole that he wouldn’t admit something was wrong and pressed.

Space Force? It's been a thing for a while now.

Reminds me of Milton and that red stapler.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/commander-navy-warship-relieved-duty-171445028.html I call bullshit. If all it takes is a meme to get a CC fired, a lot of shit birds could have been chopped with the right photo.

The USAF's newest multi engine trainer! All that sweet muti engine time to yourself. Edit: Imagine an elephant walk with this behemoth. 40 Colombian Cri Cris taxing out for the big one (sts).

It’s accurate, and a good point. Timing and luck matter - fighter UPT slots are probable scarce for the next couple years at least. It’ll swing back, but who knows how long it’ll be.

Based on age and the amount of effort you’ve put in without an interview, I don’t think enlisting is going to move the needle at all. Find a job you truly want to do in the ANG and go for that, but do not take a job because you think it’ll get you a pilot slot. I understand completely the desire for mission and something greater - go find that kickass E job and run with it for as long as you still enjoy it.

I actually already fly warbirds, and am working on my FAST card (airshow formation qualification), but that's just burning avgas for the sake of burning avgas. Sure it's fun, sure it's challenging, but there's no mission, no greater purpose. I just feel like a wannabe, and let's be real, there's nothing more pathetic than a wannabe. Same with the major job. Yes, it's financially wonderful, but there's no camaraderie, no particular challenge at this point, just time to get senior and fat. Stuck doing just that for the next 40 years and knowing I left a stone unturned (enlisting) would, at the risk of being melodramatic, haunt me for the rest of my life. Thanks.

I had similar bad timing/unsuccessful at snagging a fighter unit spot when I was in my 20s, and I was in much worse econ position than you in that I wasn't making major FO money at such a young age, nor had the flying quals to be one during the lost decade. I still wouldn't enlist for the sake of a UPT slot, it's a very low percentage play in the aggregate. Odds are you'll end up spinning your wheels and end up encumbered with the impositions of an enlisted job that isn't really going to add much to your primary income generation career. As to fighter or die thing, I get it, I resembled the remark too. Given my experience with the process, and my own outcomes and history now as a middle aged guy within spitting distance of the jelly of the month, I know what advice I'd give you, if you weren't a major FO already. ..But you are one already. As such, I'd just focus on your airline career and fund the F1-rocket/Gamebird airplane fund if you can't get a fighter spot tbh. But I'm me, I'm not you. Good luck to ya.

Seriously, if it wasn't for US aid to Ukraine these guys could have been living happily in a Siberian gulag by now, while the country they believed in was ground into dust by a nuclear-armed gas station doing a Soviet Union speedrun.

He said he had a "feeling" they wouldn't make it... yet, I bet not one single solitary moment of self-reflection that perhaps that his absolutely rabid support and pressure to fund and intensify the war directly resulted in the death of these two pilots. God rest their souls. Adam is a pilot. Ukraine needs two more pilots. Just sayin.

Not accurate. Some fighter FTUs are backed up, and they are looking at dropping more heavies out of -38s, with potential cross-training back to 11F/11B after an assignment in the MAF/AFSOC world.

That can’t be true, makes zero sense….wait, never mind, par for the course. But seriously, even the math doesn’t add up - how long is a “heavy” FTU + MQT, seems like nearly a year would be burned doing that. The MAF squadron wouldn’t even get one deployment out of the guy before he left for the fighter b course.

Go Guard.

Think he’s referring to Wills, the idiot who started it all. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

70 Years Ago This Week: 23 Aug 1954 -- First Flight of the YC-130 In 1954, President Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower sat in the Oval Office; the US Air Force Academy was founded; and the first of over 2,500 Lockheed C-130 Hercules aircraft took to the skies. By that time, the Cold War was in full swing. The newly independent USAF had begun to recapitalize its fleet around the atomic bomb and the jet engine, with its tactical and mobility fleets making due with the World War II leftovers. Though those aircraft were less than a decade old, the intervening advent of the turbojet engine had ushered in a new era for aviation that made the classic piston-and-propeller propulsion combination nearly obsolete. The Korean War made clear the deficiencies of those legacy transports; what was needed was a medium-sized tactical airlifter for delivering heavier equipment or paratroops quickly and over long distances to combat areas, yet capable of operating from short, rough airfields. The key enabling technology was the turboprop engine. Standard turbojet engines that relied on expelling hot gas for thrust were terribly inefficient at low speeds, making them impractical for transports. The new concept of a turboprop engine instead harnessed the jet engine’s energy to drive a propeller, combing the compact power of the jet with subsonic efficiency of a propeller. Because the Air Force had ceded turboprop development to the Navy, while they focused on turbojets, they had to derive the intended engine from its sister service’s programs. In June 1950, the Air Force released the first General Operational Requirements Document for a new medium turboprop transport, with requests for proposals coming the following January. Of the five contractor submission, Lockheed was announced as the winner on 2 July 1951, receiving a contract to build two YC-130s on 11 July, powered by Allison T56 turboprops. The prototypes were designed and built at Lockheed’s California facilities—it was just then re-activating the former Marietta, Georgia, B-29 plant for future C-130 production. As legend has it, the Hercules’ mockup debut resulted in stunned silence...and not the good kind, because it bucked the sleek-and-streamlined trend of the early Jet Age. Skunk Works founder Kelly Johnson reportedly dismissed it entirely. On 23 August 1954, just about a year behind schedule (due to both engine & airplane delays), Lockheed test pilots Stan Beltz and Roy Wimmer, and two flight engineers, ran up the engines on the second YC-130, tail number 53-3397, in Burbank, California. Just 10 seconds and 855 feet later, their plane leapt into the air for the first flight of the C-130. An hour later, they landed at Edwards AFB where it would undergo the rest of its flight test program.

I’d just like to point out literally none of those masks is anything but a cloth napkin…. The president isn’t wearing an N95 compliant mask… neither is the 2nd in line in our chain of succession. So besides optics what the F was the point. It’s like they literally think we are too stupid to notice them not obeying the made up rules. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That gets me thinking. Joe hasn't been really running anything, he's mentally out. It's been the staff. Harris will likely be the same with the grown ups running things because, well, she's Harris. So, If Donnie J would step up to the mic, and say something like, "Hey, I'm so awesome I don't need to run anything, I'll let the staff weenies do it all. I just want to be on TV, play golf, get my cronies to make me rich again, and mean tweet. Can we agree? A vote for me is really a vote for R staffers, and I promise to be good and not take the silverware, er I mean classified. Deal?" "Oh, and I'll dump Vance, I hate that kid, can't wait to fire him."